Behind the Bitmask

by Jessica Kagan

  Another dull thud followed by a distinct lack of troopers storming the entrance to the eye-cave lead me to believe that the army was trying to scare us out with artillery fire. It could’ve worked if Sigmar hadn’t given away his motivations.

  “Azure, it is possible to send some sort of message to the soldiers out there?” I asked. I hadn’t decided what kind of message I would send if the answer was yes, but it looked like the attack was starting slowly enough that I had time to figure out our tactics.

  “I can try to broadcast, but there’s no guarantee that the message will get through to Sigmar’s soldiers, at least at this distance. What’d you have in mind?” she responded. Didn’t she just hear me think that I didn’t know what to say? I kid – Azure’s been known to respect my privacy in the past-

  “Canister!”

  The aforementioned canister clanked against the ceiling and rolled a few inches into the entrance of the cave. Someone must’ve lobbed it in; for a moment, I feared it was some sort of thermobaric bomb that would either incinerate or suffocate us if the shockwave of the explosion didn’t kill us.

  “Already on it,” Azure said. She tapped her fingers on the plastic of the Arbalest, which shot out a light blue, glassy, almost transparent bubble. The bubble came to a halt in front of the canister and then rapidly expanded to seal off the entrance of the cave. Only then did the canister activate. Instead of exploding, it spewed what I hoped was ordinary tear gas, as opposed to an exotic daemonic chemical agent. Luckily, none of it penetrated through Azure’s shield. She apparently didn’t want to let the gas build up, as she then used the shield to push the gas canister and its stray vapor out of the cave.

  “I’m just going to block the entrance for a bit, in case they try that again,” she said nonchalantly. Sure enough, a few more canisters bounced off the shield harmlessly. I hoped that it would do the same thing to bullets, but I started looking around for extra cover just in case. The possibilities were pretty grim – there were two large boulders on the ground I could crouch behind, but Haxabalatnar and Noah had already claimed them both. I instead just pressed myself as close to the wall as possible. Just in time, too – I heard a sharp crack and saw a hole momentarily appear in the shield. Must’ve been a bullet, or similar.

  “Shit shit shit shit!” Azure screamed; the shield shone blinding white for a moment and then darkened to a deeper, more opaque blue.

  “Sorry about that, guys. The next bullet won’t get through,” she said, stopping to catch her breath. I heard a few more gunshots, and this time, the shield rippled, but it still successfully repelled the bullets. The gunfire continued, but it was sporadic enough that I figured Sigmar hadn’t bothered to give his soldiers enough guns for them to be useful.

  “How’s their morale?” Haxabalatnar asked Azure, hoping to get a telepathic report.

  “Give me a second.” If I had to guess, this was the furthest distance that Azure had ever attempted to push her psychic powers. Would it succeed?

  “If this one soldier’s eyes aren’t deceiving her, Terrorize just ate someone for trying to call off the attack, so that’s one less enemy we have to deal with,” she informed us. “On the other hand, they’re probably going to try and storm the cave in a few minutes.”

  “Maybe we can broadcast our message when they get closer,” I offered. I still didn’t know what I should say to the incoming soldiers, but they probably weren’t going to travel so fast that I wouldn’t have time to come up with something, right?

  “Better make it quick. They’re forming up to march.”

  The way I saw it, our options in rough order of difficulty were to reason with them, frighten them, or telepathically dominate them. To be fair, I only considered reasoning because I suspected some of my old underlings in the coven would be in this army, and I was hoping they’d be willing to defect, instead of simply dying by my hand. Then, I realized that I’d abused and sacrificed enough of them over time in my own search for personal power that they probably wouldn’t trust me. When an army is marching into battle against you, it’s not a good time for heartfelt speeches about how you’ve changed and turned over a new leaf.

  After I mulled all of that over for a few moments, I decided that hoping for defectors wouldn’t work; there just wasn’t enough time. That left fear and mind control, and I had my doubts that fear would do the trick. For all of Azure’s ballyhooed psychic powers and the amplification of the Arbalest, I didn’t think she had the ability to override the wills of enough soldiers in such a way that when they inevitably screamed and ran, they’d run away from us instead of towards us. Terrorize and Ravage were almost certainly more frightening than anything Azure could dredge up. As much as I disapprove of the whole “eat your troops” strategy for maintaining cohesion in your ranks, I had yet to see it backfire.

  That left domination. Every soldier we could convince to fire upon their allies brought us closer to a decisive victory. It wasn’t going to be pretty…but if it had to be, we would be fighting a far worse enemy than Sigmar.

  “Enslave as many as you can and try to destroy the minds of the rest,” I commanded Azure, now that I’d made my decision.

  “That bad, huh?” she quipped. But I actually felt her extending some sort of magical, mind-warping energy out in anticipation of our enemies’ initial charge. It was about time – I was beginning to hear the rumbling of the army’s simultaneous footsteps, along with Terrorize and Ravage’s more obvious stomps. Would it be rude to ask them what shoe size they wore?

  THIS IS A BLATANT CORRUPTION OF THE HOLY POWERS OF THE ARBALEST.

  “Just cooperate with us so you don’t die,” I said, this time trying to specifically address the Arbalest. “We’ll act remorseful later.”

  The few soldiers that definitely had guns fired a concentrated volley at our position, hoping to break Azure’s shield with one thunderous blow. It didn’t work. Hopefully, Sigmar’s failure to acquire more firearms for his army would go down in history as one of the worst military blunders of all time. That just meant we had to remain alive long enough to interview the inevitable historians and journalists.

  “Here they come!” shouted Noah, just as the first few soldiers crested the shattered remains of the cliff and came into view. They looked brave, but it was clear that they were very poorly equipped. The luckiest one had acquired a steel cuirass and a spiked mace, and had clearly spent time lifting weights at the local gym. Underneath these imposing armaments, though, he had a few scraps of leathery clothing. His companions had less – a motley collection of slightly irregular short spears and horrifically tacky, mismatched apparel providing little more than protection against Earth’s decency laws. One of them dropped to his knees and started screaming for unseen voices to leave his head.

  “Brennos! What are you doing?” shouted his mace-laden companion. Mere seconds ago, he’d been about to test his mettle (his metal?) against Azure’s shield, but now he was too bewildered by Brennos’ breakdown to try. Azure’s aura pulsed again; at that point, Brennos snapped to his feet and awkwardly swiped at the soldier behind him with his spear before falling back on his butt. This was actually pretty funny, but I knew the soldiers were in for a bad time.

  “Snap out of it, Brennos!” shouted a third soldier, before their eyes rolled back into their head, and they tripped and collapsed on the rocks. Just what was Azure doing?

  *I’m having trouble exerting complete control, but I’m not sure I actually need it,* she explained to me.

  Another wave of soldiers crested the slopes and came under Azure’s influence. Again, she wasn’t able to completely take control of anyone, but she came close enough that one of the soldiers was able to impale the guy next to him before she lost control. The look of utter horror and confusion on his face when he came to was going to stick with me for years.

  “As long as they keep coming up four or five at a time, they’re going to die like l
emmings,” Hax commented. If I had to guess, he didn’t find our enemies’ fate quite as haunting.

  “I don’t think they have any other options, barring some sort of crazy tunnel scheme,” responded Noah. “It doesn’t look like they have the tools they would need for that.”

  Either the army didn’t learn their lesson, or they feared being eaten alive even more. A few more waves of men and women tried to storm our position before finding their comrades ripping them to shreds, or at least rocking back and forth on the ground begging the unseen force in their heads to let go of them. Note to self: never ever get on Azure’s bad side.

  THIS CANNOT POSSIBLY BE GOOD FOR THEIR MORALE.

  For once, the Arbalest said something we could agree on! Things were definitely going in our favor.

  Eventually, the waves subsided. Azure told us a reasonable chunk of the army had survived this debacle, and that they’d apparently chosen to regroup. For whatever reason, Terrorize and Ravage were not feasting on the survivors. I suddenly realized that this wasn’t really an improvement. The new problem was that we still couldn’t leave, which meant no way of getting supplies, which meant eventual starvation. All we really had was time to come up with something new.

  “You know, they’re not very far off, and I do have the Arbalest. Maybe I could perform some sort of artillery barrage?” Azure suggested, once she’d finished explaining the situation to us.

  “Can you do it without losing the shield?” I asked. “I don’t want you getting sniped.”

  “Aw, isn’t that sweet? I’m pretty sure I can have both running in parallel.” Azure, Haxabalatnar, and I gave each other a knowing grin. Noah, who hadn’t been privy to our adventure, had to content himself with an exasperated shrug. She pushed the head of the Arbalest ever so slightly outside the shield, with a weird squelching noise like when you stick a knife in a jar of jelly.

  “This is going to suck...for them,” Azure continued as she slowly adjusted the angle of the Arbalest and started channeling its energy. She took her time with this, to the point that once she did fire a shot, the crackling ball of energy she’d launched looked large enough to wreck Sigmar’s army singlehandedly, as long as it didn’t...miss. We heard a muted boom a few seconds after Azure had fired, but her sudden expression of frustration suggested it hadn’t turned out quite as she hoped.

  “Crap! That one went too far,” she shouted. “I think it really spooked the troops, though.” To her credit, Azure quickly recovered from this minor setback and began to prepare another shot.

  “On one hand, if I hit them, they’re probably just going to move back a little further. On the other hand... Bombs away!” Azure fired her second shot, which presumably exploded slightly closer to us than the first one. For a moment, I swore I could see something flesh-colored spiral through the air, leaving a trail of aerosolized blood.

  “That worked better...and now they’re attempting an orderly retreat, if my scrying target’s eyes are to be believed.” Then, her jaw dropped.

  “And, Ravage just devoured a soldier. That stopped the retreat. I bet I could hit her stupid ass from here!”

  That could have unpredictable results. Azure looked back at us as if to ask our opinions. I was undecided, but Haxabalatnar and Noah were all for it, if their grins and thumbs up were any indicator. My caution was therefore overruled, and Azure prepared a third shot. This one looked more like a lump of molten metal. Would its mass make it harder to aim? I didn’t have to wait long – Azure was beginning to get a sense for the rhythm of an artillery barrage and fired this salvo quicker than her first two. When it landed, I heard a metallic clunk, and surprisingly, a screech of rage.

  “Hah! I got Ravage good…” Azure began. Then she trailed off. Her skin suddenly looked pale and clammy.

  “...and the robots are coming! This is bad!”

  I barely had time to register my discontent before I heard that signature sound of screeching gear and metal plating crashing down on rocks. Ravage’s horrific golden visage popped up over the lip of the cliff.

  “You shot me in my perfect ass! I will make you suffer!” she screamed, in a voice so harsh and awful that Earth would run out of petroleum before it could lubricate her throat. Instead of following up on that, Ravage breathed in (with a screech) and exhaled a firestorm. My life was now on fire.

  Despite Ravage’s torrent of fire, Azure’s shield still held. Eventually, Ravage gave up, leaving us unburnt.

  “You’re not getting through here,” Azure said to Ravage, who merely scowled back at her.

  *If she does that again, I’m shooting her in the face,* Azure transmitted to me. I approved of this course of action.

  Ravage then knelt down and put her horrifying robot face up to Azure’s shield. She breathed in again, but suddenly recoiled, clutching her hands to her throat. Azure had, in fact, shot her in the face with molten slag – the same type of attack she’d launched at Ravage’s butt.

  “You can’t hide in there forever, you lesbian sluts!” Terrorize shouted from an unknown distance. I imagine that was intended to hurt our feelings, but it felt more empowering than anything.

  “Do they even know that Noah and I are here?” Haxabalatnar asked us. Our decision to rely on magical fortifications left him without much to do, and I’m pretty sure he was beginning to chafe from boredom.

  “I don’t think they’d care,” responded Azure. “They seem vengeful at best.”

  “I have no idea what Agnus ever saw in them-”

  Ravage knelt down again and punched the shield. It shattered. Azure screamed and fired off a panicky burst of raw magical energy that yet again ended up in Ravage’s face. Ravage screamed back at her, and I couldn’t help but dive for the ground and cover my ears in terror at that awful sound. Whatever Azure had done, though, had bought her enough time to re-summon the shield.

  I saw that Ravage was still reeling from Azure’s latest attack. Why was she programmed to feel pain? What the hell was wrong with Adrian Rubovitch? When did Azure get the shield back up?

  *She’s probably going to try that again. Now would be a good time for a few crazy ideas,* transmitted Azure.

  *Spike the shield?* I responded. Azure’s hair sparked again and several sharp blades popped out of the shield’s surface. If one of the death robots tried to punch through again, they would suffer.

  “We need a better solution to the robot problem. I don’t want to guess how much punishment those things can take,” Haxabalatnar informed us. He had a point; we had to actually kill or at least disable the robots (preferably the former) if we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives in this cave. Plus, even if Azure’s barriers could hurt them, there was no guarantee they’d keep flinging themselves at the things. Ravage hadn’t attacked us in at least a minute!

  “Holding all these spells simultaneously is a pain. The sooner I can stop, the better.” Azure groaned. She also had a point. I didn’t know what Azure’s limits were anymore, even with the magic of the Arbalest on her side.

  “It’s a shame the Arbalest doesn’t cooperate with phones, otherwise I could really bring my scripts to bear,” I said, but the moment I did so, I realized it probably wasn’t true. Sure, without the Arbalest, I was missing out on free power, but I still had utility and precision on my side.

  WHAT IS YOUR OBSESSION WITH COMBINING WEAPONRY? IT IS INEFFECTIVE, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED.

  “At least, you aren’t complaining about Azure anymore,” I quipped. Ravage still wasn’t attacking us. I asked Azure if she had any idea what was up with that.

  “I’m having trouble reading their minds, but it feels like they’re still trying to figure out what to do,” she responded. In a less murderous situation, we could probably empathize with the robots; this wasn’t an easy situation for either of us. Sieges seldom are. I was beginning to feel stiff from not moving enough. I shifted a bit, and something hard i
n my backpack bumped lightly against my back.

  What was that? I took advantage of the continued quiet to open up my backpack and see what had just jostled me. It was the lime green “poison pill” canister I’d picked up during the invasion of Mount Amdahl. How had I managed to go so long without using this?

  “Holy crap, when did you get one of those anti-chthonic acid bombs?” shouted Noah. We all turned to look at him; he had some explaining to do.

  “Those are supposed to be US special forces only! At least, I think that’s the case. Do you think we can use it against the robots?” he continued.

  “How? I could throw it, but none of us are that strong, and there’s no guarantee it works on robots,” I responded. “Let’s not waste it before we have a good plan. I’m going to try and reconnoiter with some mites first.”

  So I ran my phone’s mite script. During our time at Mount Amdahl, I’d designed a user interface that allowed me to configure what type and what amount of mites to summon without having to actually modify numbers in the code. Usually, I went for the explosive ones, but this batch only needed sensors and a way to phone home. Still, as I disabled that functionality, I couldn’t help but wonder how much money I could make if I invented a really good magic bug-zapping spellscript. I spent a few percentiles of my phone’s battery to summon a dozen, which I then sent through a temporary opening in Azure’s shield. Hopefully, I could get a good look at the weak points in the robots’ chassis-

  “No! That’s strictly an illegal operation!” I heard Terrorize shout from my phone’s speaker. It wasn’t doing her voice any favors. She spat out some burning embers, did a fancy little pirouette, and moments later had surrounded herself with a fire shield. It looked like Ravage was doing the same, but then all the cameras and data points I’d been getting from the mites went blank. My phone emitted a few angry pops and sparks, and I dropped it on the ground in a hurry. The mites had burnt up so quickly and violently that it’d caused some magical feedback. Luckily, the phone didn’t go up in flames, but my current session was now completely broken. After a few seconds of the phone not exploding, I picked it up and rebooted it.