Behind the Bitmask

by Jessica Kagan

  “Not specifically, no. All I was thinking as I channeled was that we needed to get to our destination as quickly as possible.”

  “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you succeeded. There’s a good chance we’re in the middle of Sigmar’s core demesne now.”

  “Who is Sigmar?” asked the spellbreaker, reminding us all of his unwelcome presence.

  “Sigmar is the titan we’re hunting. Don’t you know anything?” I decided to say. It probably wasn’t the best approach, but if you have any better ideas, feel free to travel back in time and tell me.

  “Okay, first you pull off a huge bank heist, then you go around assaulting innocent bystanders, and now you think you can kill a titan. Just great.” To be fair, it was a pretty accurate summation of what I’d been up to, at least from the perspective of local law enforcement, but they missed out on all the heroic questing I did in the interim.

  “The way I see it, you can either try to help us and maybe live, or you can get killed by Sigmar,” I continued.

  The spellbreaker looked more irritated with his plight than anything. His eyes darted to both sides in an ill-fated attempt to understand his situation.

  “I knew joining the Saint Paul SWAT team would be dangerous, but I never thought I’d actually get pulled into hell!” he whined. We had to resolve this question quickly – every second we spent gaping at our surroundings increased our chances of being spotted by one of Sigmar’s minions. I wondered if he would send his signature birds of prey to attack us.

  “Hax, let go of him. You’re cutting off the circulation to his brain and making him stupid,” I said. Surprisingly, Haxabalatnar stood up and extracted his legs from the spellbreaker’s shoulder blades, albeit not before making sure to collect the phones. Even after that, Hax kept a gun to the spellbreaker’s head.

  “Exactly who are you?” I asked. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to go about it, but maybe if he let his guard down just a little, he’d be easier to keep under control.

  “Why do you even care?” Okay, that didn’t take.

  “You talk big, but you still thought about your name,” Azure quipped. “Want me to share?” She was clearly more persuasive. The spellbreaker’s jaw dropped; his eyes darted around again, and I almost thought I could see the moment his ability to resist us broke.

  “Okay, fine! My name is Noah Comstock. I was sent to bring you to justice for your crimes against the people of the United States, but I clearly failed.” That was easy, yet somehow unsatisfying.

  “He’s telling the truth, folks,” Azure added.

  “It seemed appropriate at the time. You’re never going to let me go back home, are you?”

  “Well, maybe if you help us kill Sigmar. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a bigger threat to Minnesota than I am.”

  Noah didn’t take very long to mull this over. “I’ll help you for now,” he informed us. Haxabalatnar finally holstered his gun, and Noah took the time to brush some dust off his uniform.

  MORE FRESH MEAT FOR THE GRINDER? THIS MAY BE A VALUABLE ACQUISITION.

  “It would help if you didn’t blast telepathic noise on all frequencies.”

  “Sorry, that’s just the Arbalest talking. It does that sometimes,” explained Azure, idly flipping it a few times in her hands.

  I STILL RESENT YOU, TOO, TITAN.

  “You conscripted a titan to help you kill another titan? I’m almost feeling better about our odds now.” Noah was no longer scanning his surroundings for escape routes. Perhaps he was beginning to relax.

  “Nah, I came along willingly,” Azure said, before winking at me. “Charlotte and I have a special understanding. Haxabalatnar can fill you in on that.”

  “What? Why me?” shouted Haxabalatnar. I was pretty sure that Hax didn’t care what Azure and I got up to either way, but I couldn’t be sure without watching him 24/7.

  “Look, as much as I’d like to have Noah formally introduce himself, we need to find cover as soon as possible so that we don’t get detected and killed,” I said, hoping to get everyone’s attention and stop them from joking around in this accursed bonescape.

  “I see some eye socket thingies in the distance that might be caves,” Noah offered. “Can we take a look at them?”

  “Might as well.”

  So, we headed for a “face” in the rocks/bones that I hadn’t noticed because I’d been too busy to simply turn around. Like every other landmark here, it was grotesque.

  “It’s been a while, but I remember Sigmar once said he got stronger when people used Mac OS X. Does that sound like the sort of thing a titan can do, Azure?” I asked as we walked. It was going to be at least ten minutes until we reached the skull, and the last thing I wanted to do was dwell on our unexpected guest.

  “I doubt it,” she responded. “If Sigmar could steal a computer’s CPU cycles like that, he’d probably use Windows instead.”

  “I’m pretty sure that if he did that, he’d draw the wrath of Steve Jobs. You don’t fuck with Steve Jobs,” Haxabalatnar added.

  “Hax, how do you of all people know about Steve Jobs?” I asked. I’m not sure why that of all things was bugging me.

  “Well, my adoptive father had an Apple II that he loved very much, maybe even more than my mother. I was seven when it gave out – he gave it an elaborate funeral. When the kids at school found out, they teased me for months.” Haxabalatnar stared at the ground for a bit. Heavy memories?

  “Are you sure being a human among chthons didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “Meh, they didn’t care one iota about that. Humans haven’t ever been hard to find in hell.”

  “I thought my ‘childhood’ was weird, but that takes the cake,” said Azure; I was half-inclined to agree.

  Luckily for us, Noah kept out of our idle chatter. I have to wonder what was going through his mind. Azure probably knew, but she hadn’t told us about any malicious plans, and I didn’t want to violate his privacy otherwise. We soon arrived at the caves. There was no guarantee they were secure, but they’d at least hide us for a few minutes, and that might be enough time to adjust our plans. One problem presented itself – to reach the caves, we’d have to climb a ten-foot tall vertical face of rock. Azure, though, took one look at it, shrugged, and used the Arbalest to launch several bolts of energy at the rock. The wall crumbled into something resembling a staircase. Once it’d cooled, we clambered into the leftmost “eye socket” cave.

  “What exactly is a ‘spellbreaker’ anyways?” Hax asked Noah.

  “Think of me as sort of a detective who investigates cybercrimes and does what it takes to keep them from happening,” he explained, without so much as a second thought. Why was he so open with us?

  “Did you know that police departments nationwide have increased their funding for computer crime investigation and law enforcement on average by thirty percent in the last year alone?” continued Noah.

  “Real interesting. Explain the warphones.”

  “If I weren’t capable of engaging in sustained combat with magically augmented criminals, we’d have to rely on snipers and assassinations to keep them under control. That gets messy,” Noah continued, as if he had to give this talk every day.

  “Is magic really that much of a problem on Earth?”

  “What, you weren’t around for the turn of the millennium?”

  “That trip to Wisconsin was my first time out of hell.”

  Noah’s jaw dropped. What a naive little husk of a man.

  “You know, I don’t think I ever told you or Azure about the Y2K demons,” I interjected. “That was one hell of a night.”

  “You can tell me later, when we know how we’re going to deal with Sigmar,” said Hax. He had a valid point.

  “Okay, so how are you going to deal with Sigmar?” Noah responded.

  “I’m thinking a couple bolts in
the eyes will do the trick... Though if he dodges my shots, we might be in a lot of trouble,” Azure told him. I was guessing there were still some limits to her self confidence. Terminal once told me over some weird old computer game that bravery was not a function of firepower.

  “How do we get him to drop whatever he’s doing and fight us?” asked Hax. “The big problem, as I see it, is that he’ll just send hordes of goons after us unless we manage to do something really drastic.”

  At that moment, I had another one of my signature flashes of insight.

  “Noah, you’re a police officer type. Is there any chance we can get your cop buddies into hell for some extra firepower?” I asked him.

  YOU ARE COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL.

  “Yeah, what the crossbow said,” Noah snapped. “If they could follow me to hell, we’d be making some arrests. Or maybe they’d just shoot you dead because this place sure doesn’t scream ‘rule of law’ to me. Because of your cult activities, you’re wanted for a lot more than just cybercrime.”

  Okay, so the idea needed some time to bake. So sue me.

  “If it’s manpower you want, maybe you could try and track down your former coven buddies? I’m sure they don’t like serving under Sigmar any more than you did,” Hax offered. Clearly the voice of reason to Noah’s fury and my…let’s call it creativity.

  “For all we know, the ones I associated with might still be stuck on Earth,” I responded. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to even get into contact with them.”

  Hax shrugged at me. He had to give this some further thought, apparently. So sue him.

  “Do we really want to do the whole army thing? Each newcomer means more mouths to feed. Noah here is beginning to freak out because he didn’t pack any food,” said Azure. While the three of us (pre-Noah) had packed a reasonable chunk of comestibles before setting out on the final leg of the journey, our supplies were only going to last a week tops; less if we actually fed Noah. The Chippewas had been generous with edible wildlife in case we’d ever needed it, but Sigmar’s realm was looking to be hostile to us “eat to live” types.

  “Too bad we didn’t get the churchies to do more than cover our escape,” I commented. “If Matthias was to be believed, they would’ve been fanatically loyal.”

  This wasn’t getting us anywhere. We needed information.

  “Azure, did you ever perfect your flying skills? Maybe you could recon for us,” I suggested.

  “Well...it sounds dangerous, but maybe I can Arbalest up a new pair of wings, just for you,” she responded. That took less persuasion than I was initially expecting, but I’ll take it.

  DON’T YOU DARE DROP ME. MY WRATH WILL BE INCANDESCENT IF YOU DROP ME.

  I wouldn’t put it past the Arbalest to explode out of spite just before it hit the ground. Azure, on the other hand, didn’t seem worried. She walked to the entrance of the eye-cave, and lifted off as if she flew all the time. Then she kept rising, and rising, and rising...

  *You coming down anytime soon?* I asked her. I wanted to transmit that thought before I ran into any distance issues.

  *Yeah, don’t worry! I just want to get a good vantage point.* Azure was already little more than a pale speck in the sky, and the response sounded...fuzzy? Hopefully, she’d come back soon.

  “Hope your friend hasn’t ditched you in the presence of an officer of the law,” Noah suddenly said.

  “It’s been thirty seconds,” I snapped at him. So far, he was shaping up to be another Paul Gustafsson.

  Azure landed after what I reckoned to be about a minute, and for some reason, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Sigmar is drilling an army two miles from here for some reason,” she explained.

  “That’s good! We could try to disrupt them or make some of them defect,” responded Haxabalatnar. He seemed unusually pleased; between his original idea of focusing on manpower and Azure’s telepathic abilities, it seemed like he was about to have a field day.

  “Yeah, well, he also brought Terrorize and Ravage.”

  “I think we can work around them. Either that, or we can try to destroy them.”

  “And, I’m pretty certain they saw me.”

  “That’s...less good.”

  Less good doesn’t even begin to describe it. We hadn’t had the time we wanted to prepare, and whatever element of surprise we had was probably gone now.

  “Did you try to hide where you were going from them when you descended?” Haxabalatnar asked. His standard mild-mannered tone of voice didn’t match the anxiety and adrenaline that were beginning to surge inside me.

  “Hold on, what?”

  Hax raised an eyebrow. I don’t think he was expecting Azure to respond quite like that. “Okay, definitely less good,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, I second that!” said a strange voice from somewhere around the entrance to the eyecave. I heard Azure shriek (more anger than fear, if I interpreted it correctly), felt something singe my neck, saw a ball of lightning rush by at an astonishing speed and then dissipate uselessly because something was spinning a little toy trident…and it just had to be Sigmar.

  “Huh, I don’t think we’ve actually met before,” Hax said. I hope he hadn’t been concussed during the assault on Mount Amdahl or something. You’re not supposed to be that nonchalant in the face of the enemy.

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just bash this skull with you kiddies inside it, am I right?” Sigmar responded. It was a surprisingly good question, or at least it would’ve been if I’d been the one asking it.

  “Stupidity?” quipped Hax. Azure interrupted their conversation with another lightning blast, but Sigmar didn’t even bother to dodge it, since apparently Azure was too vengeful to aim properly. Luckily, none of us good guys got fried.

  “Look, I’m trying to whip up some new armies, so I don’t really want to waste any serious magical effort on destroying you. Understand where I’m coming from?”

  “Sounds like stupidity to me.”

  “You’re a real stinker, kiddo.”

  I didn’t have any idea what Sigmar was up to, but I wasn’t going to waste the time he was giving us. I pulled out my phone and started loading up a set of spellscripts for individual combat.

  “So, it turns out that armies have to be trained before they can actually conquer stuff! I was distraught, but then I thought to myself, why not have them use you as target practice? It’ll weed out the weak, you guys will be turned into giblets, and I’ll even get to try out this Arbalest thing you guys spent so much time finding for me afterwards!” Sigmar continued. It sounded like a bad plan, but when you have as many resources as Sigmar does, your plans don’t necessarily have to be good.

  I WON’T ALLOW IT.

  “Hey, it even talks! That’s neat. I’ll come back later if I really need to, but odds are this is the last time we’ll talk. It’s been nice knowing you.”

  As arrogant as ever. Haxabalatnar, though, was checking a watch that I hadn’t even realized he owned.

  “Also, Charlotte, when the rest of your so-called allies have fallen, I’m going to leave you alive for some old-fashioned torture sessions, just like I used to have before you made the mistake of taking Terminal away from me,” he snarled, before scampering off to the bonescape below. Apparently, that incident had really hurt Sigmar’s feelings. I felt a little rush of sadistic joy just thinking about it.

  “Does Sigmar get on anyone else’s nerves?” Hax asked us. We didn’t have to say anything; he knew we agreed, and he nodded silently after a second.

  A dull thud resonated through the ceiling above us.

  “I hope, for our sake, that Sigmar was serious about leaving you alive,” Noah said to us once the rumbling had ceased.

  “What the hell kind of thing is that to say to a lady?” I responded. Between the cops, the church, and the arguably botched port
al, my nerves were shot.

  “Well, if he wants you alive, he can’t very well collapse this cave. Why do you always assume the worst from me?”

  Maybe Noah had a point.

  So the way I see it – even if Noah was correct, and Sigmar had commanded his troops not to do the sensible thing and trap us in the cave, they were still going to do something to attack us. I wasn’t concerned about the rank and file soldiers, especially since Azure now had so much firepower, but the whole death robot situation was going to be a leaky can of oil on its own. Best to figure out some plans now – the cave gave us some cover (and a bit of a height advantage over the suckers on the ground) but it also meant we probably could’ve escape without at least defeating Sigmar’s army.

  “I think there are about two hundred, maybe three hundred soldiers out there,” Azure informed us. She seemed calmer now that Sigmar had left the premises. “I really don’t like those odds.”

  “The good news is that we’ve got a fortified position here,” I told her. “It’s got a narrow entrance, a height advantage, and even a free roof.”

  It then occurred to me that I had experience defending fortified positions from Sigmar and that some of it might be applicable here.

  “Keep an eye out for magical birds. Sigmar used them when he invaded my office the first time, and they could peck your eyes out if you don’t have a sword to keep them at bay…” I said, trailing off as I realized I’d given up on swordplay some months back. Handguns have many virtues, but you can’t really impale someone on a small bullet the same way you can on a hefty broadsword.

  “Noah saves the day! They shall taste my blades!” Noah immediately grabbed his phones from Hax, clasped them together (displays on the outside), and then thumbed the buttons like a crazy person. After a few sparks, the phones extruded a beam of energy, with a sound suspiciously like the lightsabers from Star Wars. Judging from the blades’ intense blue color, I’d say Noah was about to get sued.

  “Government issue. I’ve got high tech polymer batteries on my person, so I can run this for hours if we need to,” he bragged.