Behind the Bitmask

by Jessica Kagan

  “Does the wall climber usually lose its footing?” I shouted back. I was trying to switch to speakerphone mode, but it was very difficult to hit the right buttons in these circumstances, and I didn’t want to accidentally hang up on whoever was on the line, so I gave up.

  “You’re not helping, chodehole,” said the wall climber, still scrabbling for a foothold on the wall. It wasn’t working. The air whistling past us seemed warmer than it’d been at base camp, which could be geological forces, or could be the sparks flying off the wall climber’s legs...

  “Trust me, this has never happened before,” said the person in the call.

  “Okay, seriously, who is this?” I asked.

  “Uh...my name’s Barry. I’m just one of the people on the drill team. This isn’t a sanctioned call or anything-”

  CRUNCH.

  “End of the line, mother fuckers,” said the wall-climbing daemon. We were somehow at the end of the tunnel without any life-threatening injuries. The scent of booze was overpowering; we’d apparently broken our fall by smashing up some wine kegs in the cultists’ private reserve. I didn’t know what the Amdahl cult needed wine for, but if I had to guess, I’d say chthons like to get shitfaced just as much as humans do.

  “Can you please hand me off to the most senior person around? I need them to know that we’re alive,” I told Barry, once I’d regained my footing. It occurred to me I should check on Azure and Haxabalatnar. Azure was massaging her arms and was (apparently unconsciously) broadcasting telepathic signals of irritation and muscle fatigue. Haxabalatnar, on the other hand, looked like he was eager for further punishment.

  “We should take a few minutes to recover, okay?” I told them. “Just watch the door in case anyone comes in.” Haxabalatnar walked over to the door and tested it – it only opened outwards, for better or worse. After this, he found a conveniently-sized barrel to sit on and started prepping his guns. Meanwhile, I made a call to Hector.

  “There’s been a change of plans. We got inside early; can you start 5 minutes from right now?” I asked him.

  “Will do,” he responded. Then he hung up again! That could get annoying if I needed to tell him other things. He was probably still mad at me on some level.

  Azure seemed to have her telepathic abilities under control again, and she looked less stressed than before. “Azure, can you try to track the cultists by their mental signatures or something?” I asked.

  “I’ll look, but they might have some people who are resistant to telepathy. Just a heads up.” I felt her focus.

  “I’m going back up to the surface. Later, bitches,” said the wall-climbing daemon, which then started scrabbling for the hole in the ceiling. Hopefully, it wouldn’t fall again. The scrabbling and gear sounds quickly subsided, allowing me to focus. I sat down to make sure my gun was loaded, my backpack’s contents were undamaged, and that my phone had all the spellscripts I needed. Ulysses had demonstrated a couple of interesting ideas in that regard that I’d had time to digest and reverse engineer, and I was hoping these would come in handy.

  A series of dull thuds and an alarm siren interrupted me, suggesting that Hector Zhao had started the frontal assault.

  “Let’s move,” I said to Azure and Haxabalatnar. They did. Haxabalatnar opened the door and immediately shot at a passing chthon who was too slow on the uptake. It collapsed on the floor and presumably died seconds later. I don’t know that I particularly care for omens, but this felt like a good one.

  “FUCK FUCK FUCK COMING DOWN AGAIN STUPID ASS SLANT DRILLING SHIT-”

  Wow. Just wow. The wall-climbing daemon abruptly landed in the storage room with a dull clang, now that there were no more barrels to break its fall. A rapid series of additional clangs caused me to impulsively look back.

  “The tunnel is collapsing! Move forwards!” We sprinted out of the cultists’ wine cellar before we could be crushed or worse by the growing torrent of rocks and debris. Things were heating up far faster than I’d expected, and it was only a matter of time before the Amdahl cultists noticed we were cutting them down.

  Our hopes of stealth were immediately dashed when a previously unseen chthon dropped down from the ceiling in front of me.

  “IA IA! THIS INCIDENT SHALL BE REPORTED!” it shouted, raising a pair of daggers to strike. I kicked it in the stomach before it could eviscerate anything, though, and finished it off with a bullet to the head when it fell. I had just regained my bearings when I saw a pair of chained chthons rushing at me; between the two of them, they had a gigantic sledgehammer that could turn me into paste. Azure handled this by zapping one of the chthon’s legs with a bolt of magic lightning. He freaked out, lost his footing, fell, and took both the hammer and his partner with him. The head of the hammer landed on the head of the second chthon. Without the sort of willful velocity you can get from properly swinging the hammer, though, the second chthon had to be content with a shattered, leaking skull.

  “Gax’onicus, no!” shouted the first chthon before we put him out of its misery. That was the end of the cultists, at least for a brief moment. My phone was ringing again. I’m guessing the cell signals in hell were powered by magic because a normal tower is not going to penetrate through half a mile of rock. I picked up yet again. Turns out that Hector had a lot to say to us; I preemptively put him on speakerphone so Azure and Haxabalatnar could listen in.

  “We just broke through the entrance, but the cultists are holding at a second line of defense with some sort of giant death robot,” he explained. “It’s way too heavy for us to destroy on our own, but I think they’re powering it with rituals that you and your friends are in a good position to stop.”

  I raised an eyebrow, even though Hector clearly couldn’t see it. Look, I don’t have the funds to spring for a nice video phone, and even if I did, nobody else does.

  “How do you know it’s ritually empowered?” I asked him.

  “We commandeered some of their computers and login sessions to download their internal maps before they cut off our power. There’s a couple of ongoing rituals in the basement, and you’ll need to head down there anyways when you retrieve the Arbalest.”

  “Kill everyone? That sounds like business as usual,” I snarked, before immediately resolving to take Hector’s information more seriously. I didn’t want him to have an aneurysm.

  “There’s two switches on each side of the basement that have to be thrown simultaneously in order to disable the warmech-” A high-pitched screech burst forth from my cell phone’s speakers, which clearly weren’t doing it justice even after I ripped my ear away.

  “By her Majesty! They’re attacking us from behind now! We can’t pull back,” Hector shouted once the noise had subsided. “You’ll have to split up to get to the switches in time.”

  “Hector, splitting up will get us all killed-” Azure began before he cut her off.

  “No, losing your diversion will get you killed. I need one of you to phone home so someone can give you directions,” he continued. Splitting up didn’t sound ideal, but if we had to, then we had to.

  “Azure, you’re going with Hax. I’ll get the other switch myself,” I told her.

  “What makes you think this is going to work?” she responded. Haxabalatnar hadn’t officially expressed a position, but I suspected he was not a fan of the idea, either.

  “Because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “Fuck you.”

  And yet, Azure took out her phone and called Hector’s assailed camp to get a guide. She and Hax quickly made a beeline down a nearby corridor.

  “Charlotte, you’re going to need to take a left,” Hector said. I took that left, and I got halfway down a flight of stairs before I encountered another cultist. This one may have been human, as she raised and spun a pair of pistols upon sighting me. Then she collapsed in a heap as a result of a very uncool chest shot I got off before she
could fire. This is what happens when you take the time to flourish your weapons. The stairs were otherwise deserted. Most of the cultists were trying to stop Hector, and the rest were dying quicker than they could raise an alarm.

  “On your right is a chemical storage room. I think they might keep some crowd control agents in there,” continued Hector when I’d finally reached the basement proper.

  “Why do these cultists have a chemical storage room?” I asked, trying the door. The morons hadn’t even locked it, and I was soon surrounded by the potential for death.

  “Heck if I know! I heard there were some anti-chthon munitions being manufactured in hell. See if you can find some, and make it snappy.” Hector was suddenly too busy firing a gun (probably of the close quarters anti-personnel permutation) to continue advising me, so I had to look and see if I could find anything I could use on my own. Most of the labels on the canisters and boxes and artillery shells were written in either a daemonic language or the incomprehensible argot of Las Médulas, but I soon saw some plain English on a high shelf. By standing on the tips of my toes, I was able to look at a brightly colored array of gas bombs that were apparently sold under a “Chthon Control” brand, complete with a scowling horned mascot imploring me to keep buying. Was that actually a mascot, or a chthon who had become distracted and was about to give away my position? I’m kidding – this one was only a picture.

  I didn’t have a lot of space to carry loot with me, so I settled on three canisters, tactfully ignoring an unrelated can of “Bone Hurting Juice” someone had left on the shelves. Based on the handy reference guide, I’d chosen one “berserk ball” (crimson), one “poison pill” (lime green), and one “sedative sphere” (black). I hoped these would be useful and updated Hector on my acquisitions.

  “The room just in front of the ritual room is probably going to be full of armed chthons, but it’s either a server room or a break room. Maybe both,” he told me. The gunfire had subsided, but I didn’t yet know whether that was due to Hector’s mercenaries inflicting or suffering casualties. I soon found the room he was talking about. The door was mysteriously ajar. As promised, I nearly bumped into a group of heavily-armed chthons (some bound together with chains in the signature cult style), but they seemed to be busy listening to an unseen figure who was most likely briefing them on the situation-

  “Intruder! Slaughter it this instant!” Suddenly, a rabble of frenzied cultists were bearing down on me. Before I consciously knew what I was going to do, I reached into my pack and pulled out the red gas canister and threw it into the mass of chthons. It shattered with an icy tinkle and a torrent of gas. I immediately dashed back down the hallway to avoid inhaling any of the fumes. I didn’t turn around to see what it was doing until I’d made it about halfway back to the chemical room.

  “Godless heretics! Amdahl will SMITE YOU ALL!” one of the chthons shouted before using their chain to shot put their partner into a third, who narrowly dodged it, pulled out an axe, and cleanly decapitated an unfortunate human. So much for fighting in parallel. I watched the brawl evolve for a few seconds, before deciding that I needed to speed things along... But how?

  My recent training granted me lean muscle with which to subdue things, but if you put me in the same room as the monstrous berserkers currently slaughtering each other mere feet away, I become little more than a pile of twigs waiting to be snapped. Then I saw the circuit box on the other side of the room – it had to control the local lights, and I suspected that destroying it would mess with the electricity in the promised ritual room, as well. If I was lucky, I could use the confusion to pick the cultists off at my leisure. This was going to take some doing, so I began loading and running my spellscripts.

  “DARKSIGHT ACTIVATED,” said an edgy voice in my head after I booted up the first one. All of the humans and chthons brawling in front of me suddenly had an eerie glow about them that you usually don’t see around anything other than an angry titan. I felt eerily calm in spite of the chaos. It looked like the berserker gas had already dissipated. I heard what sounded like jaws crushing human bones and remembered that I had to destroy the shoddy-looking breaker box. The next step, as practiced, is simple: run the script, tap the phone against the gun, speak a few words in a daemonic language I still don’t understand...

  “Dile hola a mi pequeño amigo,” I muttered (the better to not be heard by enraged warriors). When I got back, I was going to have to ask Ulysses why I couldn’t just incant this one in English, but at the moment, I had more important things to do. I fired two shots. 9mm NATO ammunition does not have especially amazing penetration power against metal boxes full of wiring, but if you use magic to make the bullets explode in fiery shrapnel, you can get away with anything.

  The exploding bullets tore apart the circuit breaker, and just as I suspected, all the electrical items in the room failed. No lights, no mainframes, no toaster oven for French bread pizza! I’m pretty sure it was the pizza denial in particular that struck fear into the hearts of the suddenly blinded humans and chthons. Unfortunately for them, my vision was augmented. Where they saw nothing, I saw targets waiting to be subdued.

  One problem presented itself: I had six bullets remaining before I need to load a new clip, and there were eight enemies I still need to deal with. I needed to move quickly – it was possible that once the chthons recovered from being gassed, they’d put aside their infighting to go after me. Plus, even with my recent training and element of surprise, there wasn’t any guarantee that all my shots would hit a target, or that the ones that did hit would be killing blows. I guessed the reasonable course of action would be to fire a few times and then dash for cover so I could quickly reload my gun.

  The first shot I fired caused my human target to explode with surprising vigor. I think I saw a glowing rune on one of the stray chunks of flesh flying by. There was no guarantee that the next five bullets would have the same effect, though. One of the chthons turned towards me and braced itself to charge, so I shot at it, and it collapsed in a heap. I noted that I was down to four bullets as I took my first steps towards a standing server rack that looked like it would offer at least some cover.

  That number soon fell down to three, and then two, when I saw someone making a mad dash for the lights. It seemed my enemies were already beginning to recover from the berserk ball, and the last thing I wanted was for them to be able to see the chaos unfolding. The problem – I’d just spent two shots to take them down. In my panic and adrenaline, one missed so wildly that I never even got to see what it hit. I had to continue running for cover anyways, and despite firing a wild, opportunistic shot into a big mess of brawling chthons (leaving me with one round left), I managed to conceal myself behind the server. Then, a sudden blast of hot air on the back of my neck made me turn around, and that’s when I saw a familiar face...

  “You! Betrayer of Amdahl’s majesty!”

  Okay, I may have misspoken when I said this was a familiar “face.” It was clear that somehow, Weldy had survived our previous encounter, but it took me a moment to recognize how the chthon before me was him. The flickering distortion of my darksight spell wasn’t doing much for my recognition abilities, but as far as I could tell, Weldy was now missing his majestic horns, had nasty scars on his face, and also had built up some upper body muscle since we last met. It wasn’t going to do him much good, though. I immediately jammed the barrel of my gun into his left eye socket. When it comes to humans, this is usually enough to get them to stop doing whatever it is they’re doing, but Weldy managed to power through this. He grabbed my gun arm and started bending it back.

  “Mark my words, Charlotte!” he shouted (apparently he’d picked up my name from somewhere), “by the time this day is through, you and your little posse will bow to the glory of Amdahl!” My gun was no longer in his eye socket and was now pointing at the ceiling. This was more important and urgent than whatever he was blathering on about.

  “I wil
l not give you the release of death until you submit to his manifold wills!” The gun was getting awfully close to my own face, and my arm was beginning to buckle from the constant pressure.

  “Do you hear me, Charlotte? He is lord-”

  Suddenly, I realized he wasn’t paying attention to my legs. I summoned every iota of rage that I could, screamed, and kicked him in what I thought was his groin. It worked! He doubled over in pain, let go of my arm, and I quickly shot him in the head at point blank range – hopefully finishing him off for good this time. If Weldy can recover from having his skull disintegrated, then we have serious problems, but no time to dwell on such possibilities. With that, all the immediate threats (the berserk pile of chthons in the corner don’t count) were dealt with, and it was time to reload before I continued on.

  “You’re nearly at the ritual room,” Hector said – his first call in some time. Lucky for us that he wasn’t dead. “Once you clear that out, you’ll have to find the local switch.”

  I crouched down to open the next door, hoping it wouldn’t put me in someone’s line of fire. It almost worked; I immediately flinched as a series of flaming darts flew an inch from my face and embedded themselves in the ground on the other side of this room. This was bolder than simply locking the door – given that I didn’t have an easy way to deal with a locked or barricaded door, that was probably for the better. I took a quick peek inside and discovered the cultists had literally nothing they could block the door with. The ritual room was barren, though someone had painted an industrial-looking neon orange pentagram on the ground.

  There were two cultists – one was chanting an incomprehensible incantation, and the other was desperately loading more darts into some sort of massed rocket launcher. Too bad for them that fire lances are no match for modern firearms. When the second one caught sight of me, he panicked, dropped a few fire arrows, and ran face-first into the wall. The first one grabbed his head and tore his face off with his bare hands. What is wrong with these cultists- Oh. I think that was supposed to unleash some sort of foul magical monster or something. It clearly backfired. He collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood. I took a leisurely shot at the face-ripping cultist’s twitching body on the floor and then moved on to see what his cowardly companion was up to.