The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

"Are you kidding me?" Carbine exploded. "If you can open Drops and use them to essentially teleport, then why the hell didn't you do that to begin with? Why did we have to risk our lives and kill those men to break you out?"

  It was a fair question, and Jon felt the stirring of anger within him as well, though he would wait to hear Maya's explanation before losing his temper.

  "I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, Warbak and his regime have been dealing with what they call Unpure and esoterrorists, meaning people who can shape Strange, for a long time, and they have gotten quite good at it. The holding cells are built out of what Warbak calls an Anti-Strange-Cage. Shaping a portal, well, shaping anything would have been impossible."

  "She is telling the truth," Lucy added from off to the side. She was standing over the prostrated Chad, who had his arms bound behind his back by a thick zip-tie, and was applying what looked like shaving cream from an aerosol can to her limp and damaged arm. "That's why I didn't like her plan to begin with. I knew she was allowing herself to be taken to a place that she would be unable to escape from." She caught Jon and Carbine looking at her strangely, then added in explanation, "Nanobots."

  "So, you can open a portal to anywhere? Under normal circumstances, that is?" Carbine inquired further, turning his attention back to Maya.

  "No," Jon answered for her. Maya turned and studied him with respect in her eyes. "If that were the case then this, all of this, would have been unnecessary, right? You could have just gone to this Morning Star place ages ago. There must be more to it."

  "You are right. There is more to it, in more ways than one. For one, that portal wasn't a Drop. It functions similarly to one, except it’s two-way, and limited only to this space, not interdimensional like a true Drop, and it's limited to places I have been before. Places I know very well, places where I can visualize every detail in my mind's eye. And yes, while the inside of the Morning Star is such a place, its way is blocked to me. A powerful Strange has been shaped over the whole fortress, one which even I cannot penetrate."

  "And the other reason?" Jon asked, afraid that he already knew the answer.

  "You took the serum?" Maya asked, smiling.

  "Of course."

  "And do you know who you are?" She looked deep into his eyes when she asked this, the same way she had during the concert. Jon felt something unknown move deep inside him. Whatever it was, it only made ripples and never broke the surface. One could tell that something was there, but it remained hidden from prying eyes, and therefore from true understanding.

  "I'm Jon now," he said proudly, leaving out his State ID numbers. "Just Jon."

  "Oh," Maya said softly. A pained look injected itself into her eyes, but before Jon could pin it down, she blinked, and it was gone.

  "So," Carbine said, unwittingly cutting off the question that Jon was about to ask, "places you know well, huh? What's so special about this place? What's the significance of an invasive magic plant that isn't really magic or invasive?"

  "When I lived here, for many years before we came up with the Lily Sapphire idea, I would spend hours and hours under this tree, under this mistletoe, and think... daydream, remember..." Her voice trailed off into thought, her immortal, unbreakable smile retreated a bit, and Jon saw what he thought might even be sadness, a hint of something deep, though he couldn't understand or recognize something that he had not experienced nor had any comparison to. As suddenly and unexpectedly as her infectious, steadfast grin had wavered, it returned. She beamed at Jon.

  "What?" he asked, bemused, and grinned back.

  "The last humans that occupied this land before the Great Storm had a different reverence for mistletoe." She looked like she was telling a joke, and was quite pleased with the punchline to come. Jon decided to take the bait.

  "Oh yeah? And?" he played along, wondering where this was going.

  "Around this time of year, the people of Earth-That-Was also celebrated Holiday. Some called it Christmas, some Yule, some Tet, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other names still." She folded her little hands together and pulled them in, making her elbows stick out towards her left and right; she bit her lip a little, feigning embarrassment, and rocked what little weight she had from one foot to another, swaying.

  "In many of those traditions, people would hang mistletoe somewhere in their homes: on a tree, in a doorway, or just from the ceiling. And when someone was standing under it—a girl like me, for instance—then another person—a boy like you, for instance—would have to come up and kiss her."

  Jon had been listening to her tale with polite interest, nodding along here and there, and almost didn't catch the implications of her last words. He just nodded and smiled like a simpleton and then it hit him. His eyes opened wide, and his cheeks began to turn as red as a Hopper's plasma disc. He had received countless hours of training on how to deal with ambush, being flanked, search and rescue, hostage sit, seek and destroy, recon, artillery assist, demolition, and demolitions removal, you name it. If it had a practical military application, he had received training in it. But this small little woman-girl, this simple little scenario of a single kiss under a growth of mistletoe, brought him to a standstill. He was defeated and did not know how to proceed.

  His mouth opened and closed several times as if he were doing his best impression of a fish pulled from its waters and left to suffer on the banks of a lake. He took a deep breath, expanding his chest, summoning the will and strength to do or say something, and was about to take a step forward when he noticed the door on the far side of the underground garden click open.

  "Carbine! Get frosty!" he shouted and dove towards Maya, trying to take her to the ground and be a shield for her if need be. He cradled the back of her head and neck as he knocked her to the ground with his left hand, his right already groping, by feel if not by instinct, for his drop leg holster and drawing his pistol. He caught Carbine in the corner of his eye grab and lift Wyntr up and place her behind the massive armored leg of his Mini-Mech. He knew that Carbine would not have the time to suit up before whoever was coming could get the drop on them. It was up to him.

  Jon heard Maya say something, but his attention was on the figures now stepping through the door. They were armed! He stretched out his arm and guided the cross-hairs of his pistol's sights over the shape of the unknown person's head. He placed his finger on the trigger and let out a controlled exhale.

  "Hold your fire!" Lucy screamed, and she cartwheeled out from her kneeling position onto the ground in front of Jon. "Idiot!"

  Stunned, Jon relaxed and looked past the warrior woman to see the face of Miller, followed by Ratt, step into the light of the indoor garden.

  If the serum that Lucy gave him had not altered Jon's reflexes, Miller would have been dead. The total and complete control he now had over his body was uncanny. The signal, the command to pull, from brain to trigger finger had been sent, but when Lucy jumped in front of his shot, he had consciously relaxed his finger and vetoed the order.

  "Milly!" Maya squeaked and rose out from under Jon. She rushed over to the massive man and embraced him.

  "Hey there, sweet thang!" Miller said and smiled at her before swinging her around in a big bear-hug. Jon felt a pang of jealousy and was surprised at it, not knowing what it was, never having experienced or felt anything quite like it. Then he found that he wished he had squeezed Miller’s hand harder back when they had officially met. He bit his lip and fidgeted while the hug seemed to go on forever. Finally, Jon cleared his throat.

  "Miller. Good to see you again," and then stupidly, "We rescued Maya and Wyntr." The big man looked up from the embrace with Maya and laughed.

  "Okay, okay. Cool." He stepped back away from Maya and came around to shake Carbine’s hand, and then Jon's.

  Lucy was already off to the side talking to Ratt and some of the other resistance fighters that had come to greet them. She ordered them to cart away the Hopper and to get Wyntr some water and food. Moments later, the men she had given orders to were hea
ding out the door they had come in. Jon watched them go and forgot his jealousy of Miller and his familiarity with Maya; instead, he felt genuine pride and satisfaction. Both sprang from a place inside him that, upon seeing that little girl get tended to, assured him that he was doing and had done the right thing. He had understood what truth was and what was lie, right and wrong, back when Maya had shown him. But now he felt his betrayal to the State vindicated deep in his bones. There was nothing in the universe quite like seeing a child receive the care and love that all deserved. He didn’t know what the future held, but right now, right this second, he was happy.

  "Should we get the transport ready? Or do you want to wait a day before heading out?" Miller asked Maya. Frowning slightly, she looked over her shoulder at Jon, who stood hovering awkwardly behind her.

  "We can't go to the Morning Star," she sighed. "At least, not yet."

  Jon frowned. "What? That's what this is all about, right? The Anvil, or whatever you called it. That secret weapon of the gods. You said it was in the Morning Star and that we needed it to defeat the Harvesters and save the planet. Why would we wait?"

  Maya looked upon him with sympathy and a touch of fear. "I know, and I'm sorry. I learned something terrible. But I learned it after I recorded the message for you in the Weaver after I was taken prisoner—"

  "After you turned her in," Miller interjected. Lucy stayed silent at this but nodded her approval.

  "I... That’s not—" Jon stammered, but was saved by the goddess.

  "Miller, I wanted him to turn me in," she soothed and placed her hand on the big man's metallic trunk of an arm. "As I was saying, after I was taken prisoner, Warbak himself interrogated me."

  An audible gasp went up from the lingering and eavesdropping crowd still in the garden. Miller too frowned sharply at this and looked like he meant to make sure Maya was alright. However, after already being scolded once for interrupting, he held his tongue and let her continue.

  "He is like a Minister. He can shape Strange without the headgear. He is Unpure."

  A hushed silence fell upon the group as they attempted to absorb the implications of that.

  "But that's not the reason we need to stay." Maya looked around the room, locking eyes with all her guardians and the other freedom fighters. "When he attempted to read my mind, I tricked him. I read his mind instead." At this Lucy nodded sharply. Maya continued, "And deep in the darkest recesses of his disturbed mind I discovered a horrible secret. A secret that terrified me."

  "What?" Jon asked, his arms breaking out in gooseflesh as he wondered just what could scare a powerful goddess like Maya.

  "Besides proof positive that Warbak is working with Umbra and the Harvesters, I discovered the details of his so-called Purge."

  Jon's eyes narrowed. Ever since Chairman Warbak had mentioned this Purge at the New Breed graduation ceremony, he had wondered what it would entail.

  "The obelisks. More specifically, the glass orbs atop each one. They are a massive version of the very same weapons the Harvesters use to capture their prey. Warbak means to activate them and entrap every living soul within kilometers of the Ziggurat.

  "What about the people inside the Zigg? Or here, in the Underground?" Miller asked.

  "Wait, we're in the Underground?" Carbine asked. Lucy glared at him as if it were obvious and he was stupid.

  "Yes," Maya said to Carbine. "Sorry for not mentioning that earlier. This is the prayer garden in the Vault."

  "My Lady," Lucy urged Maya to elaborate.

  "From what I can tell, it will affect most everyone in the Zigg, but not Underground. I saw something about the architecture of the Ziggurat itself. It was built by the Harvesters, for Warbak, shortly after the Storm. All humans around then, except for Warbak, were taken away or killed. This has been the plan from the beginning. A slow, long game. Home was built and touted as a beacon of hope for humanity. A lighthouse. Only it's nothing more than the flame which we moths have been drawn to. It's one big, elaborate trap. I don't quite know why, because Warbak himself doesn't know, but the Harvesters can't control the Drops, only respond to them. And rather than use their limited resources chasing the Displaced all over the globe, they created the Zigg; Home. They've always known that everyone, human and Displaced alike, would flock here, thinking they were escaping the horrors of the Rough. But it's a slaughterhouse. A garden, if you will. And the time for Harvest is upon us. They are coming to collect."

  Like a beam of sunlight, touching and thawing a sheet of ice, a thought warmed in Jon's mind, something Maya had said.

  "You said most everyone in the Zigg would be affected by the Harvest, Purge, whatever. What did you mean by that?" Everyone turned to look at Jon, either amazed at his astuteness, or at their lack of attention to detail. Maya's look of fear and sadness deepened and she hesitated before answering him.

  "The New Breed," she said, her voice a quavering whisper. "It won't affect the New Breed."

  "Well, I'm okay with that!" Carbine announced.

  "It won't affect them because they... because you have been engineered and your body contains millions of nanobots. They have been designed to protect you from the Harvest, but the details are... well, confusing to me."

  "Maybe I can help?" Ratt offered. "I could take a sample of these guys' blood and try to reverse-engineer the bots. Maybe create a vaccine that we could manufacture and give to everyone in the Shanty?"

  "And the Zigg," Jon added. "I may be a traitor to the State, but I still don't believe that everyone in the Republic is bad or deserves to die." He shot a sidelong glance at Lucy, who bristled.

  "Even if we had the means to mass produce something like that," Maya continued softly, "we wouldn't want to."

  "What? Why?" Jon asked. "Tell us everything, Maya."

  "Alright." Maya lowered her gaze to the ground and spoke almost reluctantly. "The nanobots don't just protect the New Breed from the Harvest. They are currently dormant. They will activate the second the Harvest begins."

  "Activate?" Jon asked.

  "They will transform the host body into a robotic killing machine. Every man and woman in the New Breed will become a mindless machine, a killer, programmed to obey Warbak only. They will become Spartans.

  After an infinitely long silence, Jon asked, "How do we stop it?"

  "I don't... I don't know," Maya admitted, defeat in her voice. "All I know is the Purge triggers it. When the orbs activate, so do the nanobots."

  "What an endgame," Lucy mumbled through gritted teeth.

  "Fine. Very well," Jon said. "We destroy the orbs."

  016

  LUCY LED the assault team back to the surface. Jon, Carbine, Miller and two dozen resistance fighters who had volunteered followed her.

  Their mission: to destroy the orbs before the Purge began.

  It was decided that Carbine, in his Mini-Mech, would use the railgun to shatter the glass orbs one by one while the rest of the team covered him and dealt with the Republic counterstrike that was sure to come when they poked the hornets’ nest with their long-range stick. They felt confident that if they waited until they were in the right spot to launch their surprise attack, they could take out three of the four globes before encountering resistance. However, getting to the fourth and last would undoubtedly prove to be a challenge. No matter what vantage they chose to launch their strike from, at least one of the four towers would always be hidden from sight, the mass of the Zigg itself blocking it. By the time they got off three shots, the alarm will have been sounded, and they would have to fight their way across at least a quarter of the Shanty to get around the Zigg and take out the last tower. It wouldn't be easy, but to a person they were ready.

  Maya had wanted to come with, but quickly caved to the strenuous protests of her guardians, new and old, and stayed back in the Vault with Ratt and the other freedom fighters. Ratt had Chad taken to his lab, put under with drugs and restrained to the same table upon which Jon had been transformed. While the surface team went to b
reak the mechanism of the Purge, saving everyone from capture and hopefully preventing the New Breeds’ transformation into Warbak's Spartans, Ratt would take samples of Chad's blood and study the nanobots in the hopes of maybe finding a cure.

  They chose to hump it on foot, to give Maya a chance to recover and save her Strange-shaping strength for the exit strategy. Wanting to avoid any time-consuming complications with the East Side Lords as well as the Tektonic that now occupied the normal path to and from the Vault, Lucy led the team around the edges of the Underground's perimeter and back to the cargo elevator that led to Elena's place. The journey there was thankfully uneventful, and although they had to take the long way around, they made good time and arrived at the parked elevator in just under two hours. Due to the small size of the caged lift, they had to make three trips, Carbine having to go by himself. Even so, the Mini-Mech barely fit and the security door, designed to stop riders from falling to their death, had to be torn off to get his power armor inside. It was going to be no better trying to get the walking tank out of Elena's behind-the-bar storage closet, but Lucy bade him stay put while she went on ahead to explain and apologize to Elena the need and urgency of their mission. The explanation for why they had endangered her by returning the way they’d come—something Lucy had promised they would not do—as well as why they were tearing up the place was softened with a promise to help rebuild the place once Warbak's plans were broken. It would have taken more time than they had for Lucy to explain everything, but Elena and Lucy had history. Elena knew it was important, or Lucy wouldn't have done it, wouldn't have risked it. The gravity of what was on the line, the sense of grave importance was palpable and dripped off everything Lucy did and said like sweat.

  "Gather all your girls and get downstairs. I left a dozen and a half fighters down there. They will escort you to the Vault," Lucy ordered Elena, even as Carbine tore his way out of the closet, smashing most of the bar into shards of glass, splinters of wood and spilled spirits. Elena's brown eyes went wide with shock. Still, she’d known that a day like this could come at any time. Such was the life of one who lived in the Shanty, who had ties to the Resistance, and who stood for equal rights for the Displaced and Shapers. Such was the life of one who lived in the cold shadow of the Ziggurat.