A moment comes when I suddenly stop.
There are blackened corpses everywhere - I'm huge, and they're piled almost thigh-deep in places. They are all cooking and blackening as I stand there. My chest is heaving - I realize I'm trying to suck in more air, can't through the mask - I drop it, and immediately have to choke down puke.
The stench is too much. What do a million smoldering dead bodies smell like? I'll never have to ask. I'm an expert now on smoldering dead bodies. Come to me for all your smoldering dead-body needs. A laugh sneaks out and thickens into a sob. I take a last big gulp of air - the Eyeless are swarming over the latest line of their own mangled dead - or re-dead - and I come forward.
They've already overrun this position, and the one behind. I hear they're at the command center, then the radios went static-y so I only hear pieces of shouts or screams.
They've overrun the position, but not me.
***
I'm back on the Sennin, trying to scrape the charred flesh from my armor. I notice that the others hardly notice the smell anymore. I don't really either. A lot of it sloughed off when I shrunk back down, raining back down on the Eyeless and terror-stricken Goshi idiots screaming and running among them, panicked, crying blood. At the back are First Minds now. The Spaghetti Guy. That's when I decided I was actually going to leave. I know there isn't much I can do against Spaghetti Guy.
I also saw something that can't possibly be right. I thought - now Moses, that was a long time ago, that isn't now. That was when we first got the Sennin, when Trencher and Julian were...before you...before Katashi Blade...before all of that. When you went to the fire. When we met the Dusk Sages. That was the green-island-story. Now you're in the killed-by-eyeless-story.
But now they're the same story. "Did you see it?" Rei asks.
I'm kind of at a loss.
***
We meet back at the big machine. The God - no, the Artifact - has bonded to Sousa-whoever's machine, like it bonded to me. There are six conduits. I can't help but think legs, arms, heart, head - where they came out of me, when I got what's by far my biggest scar. They're talking and then Zipporah is there. She whispers something about our baby moving, quickening. I stop paying attention and start thinking of names - something like Goshi? To remind us? Goshen? Midian? That's a cool name. But what about a girl. Miriam? A family name.
Jin-Kalys is gesturing, then flaring his big flaps of colored skin, they're all talking to each other...I don't need to know what they're saying. The island is coming, flying through the fucking sky, and we have to bring it down. Jin points and I look up - there is a small orange mote nearing the top of the sky.
Before that mote gets to the top of the sky, over the city.
I find myself thinking...its just an island. Someone put it up there, and so we beat that person up and it comes down. Simple.
Rei says a name she keeps saying, but I finally hear her. Nero.
***
I remember my promise. When we met Nero. Arrogant son of a bitch, full of threats and dressed like a pansy. I wondered if I could shove him through that vent into the lava. Rei warned me against it. But I promised him. You get in our way again and I'll kill you. I'd never forgotten the promise, because I'd never said anything like that before. It just came out of me.
***
Tanuki is going ape-shit. He wants out so bad. It makes me happy, as it always has, to not give him what he wants. We're long past the point where we could have a good working relationship. Fuck you, big-balls. And, if I get my way, goodbye.
Rei is arguing with "Ama-chan" again. And she has a plan. I hope we're talking to Rei this time, and I hope, without even knowing what it is, that her plan fails. There's only one plan, and its where we die and the Enemy dies with us.
***
We land on the island, now barren of anything but sick plants and Kyo-tee-shee, and Kyoshi does...something...and I forget the promise. Light flares out of him, starts coming out of his mouth. The island wavers and drops a few hundred feet. I'm still on the Sennin. They're talking to Nero, but I can barely hear - their voices are so thick and slow. "...you're still alive!..."
"...wonderful..."
"...end malice..."
I'm looking at a schematic for a spaceship, listening to someone talking about our history, the history of the Cheldrun. We...we filled the stars, once. We flew between points of light that even light had to wait until it reached. We had worlds and worlds, moons, metal worlds that we built circling planets.
And the First Minds...were like the Dusk Sages. Some rebelled, and they became the Enemy, that chased us here, that is over our heads right now, driving their army forward. I look down at my hands, and light spills out...we could fly. I'm on the island now, and the fight is on.
All eyes turn to HighDive. I fill with every image of every frustrating damn thing she's ever done, my fists clench, but I know this is just a Kata - and then she's completely covered in knives. They rush past me and I feel the wind when they do like shots from a tank that barely miss, like artillery hitting the building next door. Everything slows down.
She's spinning in the middle of them, a tiny fucking squirrel hardly bigger than one of the knives, and she's just poking them with her paws and feet and grinning to herself. She's never there to hit...and as they miss her, the over-shoot, and go whirling back at Nero. I watch and grin and gape as fifty knives slash him and slam into his body, tearing up his stupid clothes.
Kyoshi attacks, slashing. Una shrieks and tears into him as she flies past. I throw myself into the column of energy that's holding him up and as I sail past, I hit him with an earthquake that sends shards of green gem slashing past us both and I go sailing up into the air.
As I fall and spin I watch another storm of knives miss HighDive entirely and slash into Nero instead, this time hitting harder than tank shells. He's staggered and the island falls a bit. We attack again, but the most dangerous thing to him are his own knives.
The next attack comes at us all. He's done with HighDive kicking his ass - everyone gives up at stopping her at some point. I throw up a dome to protect who I can ...and see Una fall and Kyoshi torn apart. Then High Dive circles the world in green fire, and winds us back to the moment before Kyoshi collapses. I use all of my energy, throw up two domes - "this is easier if you stick together" and let the knives hit me. I remember the tank shells from the battle of Stardown. They ping off of me, slowed by Rei's shield, and I feel energy flow into me.
I land, and Una is using her power again
I feel a heartbeat in my chest that isn't mine, echoing, I feel it through my feet, the whole world pulsing
You are mine.
The world is speaking to us. I feel like I burst out of my skin, filled with...something I can't even describe. Too much me. Too much Karia.
And suddenly the island is falling through the sky.
Nero is a...teenager? Standing there, touching the green NeverGem beneath his feet. "What was that? What was that voice?"
That was Karia, Nero. He yells at us to get off the falling island. Aimi is landing the Sennin. We're really, really doomed if we stay.
My promise. I remember the six conduits. I surprise myself.
"No. We need you with us." He argues for a second, the sky is falling away and I know the ground is rushing up toward us. "This is how we end malice." I grab him and brush past a surprised Rei into the Sennin and deposit him inside as we all scramble in, just in time.
Millions of kilos of green NeverGem island slam into the mountain range encircling Stardown, heaving the first few mountains aside, throwing up a cloud of green gem that blots out the sun and chokes everything in fine green dust. It grinds longer than I'd think, visibly shaking the ground, collapsing buildings in Stardown that are still standing, putting huge cracks in the ice that the refugees are fleeing across, until there is a rolling wave of chunks of NeverGem, some crashing down into the valley of Stardown, before it clatters to as stop.
Everything has stopped to watch. I can see that the Goshi soldiers have turned and are all fighting the Eyeless now. They must feel what I feel, what Rei and Kyoshi feel...what Nero felt.
***
Nero is just a kid. We explain to him what has to happen. That he's been chosen by Karia to save the world.
I think of Mokuzai. He's got Mokuzai's Kyo-tee-shee in there. I saw it when we fought him on the flying island. Mokuzai was chosen to save the world. Mokuzai, not you you sniveling monster. You're a kid and I wish things had been different for you, but you've killed more than enough to make you all grown up in my book. Old enough to fight, to change you mind...old enough to die.
And he seems to want to. He makes sure that the machine will kill him before he agrees. I save feeling bad about this for later.
For now, I'm making sure my promise is kept, by the machine if not by me. We can't feel bad for every twisted bastard child who tries to kill millions of people, who clearly killed the last of the Dusk Sages so that he could have more power. There's so much to feel bad for at this point that this little broken kid is just a drop in a big, big bucket.
***
We land, and we're ready. I get to see Zipporah one last time. One last time. What do you say? They're talking and I'm not listening. She's clinging to me and we're crying.
I can't help thinking about the future. I forget about the past. I think about...the world without us, without the Oni, without the renegade First Minds or the greedy, stupid Kyo-tee-shee. Will she name him Moses, if he's a boy? Will he grow up Prill or Cheldrun? Or will it be a girl? Do Karians know that kind of thing?
Its time. The end is here. Kyoshi goes onto the Sennin...to say goodbye. Goodbye.
As I gently stand up and sidle toward the Sennin, I practice saying it. My mind can't wrap around the word.
I set Zipporah on the ramp up into the Sennin. I try to say goodbye but what comes out is "I'll see you again, one way or another. But you can't be here when this happens."
Real romantic. Will they put that on your tombstone?
Will there be anybody to carve a tombstone?
We just look at each other as the Sennin lifts off. I keep looking long after its too small to see clearly, faded into the green dust still raining down on us. I just...ran out of things to say.
I walk back to the machine, walk over to HighDive. I've been saving a surprise for this moment, once I learned what had to happen with the machine. I stand over her, point to the armored plate on my chest.
"Lefty-loosey?"
Her eyes light up. She straightens, reverently. I can see her little heart pounding through the fur of her chest. She scampers up, puts a pay on one of the bolts holding the armor in place.
I've loosened it. Her eyes go wide. Wicky-wicky. Wickywickywicky...and the bolt falls away, clattering to the floor.
The moment is interrupted.
Jin-Kalys says the Oni need to be lured here. I grimace at HighDive - sorry - and tighten the bolt back down.
I've got a little mana left. I run for the stairs, swelling so that I can just step past them. I leap over the battling Laughers, trailing cinders, and land amongst the Eyeless, shield up and batting them aside. And that's it. I'm all out.
***
I met Suraisu-Oni and snapped off one of his drill-arms, tossed him into the air, shot him, so that he was visible from a long way off, and then ran back to the chamber.
I leap inside, shrinking, and see the other Oni have found us already. Kyoshi is saying something -
"We've come here to fulfill our purpose. In the name of justice, we will create balance. We will find the power to forgive, and will bring our people freedom. And there will be peace."
I grit my teeth and jam the cable into my chest, having knocked the plate protecting it free. We all do the same, Nero last (I think of jamming the thing in his chest if he hesitates too long, but I don't have to). The Oni come down into the chamber. Chunks of us are teleported away. HighDive withers and dies of old age in a sea of sludge. Una is incinerated. And - just as Rei, dying, gestures and the cable slips out of my chest - Suraisu-Oni's drill bit erupts from my body.
I grab for the cable, but my hands are covered with this slippery rainbow stuff. Then I think I'm dreaming because Zipporah is here, puts a hand on my arm, looks at me and then slides the cable back in. Its a happy dream, this dying-dream. I reach back, find Suraisu's head, think of Mokuzai a last time, grab his head and twist until I hear the squeal of machinery tearing.
"My child will live in a world without you."
***
The rainbow stuff falls out of all of us, is devoured by the Oni, who shovel it into their mouths, slurping it up, down to the last drop -
But the last drop catches, won't come out. I feel Tanuki laugh. This isn't funny, Tanuki.
Yes it is, little-balls.
***
Everything goes backwards, fast, faster, rainbow goop rushing into us, the Oni deflating and becoming like ghosts, then being sucked in, and it all flows through us into the machine. There is swirling light everywhere - all of the Kyo-tee-shee, swirling madly like stars - and they're all sucked in, and there is a burst of light, and the Wandering Star is torn from the sky, breaking apart, chunks trailing fire like burning hail...
***
The tubes slide from our chests easily. It is entirely quiet. The green dust has settled onto everything, like we've been lying here like this for years, undisturbed. Jin-Kalys is crumpled in a corner, in a kind of lizardly shock. Zipporah is sprawled out on the ground in front of me.
The wound in my chest is gone. I pick up Zipporah, and in a daze, climb the stairs.
The city is...a mess. The Eyeless are all gone. There is gore and charred remains of buildings everywhere.
From the park nearby, where the Anakarix were draping their wounded in the trees, Boristakan, looks around, looks at me.
We start laughing.
***
Back inside, HighDive has found her battered, pitted, scarred pot, filled with the names of the dead inside. She turns it right-side-up, rubs out the names written there, fills it with water, and starts making pasta.
Showing posts with label Moses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moses. Show all posts
Episode 36: The Foe from Beyond the Stars
I feel...fire...can see light flashing through my closed eyelids...green...green...green green green greengreengreen... ...and this is what I remember, before it all goes backwards.
The day is bright and clear, and we can all see the Varan getting larger and larger, trailing smoke and flames that blot out the sun, a huge burning hulk falling out of the sky. People shout that Una is falling too. Kiyoshi runs forward to help people out of the forward bunker. I run after him when I get my feet moving again - they're rooted there while I gape up at the Varan like an idiot. Its like a moon crash-landing on a city. It boggles the mind, is bigger than words. As it falls, it pushes air out of the way and there is a sound like a tornado coming closer.
Then it lands. Before I can even think about it, a steel dome erupts out of my back, extending up and around Kiyoshi and me. The sounds of the crash, and a wave of heat, crash around us, and then we're inside a vast steel bell, ringing and ringing as tons of burning slag hit it...and then the heat bombs start going off...
I realize that we'll have to dig out, or else we'll be buried under the burning wreckage of an airship the size of a few city blocks. I hope...I hope Una is alive.
Kiyoshi and I don't talk about it.
We hear the sounds of artillery above us, and then the rumbling of tanks from a distance, shaking the walls of the tunnel I'm digging to get us out. I hope I'm going the right way. If not...we'll come up in the middle of what sounds like a tromping mob of Goshi soldiers. Not talking about Una makes me think about her. I can't believe she brought down an airship. Well, no, I can, now that I think of it. And now we have the only airship that we know of. Vorax 1, Varan 0. Game point.
I dig up carefully, listening, having Kiyoshi listen because I miss a lot of things. Then we come up and look - we can see the edge of an army that covers everything to the horizon. In the other direction, we see our own bunkers. We make a break for it.
Everyone thought we were dead - and we will be unless we do something about those soldiers.
As they come in, I block off a passage with some soldiers behind me. We've set up some barriers to hide behind, but I'm bulletproof, and all they brought to this fight were bullets. That was a bad move.
Things turn against us until Rei...I panic for a second, thinking that she's going to become an Oni, that someone's killed her. I am Rei-Oni, the One Who Listens to My Kyo-Tee-Shee Too Damn Much. But no. The tentacles are hundreds of meters of fire, and she incinerates (a new word I learned) the entire forward force of Goshi's soldiers, leaving behind glass - how did the glass get there? Oh, right, the heat - and piles of ashes.
Goshi stops the push. Maybe they're starting to re-think things.
Una and Rei end up in the infirmary again. I wish Zipporah would rest, but I know that's not going to happen. Una mentions having been shot by tanks twice so far today. It's the kind of thing we don't blink at much, but others in the infirmary just stare. Its still weird to be stared at like that.
As the second surge is coming, it comes through the lines, there are Zipsum attacking our artillery. I can't believe it. They are still going to try to kill us. And HighDive...I dunno. We're arguing, and then the bombardment of our bunker starts.
I'm wiping grime off myself and getting ready to fight again when a young Mechified says something over the din of artillery as he passes us with a crate of fresh rounds. About how it's good that there are people like us, that it gives him hope. He looks familiar, but we've all got so much more to think about...
Shortly afterwards there's a bang, and a crate bounces past us trailing smoke. Cog! Cog? Could it have been?...Rei summons a wall of burning darkness, and the army halts in front of it. They try to march through and soon realize that they just burn when they do, so some try to go around. We just shower them with bullets through the barrier, and focus our defense on the flanks. They pile up and get confused, the march stopping at the front but it takes a long time to get orders all the way back. They're packed in, milling around, taking cover...and then the order comes to show Goshi my little surprise. Charges in the bunkers and tunnels beneath the burned glass that Goshi's lines are marching over just that moment go off, exploding and tearing through their soldiers and tanks with waves of glass and stone and dirt. Then we all come up, charging when the wall falls, and tear into them. Rei rips up the brains of the tank operators. The fight goes on, once its won. Goshi retreats again, but not far enough.
A Zipsum messenger comes to the command center. He reports - the High King of the Gogajin - Grim! - is charging the center of Goshi's army with a Gogajin army. He calls on all brave hearts to join the battle, and to meet him in the middle.
Finally, some sensible damn Karians.
I push. I feel it tipping. We need to go now. We have the Sennin. Una destroyed the Varan, the only thing keeping us grounded and pinned down. We need to go now! I call for command to pack the Sennin as full of tough bastards as they can. We pack into the ship. As we're getting ready, I see Zipporah restocking the supplies of the Sennin's infirmary...and my heart stops. I take a deep breath, walk into the infirmary, and close the door.
It's not for me, or for you, but for the one who's coming soon now. I know, I know you would. Yes, I'll see you soon...I lie. I guess she knows, but she doesn't say much more after that. What do you say, standing in an infirmary that still has blood stains from our friends, still smells like burned flesh; outside you can hear soldiers climbing aboard and joking to calm themselves down, getting quiet when Varissa joins them, purring in a scary way.
You say...goodbye for now.
Aimi flies us out to the center of the Goshi line - just outside the barrier-dome. We come in hot, skimming over the army, dodging bursts of deadly smoke and shrapnel. Una has another gift - she closes her eyes, and the entire army of the Gogajin begins shining. I also see, from the blue light, small, darting figures moving through the opposite side of the Goshi army - Zipsum! Ha! It worked! They bloody listened! It's a miracle that's on par with Rei destroying a whole town. Una, Sloan, HighDive, Varissa - the Karians all seem to be glowing, fierce, larger than life.
We have to jump out because we can't land. I want to make a good first impression, so I jump out a little early, try to time it right, and shatter the wall of one of the compounds, shaking it so that it splinters apart, killing whoever is inside, cracking the ground, collapsing tunnels beneath. I let the ground shake until the others start landing in a far courtyard. We are Heroes of Karia, and we are coming for you.
We take the courtyard easily. The Hei-Shi try to ambush us, but they're as useless as the bullets were. You're running out of ways to stop us. We go down, following Kiyoshi, to the control center for the whole army - there are four dead bodies - one of them is Rain. Yes, miss Executor, you were wrong the whole time, and now you'll never get the chance to be wrong again. Everything is cut up, and I think of Nero and his knives. Then the room starts coming apart, and we have to get out of there fast. We come up, and almost bump into someone who seems familiar for the second I have to think. He's dressed like a scientist, and has these eyes...he says:
"Ah, good, you're all here. That will save having to hunt you down."
Get in line, whoever you are.
Everything goes insane. I grab him, and I'm on fire, and burning him, but not enough. Una is shouting for me to get out of the way. Kiyoshi attacks, and slams us through wall after wall as he cuts into the Scientist. I can barely hold on. He unravels me, my Kata taking some of it, some of it I can shrug off, but not enough for another one. Kiyoshi attacks again. I squirm out of the way of the unraveling. Again. Then he catches me, and I feel myself coming apart like I'm an uncoiling spring. There's more shouting, then a huge explosion and a rush of wind escaping the chamber, which might be part of the dream I'm having...
I feel...fire...can see light flashing through my closed eyelids...green...green...green green green greengreengreen... ...and this is what I remember, before it all goes backwards...
The day is bright and clear, and we can all see the Varan getting larger and larger, trailing smoke and flames that blot out the sun, a huge burning hulk falling out of the sky. People shout that Una is falling too. Kiyoshi runs forward to help people out of the forward bunker. I run after him when I get my feet moving again - they're rooted there while I gape up at the Varan like an idiot. Its like a moon crash-landing on a city. It boggles the mind, is bigger than words. As it falls, it pushes air out of the way and there is a sound like a tornado coming closer.
Then it lands. Before I can even think about it, a steel dome erupts out of my back, extending up and around Kiyoshi and me. The sounds of the crash, and a wave of heat, crash around us, and then we're inside a vast steel bell, ringing and ringing as tons of burning slag hit it...and then the heat bombs start going off...
I realize that we'll have to dig out, or else we'll be buried under the burning wreckage of an airship the size of a few city blocks. I hope...I hope Una is alive.
Kiyoshi and I don't talk about it.
We hear the sounds of artillery above us, and then the rumbling of tanks from a distance, shaking the walls of the tunnel I'm digging to get us out. I hope I'm going the right way. If not...we'll come up in the middle of what sounds like a tromping mob of Goshi soldiers. Not talking about Una makes me think about her. I can't believe she brought down an airship. Well, no, I can, now that I think of it. And now we have the only airship that we know of. Vorax 1, Varan 0. Game point.
I dig up carefully, listening, having Kiyoshi listen because I miss a lot of things. Then we come up and look - we can see the edge of an army that covers everything to the horizon. In the other direction, we see our own bunkers. We make a break for it.
Everyone thought we were dead - and we will be unless we do something about those soldiers.
As they come in, I block off a passage with some soldiers behind me. We've set up some barriers to hide behind, but I'm bulletproof, and all they brought to this fight were bullets. That was a bad move.
Things turn against us until Rei...I panic for a second, thinking that she's going to become an Oni, that someone's killed her. I am Rei-Oni, the One Who Listens to My Kyo-Tee-Shee Too Damn Much. But no. The tentacles are hundreds of meters of fire, and she incinerates (a new word I learned) the entire forward force of Goshi's soldiers, leaving behind glass - how did the glass get there? Oh, right, the heat - and piles of ashes.
Goshi stops the push. Maybe they're starting to re-think things.
Una and Rei end up in the infirmary again. I wish Zipporah would rest, but I know that's not going to happen. Una mentions having been shot by tanks twice so far today. It's the kind of thing we don't blink at much, but others in the infirmary just stare. Its still weird to be stared at like that.
As the second surge is coming, it comes through the lines, there are Zipsum attacking our artillery. I can't believe it. They are still going to try to kill us. And HighDive...I dunno. We're arguing, and then the bombardment of our bunker starts.
I'm wiping grime off myself and getting ready to fight again when a young Mechified says something over the din of artillery as he passes us with a crate of fresh rounds. About how it's good that there are people like us, that it gives him hope. He looks familiar, but we've all got so much more to think about...
Shortly afterwards there's a bang, and a crate bounces past us trailing smoke. Cog! Cog? Could it have been?...Rei summons a wall of burning darkness, and the army halts in front of it. They try to march through and soon realize that they just burn when they do, so some try to go around. We just shower them with bullets through the barrier, and focus our defense on the flanks. They pile up and get confused, the march stopping at the front but it takes a long time to get orders all the way back. They're packed in, milling around, taking cover...and then the order comes to show Goshi my little surprise. Charges in the bunkers and tunnels beneath the burned glass that Goshi's lines are marching over just that moment go off, exploding and tearing through their soldiers and tanks with waves of glass and stone and dirt. Then we all come up, charging when the wall falls, and tear into them. Rei rips up the brains of the tank operators. The fight goes on, once its won. Goshi retreats again, but not far enough.
A Zipsum messenger comes to the command center. He reports - the High King of the Gogajin - Grim! - is charging the center of Goshi's army with a Gogajin army. He calls on all brave hearts to join the battle, and to meet him in the middle.
Finally, some sensible damn Karians.
I push. I feel it tipping. We need to go now. We have the Sennin. Una destroyed the Varan, the only thing keeping us grounded and pinned down. We need to go now! I call for command to pack the Sennin as full of tough bastards as they can. We pack into the ship. As we're getting ready, I see Zipporah restocking the supplies of the Sennin's infirmary...and my heart stops. I take a deep breath, walk into the infirmary, and close the door.
It's not for me, or for you, but for the one who's coming soon now. I know, I know you would. Yes, I'll see you soon...I lie. I guess she knows, but she doesn't say much more after that. What do you say, standing in an infirmary that still has blood stains from our friends, still smells like burned flesh; outside you can hear soldiers climbing aboard and joking to calm themselves down, getting quiet when Varissa joins them, purring in a scary way.
You say...goodbye for now.
Aimi flies us out to the center of the Goshi line - just outside the barrier-dome. We come in hot, skimming over the army, dodging bursts of deadly smoke and shrapnel. Una has another gift - she closes her eyes, and the entire army of the Gogajin begins shining. I also see, from the blue light, small, darting figures moving through the opposite side of the Goshi army - Zipsum! Ha! It worked! They bloody listened! It's a miracle that's on par with Rei destroying a whole town. Una, Sloan, HighDive, Varissa - the Karians all seem to be glowing, fierce, larger than life.
We have to jump out because we can't land. I want to make a good first impression, so I jump out a little early, try to time it right, and shatter the wall of one of the compounds, shaking it so that it splinters apart, killing whoever is inside, cracking the ground, collapsing tunnels beneath. I let the ground shake until the others start landing in a far courtyard. We are Heroes of Karia, and we are coming for you.
We take the courtyard easily. The Hei-Shi try to ambush us, but they're as useless as the bullets were. You're running out of ways to stop us. We go down, following Kiyoshi, to the control center for the whole army - there are four dead bodies - one of them is Rain. Yes, miss Executor, you were wrong the whole time, and now you'll never get the chance to be wrong again. Everything is cut up, and I think of Nero and his knives. Then the room starts coming apart, and we have to get out of there fast. We come up, and almost bump into someone who seems familiar for the second I have to think. He's dressed like a scientist, and has these eyes...he says:
"Ah, good, you're all here. That will save having to hunt you down."
Get in line, whoever you are.
Everything goes insane. I grab him, and I'm on fire, and burning him, but not enough. Una is shouting for me to get out of the way. Kiyoshi attacks, and slams us through wall after wall as he cuts into the Scientist. I can barely hold on. He unravels me, my Kata taking some of it, some of it I can shrug off, but not enough for another one. Kiyoshi attacks again. I squirm out of the way of the unraveling. Again. Then he catches me, and I feel myself coming apart like I'm an uncoiling spring. There's more shouting, then a huge explosion and a rush of wind escaping the chamber, which might be part of the dream I'm having...
I feel...fire...can see light flashing through my closed eyelids...green...green...green green green greengreengreen... ...and this is what I remember, before it all goes backwards...
Episode 35: The Legendary HighDive Bludgeon
There's a bang like a hammer on a huge sheet of metal, rolling through the streets, throwing up dust and blowing out the gas lanterns set along the road like a racing strip - and she's gone. Seeing other people watch her, I realize that I'm just used to this sort of thing. And they don't even know about the smoked finger collection...or her iron pot. How long has she had that?
After a while, Susauryoku says that now she's either done it or is...dead. I don't think she's dead. Kyoshi walks off to find out, and so do I and some others. Its incredible how cold it is - cold as when I was outside the Seninn, blown out the hole in the Wandering Star. Kyoshi just goes in, though, and not long after he's got HighDive...and she looks dead. She's so small...and missing a hand - most of her forearm. I barely warm her up - she's frozen solid. I think of Mokuzai then push it away.
Una brings her back. I'm surprised by how scared I get when she might be dead. I feel like I talked her into going in there. It just...it all seemed to make sense. But if she's dead, then I was wrong, and maybe we're wrong about everything. Maybe we still are. But...
I don't know if she understands...but we're doing it. Bit by bit. Freedom. Balance. I don't know who Una has to forgive, or how Kyoshi needs to be just, and Rei still seems to be looking for a purpose...that isn't just being a tool of her Kyo-tee-shee that is.
The city holds a celebration for HighDive. She gorges on candy - how did she find any!? - and gives random speeches from the tops of buildings. She challenges all kinds of people to fights and races and high-dive competitions. She displays her set of fingers and demands Susauryoku's finger to add to the chain. Or maybe an ear. His choice, but she prefers the finger.
We rub her belly and the old man makes a hasty retreat.
The next few weeks go by real fast. The army is coming and its far more than any of us can count. And more refugees. The ones from Geneva Prime arrive, and they are still being fed by Karia. We dig tunnels and make preparations. I try to stay busy because a lot is going on - lots of hurrying around and meetings and looking at maps. I'm not even sure what we're looking at - moving colored shapes around and pointing.
I get to see Zipporah a lot. We go fishing some afternoons, but there aren't really any fish. She could sing some up, but that's not very fun. We also find some old buildings submerged in the huge lake up here. The buildings look different from the ones in Stardown - there is corroded metal and bits of glass in the mirk. Zip's a lot less interested in it than I am, so we leave it alone down there.
I tell people the army that's coming won't kill us all so that I can believe it.
When the first...the vanguard, they call it...gets here, there are already millions of them. We're told that they'll go for Crystal Fork to set up a command, and that we need to fight them there, make them pay, and then crush the town to rubble. Those are all things I've gotten good at doing, so I'm in - all of us are.
I've never fought tanks before. I just didn't know much about the military until these few weeks when suddenly they want me to help fight it ten to one. Its tough, but then suddenly Rei...does something. She's really frightening. She rises into the air and the sun is blotted out by some kind of huge shadow. And then the ground starts shaking and all of the buildings - all of them - tear themselves loose from their foundations. They just float there, as if they're waiting.
And then she tears the town apart. Before she's done, she crushes thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers and tanks and rubble into a huge ball and hurls them past the horizon, crashing out toward Goshi's endless army.
She's found her purpose, maybe. I'm glad she's on our side. (I think she's on our side.)
We're interrupted to learn that Goshi is heat-bombing the refugees. I catch myself. I had started thinking that we were fighting an army, a bunch of normal, reasonable people. No. We are fighting monsters. We have always been fighting monsters, whether they are eyeless or they look like chief executives.
I used to think I could make them pay enough to convince them to stop. Now I know better. You don't send an army of 80 million halfway across the continent because its good for business.
Well then. We'll stop you the hard way - one at a time. Kyoshi goes off to chase the Varan away - they're not here to fight, just bomb helpless refugees.
At the same time, there is a mass offensive against the northeast pass, held by Susauryoku and a small force of the army we've patched together. Rei and I go there, and Una joins us. They're throwing up huge metal bridges over the river that we'd hoped would slow them down. No such luck. They swarm across, not even caring about the thousands who are being torn apart crossing the river. More just come to replace them.
How did they get talked into this? What do they think they're here for?
Then it is Una's turn - things are coming to a head, and I think we're all...changing. Becoming something more. She calls down an army of Tee-Shee from the mountains all around. They swarm down on the Goshi soldiers.
I remember the cavern of the "purple Vorax", the terrible visions there, the torture of the Tee-Shee, the collected agony of all life on Karia. I know what they're feeling. Then the order comes to cross the river and to strike now, to kill and rout them and chase them down. There are screams that you can hear even across the river. The tanks go wild and out of control. The battle becomes a slaughter.
I stop paying attention for a while. My face is warm and wet.
I wonder if the Cheldrun will ever have to feel what they've done to other Cheldrun?
There is a story I don't really understand about Zipporah sinking some boats, or their crew or something. Having to do with "nerve gas", whatever that is. When Rei says it, her eyes light up. She thinks I don't notice her looking at me but I do.
That night, the Zipsum come with "tidings of woe from the manyest of the Karians." Its...typical Zipsum. I think they breed so fast so that you can't exterminate them all at once, because everyone has to want to. Even Una. They're just unstoppable, like termites that are impossible to catch or hold still and are armed with poisoned knives and arrows. They are here to kill us, apparently.
After that we try to talk to them a couple times. Why do I keep forgetting and letting HighDive talk to people we don't want to fight? Only Una speaks Zipsum, I think, and maybe Rei, among us. Una tries because HighDive and Rei are hopeless at this kind of thing, and even Una comes back so upset she squaks and molts all over the place.
I get sort of desperate and angry. Just give them the damn fruit. They don't think with anything higher than their waistline anyway. Maybe that'll turn them on Goshi. I get flashbacks of the Riverswift tribe "trial" and I want to smash something.
Somewhere I get the impression that HighDive's tribe has been...wiped out? Or captured or something. She doesn't seem bothered.
I have no idea.
To top it off, the Laughing school of the Anakarix wander into our camp to help by not being helpful. Maybe the lizards and squirrels will fight each other, and save us fighting them off or being laughed at. That would be something to see. I hear the Anakarix can fight, but I don't think it'll happen at night either way.
Maybe they'll help Jin-Kalys with the math, I dunno.
Not long after, I get my chance to smash things. It shouldn't, but it feels good. Not so much after, but during...yeah. I see Hurricane, I see Katashi Blade, I see Rain on every one of their faces. I smash and smash and smash. Their bullets bounce off me. Their bayonets dull and snap off. A horrified look from Zip lets me know that I'm covered in dirt and gore.
One by one. If that's how we have to do it. One by one.
After a while, Susauryoku says that now she's either done it or is...dead. I don't think she's dead. Kyoshi walks off to find out, and so do I and some others. Its incredible how cold it is - cold as when I was outside the Seninn, blown out the hole in the Wandering Star. Kyoshi just goes in, though, and not long after he's got HighDive...and she looks dead. She's so small...and missing a hand - most of her forearm. I barely warm her up - she's frozen solid. I think of Mokuzai then push it away.
Una brings her back. I'm surprised by how scared I get when she might be dead. I feel like I talked her into going in there. It just...it all seemed to make sense. But if she's dead, then I was wrong, and maybe we're wrong about everything. Maybe we still are. But...
I don't know if she understands...but we're doing it. Bit by bit. Freedom. Balance. I don't know who Una has to forgive, or how Kyoshi needs to be just, and Rei still seems to be looking for a purpose...that isn't just being a tool of her Kyo-tee-shee that is.
The city holds a celebration for HighDive. She gorges on candy - how did she find any!? - and gives random speeches from the tops of buildings. She challenges all kinds of people to fights and races and high-dive competitions. She displays her set of fingers and demands Susauryoku's finger to add to the chain. Or maybe an ear. His choice, but she prefers the finger.
We rub her belly and the old man makes a hasty retreat.
The next few weeks go by real fast. The army is coming and its far more than any of us can count. And more refugees. The ones from Geneva Prime arrive, and they are still being fed by Karia. We dig tunnels and make preparations. I try to stay busy because a lot is going on - lots of hurrying around and meetings and looking at maps. I'm not even sure what we're looking at - moving colored shapes around and pointing.
I get to see Zipporah a lot. We go fishing some afternoons, but there aren't really any fish. She could sing some up, but that's not very fun. We also find some old buildings submerged in the huge lake up here. The buildings look different from the ones in Stardown - there is corroded metal and bits of glass in the mirk. Zip's a lot less interested in it than I am, so we leave it alone down there.
I tell people the army that's coming won't kill us all so that I can believe it.
When the first...the vanguard, they call it...gets here, there are already millions of them. We're told that they'll go for Crystal Fork to set up a command, and that we need to fight them there, make them pay, and then crush the town to rubble. Those are all things I've gotten good at doing, so I'm in - all of us are.
I've never fought tanks before. I just didn't know much about the military until these few weeks when suddenly they want me to help fight it ten to one. Its tough, but then suddenly Rei...does something. She's really frightening. She rises into the air and the sun is blotted out by some kind of huge shadow. And then the ground starts shaking and all of the buildings - all of them - tear themselves loose from their foundations. They just float there, as if they're waiting.
And then she tears the town apart. Before she's done, she crushes thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers and tanks and rubble into a huge ball and hurls them past the horizon, crashing out toward Goshi's endless army.
She's found her purpose, maybe. I'm glad she's on our side. (I think she's on our side.)
We're interrupted to learn that Goshi is heat-bombing the refugees. I catch myself. I had started thinking that we were fighting an army, a bunch of normal, reasonable people. No. We are fighting monsters. We have always been fighting monsters, whether they are eyeless or they look like chief executives.
I used to think I could make them pay enough to convince them to stop. Now I know better. You don't send an army of 80 million halfway across the continent because its good for business.
Well then. We'll stop you the hard way - one at a time. Kyoshi goes off to chase the Varan away - they're not here to fight, just bomb helpless refugees.
At the same time, there is a mass offensive against the northeast pass, held by Susauryoku and a small force of the army we've patched together. Rei and I go there, and Una joins us. They're throwing up huge metal bridges over the river that we'd hoped would slow them down. No such luck. They swarm across, not even caring about the thousands who are being torn apart crossing the river. More just come to replace them.
How did they get talked into this? What do they think they're here for?
Then it is Una's turn - things are coming to a head, and I think we're all...changing. Becoming something more. She calls down an army of Tee-Shee from the mountains all around. They swarm down on the Goshi soldiers.
I remember the cavern of the "purple Vorax", the terrible visions there, the torture of the Tee-Shee, the collected agony of all life on Karia. I know what they're feeling. Then the order comes to cross the river and to strike now, to kill and rout them and chase them down. There are screams that you can hear even across the river. The tanks go wild and out of control. The battle becomes a slaughter.
I stop paying attention for a while. My face is warm and wet.
I wonder if the Cheldrun will ever have to feel what they've done to other Cheldrun?
There is a story I don't really understand about Zipporah sinking some boats, or their crew or something. Having to do with "nerve gas", whatever that is. When Rei says it, her eyes light up. She thinks I don't notice her looking at me but I do.
That night, the Zipsum come with "tidings of woe from the manyest of the Karians." Its...typical Zipsum. I think they breed so fast so that you can't exterminate them all at once, because everyone has to want to. Even Una. They're just unstoppable, like termites that are impossible to catch or hold still and are armed with poisoned knives and arrows. They are here to kill us, apparently.
After that we try to talk to them a couple times. Why do I keep forgetting and letting HighDive talk to people we don't want to fight? Only Una speaks Zipsum, I think, and maybe Rei, among us. Una tries because HighDive and Rei are hopeless at this kind of thing, and even Una comes back so upset she squaks and molts all over the place.
I get sort of desperate and angry. Just give them the damn fruit. They don't think with anything higher than their waistline anyway. Maybe that'll turn them on Goshi. I get flashbacks of the Riverswift tribe "trial" and I want to smash something.
Somewhere I get the impression that HighDive's tribe has been...wiped out? Or captured or something. She doesn't seem bothered.
I have no idea.
To top it off, the Laughing school of the Anakarix wander into our camp to help by not being helpful. Maybe the lizards and squirrels will fight each other, and save us fighting them off or being laughed at. That would be something to see. I hear the Anakarix can fight, but I don't think it'll happen at night either way.
Maybe they'll help Jin-Kalys with the math, I dunno.
Not long after, I get my chance to smash things. It shouldn't, but it feels good. Not so much after, but during...yeah. I see Hurricane, I see Katashi Blade, I see Rain on every one of their faces. I smash and smash and smash. Their bullets bounce off me. Their bayonets dull and snap off. A horrified look from Zip lets me know that I'm covered in dirt and gore.
One by one. If that's how we have to do it. One by one.
Faithful
You brought me here.
Yes, you. I'm talking to you. Click at me all you want.
You brought me here, and you got me to bring everyone else where too. And now, for what?
All just some kind of trick, so we'd all be here to get, what, eaten? Burned? Killed all at once?
I'd be perfect for that, wouldn't I. Stupid. Yeah, I know. Easy to get me to do something. Just grab my nose and lead me around like I'm on rails.
Stupid.
I thought, if I could just do this, then it would be my part, and I could have some peace. I went all over the world, looking for how to make them free. I found the fire, and it - you! - spoke to me. Sent me back to Goshi, back to their new tower. I knew he wouldn't listen. I knew it! But I went up there anyway. And then...and then the Mecha, and then Julian and Trencher...but I - you! - brought down a hail of gems from the sky, from the damn sky, and metal-eating moths, and they - my people - are being fed in the wilderness while they travel by magic jungle plants, and...and all that, all that, for nothing? For a trick?
But peace got ground up by Suraisu-Oni, didn't he. Just like that, peace is dead. So no peace for me. No peace for anyone. Mokuzai gone and...and Jin says it doesn't add up anymore. We don't add up anymore.
And now Goshi is coming. They are coming for us. We've chosen our ground. You've chosen our ground. There are...there are more of them than I'd ever thought. More of us, but most of us aren't fighters at all.
So now everyone else makes plans, and I stay up talking to a clicking lump embedded in my shoulder. Deeper than that, now. Its me and I'm it.
You are...you are First Mind artifact. And the First Minds are the Enemy. So maybe you're the Enemy. Maybe you were made by a Resister, and maybe not. But I know I'm not the Enemy. And even if you were made by them, you're a tool. Maybe you've used me up to now, but I can use you too.
I can use you too. You're me now, you're part of me, and I'm part of you.
You brought me here, but I'll decide how this ends. How I end.
He closes his eyes, and grits his teeth together, begins to shake, hands clenching with the soft scrape of metal on metal, joints straining against themselves with a whine and the slow release of excess pressure through valves that save the powered joints from tearing themselves apart. Sudddenly he can see, and feel, the threads that the Machine God has woven through his body, how it has reached into his mind slowly, how it has made new connections, bound what was severed from before he was born, made him more whole. It has followed lines of...something he cannot quite see through his body, into every part. It is part of him and he is part of it. It is part of him but not all of him. Zipporah wakes up in alarm to a sudden stream of hammering clicks and the room filling with crackling heat radiating from Moses's shoulder. She calls up the water vapor in the air to rain on him, but it dances and evaporates immediately when it touches him. She watches in alarm as the clicking reaches a crescendo and then suddenly something slips, the sound changes, smooths, evens, quiets. Moses opens his eyes, but for a moment doesn't see her at all.
I. Decide.
Yes, you. I'm talking to you. Click at me all you want.
You brought me here, and you got me to bring everyone else where too. And now, for what?
All just some kind of trick, so we'd all be here to get, what, eaten? Burned? Killed all at once?
I'd be perfect for that, wouldn't I. Stupid. Yeah, I know. Easy to get me to do something. Just grab my nose and lead me around like I'm on rails.
Stupid.
I thought, if I could just do this, then it would be my part, and I could have some peace. I went all over the world, looking for how to make them free. I found the fire, and it - you! - spoke to me. Sent me back to Goshi, back to their new tower. I knew he wouldn't listen. I knew it! But I went up there anyway. And then...and then the Mecha, and then Julian and Trencher...but I - you! - brought down a hail of gems from the sky, from the damn sky, and metal-eating moths, and they - my people - are being fed in the wilderness while they travel by magic jungle plants, and...and all that, all that, for nothing? For a trick?
But peace got ground up by Suraisu-Oni, didn't he. Just like that, peace is dead. So no peace for me. No peace for anyone. Mokuzai gone and...and Jin says it doesn't add up anymore. We don't add up anymore.
And now Goshi is coming. They are coming for us. We've chosen our ground. You've chosen our ground. There are...there are more of them than I'd ever thought. More of us, but most of us aren't fighters at all.
So now everyone else makes plans, and I stay up talking to a clicking lump embedded in my shoulder. Deeper than that, now. Its me and I'm it.
You are...you are First Mind artifact. And the First Minds are the Enemy. So maybe you're the Enemy. Maybe you were made by a Resister, and maybe not. But I know I'm not the Enemy. And even if you were made by them, you're a tool. Maybe you've used me up to now, but I can use you too.
I can use you too. You're me now, you're part of me, and I'm part of you.
You brought me here, but I'll decide how this ends. How I end.
He closes his eyes, and grits his teeth together, begins to shake, hands clenching with the soft scrape of metal on metal, joints straining against themselves with a whine and the slow release of excess pressure through valves that save the powered joints from tearing themselves apart. Sudddenly he can see, and feel, the threads that the Machine God has woven through his body, how it has reached into his mind slowly, how it has made new connections, bound what was severed from before he was born, made him more whole. It has followed lines of...something he cannot quite see through his body, into every part. It is part of him and he is part of it. It is part of him but not all of him. Zipporah wakes up in alarm to a sudden stream of hammering clicks and the room filling with crackling heat radiating from Moses's shoulder. She calls up the water vapor in the air to rain on him, but it dances and evaporates immediately when it touches him. She watches in alarm as the clicking reaches a crescendo and then suddenly something slips, the sound changes, smooths, evens, quiets. Moses opens his eyes, but for a moment doesn't see her at all.
I. Decide.
Useful
For a while I'm at the army meetings with Ichirou and Kyoshi and Rei. They seem to think I should be there, and its where the tent Zip and I are staying in is. But soon its pretty clear that I'm not really helping much. Rei is talking about digging chevrons in the ground to channel infantry and force-multipliers and bulwarks and I don't even know what. She's some kind of genius or something. Maybe its all the minds she ate.
So pretty soon I just wander around the city for a while. People sort of collect around me, and I talk to them, and they tell me about Stardown and ask about where we've been and what we've done. They ask about Zipporah, and we try to explain about Prill. I know there are some of them, maybe a lot, that think...that think we're unnatural. No one says anything where they think we can hear but...Zip has those big ears. They're nice, you know, but they are big. Foxy. I say I don't care but I do.
There are too many people here. Its too open. I get headaches every day sometime in the afternoon now, ever since Eris...well, ever since she blew my brains out of my head so they had to grow back. And that scar.
Its so crowded, so I get to thinking. I ask some surveyors about the area. What's the bedrock like? How deep is the soil? How deep is the lake? How is it fed? Seepage? That kind of thing. I talk to as many people as I can - Jin-Kalys, the lizard - er - Anakarix even follows us around. He talks about...I think its math, but I'm not sure...and talks to Zipporah a lot. He seems really happy to have another Karian around to talk to besides Sloan and the scary Jevumm we haven't really seen since...well, the incident with HighDive.
She sure does enjoy being a hero.
I'm sort of done with it, so when I get the chance, I start digging tunnels. Its tiring work because, to get them done faster, I call on my Kata to grow almost as large as I can when I put everything into it. This doesn't last, so I have to rest after, but while I'm like that I get a lot of work done. I burn through a good bit of Blackrock, but when all those people from Geneva Prime start arriving, we'll have all the Blackrock we'd ever want.
It takes a long time, but I find a lot of Mechified who are good at this kind of stuff to come and shore up the tunnels where they need to, to brace and to reinforce. They get into digging themselves - it turns out, there are loads of them with similar upgrades to what I've got. I dunno...thousands. They're not large enough for all these people, but its all we have time for. And when the heat bombs start falling, they're better than tents.
There's now a big network of tunnels, a few meters across, with some larger rooms cut out and air vents cut down to them and that kind of thing. Some drainage for, you know, waste and stuff like that. They're dry because I cut them into the hills, so they're above the lake and don't get any of the seepage from that. Some people are already living up there because there just aren't places to live that have anything like walls or a roof anymore. The city keeps bursting over and over again. Some arrive and have thought things through, but others...haven't.
A few of the Mechified said that there's enough room in those tunnels for maybe a million people. More if they're just crammed in there for shelter when the fighting starts.
A lot of refugees keep coming, and a lot of them won't be fighting even if they wanted to. I had hoped...well, I had hoped that things would be better, but they aren't, so you make do. I can do enough work, while I'm here and its a bit quiet, to make up for not having enough time to do things right.
And then, all of a sudden, everything goes straight to shit.
So pretty soon I just wander around the city for a while. People sort of collect around me, and I talk to them, and they tell me about Stardown and ask about where we've been and what we've done. They ask about Zipporah, and we try to explain about Prill. I know there are some of them, maybe a lot, that think...that think we're unnatural. No one says anything where they think we can hear but...Zip has those big ears. They're nice, you know, but they are big. Foxy. I say I don't care but I do.
There are too many people here. Its too open. I get headaches every day sometime in the afternoon now, ever since Eris...well, ever since she blew my brains out of my head so they had to grow back. And that scar.
Its so crowded, so I get to thinking. I ask some surveyors about the area. What's the bedrock like? How deep is the soil? How deep is the lake? How is it fed? Seepage? That kind of thing. I talk to as many people as I can - Jin-Kalys, the lizard - er - Anakarix even follows us around. He talks about...I think its math, but I'm not sure...and talks to Zipporah a lot. He seems really happy to have another Karian around to talk to besides Sloan and the scary Jevumm we haven't really seen since...well, the incident with HighDive.
She sure does enjoy being a hero.
I'm sort of done with it, so when I get the chance, I start digging tunnels. Its tiring work because, to get them done faster, I call on my Kata to grow almost as large as I can when I put everything into it. This doesn't last, so I have to rest after, but while I'm like that I get a lot of work done. I burn through a good bit of Blackrock, but when all those people from Geneva Prime start arriving, we'll have all the Blackrock we'd ever want.
It takes a long time, but I find a lot of Mechified who are good at this kind of stuff to come and shore up the tunnels where they need to, to brace and to reinforce. They get into digging themselves - it turns out, there are loads of them with similar upgrades to what I've got. I dunno...thousands. They're not large enough for all these people, but its all we have time for. And when the heat bombs start falling, they're better than tents.
There's now a big network of tunnels, a few meters across, with some larger rooms cut out and air vents cut down to them and that kind of thing. Some drainage for, you know, waste and stuff like that. They're dry because I cut them into the hills, so they're above the lake and don't get any of the seepage from that. Some people are already living up there because there just aren't places to live that have anything like walls or a roof anymore. The city keeps bursting over and over again. Some arrive and have thought things through, but others...haven't.
A few of the Mechified said that there's enough room in those tunnels for maybe a million people. More if they're just crammed in there for shelter when the fighting starts.
A lot of refugees keep coming, and a lot of them won't be fighting even if they wanted to. I had hoped...well, I had hoped that things would be better, but they aren't, so you make do. I can do enough work, while I'm here and its a bit quiet, to make up for not having enough time to do things right.
And then, all of a sudden, everything goes straight to shit.
A Dead Little Girl
I leave Rei's tent and go find a place off to myself. I find one near the generators they have set up, and I run a cable out to a heavy metal table. Someone goes and gets me a chair. Its weird not doing things myself, even now. I sit down and feel a sigh slip out. Too much is happening. I can't think about it all. And if I made a mistake, bringing all those people here to die...
For what feels like the hundredth time today I wonder if Kyoshi would fly me to Marina. I know its gone way past that, but...I tried, and failed. Too heavy. Too much.
I shake my head, huff out another harsher sigh and lay the thing down in front of me. In the glare of the electric lights it looks like a big, wilted flower. I can see veins of some kind of metal through it. I look for a power source, and can't find one. It must run on psychic energy or something.
I spend some time looking at it closely, and then I separate out some leads from the cable and attach them to what seem like nodes in the webwork. When I switch the power on, the glove lights up. I can see channels of energy flowing through it. They're just fading into the air, becoming heat, because in this they don't do anything, but it lets me see where the web is broken, torn, thinned, stretched...I am about to ground myself and get to work before it hits me.
There's the red glow, there, and then its...healed. Looks good as new, the webs of energy still shining to my eyes. Now, seeing more of how it fits together, I can see how it might be modified. I couldn't tell you, or draw up a diagram or anything. I just...see. I hunch down and get to work, careful but quick.
When I'm done, I detach the leads after I cut the power.
I think I saw where they brought Aimi. Kyoshi is probably still talking to his brother.
***
She's there, and looks surprised to see me, then looks like the cocky nothing she usually gives everyone.
"Looking to sow your wild rice already, Moses? Why, your litter isn't even born yet." She gives me a look that would be alluring from anyone else. Her eyes are still like one-way glass.
"No. I've, uh, I've actually got a present."
"Listen. Moses. I'm taken. If I wanted to fuck a machine, I'm sure I could make that happen without all the smell and the talking. So if you've got flowers or candy or something, I'm really flattered, but -"
She shuts right up when I hold up the glove. Yeah, Aimi, it isn't that hard to figure out what you want.
"I've seen you playing around with weapons you find. Well, not playing. I know you're dangerous. But they just don't fit the bill, do they?" She just watches my hand. I know she's measuring for a leap. "Its good as new. Better than new, actually. I figured, you know, the stuff we end up fighting, its usually bad to get close. So now you can sort of discharge the energy you make from a distance. Not that far, maybe ten meters or so, and it won't do as much as it does otherwise, but..." She's breathing harder. I suddenly feel bad and disturbed all at once. I want her to listen, though, this once, so I toss her the glove. She snatches it out of the air with a flash and slides it over her arm in a motion that's almost too quick to see. She clenches her deadly little fist and out flashes the pink blade.
She looks up at me, almost unguarded, almost actually here. "I don't get it, Moses. What's the deal? You're not trying to seduce me - it must be the lack of a tail. I figured Rei would get this fixed and give it back to me. But you? It doesn't add up."
How to say it?
"When we met, a year ago, in the control room for the lift out of Goshi Mine...you know, I've never been afraid of you. Don't get all offended. I know you're an assassin, but...after a cable-car load of tentacled eyeless, you weren't that scary. What scared me was...I was scared for the other people you might hurt, the other people you could get to. That we might have sacrificed so much just to be free, and you could ruin it all on a whim, or because it was your job. It was...I didn't understand how someone could be like that." Her eyes are glass again. "No! Listen, I'm not done."
I look at her until she stops pretending to be admiring her glove. "Listen. I...know what it means...to be made for a purpose. One you sort of chose, maybe, but never really got to choose. One that got chosen for you, where you just...fit into bigger things that were happening around you. I know what that's like. And..." shit this is hard "and I know you've done terrible things. On a whim, as a job, whatever. But now I know a lot more about that too. Maybe this whole time, I had to go out into the world, and suffer, over and over again, until I turned into the person who could call down gems out of the sky, rust out a city of millions of people. All of the cities. Refugees, homeless, hungry, because of me."
"How many people did I kill, do you think? I...don't have the guts to even ask. You think you've killed that many, Aimi? I doubt it. You'd be one busy girl. And I did it all, and now, it looks like...like it might have all been a mistake. I might have done just what the Enemy wanted. I can't even know if the things I've done...if they were right. I can't even know if they were right."
A long pause stretches out between us. Now she's looking at me, and I'm looking away.
"If...if we get through this...if we are going to survive...we can't know what will happen. Its too much. No one understands. Elder Moon doesn't understand. Jin-Kalys doesn't understand. We don't understand. Maybe Mokuzai would see it, but he's gone. Maybe peace is gone. But, " I look back at her "but I know, I know that if we don't trust, then we'll die. If we can't trust, we'll all die, one way or another. No trust, no hope. That's it." I feel myself trail off.
She smirks slowly and broadly. "Moses. Are you saying you trust me? Because I'm still a very bad girl." She clenches her little fist again and the blade leaps to life.
I don't move, and she wilts, just a little, thrown again. I don't know why I want her to see. I don't know if she can. Is she going to understand me, now? Is she going to forgive me? Hardly. I might as well ask the lamp-post outside for reassurance. She's a dead little girl. Maybe not dead, not yet. I guess we'll see, now.
"Maybe. Kyoshi does. Rei does." I pause. "And look. I don't think you can stop me, if it comes to it. And I don't sleep anymore. You seem to like Zip. Rei is family. You love Kyoshi. I don't know if anything can kill Baldr. HighDive can kill anything, and I think you know it after the fight today. And Una saved your life, so killing her would be...just really sick. I think you'd need a reason to kill Raoul. I wouldn't try Ichirou. And...as far as Kyoshi knows, you spared Namie. So I told myself those things, and I decided to give you the glove back."
"And who knows? Maybe, I hope, I won't regret it."
I go out just as Kyoshi is going in. He looks alarmed, sees Aimi with her blade out, looks back at me, but I'm still walking. I'll let her tell him all about it.
***
I get lost looking for my own tent, and when I come in I wake Zipporah up. She rolls over to look at me from under the covers - I realize its cold outside and close the tent flap. The brazier inside starts re-heating the small space.
"Moses...are you going to sleep tonight?"
I stand there for a moment, take a deep breath and feel myself unwind. I give her my best sly smirk.
"Nope." And I don't leave the warmth of the tent after that.
For what feels like the hundredth time today I wonder if Kyoshi would fly me to Marina. I know its gone way past that, but...I tried, and failed. Too heavy. Too much.
I shake my head, huff out another harsher sigh and lay the thing down in front of me. In the glare of the electric lights it looks like a big, wilted flower. I can see veins of some kind of metal through it. I look for a power source, and can't find one. It must run on psychic energy or something.
I spend some time looking at it closely, and then I separate out some leads from the cable and attach them to what seem like nodes in the webwork. When I switch the power on, the glove lights up. I can see channels of energy flowing through it. They're just fading into the air, becoming heat, because in this they don't do anything, but it lets me see where the web is broken, torn, thinned, stretched...I am about to ground myself and get to work before it hits me.
There's the red glow, there, and then its...healed. Looks good as new, the webs of energy still shining to my eyes. Now, seeing more of how it fits together, I can see how it might be modified. I couldn't tell you, or draw up a diagram or anything. I just...see. I hunch down and get to work, careful but quick.
When I'm done, I detach the leads after I cut the power.
I think I saw where they brought Aimi. Kyoshi is probably still talking to his brother.
***
She's there, and looks surprised to see me, then looks like the cocky nothing she usually gives everyone.
"Looking to sow your wild rice already, Moses? Why, your litter isn't even born yet." She gives me a look that would be alluring from anyone else. Her eyes are still like one-way glass.
"No. I've, uh, I've actually got a present."
"Listen. Moses. I'm taken. If I wanted to fuck a machine, I'm sure I could make that happen without all the smell and the talking. So if you've got flowers or candy or something, I'm really flattered, but -"
She shuts right up when I hold up the glove. Yeah, Aimi, it isn't that hard to figure out what you want.
"I've seen you playing around with weapons you find. Well, not playing. I know you're dangerous. But they just don't fit the bill, do they?" She just watches my hand. I know she's measuring for a leap. "Its good as new. Better than new, actually. I figured, you know, the stuff we end up fighting, its usually bad to get close. So now you can sort of discharge the energy you make from a distance. Not that far, maybe ten meters or so, and it won't do as much as it does otherwise, but..." She's breathing harder. I suddenly feel bad and disturbed all at once. I want her to listen, though, this once, so I toss her the glove. She snatches it out of the air with a flash and slides it over her arm in a motion that's almost too quick to see. She clenches her deadly little fist and out flashes the pink blade.
She looks up at me, almost unguarded, almost actually here. "I don't get it, Moses. What's the deal? You're not trying to seduce me - it must be the lack of a tail. I figured Rei would get this fixed and give it back to me. But you? It doesn't add up."
How to say it?
"When we met, a year ago, in the control room for the lift out of Goshi Mine...you know, I've never been afraid of you. Don't get all offended. I know you're an assassin, but...after a cable-car load of tentacled eyeless, you weren't that scary. What scared me was...I was scared for the other people you might hurt, the other people you could get to. That we might have sacrificed so much just to be free, and you could ruin it all on a whim, or because it was your job. It was...I didn't understand how someone could be like that." Her eyes are glass again. "No! Listen, I'm not done."
I look at her until she stops pretending to be admiring her glove. "Listen. I...know what it means...to be made for a purpose. One you sort of chose, maybe, but never really got to choose. One that got chosen for you, where you just...fit into bigger things that were happening around you. I know what that's like. And..." shit this is hard "and I know you've done terrible things. On a whim, as a job, whatever. But now I know a lot more about that too. Maybe this whole time, I had to go out into the world, and suffer, over and over again, until I turned into the person who could call down gems out of the sky, rust out a city of millions of people. All of the cities. Refugees, homeless, hungry, because of me."
"How many people did I kill, do you think? I...don't have the guts to even ask. You think you've killed that many, Aimi? I doubt it. You'd be one busy girl. And I did it all, and now, it looks like...like it might have all been a mistake. I might have done just what the Enemy wanted. I can't even know if the things I've done...if they were right. I can't even know if they were right."
A long pause stretches out between us. Now she's looking at me, and I'm looking away.
"If...if we get through this...if we are going to survive...we can't know what will happen. Its too much. No one understands. Elder Moon doesn't understand. Jin-Kalys doesn't understand. We don't understand. Maybe Mokuzai would see it, but he's gone. Maybe peace is gone. But, " I look back at her "but I know, I know that if we don't trust, then we'll die. If we can't trust, we'll all die, one way or another. No trust, no hope. That's it." I feel myself trail off.
She smirks slowly and broadly. "Moses. Are you saying you trust me? Because I'm still a very bad girl." She clenches her little fist again and the blade leaps to life.
I don't move, and she wilts, just a little, thrown again. I don't know why I want her to see. I don't know if she can. Is she going to understand me, now? Is she going to forgive me? Hardly. I might as well ask the lamp-post outside for reassurance. She's a dead little girl. Maybe not dead, not yet. I guess we'll see, now.
"Maybe. Kyoshi does. Rei does." I pause. "And look. I don't think you can stop me, if it comes to it. And I don't sleep anymore. You seem to like Zip. Rei is family. You love Kyoshi. I don't know if anything can kill Baldr. HighDive can kill anything, and I think you know it after the fight today. And Una saved your life, so killing her would be...just really sick. I think you'd need a reason to kill Raoul. I wouldn't try Ichirou. And...as far as Kyoshi knows, you spared Namie. So I told myself those things, and I decided to give you the glove back."
"And who knows? Maybe, I hope, I won't regret it."
I go out just as Kyoshi is going in. He looks alarmed, sees Aimi with her blade out, looks back at me, but I'm still walking. I'll let her tell him all about it.
***
I get lost looking for my own tent, and when I come in I wake Zipporah up. She rolls over to look at me from under the covers - I realize its cold outside and close the tent flap. The brazier inside starts re-heating the small space.
"Moses...are you going to sleep tonight?"
I stand there for a moment, take a deep breath and feel myself unwind. I give her my best sly smirk.
"Nope." And I don't leave the warmth of the tent after that.
The Signal
At last, Moses is able to press his way through the throngs of gawkers and cheering Mechified, shouted greetings and growled curses, thrown garlands and bottles. He is clutching a crumpled sheet of paper to his chest. Zipporah is nimbly slipping along behind him in the space that he makes like a gleaming metallic ship in a sea of pressing bodies and hammering sound. Her ears are pressed to her head and she has a fistfull of his coveralls so they aren't separated. He is always aware of her, and will reach back now and then to pull her forward or gently but firmly push people to either side.
He enters the telegraph station, creaking and tottering on its foundation, but only mostly rusted away, and still servicing underground cables. The technicians, all Mechified, are standing when he comes in, eyes wide, shifting from foot to foot nervously, looking at each other. The floor is knee-deep in coiled paper with endless messages printed on meter after meter of it.
Moses nods to the Mechified. "I have a message to send."
They start, and then all settle back into their seats and prepare to transmit. I don't know if I can send this everywhere, so I'll have to do this the normal way.
He clears his throat and reads from the crumpled piece of paper.
"Begin."
"My name is Moses, and I am the servant of the power of Karia that has brought Goshi low."
"Stop."
"I have done this to bring freedom to my people, and I have learned in the past months that all Cheldrun and all Karians are my people."
"Stop."
"Now I am leading all who will follow me to Stardown."
"Stop."
"We are going to Stardown to face the Enemy and to defeat them once and for all."
"Stop."
"Goshi is broken but not yet fully defeated, and they will make a last attempt at facing us in open war."
"Stop."
"We will defeat them once and for all, as we have defeated Katashi Blade, because they have been serving our Enemy all this time."
"Stop."
"Any soldiers or other employees serving Goshi should know this -"
"Stop."
"-that you have this chance, this final chance, to leave Goshi and start a new life for yourself."
"Stop."
"Because when you bring war to us, we are going to crush you utterly, so that nothing of Goshi will remain on the face of Karia."
"Stop."
"All who wish to join us in Stardown to fight for the fate of all Karia should gather there with all of the resources you can bring."
"Stop."
"All who don't want to join us should rebuild your lives, and choose new leaders for yourselves now that Goshi is broken and its power is coming to an end forever."
"Stop."
"If we win, then use your freedom to build better lives for yourselves and to become better people, Cheldrun and Karian together."
"Stop."
"If we lose, then this is goodbye."
"Stop."
"Never stop fighting for what's right."
"Full Stop."
He enters the telegraph station, creaking and tottering on its foundation, but only mostly rusted away, and still servicing underground cables. The technicians, all Mechified, are standing when he comes in, eyes wide, shifting from foot to foot nervously, looking at each other. The floor is knee-deep in coiled paper with endless messages printed on meter after meter of it.
Moses nods to the Mechified. "I have a message to send."
They start, and then all settle back into their seats and prepare to transmit. I don't know if I can send this everywhere, so I'll have to do this the normal way.
He clears his throat and reads from the crumpled piece of paper.
"Begin."
"My name is Moses, and I am the servant of the power of Karia that has brought Goshi low."
"Stop."
"I have done this to bring freedom to my people, and I have learned in the past months that all Cheldrun and all Karians are my people."
"Stop."
"Now I am leading all who will follow me to Stardown."
"Stop."
"We are going to Stardown to face the Enemy and to defeat them once and for all."
"Stop."
"Goshi is broken but not yet fully defeated, and they will make a last attempt at facing us in open war."
"Stop."
"We will defeat them once and for all, as we have defeated Katashi Blade, because they have been serving our Enemy all this time."
"Stop."
"Any soldiers or other employees serving Goshi should know this -"
"Stop."
"-that you have this chance, this final chance, to leave Goshi and start a new life for yourself."
"Stop."
"Because when you bring war to us, we are going to crush you utterly, so that nothing of Goshi will remain on the face of Karia."
"Stop."
"All who wish to join us in Stardown to fight for the fate of all Karia should gather there with all of the resources you can bring."
"Stop."
"All who don't want to join us should rebuild your lives, and choose new leaders for yourselves now that Goshi is broken and its power is coming to an end forever."
"Stop."
"If we win, then use your freedom to build better lives for yourselves and to become better people, Cheldrun and Karian together."
"Stop."
"If we lose, then this is goodbye."
"Stop."
"Never stop fighting for what's right."
"Full Stop."
Episode 28: Go Down Moses
First Minds.
First Minds, all watching me with those eyes so much like mine, so much like Nero's. I want to rush forward and embrace them all. I want to tell them everything. I want this moment, this culmination to last forever. I want to hold them still while Amaterasu devours them, and laugh while they die.
Rei, tasty-tasty-tasty white-rock ooooh let me out mana mana manamanamana tasty mana-beings and I will share with you, oh yes, if you let me out to feed I am generous and will give you lovely bits of mana...
I sometimes wonder how I ever got by without Amaterasu-chan. They're all watching me now. "You went on ahead," The One Who Bridges The Gap says. "Tell us of your time on the planet. How long have you been here? Did you come of your own free will, or were you called?"
"Many, many years," I reply. "I was called to this place by the meddling of a man named Inase Spark. A man who meddled overmuch with the Stone That Shines to the Stars."
One of the First Minds looks to the One Who Bridges The Gap, and I know that I have been discovered.
"Inase Spark," The One Who Bridges the Gap replies, "That makes sense. And you are aware of our decision? About the question?"
He knows. He knows. He knows. I don't care. I stand my ground. "Decision?"
"Yes. Made after great deliberation by the conclave."
He explains. He explains that they sought a way to halt the unraveling by controlled consumption, but it was not enough. It delayed the process of the unraveling, but did not halt it. He explains that the conclave decided that if they were to cease to be, then they would not cease before the Question had come to a satisfactory answer, and the only satisfactory answer would be one of their own choosing: 'No.'
Mikomi, Mikomi, Reikomi, Mikorei... it looks so tasty, all that white-rock, all that mana, oh please let me out. I'll give you a present! Mana! You like mana, don't you Rei? I know you do. You like it just as much as I do, and look at all of it sitting there in that whiterock and in those scrumptious, scrumptious Firsty-Minds, oh let me out, please, please, please...
Is this what it feels like to go mad? No. Moses and Kiyoshi think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Ama-chan keeps me sane. That's her gift to me. Her thoughts shine like the sun, and now, so do mine. Wonderful, burning thoughts like sunbeams searing through meat and bone...
"Some of us opposed the answering of the question on our own. They called it self-indulgent. We have... silenced them. Destroyed them. There are none of us who are not Resistors, now. No tools of the All who are not Resistors can be allowed to exist. But you know this."
I nod, playing along, although both of us know that it's only that. I wonder why he hasn't tried to kill me, and I can only suppose that he's curious about... me. About a hybrid. Half Cheldrun, half First Mind? ... I don't know what to think of that. I don't feel divided into halves. I feel like me.
I feel like you, too.
Thanks, Ama-chan.
"I have encountered the tools of the All native to this world. The Dusk Sages," I say.
"Ah, then you have destroyed them?"
I nod. "That is a fair assessment."
He looks at me for a long moment. "... Good. If that's so, then the DisLocators should stop working, but perhaps they have outlived their usefulness."
It is only sheer force of will that prevents me from visibly reacting to that statement. My thoughts race. I had no idea. No idea. But looking back at it now, it's so obvious, so very obvious...
What's obvious is that you should let me out, Rei-chan. Rei-chan Rei-chan Mikomikomiko-chan, Rei-chan Rei-chan Mik0mikomiko-chan... Deliciousness, deliciousness...
I swallow once before I trust my voice to continue. "And what of the Kyo-TeeShee?" At his confused look, I explain: "The Oni of the Dusk Sages."
"Irrelevant. Ultimately, they will serve our ends, whether they know it or not."
"I see."
He looks at me with a horribly seeing sort of gaze, then, and he says, "One Who Hopes, you will fulfill your part in the conjunction that is to come, yes?"
I feel a peculiar sense of crawling within my skin, and I barely repress a shudder. "What would you have me do?" I ask.
"The life of Karia will attempt a meeting: a misguided meeting. You have lived among them. They think you one of them. You must ensure that the Answers to the Question fizzle out before the grand conjunction can occur."
"... I'll see what I can do," I say. My eyes stray to the White-Rock.
Tasty, tasty, and I promise to share!
He nods, and the others seem satisfied.
"If the kyo-teeshee will ultimately serve your goals regardless of what they will," I say, summoning forth Ama-chan as a primal fire, "Then maybe we should let them get to it."
Ama-chan, feed.
I attempt to teleport.
Nothing.
Amaterasu surges towards the White-Rock, but even as she moves, the Dusk Sages simply reach up their hands, and chunks of her break off and flow into them, and she shrieks in agony. For a long tortured moment I see her, my other self, writhing in agony being torn to pieces as the First Minds feed on her. In a panic, I draw her back to me, and she flows into a corner of my mind and into my arms, gibbering and weeping, and her pain staggers me.
"You should go now," The One Who Bridges the Gap tells me, looking at me disapprovingly.
I nod, barely containing my wrath, my anger, my hatred for these beings. THEY HURT AMA-CHAN. "You'll have to forgive her. She's a bit... impetuous." I meet The One Who Bridges the Gap's gaze. "I'll see you again," I say.
"Perhaps. If you are not unraveled before then."
I teleport, and for a moment it catches... and then I slip through, as though I had only left because they allowed it.
It rankles. First Minds, how it rankles... hah! I can't swear by them anymore. My destination... my destination is the only place I know of where they might be able to help Ama-chan:
The Grand Chantry.
Even as I vanish in a puff of smoke, I wonder how deep their influence goes, how much is my will and how much theirs, and whether my connection to them might be the doom of us all.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
It's briefly disorienting, suddenly being elsewhere. All at once, I am in the central plaza of the Grand Chantry, nevergems gleaming brilliantly all around, the noises of the Prill city ring loudly in my ears. They do not react well to the sight of someone appearing in a whirl of smoke. The alarm is sounded almost immediately. Songs of alarm, songs of warning, songs of protection, songs of destruction. The latter are aimed at me, I suppose.
Amaterasu's pain snaps me out of my daze, and I call out, "I mean no harm! I need help! I need to see Elder Moon!"
After a few tense moments, a confused voice calls out. "Rei?"
I look up, and familiarity hits me like a physical blow. For a moment I don't understand what I'm seeing, and then... "Ramora?" I ask.
People are staring, and Amaterasu is bleeding a thin rainbow coloured liquid. Her right arm is gone, and there are large chunks missing from her abdomen. My heart clenches.
"Rei, what are you doing here? We heard that you had all died!"
I look up. For the briefest of moments I see Mokuzai all in bits and pieces before me. "We're alive. We were on the Wandering Star."
Ramora breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank the Sages for that. You have to tell Elder Moon. She's been in a panic for days, saying that Elder Mokuzai is dead!"
Pain. For a moment I'm not sure if it's mine or Amaterasu's. Maybe it doesn't matter. I look away. "... Mokuzai is dead," I reply.
He staggers visibly, going absolutely pale.
"I need to see Elder Moon," I say.
The meeting doesn't go well. I try, but Moon is full of grief and pain. Her mate is dead, and it is a strange word. The strangeness of the word does not make him less dead. She will not help Amaterasu. She says that the war will never end, that there is no peace.
I try to explain. I try to tell her about how even if the war will never end, it's still worthwhile to fight to preserve today, and the next day. That it's still worth fighting, for one another.
She tells me not to return unless it's with Mokuzai's body.
I leave her to her grief.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
The world lurches, and all at once I am in the glade outside of the Grand Chantry where Inari's Grandmother once stood. The glade still shows signs of Asamu-Oni's influence. Grass grows only from those few patches of ground that avoided his touch, and the fallen tree which still dominates much of the glade is a chalky gray colour, like ashes. I smell decay.
Amaterasu's pain still hovers in the back of my mind, and I will need to teleport again today. A deer trail runs across the edge of the glade, and I notice fresh droppings alongside it. I examine the area for a few moments, and then set out westward. Five minutes later, I come across a sickly hart lying on its side and panting for breath, it antlers digging deep furrows in the earth.
My psychic knife flickers to life.
It only takes two strikes. Two strikes, and I am full of energy again. It feels good, and I feel vaguely unsettled about that.
As I walk back towards the clearing, I offer Ama-chan some mana, which she eats greedily. It seems to go a long way towards healing her. Then I try to teleport back to the Sennin... and nothing happens. There's a hollow sense in my head, and I can't account for it.
I sit down and think for a moment. If they're no longer on the Wandering Star, then where would they be?
Una... probably wouldn't care where they went. The psychological stress factors caused by a continuous depressed state seem to have drained her volition.
High Dive... probably wouldn't care where they went, since she's happy as long as she has candy and things to kill.
Kiyoshi... maybe to visit his family in Matamos?
Moses...
My eyes widen, and I distinctly recall him having said that he needed to go to Geneva Prime and speak with Katashi Blade. "He wouldn't..." I whisper.
He would. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing he would do.
I rise to my feet and reabsorb Amaterasu for the journey, and then I teleport.
Home.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
Home.
My room materializes around me, and for a moment it is just as I left it, shielded bed in the center, a desk off to the side, a dresser with two week's worth of clothing it it in the far corner, cameras lining the walls.
But it's not real. It's less than a memory. An echo of what was. The distant past, and not even compelling enough to seem like more than the memory of an unpleasant dream. My knife flickers to life on my hand, and its pink glow displays the truth of the room. The desk is gone. The dresser is gone. The bed is gone. The cameras are gone. Dust covers the bare floor, and not even force or energy flow through the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Empty. Less than a memory.
I open a panel next to the door and hit the manual release for the door's magnetic clamp. It pops open with a faint hiss, and I slip out into the greater complex.
Empty. Dark. Dusty. Nothing except for me and my psychic knife.
And then Ama-chan is with me, shining, illuminating the hallway, and I'm no longer alone. It's a strange thing to have company here. It's like... having another Aimi, maybe. Ama-chan isn't very much like Aimi, though. Though I suppose they do both kill people spectacularly. I find myself wondering where Malicious is in all this, whether she's working for Katashi Blade as well, or escaped, or dead, or... I don't know why that would bother me. I hate her.
I walk past the corridor where Malicious mind-blasted me for 'being difficult,' and I can almost feel the pain of it all over again.
"I'm hungry," Amaterasu says as we walk.
I roll my eyes. "You're always hungry."
"Mana?" she asks, a hopeful look on her face. And then there is a flicker of... I don't know. Something. I don't know what she's thinking. "Onee-san, please?"
I stop in my tracks and stare at the little girl walking next to me. Onee-san.
Older sister.
It makes me... happy?
"Maybe later," I say fondly. "When we find Moses, I might need you to shine for me, Ama-chan. If I give you some mana, can you do that?"
She nods enthusiastically. "Mana mana mana-mana-mana," she sing-songs, and initiates a series of movements which I do not immediately recognize. A moment later, I realize that she is dancing. Dancing and... singing? I don't catch all of the lyrics, but it's a nonsense song about how tasty mana is, and how 'her Onee-san' gives her mana when she's hungry.'
I raise an eyebrow. Singing and dancing. I've heard of this, even seen the Gogajin do it during our stay with them, but it seems oddly out of place to see Ama-chan doing it. I find myself wondering exactly how much is left of the Dusk Sage that she was before she became a Kyo-TeeShee.
It is then that I notice a door ajar close at hand - the only door in the whole complex that I've found ajar. I turn.
Nero's room. My eyes widen ever so slightly, and I feel that old familiar mixture of emotional responses. Fear. Hatred. Familial affection. Rage. I see the boogeyman - the Enemy - hiding under my bed. I see the monster in the closet. I see the Jevuum Cheldrun-Eater that Sever and Stitch used to tell frightening stories about when we were younger. And all of these figures share one thing in common: They all have Nero's eyes.
I push the door fully open, and it clanks loudly against the blank wall within.
Empty. Sterilized. Nothing, except...
Except for the First Mind runes carved into the blank, empty walls, ceiling, and floor.
How long has this been going on, I wonder? How long has Nero known about this? He'd always seemed wrong, but when did it really begin for him? I wonder...
I turn away from his room and head for the exit, and Ama-chan follows just behind me.
--------------
I step into the tunnel system beneath Geneva Prime, and it is silent. At first.
It begins as whispers in the back of my skull. Just whispers. Whisperwhisperwhisper. I put a hand to my forehead, and Ama-chan looks at me questioningly.
"It's nothing," I say.
She nods. "Let's go somewhere where there's mana," she says.
I shake my head and call her back into me. She vanishes in a swirl of fire.
Her own thoughts like the sun join the whispers in my mind. I continue moving forward, and all at once the whispers crescendo into a roar that drowns out everything.
Everything.
I... I is a category mistake. We are the underground market. We are Samophlange Jack, and Ishmael, and Yamamoto Eiko of the Jade Falcon clan, and Tamaguchi Unryu of the Ruby Hawk clan, and the beggar on the street who lost everything when Goshi deposed the government, and the purveyor of knick-knacks who hates his job, and the courtesan living in luxury when her whole family fell into ruin now accompanying a minor Goshi executive to a hotel on the other side of the city, and the message boy whose mother warned him to be very careful in the underground, and the father showing his chidren the underground market, and the nobleman pretending to be a biomade buying a rifle from a gun shop, and the pregnant Allskin woman - Aiko - making her way home after a long day working as a barmaid, and the young thief whose hand was even now coming near the being that bore the function of the underground market, but he sees that she is in pain, and falls to her knees, and she has a psychic gauntlet, and that's bad news so he draws back and goes the other way... and... and... and... and...
‘God that woman is hot. I would do her again and again.’
‘I wish he wouldn’t look at me like that.’
‘I want an ice cream cone.’
‘I hate this job.’
‘I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU!’
‘Maybe I should just tell him off.’
‘Here’s how to...’
‘I will always love you.’
'Why did I ever decide it was a good idea to have a baby?'
‘I want...’
‘I wonder what would happen if I cut my finger off. I guess I wouldn't have a finger.’
‘That’s a big...’
'Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to strangers.'
‘It’s the thing you hate the most.’
‘I’m getting old. Old and fat. Fat and bald and old. I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate my stupid, fat, bald, old face.’
‘Looks like you gained a few pounds, you cow.’
'Mama said be careful. I mustn't talk to strangers.'
‘Do you often sing or whistle just for fun? What does that mean?’
‘It’s the thing you hate the most.’
‘I want...’
‘I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU...’
‘I should tell her how I feel. Even if she doesn’t like me, she might still be willing to do me.’
‘Old, fat, bald, stupid... Age is against me. The world is against me. The children here are lucky. They’re young. Not like me.'
‘Oh God. I knew this was going to happen.’
'Why won't daddy buy me an ice cream? I WANT AN ICE CREAM!'
and...
and...
and...
and...
and...
and I come to my senses with a shocking kind of suddenness.
I am standing at the entrance to the underground market, and the long missed background hum of the minds of everyone around me buzzes comfortably in the back of my awareness. I realize with a start that it has been months since I had been in the presence of more than seventeen Cheldrun minds simultaneously, and I brush my hair out of my eyes and move on.
'Oh shit, isn't that Rei?'
The thought is faint but clear, and I immediately turn towards the mind from whence it came.
There.
I follow the figure around the corner, and...
I blink. She looks familiar, somehow.
... "Terry?" I ask. Terry the Canary. The mechified who was with the UMA... so long ago.
She stares at me in horror, and I am her. Oh First Minds this is bad I can't be seen with her with Rei I already told them everything and they'll think I'm with the UMA! Oh, First minds this is bad, oh fuck, I can't be seen with her...!
No. I know who I am and what I want, at least for now. I am Rei, and I want to save Moses from his own bad judgment, his own poor strategic planning.
"I'll let you be on your way on two conditions, Terry. First, answer my questions. Second, forget you ever saw me. Is this an acceptable arrangement?"
She nods. "What are you doing here, Rei?" she asks, and in her head, she is screaming.
"Following Moses," I say. "Here to be a hero."
At the mention of Moses, her thoughts go into overdrive panic-mode. "You're way, way too late," she says. "Where were you when Goshi was taking over? You ran away. You and the others. You left us here."
"It's never too late, Terry," I say. "The time to be a hero is always 'now.'"
Her thoughts turn bitter. 'Yeah right, bitch. If you were really a hero, you'd do something about Mickey and the Surgeon.' And I see them both. Mickey, driven nearly mad by Nero's psychic thumb print. The Surgeon, black-listed and destitute.
I consider the two alternatives. The Surgeon would be more tactically useful, and I might actually be able to help him: I don't know if I can do anything for Mickey. "Where's the Surgeon?" I ask.
She holds up a brown paper bag and thinks of his address. "I was just on my way to take him some lunch before I ran into you," she says. She doesn't think of me as 'Rei' in her mind. She thinks of me as 'Assassin bitch.'
I hold out my hand. "Give me the lunch, and I'll take it to him," I say.
She looks at me incredulously for a moment, but she does hand me the lunch.
"Goodbye," I say. I vanish, and I have just enough time to see her eyes widen in surprise before the Dislocation takes me to a small, dirty tenement in the middle of the Mechified slums. Goshi Tower looms large in the distance, and I hear the faint sound of explosions echoing off from somewhere, and smoke rising from... is that a rail line? I shake my head and enter the tenament.
He's at the bottom floor, and he is surprised to see me. His skills are being wasted here, and I tell him so, but he says that he's out of luck: he's been blacklisted. I think about the situation for a moment, and then I tell him the tactical situation: Moses is here.
He nearly chokes on the water he's drinking.
"He's here to kill Katashi Blade, but he's walking into an ambush. I will not allow Moses to die, Surgeon. It will not happen. In exchange for your assistance in saving him, we will take you with us. We can use a good medic, and we have both the means and the will to put your skills to good use."
He thinks it over for a moment, and then gives his mental assent. "What do you need?" he asks.
"Explosives. Lots of explosives."
He looks around at his run down, empty shop, then glances at me. "Well, I don't have that, but I do have something that might be helpful." He moves over to a curtain covering a hole in the wall at the back of the shop and pulls it aside. "Meet the Bronze god."
He steps out from behind the curtain, a... gogajin... mechified? His skin is puckered and horrifically scarred, and his mechanical parts are made out of bronze, but I still recognize the figure that steps forward.
It's not explosives, but it will do.
"Hello, Balder," I say in his own language.
He raises an eyebrow, looking me up and down. "Well, fuck me!" he says incredulously.
"No."
He laughs.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
Ten minutes later, after I've sent the Surgeon to the rendevous point outside the city and explained the situation to Balder and successfully enlisted his aid in mounting a rescue operation for Moses, we appear two floors short of the topmost floor of Goshi tower, and Balder immediately looks around for enemies. There are none. There is only the voice of an office lady assuring her lover over a comm-device that she's perfectly safe this high up.
Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi's thoughts. Kiyoshi's mind. In the elevator. Going up. Kiyoshi and Moses and... someone I don't recognize. Someone whose thoughts are cold and harsh and unwelcoming. Hurricane? No, she's dead. Rain. Going to see the Executor...
Oh hell.
The office lady notices us just as we are boarding the elevator. I tell her to get out of the building as fast as she can, and don't wait to see if she does it. The elevator only goes up one more floor. Damn. Not the right lift. We go up.
The doors open, and...
Una?
High Dive?
There they are, Una pacing back and forth in front of the lift, High Dive sitting in a corner in squirrel-form eating a whole bowl of candy.
For a moment, we all just stare at each other. Then Una asks, "Rei?"
There is a note of distrust in her voice that was not there before. It it... disconcerting.
"I brought Balder," I say as I step out of the elevator. "Why are you here, Una? Why aren't you up there with Kiyoshi and Moses?"
She looks suspicious. Is she... angry at me? Maybe. I can't tell. Karians are hard to read. "We're the backup," Una says. "We're supposed to go in if things get bad."
"Things are bad," I tell her. Things are very, very bad. I will not allow Moses to die. Not like this. Not at the hands of one of THEM.
"What do you mean?" Una asks.
" Katashi Blade is a First Mind."
First Minds, all watching me with those eyes so much like mine, so much like Nero's. I want to rush forward and embrace them all. I want to tell them everything. I want this moment, this culmination to last forever. I want to hold them still while Amaterasu devours them, and laugh while they die.
Rei, tasty-tasty-tasty white-rock ooooh let me out mana mana manamanamana tasty mana-beings and I will share with you, oh yes, if you let me out to feed I am generous and will give you lovely bits of mana...
I sometimes wonder how I ever got by without Amaterasu-chan. They're all watching me now. "You went on ahead," The One Who Bridges The Gap says. "Tell us of your time on the planet. How long have you been here? Did you come of your own free will, or were you called?"
"Many, many years," I reply. "I was called to this place by the meddling of a man named Inase Spark. A man who meddled overmuch with the Stone That Shines to the Stars."
One of the First Minds looks to the One Who Bridges The Gap, and I know that I have been discovered.
"Inase Spark," The One Who Bridges the Gap replies, "That makes sense. And you are aware of our decision? About the question?"
He knows. He knows. He knows. I don't care. I stand my ground. "Decision?"
"Yes. Made after great deliberation by the conclave."
He explains. He explains that they sought a way to halt the unraveling by controlled consumption, but it was not enough. It delayed the process of the unraveling, but did not halt it. He explains that the conclave decided that if they were to cease to be, then they would not cease before the Question had come to a satisfactory answer, and the only satisfactory answer would be one of their own choosing: 'No.'
Mikomi, Mikomi, Reikomi, Mikorei... it looks so tasty, all that white-rock, all that mana, oh please let me out. I'll give you a present! Mana! You like mana, don't you Rei? I know you do. You like it just as much as I do, and look at all of it sitting there in that whiterock and in those scrumptious, scrumptious Firsty-Minds, oh let me out, please, please, please...
Is this what it feels like to go mad? No. Moses and Kiyoshi think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Ama-chan keeps me sane. That's her gift to me. Her thoughts shine like the sun, and now, so do mine. Wonderful, burning thoughts like sunbeams searing through meat and bone...
"Some of us opposed the answering of the question on our own. They called it self-indulgent. We have... silenced them. Destroyed them. There are none of us who are not Resistors, now. No tools of the All who are not Resistors can be allowed to exist. But you know this."
I nod, playing along, although both of us know that it's only that. I wonder why he hasn't tried to kill me, and I can only suppose that he's curious about... me. About a hybrid. Half Cheldrun, half First Mind? ... I don't know what to think of that. I don't feel divided into halves. I feel like me.
I feel like you, too.
Thanks, Ama-chan.
"I have encountered the tools of the All native to this world. The Dusk Sages," I say.
"Ah, then you have destroyed them?"
I nod. "That is a fair assessment."
He looks at me for a long moment. "... Good. If that's so, then the DisLocators should stop working, but perhaps they have outlived their usefulness."
It is only sheer force of will that prevents me from visibly reacting to that statement. My thoughts race. I had no idea. No idea. But looking back at it now, it's so obvious, so very obvious...
What's obvious is that you should let me out, Rei-chan. Rei-chan Rei-chan Mikomikomiko-chan, Rei-chan Rei-chan Mik0mikomiko-chan... Deliciousness, deliciousness...
I swallow once before I trust my voice to continue. "And what of the Kyo-TeeShee?" At his confused look, I explain: "The Oni of the Dusk Sages."
"Irrelevant. Ultimately, they will serve our ends, whether they know it or not."
"I see."
He looks at me with a horribly seeing sort of gaze, then, and he says, "One Who Hopes, you will fulfill your part in the conjunction that is to come, yes?"
I feel a peculiar sense of crawling within my skin, and I barely repress a shudder. "What would you have me do?" I ask.
"The life of Karia will attempt a meeting: a misguided meeting. You have lived among them. They think you one of them. You must ensure that the Answers to the Question fizzle out before the grand conjunction can occur."
"... I'll see what I can do," I say. My eyes stray to the White-Rock.
Tasty, tasty, and I promise to share!
He nods, and the others seem satisfied.
"If the kyo-teeshee will ultimately serve your goals regardless of what they will," I say, summoning forth Ama-chan as a primal fire, "Then maybe we should let them get to it."
Ama-chan, feed.
I attempt to teleport.
Nothing.
Amaterasu surges towards the White-Rock, but even as she moves, the Dusk Sages simply reach up their hands, and chunks of her break off and flow into them, and she shrieks in agony. For a long tortured moment I see her, my other self, writhing in agony being torn to pieces as the First Minds feed on her. In a panic, I draw her back to me, and she flows into a corner of my mind and into my arms, gibbering and weeping, and her pain staggers me.
"You should go now," The One Who Bridges the Gap tells me, looking at me disapprovingly.
I nod, barely containing my wrath, my anger, my hatred for these beings. THEY HURT AMA-CHAN. "You'll have to forgive her. She's a bit... impetuous." I meet The One Who Bridges the Gap's gaze. "I'll see you again," I say.
"Perhaps. If you are not unraveled before then."
I teleport, and for a moment it catches... and then I slip through, as though I had only left because they allowed it.
It rankles. First Minds, how it rankles... hah! I can't swear by them anymore. My destination... my destination is the only place I know of where they might be able to help Ama-chan:
The Grand Chantry.
Even as I vanish in a puff of smoke, I wonder how deep their influence goes, how much is my will and how much theirs, and whether my connection to them might be the doom of us all.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
It's briefly disorienting, suddenly being elsewhere. All at once, I am in the central plaza of the Grand Chantry, nevergems gleaming brilliantly all around, the noises of the Prill city ring loudly in my ears. They do not react well to the sight of someone appearing in a whirl of smoke. The alarm is sounded almost immediately. Songs of alarm, songs of warning, songs of protection, songs of destruction. The latter are aimed at me, I suppose.
Amaterasu's pain snaps me out of my daze, and I call out, "I mean no harm! I need help! I need to see Elder Moon!"
After a few tense moments, a confused voice calls out. "Rei?"
I look up, and familiarity hits me like a physical blow. For a moment I don't understand what I'm seeing, and then... "Ramora?" I ask.
People are staring, and Amaterasu is bleeding a thin rainbow coloured liquid. Her right arm is gone, and there are large chunks missing from her abdomen. My heart clenches.
"Rei, what are you doing here? We heard that you had all died!"
I look up. For the briefest of moments I see Mokuzai all in bits and pieces before me. "We're alive. We were on the Wandering Star."
Ramora breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank the Sages for that. You have to tell Elder Moon. She's been in a panic for days, saying that Elder Mokuzai is dead!"
Pain. For a moment I'm not sure if it's mine or Amaterasu's. Maybe it doesn't matter. I look away. "... Mokuzai is dead," I reply.
He staggers visibly, going absolutely pale.
"I need to see Elder Moon," I say.
The meeting doesn't go well. I try, but Moon is full of grief and pain. Her mate is dead, and it is a strange word. The strangeness of the word does not make him less dead. She will not help Amaterasu. She says that the war will never end, that there is no peace.
I try to explain. I try to tell her about how even if the war will never end, it's still worthwhile to fight to preserve today, and the next day. That it's still worth fighting, for one another.
She tells me not to return unless it's with Mokuzai's body.
I leave her to her grief.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
The world lurches, and all at once I am in the glade outside of the Grand Chantry where Inari's Grandmother once stood. The glade still shows signs of Asamu-Oni's influence. Grass grows only from those few patches of ground that avoided his touch, and the fallen tree which still dominates much of the glade is a chalky gray colour, like ashes. I smell decay.
Amaterasu's pain still hovers in the back of my mind, and I will need to teleport again today. A deer trail runs across the edge of the glade, and I notice fresh droppings alongside it. I examine the area for a few moments, and then set out westward. Five minutes later, I come across a sickly hart lying on its side and panting for breath, it antlers digging deep furrows in the earth.
My psychic knife flickers to life.
It only takes two strikes. Two strikes, and I am full of energy again. It feels good, and I feel vaguely unsettled about that.
As I walk back towards the clearing, I offer Ama-chan some mana, which she eats greedily. It seems to go a long way towards healing her. Then I try to teleport back to the Sennin... and nothing happens. There's a hollow sense in my head, and I can't account for it.
I sit down and think for a moment. If they're no longer on the Wandering Star, then where would they be?
Una... probably wouldn't care where they went. The psychological stress factors caused by a continuous depressed state seem to have drained her volition.
High Dive... probably wouldn't care where they went, since she's happy as long as she has candy and things to kill.
Kiyoshi... maybe to visit his family in Matamos?
Moses...
My eyes widen, and I distinctly recall him having said that he needed to go to Geneva Prime and speak with Katashi Blade. "He wouldn't..." I whisper.
He would. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing he would do.
I rise to my feet and reabsorb Amaterasu for the journey, and then I teleport.
Home.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
Home.
My room materializes around me, and for a moment it is just as I left it, shielded bed in the center, a desk off to the side, a dresser with two week's worth of clothing it it in the far corner, cameras lining the walls.
But it's not real. It's less than a memory. An echo of what was. The distant past, and not even compelling enough to seem like more than the memory of an unpleasant dream. My knife flickers to life on my hand, and its pink glow displays the truth of the room. The desk is gone. The dresser is gone. The bed is gone. The cameras are gone. Dust covers the bare floor, and not even force or energy flow through the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Empty. Less than a memory.
I open a panel next to the door and hit the manual release for the door's magnetic clamp. It pops open with a faint hiss, and I slip out into the greater complex.
Empty. Dark. Dusty. Nothing except for me and my psychic knife.
And then Ama-chan is with me, shining, illuminating the hallway, and I'm no longer alone. It's a strange thing to have company here. It's like... having another Aimi, maybe. Ama-chan isn't very much like Aimi, though. Though I suppose they do both kill people spectacularly. I find myself wondering where Malicious is in all this, whether she's working for Katashi Blade as well, or escaped, or dead, or... I don't know why that would bother me. I hate her.
I walk past the corridor where Malicious mind-blasted me for 'being difficult,' and I can almost feel the pain of it all over again.
"I'm hungry," Amaterasu says as we walk.
I roll my eyes. "You're always hungry."
"Mana?" she asks, a hopeful look on her face. And then there is a flicker of... I don't know. Something. I don't know what she's thinking. "Onee-san, please?"
I stop in my tracks and stare at the little girl walking next to me. Onee-san.
Older sister.
It makes me... happy?
"Maybe later," I say fondly. "When we find Moses, I might need you to shine for me, Ama-chan. If I give you some mana, can you do that?"
She nods enthusiastically. "Mana mana mana-mana-mana," she sing-songs, and initiates a series of movements which I do not immediately recognize. A moment later, I realize that she is dancing. Dancing and... singing? I don't catch all of the lyrics, but it's a nonsense song about how tasty mana is, and how 'her Onee-san' gives her mana when she's hungry.'
I raise an eyebrow. Singing and dancing. I've heard of this, even seen the Gogajin do it during our stay with them, but it seems oddly out of place to see Ama-chan doing it. I find myself wondering exactly how much is left of the Dusk Sage that she was before she became a Kyo-TeeShee.
It is then that I notice a door ajar close at hand - the only door in the whole complex that I've found ajar. I turn.
Nero's room. My eyes widen ever so slightly, and I feel that old familiar mixture of emotional responses. Fear. Hatred. Familial affection. Rage. I see the boogeyman - the Enemy - hiding under my bed. I see the monster in the closet. I see the Jevuum Cheldrun-Eater that Sever and Stitch used to tell frightening stories about when we were younger. And all of these figures share one thing in common: They all have Nero's eyes.
I push the door fully open, and it clanks loudly against the blank wall within.
Empty. Sterilized. Nothing, except...
Except for the First Mind runes carved into the blank, empty walls, ceiling, and floor.
How long has this been going on, I wonder? How long has Nero known about this? He'd always seemed wrong, but when did it really begin for him? I wonder...
I turn away from his room and head for the exit, and Ama-chan follows just behind me.
--------------
I step into the tunnel system beneath Geneva Prime, and it is silent. At first.
It begins as whispers in the back of my skull. Just whispers. Whisperwhisperwhisper. I put a hand to my forehead, and Ama-chan looks at me questioningly.
"It's nothing," I say.
She nods. "Let's go somewhere where there's mana," she says.
I shake my head and call her back into me. She vanishes in a swirl of fire.
Her own thoughts like the sun join the whispers in my mind. I continue moving forward, and all at once the whispers crescendo into a roar that drowns out everything.
Everything.
I... I is a category mistake. We are the underground market. We are Samophlange Jack, and Ishmael, and Yamamoto Eiko of the Jade Falcon clan, and Tamaguchi Unryu of the Ruby Hawk clan, and the beggar on the street who lost everything when Goshi deposed the government, and the purveyor of knick-knacks who hates his job, and the courtesan living in luxury when her whole family fell into ruin now accompanying a minor Goshi executive to a hotel on the other side of the city, and the message boy whose mother warned him to be very careful in the underground, and the father showing his chidren the underground market, and the nobleman pretending to be a biomade buying a rifle from a gun shop, and the pregnant Allskin woman - Aiko - making her way home after a long day working as a barmaid, and the young thief whose hand was even now coming near the being that bore the function of the underground market, but he sees that she is in pain, and falls to her knees, and she has a psychic gauntlet, and that's bad news so he draws back and goes the other way... and... and... and... and...
‘God that woman is hot. I would do her again and again.’
‘I wish he wouldn’t look at me like that.’
‘I want an ice cream cone.’
‘I hate this job.’
‘I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU!’
‘Maybe I should just tell him off.’
‘Here’s how to...’
‘I will always love you.’
'Why did I ever decide it was a good idea to have a baby?'
‘I want...’
‘I wonder what would happen if I cut my finger off. I guess I wouldn't have a finger.’
‘That’s a big...’
'Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to strangers.'
‘It’s the thing you hate the most.’
‘I’m getting old. Old and fat. Fat and bald and old. I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate my stupid, fat, bald, old face.’
‘Looks like you gained a few pounds, you cow.’
'Mama said be careful. I mustn't talk to strangers.'
‘Do you often sing or whistle just for fun? What does that mean?’
‘It’s the thing you hate the most.’
‘I want...’
‘I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU...’
‘I should tell her how I feel. Even if she doesn’t like me, she might still be willing to do me.’
‘Old, fat, bald, stupid... Age is against me. The world is against me. The children here are lucky. They’re young. Not like me.'
‘Oh God. I knew this was going to happen.’
'Why won't daddy buy me an ice cream? I WANT AN ICE CREAM!'
and...
and...
and...
and...
and...
and I come to my senses with a shocking kind of suddenness.
I am standing at the entrance to the underground market, and the long missed background hum of the minds of everyone around me buzzes comfortably in the back of my awareness. I realize with a start that it has been months since I had been in the presence of more than seventeen Cheldrun minds simultaneously, and I brush my hair out of my eyes and move on.
'Oh shit, isn't that Rei?'
The thought is faint but clear, and I immediately turn towards the mind from whence it came.
There.
I follow the figure around the corner, and...
I blink. She looks familiar, somehow.
... "Terry?" I ask. Terry the Canary. The mechified who was with the UMA... so long ago.
She stares at me in horror, and I am her. Oh First Minds this is bad I can't be seen with her with Rei I already told them everything and they'll think I'm with the UMA! Oh, First minds this is bad, oh fuck, I can't be seen with her...!
No. I know who I am and what I want, at least for now. I am Rei, and I want to save Moses from his own bad judgment, his own poor strategic planning.
"I'll let you be on your way on two conditions, Terry. First, answer my questions. Second, forget you ever saw me. Is this an acceptable arrangement?"
She nods. "What are you doing here, Rei?" she asks, and in her head, she is screaming.
"Following Moses," I say. "Here to be a hero."
At the mention of Moses, her thoughts go into overdrive panic-mode. "You're way, way too late," she says. "Where were you when Goshi was taking over? You ran away. You and the others. You left us here."
"It's never too late, Terry," I say. "The time to be a hero is always 'now.'"
Her thoughts turn bitter. 'Yeah right, bitch. If you were really a hero, you'd do something about Mickey and the Surgeon.' And I see them both. Mickey, driven nearly mad by Nero's psychic thumb print. The Surgeon, black-listed and destitute.
I consider the two alternatives. The Surgeon would be more tactically useful, and I might actually be able to help him: I don't know if I can do anything for Mickey. "Where's the Surgeon?" I ask.
She holds up a brown paper bag and thinks of his address. "I was just on my way to take him some lunch before I ran into you," she says. She doesn't think of me as 'Rei' in her mind. She thinks of me as 'Assassin bitch.'
I hold out my hand. "Give me the lunch, and I'll take it to him," I say.
She looks at me incredulously for a moment, but she does hand me the lunch.
"Goodbye," I say. I vanish, and I have just enough time to see her eyes widen in surprise before the Dislocation takes me to a small, dirty tenement in the middle of the Mechified slums. Goshi Tower looms large in the distance, and I hear the faint sound of explosions echoing off from somewhere, and smoke rising from... is that a rail line? I shake my head and enter the tenament.
He's at the bottom floor, and he is surprised to see me. His skills are being wasted here, and I tell him so, but he says that he's out of luck: he's been blacklisted. I think about the situation for a moment, and then I tell him the tactical situation: Moses is here.
He nearly chokes on the water he's drinking.
"He's here to kill Katashi Blade, but he's walking into an ambush. I will not allow Moses to die, Surgeon. It will not happen. In exchange for your assistance in saving him, we will take you with us. We can use a good medic, and we have both the means and the will to put your skills to good use."
He thinks it over for a moment, and then gives his mental assent. "What do you need?" he asks.
"Explosives. Lots of explosives."
He looks around at his run down, empty shop, then glances at me. "Well, I don't have that, but I do have something that might be helpful." He moves over to a curtain covering a hole in the wall at the back of the shop and pulls it aside. "Meet the Bronze god."
He steps out from behind the curtain, a... gogajin... mechified? His skin is puckered and horrifically scarred, and his mechanical parts are made out of bronze, but I still recognize the figure that steps forward.
It's not explosives, but it will do.
"Hello, Balder," I say in his own language.
He raises an eyebrow, looking me up and down. "Well, fuck me!" he says incredulously.
"No."
He laughs.
--------------
*Teleport*
--------------
Ten minutes later, after I've sent the Surgeon to the rendevous point outside the city and explained the situation to Balder and successfully enlisted his aid in mounting a rescue operation for Moses, we appear two floors short of the topmost floor of Goshi tower, and Balder immediately looks around for enemies. There are none. There is only the voice of an office lady assuring her lover over a comm-device that she's perfectly safe this high up.
Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi's thoughts. Kiyoshi's mind. In the elevator. Going up. Kiyoshi and Moses and... someone I don't recognize. Someone whose thoughts are cold and harsh and unwelcoming. Hurricane? No, she's dead. Rain. Going to see the Executor...
Oh hell.
The office lady notices us just as we are boarding the elevator. I tell her to get out of the building as fast as she can, and don't wait to see if she does it. The elevator only goes up one more floor. Damn. Not the right lift. We go up.
The doors open, and...
Una?
High Dive?
There they are, Una pacing back and forth in front of the lift, High Dive sitting in a corner in squirrel-form eating a whole bowl of candy.
For a moment, we all just stare at each other. Then Una asks, "Rei?"
There is a note of distrust in her voice that was not there before. It it... disconcerting.
"I brought Balder," I say as I step out of the elevator. "Why are you here, Una? Why aren't you up there with Kiyoshi and Moses?"
She looks suspicious. Is she... angry at me? Maybe. I can't tell. Karians are hard to read. "We're the backup," Una says. "We're supposed to go in if things get bad."
"Things are bad," I tell her. Things are very, very bad. I will not allow Moses to die. Not like this. Not at the hands of one of THEM.
"What do you mean?" Una asks.
" Katashi Blade is a First Mind."
Narrator's Best Friend: The Machine God's Messenger
The Narrator's Best Friend Award goes to the character who most players agree consistently added great stuff to the story be it with NPC's or character choices through the entire season. This prestigious award is accompanied not only by the trophy emblem (right), but by 5, count them 5, of the coveted blue Never Gems. For the first time in history we have a draw in the voting, meaning this award will go to two characters. The second of the two honored recipients of the third ever Narrator's Best Friend Award is Moses, the metal messiah.There are two ways that one can potentially win this seasonal Award. Rei already demonstrated how it can be done by having an in-depth backstory that influences the plot, and a messed up psyche that creates dramatic moments in the game. In Moses' case, his backstory was pretty simple and his psyche is perhaps the healthiest in the bunch. The other way to win this award, then is to be a straight-forward mover and shaker when it comes to determining what happens in-game. Moses is definitely that. Early in this season it was his connection with the Rusty Nail Rogues that set up several sessions worth of adventure. It was partially his drive to follow the instructions in his dream that took the party across the ocean, and he was the one at the end who urged the return to Geneva Prime. The arc of this story has a great big Moses shaped thumb-print on it.
Which is why I was so excited to talk to him about what it was like to be an architect of world-changing events...
"Um, I don't know much about that," he modestly replied.
He'd been similarly deferent last time I interviewed him. Looking at his shiny new chassis, and foxy bitch, I knew better than to accept the humble act this time around.
Una had more to say on the subject, "Oh, Moses? He's a miracle worker. Literally, there have been more than one or two situations where we wouldn't have gotten out if it weren't for him."
Rei emphatically agreed, "I would follow Moses to the end of the world - and I have. Even off the world, come to think of it."
And his partner Zipporah? "He thinks he's following some kind of Machine God, but I say the Machine God is him!"
There was some awkward silence after that last part and Moses quickly discovered he had something to do in another room.
As usual Kiyoshi was the one to get things back to a serious tone. "Moses is wise to keep humble. We're not Gods - that's what our Kyo Tee Shee want us to think. We are servants, as for Moses, maybe he's a messenger. He certainly has a message for Katashi Blade and I intend to hear him deliver it."
There you have it - Moses: the Machine God's Messenger, and certainly the Narrator's Best Friend.
One Small Answer
Quietly, Moses wakes up Zipporah early. She pops awake immediately with a little gasp and her hand goes out to him. He places it in his."Morning."
She blinks the last wisp of bleariness out of her eyes. "You've got that look."
He nods. "Yeah, I've got that look."
She sits ups. Now that she's awake, she's sort of got that look too.
Its so strange to be whole. To be made whole. Again. Broken and put back together by Una's tears. Which...always, she's got more of them. Healing tears. There's something there. But, as she said, he has that look.
"I told you about the Fire. As much as I understood, at least. And now we're here. We came here...I thought we were all dead. But then we're floating in the Bay, with Geneva Minor on the horizon...it has to be. I have to be here because of what the Fire told me. What the...what the Name told me." She nods. "And that means I have to go back to the city. I have to go back...where so many people died, and where everyone is going to want to kill me. I...I abandoned them, and things...got worse for them. I know it. I can try to tell them that it had to happen, that...that so much has happened since, that if I hadn't left, I wouldn't be here now, with the tiniest bit of hope that I can free them...that they'd catch me eventually, that...that I wouldn't have met you." He looks at her, then looks down, trying not to get derailed.
"I can tell them that, but I'll understand if they don't listen. And I have to...somehow...convince them to go...where the stars will fall. I don't even know where that is! I'm just hoping that...that I'll know, somehow, that it'll hit me, or else, we'll just be wandering around. That is, if anyone comes with me. That is, if...if I survive...meeting Katashi Blade.
He pauses. "I've been thinking a lot about him. I don't know hardly anything about him, but he's the head of Goshi. So I think about the Hei Shi, and how they can teleport now, and how - how they've conquered everything, it seems like. How there were Hei Shi on the Wandering Star, so he knows it's there, probably knows more than we do about the whole thing.
"I think about...someone who would be able to do all of that. Someone with that kind of...will. Someone who isn't happy until he has everything. Behind all of the evil that Goshi has done. And now I have to walk into his tower, and tell him, let the Mechified go. Let my people go. He's going to -"
She places a single finger over his lips, and waits until he looks up at her.
"Moses, I've been listening this whole time. I've heard all that you've heard for months now. I've spoken to the Dusk Sages, watched them die, watched you bind them. I've been to the darkness outside Karia, I've seen...horrible things, and wonderful things - the Emerald Isle, the bottom of the ocean!
"Nothing - nothing! - in what I've heard has made me think that this Blade can stop you. Do you know why?" Moses shakes his head. Now she gets to talk about why she's got that look. "Because of the Question. I already know the answer. Don't you? The question is life, and the answer is yes. The answer is yes. It has to be yes. First, because -" she looks away "because if its no, then all we do is for nothing, and everything will come to nothing, and there will be no one to remember it, to even cry over it. No one even to mourn. If the answer is no, then we're free, because the end will come, and then nothing after. And..."
"The...the other reason?"
She looks back to him, is blushing furiously. "Well, um. I." She bites her lip and takes his hand from around hers and places it low on her belly. Then gives him that look.
She counts to three while Moses looks at her, at his hand, then his eyes go wide.
She nods a small nod. "Yes."
Episode 27: After a Death
We teleport out of the Wandering Star and into the medical bay in one gut-wrenching moment.
Teleport.
I can't think. Everything has leaked out of me. I don't know how much of the blood is mine. Zipporah! "HighDive, I need you...to hide...Mokuzai." She looks confused. "I don't want...I don't want Zipporah to see him..."
"Oh. Was she his wife?"
What? "What?"
"Girlfriend?"
I'm drawing a blank. Is she speaking Cheldrun? What is going on? Has the Zipsum snapped?
"Second cousin...?"
"No, she's - I - you've been on a ship with her for months, we've...never mind. Just hide his head. Please." She shrugs, shoves it into a drawer. "No, Zip might need to go in that drawer. Someplace else..."I hold open the door, but HighDive doesn't get the hint, and instead shoves Mokuzai's severed, tongueless head into a freezer. "HighDive -"
Behind me, there is a sound of scrambling and Zipporah bursts into the room, looking panicked. She slowly takes in the scene, horror growing on her face.
Rei tries to be helpful. I wish she wouldn't. "Most of the blood isn't mine."
HighDive blurts out "Yeah, a lot of it came out of Mokuzai."
I think if I can grab her, now while she's distracted, I can crush her in my bare hands. Zip looks to me, stark white, clearly approaching shock. "Look, Zip, I...Mokuzai...Mokuzai died. He's. He's gone." I can see her just going blank, probably looking exactly how I do right now. "But right now, we have to think about Una and Kyoshi. They're alive, but they're really hurt." She sees the hole in my shoulder, slowly leaking a twisting trail of blood that bends lazily without any gravity. Then she sees Kyoshi, grits her teeth, and moves over to the table where Rei is trying to strap him down.
Rei grimaces and starts in with her lecturing-voice. "Listen, don't try to cut him or drain any humors or anything, because he's already lost a lot of blood -"
"Shut up and hold him down" and she is bending over him and starting to work. I love you.
I black out for a minute, then, realize I need to go help Trencher with the gun so that more eyeless don't get to the Senin.
"Don't. You. Dare." I freeze. Its really easy to stop moving. I feel sleepy. I watch blood trail out of me...
Some time later, Zipporah's tears have let some of her pain out, just enough to keep going, just like we're feeling - so much all at once! - and Una's tears have restored me completely. We just go throughout the world, these past months, brimming over with miracles, and all we get is blood and gore in return. If Karia didn't have her heroes, would it really be worse off? I can't even guess, sometimes. Looking at Rei, I'm not sure hero is even the right word. She and HighDive are half Kyo-tee-shee now as far as I can tell. And Rei is getting worse.
***
I learn that you can cry and shoot a heavy-caliber machine-gun at the same time. I feel like in all the world, only we would have any chance to learn things like that. When my eyes dry out, I have time to think. We need to block the door. The eyeless are very strong - not quite as strong as me, but there are lots of them. I think about plugging the door, about welding it shut, about collapsing it. But we have limited rounds, and we still have work to do. I'm not done here. We're not done.
I want to tear this damned thing out of the sky.
But first things first. And I have time. I try to relax, to think like I'm somewhere else. What's in here? The scaffolding and the catwalk (or cat-crawl?). It looks solid. Loads of stray bullets haven't broken it loose. I look around. There's a lot of heavy metal paneling. It'll take a while, but I think I can pry it up. And a weld won't hold long enough. I relax some more. I remember...I remember being very little. When I was with Namie. They brought in a 'specialist'. Everyone talked about it real careful, and I got scared that I was sick. They said "no" and their looks said "yes". But all it turned out to be was this friendly older man with spectacles who made me play games with him. One of the games was where he put a bunch of weird blocky shapes in front of me in a pile, and showed me a picture of a cube. I was still nervous. Just wait, little Moshe, until you see how they fit.
I remember when he left to talk with my adopted parents, I didn't hear all they said, but I did hear what he said about me. He's cognitively defective, as we guessed, but benign. Mild retardation, really. He should be able to lead a normal life.
I waited until I saw how it fit together. How to block the eyeless out unless they bring dynamite or an Oni. And more than that. I'm starting to see a lot.
***
HighDive bursts into the room, gasping. "Angry Oni!" she says, and points back the way she came.
"What!?" I've been arguing with Rei. She wants to go into the core of the ship and feed who-knows-how-much Whiterock to her damn Kyo-tee-shee. I'd wish she'd make her own choices, but I've seen how bad that can go too. I can't think about what to do about Rei right now. I yank the cable I'm using to power the computer Rei was using to find the engines and start re-attaching it to the main pneumatic relay in my right leg. "Ok, that's it. We need to get out of here." Rei snaps some instructions HighDive's way as she's darting out the door.
We follow, more slowly, only to reach the vast engine bay just as HighDive is leaving it. It looks like she's a firework-rocket trailing dozens of eyeless angrily swarming after her. I guess this means she's done? We get back to the chamber and she goes down the opposite passage to set her other explosives.
Rei is staring at something. I turn to look. Una does too. The security hatch behind us, the one leading to the Whiterock, starts to ripple and bend. I remember Karaku-Oni and immediately call on a miracle, summoning shields in front of everyone, trying to backpedal out of the room as quickly as I can.
And then a figure emerges, rippling liquid metal, and it hardens into a perfect Biomade face with red-tinged eyes. Another fucking Rei-sibling??
It sucks in a breath like we're just what it was hoping to find. "At last, you've come. The Answer."
Then its looking at Rei. Something is going on between them. Is it talking to Rei or Amaterasu? Does it matter?
"Yes...its taken me a long time to find you."
"Its taken us a long time to find them." It nods to us, looks us over, taking its time. Just when I started to think I'd figured things out.
Looking at Una and me, it says "Malice must come to an end."
Malice. Oh. Ok. I get it. It and Rei are still talking, like a family reunion. Una argues, panicking, pointing to Rei and me - "They're malice, not us!"
No, Una, we're all malice to this thing. It has introduced itself as The One Who Bridges the Gap, and Rei is talking again. "My name is Rei." It doesn't buy that. "I'm...Mikomi?" I've heard the name before. "I'm...I'm she who hopes."
"Ah, yes. that makes sense." What the hell are you doing?? "Come, we must resolve this." It gestures toward Una, myself and HighDive, who has just returned, slamming the hatch behind her, angry eyeless pounding on the far side.
Then Garandu-Oni slides through one wall, and opposite it, Suraisu-Oni. She Who Hopes and The One Who Bridges the Gap slide out a far door. I hear a voice in my mind: "RUN".
No. We're not fast enough. I turn to Una and HighDive. "Get back to the ship."
There's something I've been wanting to do ever since Mokuzai died, even back to when we first entered this damned floating tomb of gore. "I've got your answer." I close my eyes, and I hear it, building like a song, a low hum echoing throughout this part of the ship as plates pull away from each other, as bindings and fixtures and reinforcing bars begin to thrum, then shake, then buckle. I want to tear this fucking ship apart. I barely feel the impact of Suraisu-Oni's whirling drill-blade as it bites into my body and twists, cutting flesh and metal effortlessly.
It erupts out of me, an awful miracle rolling out from beneath me like a vast wave, and everything tears itself apart with screams of metal, shapnel rolling all around us. I see Garandu-Oni stagger and begin to come apart - just as its tentacles hit me they are flayed at the moment they begin to suck out my life. I see Suraisu-Oni sheared partially open. In a rage it sends both attacks to me, and those I feel. Una is healing herself, her tears cutting shining blue tracks in her face, and then there is an explosion of shining blue feathers that chokes and blinds all of us. I hear Una say "Cover our escape!" and then she goes limp in my arms.
***
The feathers dissipate while we flee, but they're upon us as soon as we reach the metal bracing structure I'd built so damn well. HighDive has battered a hole to get through, and Trencher widens it so I can push Una through too. It hits him too late that I'm not coming.
I turn to the passage, see the first writhing tentacles of Garandu-Oni sliding around a bend in the corridor, seeking us, and the grinding of Suraisu-Oni right behind.
I'm too close to the Senin. So I rush them. When they get to the curve in the corridor I can find no words - and then a wave even more vast than the first bursts out of me. Garandu-Oni is torn apart in a shower of metal and energy, and Suraisu-Oni is cut up even more.
Then the hungry silence outside sucks us right out the hole I just made.
I have time for two parting shots, burning Suraisu with my own blood and breath, channeling the pain out of me and into it in a beam of red. Trencher drags himself on board and throws me a cable. I barely have the strength to grab it. We pull ourselves back onto the Senin. I feel no better than when we teleported into the medical bay three hours ago. The Wandering Star is still intact. We lost Mokuzai, and we lost Rei. Kyoshi was wrong - the Oni can't really be killed at all.
I think of Amaterasu eating all of that Whiterock.
We keep getting our asses handed to us, but the Kyo-tee-shee are winning.
But not you Tanuki. Not you.
Teleport.
I can't think. Everything has leaked out of me. I don't know how much of the blood is mine. Zipporah! "HighDive, I need you...to hide...Mokuzai." She looks confused. "I don't want...I don't want Zipporah to see him..."
"Oh. Was she his wife?"
What? "What?"
"Girlfriend?"
I'm drawing a blank. Is she speaking Cheldrun? What is going on? Has the Zipsum snapped?
"Second cousin...?"
"No, she's - I - you've been on a ship with her for months, we've...never mind. Just hide his head. Please." She shrugs, shoves it into a drawer. "No, Zip might need to go in that drawer. Someplace else..."I hold open the door, but HighDive doesn't get the hint, and instead shoves Mokuzai's severed, tongueless head into a freezer. "HighDive -"
Behind me, there is a sound of scrambling and Zipporah bursts into the room, looking panicked. She slowly takes in the scene, horror growing on her face.
Rei tries to be helpful. I wish she wouldn't. "Most of the blood isn't mine."
HighDive blurts out "Yeah, a lot of it came out of Mokuzai."
I think if I can grab her, now while she's distracted, I can crush her in my bare hands. Zip looks to me, stark white, clearly approaching shock. "Look, Zip, I...Mokuzai...Mokuzai died. He's. He's gone." I can see her just going blank, probably looking exactly how I do right now. "But right now, we have to think about Una and Kyoshi. They're alive, but they're really hurt." She sees the hole in my shoulder, slowly leaking a twisting trail of blood that bends lazily without any gravity. Then she sees Kyoshi, grits her teeth, and moves over to the table where Rei is trying to strap him down.
Rei grimaces and starts in with her lecturing-voice. "Listen, don't try to cut him or drain any humors or anything, because he's already lost a lot of blood -"
"Shut up and hold him down" and she is bending over him and starting to work. I love you.
I black out for a minute, then, realize I need to go help Trencher with the gun so that more eyeless don't get to the Senin.
"Don't. You. Dare." I freeze. Its really easy to stop moving. I feel sleepy. I watch blood trail out of me...
Some time later, Zipporah's tears have let some of her pain out, just enough to keep going, just like we're feeling - so much all at once! - and Una's tears have restored me completely. We just go throughout the world, these past months, brimming over with miracles, and all we get is blood and gore in return. If Karia didn't have her heroes, would it really be worse off? I can't even guess, sometimes. Looking at Rei, I'm not sure hero is even the right word. She and HighDive are half Kyo-tee-shee now as far as I can tell. And Rei is getting worse.
***
I learn that you can cry and shoot a heavy-caliber machine-gun at the same time. I feel like in all the world, only we would have any chance to learn things like that. When my eyes dry out, I have time to think. We need to block the door. The eyeless are very strong - not quite as strong as me, but there are lots of them. I think about plugging the door, about welding it shut, about collapsing it. But we have limited rounds, and we still have work to do. I'm not done here. We're not done.
I want to tear this damned thing out of the sky.
But first things first. And I have time. I try to relax, to think like I'm somewhere else. What's in here? The scaffolding and the catwalk (or cat-crawl?). It looks solid. Loads of stray bullets haven't broken it loose. I look around. There's a lot of heavy metal paneling. It'll take a while, but I think I can pry it up. And a weld won't hold long enough. I relax some more. I remember...I remember being very little. When I was with Namie. They brought in a 'specialist'. Everyone talked about it real careful, and I got scared that I was sick. They said "no" and their looks said "yes". But all it turned out to be was this friendly older man with spectacles who made me play games with him. One of the games was where he put a bunch of weird blocky shapes in front of me in a pile, and showed me a picture of a cube. I was still nervous. Just wait, little Moshe, until you see how they fit.
I remember when he left to talk with my adopted parents, I didn't hear all they said, but I did hear what he said about me. He's cognitively defective, as we guessed, but benign. Mild retardation, really. He should be able to lead a normal life.
I waited until I saw how it fit together. How to block the eyeless out unless they bring dynamite or an Oni. And more than that. I'm starting to see a lot.
***
HighDive bursts into the room, gasping. "Angry Oni!" she says, and points back the way she came.
"What!?" I've been arguing with Rei. She wants to go into the core of the ship and feed who-knows-how-much Whiterock to her damn Kyo-tee-shee. I'd wish she'd make her own choices, but I've seen how bad that can go too. I can't think about what to do about Rei right now. I yank the cable I'm using to power the computer Rei was using to find the engines and start re-attaching it to the main pneumatic relay in my right leg. "Ok, that's it. We need to get out of here." Rei snaps some instructions HighDive's way as she's darting out the door.
We follow, more slowly, only to reach the vast engine bay just as HighDive is leaving it. It looks like she's a firework-rocket trailing dozens of eyeless angrily swarming after her. I guess this means she's done? We get back to the chamber and she goes down the opposite passage to set her other explosives.
Rei is staring at something. I turn to look. Una does too. The security hatch behind us, the one leading to the Whiterock, starts to ripple and bend. I remember Karaku-Oni and immediately call on a miracle, summoning shields in front of everyone, trying to backpedal out of the room as quickly as I can.
And then a figure emerges, rippling liquid metal, and it hardens into a perfect Biomade face with red-tinged eyes. Another fucking Rei-sibling??
It sucks in a breath like we're just what it was hoping to find. "At last, you've come. The Answer."
Then its looking at Rei. Something is going on between them. Is it talking to Rei or Amaterasu? Does it matter?
"Yes...its taken me a long time to find you."
"Its taken us a long time to find them." It nods to us, looks us over, taking its time. Just when I started to think I'd figured things out.
Looking at Una and me, it says "Malice must come to an end."
Malice. Oh. Ok. I get it. It and Rei are still talking, like a family reunion. Una argues, panicking, pointing to Rei and me - "They're malice, not us!"
No, Una, we're all malice to this thing. It has introduced itself as The One Who Bridges the Gap, and Rei is talking again. "My name is Rei." It doesn't buy that. "I'm...Mikomi?" I've heard the name before. "I'm...I'm she who hopes."
"Ah, yes. that makes sense." What the hell are you doing?? "Come, we must resolve this." It gestures toward Una, myself and HighDive, who has just returned, slamming the hatch behind her, angry eyeless pounding on the far side.
Then Garandu-Oni slides through one wall, and opposite it, Suraisu-Oni. She Who Hopes and The One Who Bridges the Gap slide out a far door. I hear a voice in my mind: "RUN".
No. We're not fast enough. I turn to Una and HighDive. "Get back to the ship."
There's something I've been wanting to do ever since Mokuzai died, even back to when we first entered this damned floating tomb of gore. "I've got your answer." I close my eyes, and I hear it, building like a song, a low hum echoing throughout this part of the ship as plates pull away from each other, as bindings and fixtures and reinforcing bars begin to thrum, then shake, then buckle. I want to tear this fucking ship apart. I barely feel the impact of Suraisu-Oni's whirling drill-blade as it bites into my body and twists, cutting flesh and metal effortlessly.
It erupts out of me, an awful miracle rolling out from beneath me like a vast wave, and everything tears itself apart with screams of metal, shapnel rolling all around us. I see Garandu-Oni stagger and begin to come apart - just as its tentacles hit me they are flayed at the moment they begin to suck out my life. I see Suraisu-Oni sheared partially open. In a rage it sends both attacks to me, and those I feel. Una is healing herself, her tears cutting shining blue tracks in her face, and then there is an explosion of shining blue feathers that chokes and blinds all of us. I hear Una say "Cover our escape!" and then she goes limp in my arms.
***
The feathers dissipate while we flee, but they're upon us as soon as we reach the metal bracing structure I'd built so damn well. HighDive has battered a hole to get through, and Trencher widens it so I can push Una through too. It hits him too late that I'm not coming.
I turn to the passage, see the first writhing tentacles of Garandu-Oni sliding around a bend in the corridor, seeking us, and the grinding of Suraisu-Oni right behind.
I'm too close to the Senin. So I rush them. When they get to the curve in the corridor I can find no words - and then a wave even more vast than the first bursts out of me. Garandu-Oni is torn apart in a shower of metal and energy, and Suraisu-Oni is cut up even more.
Then the hungry silence outside sucks us right out the hole I just made.
I have time for two parting shots, burning Suraisu with my own blood and breath, channeling the pain out of me and into it in a beam of red. Trencher drags himself on board and throws me a cable. I barely have the strength to grab it. We pull ourselves back onto the Senin. I feel no better than when we teleported into the medical bay three hours ago. The Wandering Star is still intact. We lost Mokuzai, and we lost Rei. Kyoshi was wrong - the Oni can't really be killed at all.
I think of Amaterasu eating all of that Whiterock.
We keep getting our asses handed to us, but the Kyo-tee-shee are winning.
But not you Tanuki. Not you.
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