Hello!
Derelict Press Eligibles should be posted after this coming
Thursday (It's the quarterly Hell Week at school again).
This is the penultimate issue in the arc, and if the winds
blow right, the last issue will be out before we're three
weeks into November.
Thanks bunches and bunches to all those who sent in a
comment on last issue: Kelly Anderson, Rory Bryant,
Jamas Enright, Jaelle, and Ben Rawluk. Without you
there would be much badness.
Enjoy!
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DERELICT Press Presents
The thirty-seventh issue of
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" War Tides "
Echo: Part 5 of 6
A psuedo-Acraphobe title
._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.'COVER`._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
An old photograph of three girls, clearly sisters. The youngest sits on
the ground, looking serious, a book held open in her lap. The middle one
has a pair of plastic glasses pushed up on her forehead, a test tube in
one hand. The eldest stands grinning, a make-shift set of wings held to
her back with a collection of wires and straps. Brittany's mother. When
she was Brittany's age.
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" We live, as we dream - alone."
-- Joseph Conrad, _Heart of Darkness_
Sarah crunched through the tunnels beneath Net.ropolis, watching
her feet to make sure she didn't slip. Savannah and Bryan were on either
side of her, a bit of stone glowing in Bryan's hand to keep the way lit
for them all. Allen had taken the lead, gun in hand. Viveka lurked
somewhere behind them, out of the reach of the light, and so quiet that
most of the time Sarah couldn't even hear her, even though they were all
moving through the same loose dirt and gravel.
Sarah hated this. HATED it.
She'd lived her entire life in Idaho. No one had ever shot at
her. Some kid had been caught at school with a switchblade once. The town
had talked about it for _days_.
Here she was, underground somewhere and surrounded by crazies,
wearing a golden bracelet from a girl who looked like a starving angel.
She couldn't take it off. It clinked against the glass fishbowl that she
balanced on one hip, and she winced every time she heard the sound. She
just wanted to go home. At least now she had some sense of her power and
could keep Viveka off her back.
As if the thought had summoned her, the woman came up suddenly
from the darkness. Sarah jerked away, the colors pulsing around her
again, gold-black-fuscia, and Viveka winced back. Sarah narrowed her
eyes and flared the colors a little, just to show that she could.
Viveka's expression didn't change. "I wanted to apologize," she
said, watching Sarah steadily. "I've never been good with manners. When I
found you out in that field I should have just asked you to come with me."
The force of her gaze was unsettling and Sarah looked down at the
fishbowl, uncomfortable. "I would have said 'no', anyway," she whispered.
"Yes," said Viveka after a moment, "I imagine you would have.
It's hard, isn't it?"
Sarah glanced up, but all she saw in the older woman's eyes was
a mild curiosity. She glanced up ahead where Allen, Savannah, and Bryan
walked in a thin row. No one looked back. She made the barrier between
herself and Viveka a little stronger, then turned to stare back
defiantly. No one could hurt her unless she let them. "Yeah. It's hard."
"All alone in the wide world," said Viveka. There was something
behind the words, but Sarah couldn't quite tell what it was. "Your
parents must be worried sick."
"I haven't had time to call home. And I don't want them involved
in this."
"Good thinking," Viveka cocked her head to one side. "You, at
least, can take this. Your father isn't a strong man, is he?"
"Daddy? Of course he's strong," said Sarah, a bit of petulance in
her voice. Her father flashed through her mind briefly, a tall man whose
shoulders drew in toward his body, head dropped, so that he looked about
average in height. Whenever someone looked at him a smile would leap onto
his face, here, then gone like blinking light.
"No, he wasn't. I can see it in your eyes. Your mother, then.
She was the strong one?" There was no accusation in Viveka's voice. Just
the curiosity and a trace of sadness. She reminded Sarah of a
grandmother, or one of those neighborhood people you always heard about
kids going to when they were in trouble, or needed someone to talk to.
It hit her suddenly that she'd never had anyone like that. And never
would, because those people didn't seem to exist in her town, and that's
where she was going to end up, if she had to kill herself to do it. How
strange for one of them to be this woman, in this tunnel of all places.
She didn't understand how you could be a killer and a counselor at the
same time.
"Neither of my parents were strong. I ran, didn't you see? I run
from everything," Sarah shifted the fishbowl to her other hip, sloshing
water onto her jeans.
They walked a few more yards down the tunnel in silence. She
didn't want to be in this conversation any more. Somehow it had gone from
apology to this uncomfortable place, and she felt like she had to explain
the way she was, the reasons she had for doing things. Sweat was beginning
to form on the back of her neck. "My mother went away when I was only a
month old."
"Did your father tell you that?" asked Viveka softly, and Sarah
realized that Viveka had leaned in as close as she could get, until the
colors licked across her cheeks, reddening the skin. It lit her eyes
strangely, until she seemed to glow within. As if the whole world was
watching her. Her voice falling to a whisper, Sarah gave the only
explanation that meant anything to her at all.
"Dad always said she left because she didn't love us enough."
"She died," said Viveka.
Sarah felt like she'd been hit. Completely unbidden, the
goddamned tears started to well up _again_.
"Don't you talk about my mother that way. What do you know -- "
"I know everything about your mother," snapped Viveka, her voice
low. It reminded Sarah of the neighbor's dog the tone of its growl just
before it attacked. "You think you're the Avatar now because of some
unnatural quirk of fate? You think you're not involved in all this?"
The anger in her voice slammed into Sarah like a sledgehammer,
her heart quailing at the implication of Viveka's words. She did not want
to know, she did not want to know --
"Your father ran when Marcelyn died, like the coward we knew he
was. Falling in love with Walt was the only stupid thing my sister ever
did," by now Viveka's voice was just beneath a yell, and ahead the rest
of their party stopped moving.
Silence fell, Sarah staring into Viveka's eyes with her mouth
half open, unable to say anything.
"Brittany had a sister," whispered Savannah, and Sarah realized
the other girl was staring at her. _Her_.
"Half-sister," said Viveka. "The Skainites attacked, killed
Marcelyn and when the power jumped to Brittany they took her along. Walt
took Sarah the next day and ran." She looked at Sarah with disgust.
"You're nothing like your mother."
"You're my aunt," said Sarah, and her voice shook.
Savannah was staring at her as if she was seeing her for the
first time. Allen just looked disgusted, like they were all holding
things up.
"You were born in Wyoming," snarled Viveka, "in the bosom of the
family, and your father took you away from something wonderful and let
you grow up to be this."
Sarah felt like someone had cut her legs out from beneath her.
She couldn't make her mouth work, couldn't say anything. She could not be
related to _this_. Her family was normal. _She_ was normal. Sarah
dropped to her knees in the gravel, let the fishbowl hit the ground with
a thunk, covered her ears with her hands. Kismet's bracelet brushed
against her cheek, a shock of cold against her sweaty skin. "I'm
dreaming," she whispered.
"No honey, you're just waking up," said Viveka. Sarah almost
blurted it out then. She almost told everyone about Viveka, and the three
bullets that had burst into Kismet's chest. But she didn't. Somewhere
deep inside was the irrational fear that Viveka knew more, that if the
woman choose she could tear Sarah's world apart even more with a few
simple words.
A sister. A girl who had lived and died without Sarah ever
knowing she existed. A girl who had known their mother. Jealousy flared
inside her. She had dreamed forever of finding out how her mother looked,
what she was like. Daddy hadn't kept any pictures. He said it was better
that she forgot. And this faceless girl had grown up with her.
Sarah opened her eyes to the dimly lit tunnel, to Viveka
crouching like a vulture at her side and the net.heroes watching
soundlessly. But the girl had been forced to live in this world, as well,
and it had killed her in the end.
Sarah Loman was going to live through it.
She was going to survive this and go home, forget everything had
ever happened. She was going to go back to her tiny boring school, a life
she didn't know what to do with, and a father that was normal, if it took
everyone down here with her dying to do it.
She HATED this.
"I wanted to find you for so long," Viveka's voice grew soft,
"Walt and me and couple of knives for one night, that's all I ask. Your
grandmother wouldn't let me. They wouldn't let me do anything for such a
long time, but now Brittany's done the smartest thing in her whole life
and leveled the playing field, and I'm free again. Your grandmama said
all the bets were off."
Sarah saw Savannah wince away when Viveka mentioned Brittany,
anger flashing across the other girl's face.
But Viveka didn't spot it. She had taken a tiny headset from her
pocket and held it up to one ear, twiddling with a dial on the side. She
cursed.
"What now?" snarled Allen.
"My niece's little display of power is drawing attention," Viveka
flashed her a venomous look. "One of Skaine's hunter packs has drawn a
bead on us. ETA is five minutes."
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Risk anything, ask anything. Paytan didn't know where she could
find the corpses of a thousand butterflies or the tail of a king, but if
she needed to she would. All the forces of hell were at her disposal,
after all. It didn't matter what the asking price was.
All that mattered was that she fill it.
Paytan knelt at the center of a huge hollowed out cave. She had
been moving deeper into the sewers every chance she had, and been
surprised to find that after a while she had gone beyond them. A cave
system stretched beneath Net.ropolis, at least as large as the city
itself. There were some primitive spears and clothing scattered around as
well, though she never saw who they belonged to. At one point she had
almost turned and headed back toward the surface. There were open spaces
above ground that would do just as well as anyplace else. But she'd
turned back when she reached one of the sewer outlets, just before she
stepped into the light. The caves were better, and she didn't much like
the sun anymore. It shone down on a world she didn't want to live in
right now.
The staff and the sphere lay at her feet. She had already
sketched a huge chalk circle on the uneven stone ground, and was now
halfway done with the series of symbols that went around the outer edge.
It had taken her four hours. Everything had to be perfect.
She was reaching up to brush some of her hair back behind her
horns when a wash of heat swept over her. A demon was arriving. Paytan
stood as the thing swept into the cavern, an opaque mist that held no
form.
"Don't get near the chalk circle," she said, and the creature
detoured on its way over to her. She was lucky that a weaker demon had
been able to do the job. She didn't fancy trying to summon and hold
something as strong as the last one.
The mist stopped, and Paytan held out her hand. An amulet emerged
from the mist, faceted iron inset in yellow marble, and was set gently in
her palm. Paytan smiled, and in a burst of heat and light the demon was
sent back to its home.
She held the amulet tightly. Three down, two to go.
She kicked the backpack aside for a moment and moved away from
the chalk circle. The last two artifacts were held together. Guarded. She
didn't dare summon anything strong enough to grab them on its own. It
would have to be a mass of minor demons. They'd be harder to defend
against, anyway.
From somewhere high up in the darkness came to coo of a dove, and
a white feather drifted slowly down. Paytan smiled, and concentrated. The
universe tore a hole in itself and spit out a herd of snakelike creatures
without any eyes. Their teeth gnashed pale in the darkness, with a tiny
clicking that echoed in and out of the cavern. They barely had minds
enough to eat, let alone rebel.
"Go," she said to the writhing form. "Bring me back the torus
and the box. And don't kill anyone." The hill crumbled apart as the worms
dug into the ground and disappeared. Paytan stood for a moment, listening
to the swiftly fading sound of demons eating through the earth, then
turned back to the circle. Already she could see in her minds eye where
the whorls of chalk should go, where connections should be made.
Every day horrible things happened to people that were helpless
to stop them.
But sometimes not as helpless as they thought.
Demons were never true to their word, and they weren't any good
with souls, anyway. Their skill lay in all things flesh. Paytan crouched,
and poured the ingredients from the backpack out upon the ground.
Skaine's minions had ruined a body. They had captured it and
turned into something mostly metal, a toy they could control. And in the
end they destroyed it, beyond all chance of repair. But they could not
kill a soul. Nothing could.
She could not trust a demon to bring back a soul. So find a being
that was not a demon, that had the strength to reach into the ether and
call back a soul from the depths. Everything else would follow. Any being
with the power to do that would be able spin a new body from the web of
the world with ease, just as it should have been, from head to foot.
As good as new.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Nothing had ever been the same since Marcelyn died. Nothing.
"<kssh> Vince 1 to Motherload. We intend to engage the quarry in
less than three minutes. <kssh>"
"<kssh> Orders remain the same. Intercept and destroy. <kssh>"
Viveka moved silently through the darkness, the voices of
Skaine's minions whispering into her ear from the headset. She and the
rest of Sarah's merry band of fools had been moving double-time through
the tunnels, skidding on gravel and bumbling into dead ends. The first of
Skaine's war parties had called in the other two, and now all of them
were gaining.
She could hear the mecha trundling through the tunnels behind
them. Metal would clang against rock, accompanied by a gruff curse
through the headsets. Viveka glanced at her watch. Lily had given her the
headsets only on the condition that she reported in once a day with any
information she picked up. The next infodump time was approaching. It
would have to wait.
Another clang echoed through the tunnels. They were probably too
big to navigate easily through the outcroppings and turns. Maybe they
were even the same models that Marcelyn had stood in front of thirteen
years ago, when they cut her down in the upstairs foyer of the Wyoming
farmhouse. Viveka had watched, unable to stop them. She didn't have time
for this.
Viveka increased her pace, gliding silently toward Sarah. If she
waited any longer the mecha would be right on top of them, and she'd have
to cut through them to get away. If she hit Sarah hard enough, right now,
the girl wouldn't have time to react.
"<kssh> Wait. Motherload to Vince 1, 2, and 3. Belay orders.
<kssh>"
"<kssh> What the he -- Vince 1 to Motherload. What's going on?
<kssh>"
"<kssh> We have found the Avatar. Repeat, the Avatar is on his way
to base. <kssh>"
The shouts of the war parties came over the headsets so loudly
that Sarah heard them and turned to look back at Viveka curiously. Viveka
could have shouted for joy herself. The headsets had pinpointed
Motherload's transmission in Net.Delhi, Ind.IO. If the Avatar really was
on his way to the base she knew _exactly_ where he was.
"<kssh> Vince 2 to Motherload. We continue to track targets.
Further orders? <kssh>"
"<kssh> Motherload to Vince 2. Continue tracking. Avatar ETA is
two minutes. One of the squads is bringing him in. They just radioed
ahead. <kssh>"
Viveka started keeping a very close eye on Sarah. The brainless
girl hadn't spoken since the little revelation, choosing instead to lag a
few feet behind Brian, Savannah, and Allen, her head hung low. Viveka
could be on her and gone, into one of the side tunnels before anyone else
could react. Then it would be off to Ind.IO, finally able to destroy
what Maug and the rest of the family had held back from her for thirteen
long years. An Avatar of Skaine. A life for a life. Marcelyn deserved no
less.
But the buzz of shouts from the headset a few minutes ago had
drawn Sarah out of her thoughts. The girl glanced back at her every
minute or so, Binky's colors flickering dimly over her skin, ready to
flare into a shield or attack at a moment's notice. Viveka should have
killed her when she had a chance, in the first instant she realized that
Sarah wouldn't be as pliable as she should. But that would have meant
searching for the next Avatar, losing precious days. By then Skaine's new
Avatar would be tightly ensconced, perhaps impossible to get to.
"<kssh> Motherload to Vince 1, 2, and 3. The Avatar had entered
the complex. I repeat, the Avatar is here. Preparing to turn over control --
"
Without a single hiss of white noise or interference, the voice
of Motherload was gone. "I am Kalyani Sahay, new Avatar of Skaine. I speak
to
you, all of you, through the electric and silicon lines we have built for
our clan. All those who hear me now, obey."
He sounded somewhere in his late teens, but the strength behind
the voice, the certainty, was startling. His voice was amplified and
echoey, and Viveka realized it wasn't coming over the uplink Motherload
had been using from Ind.IO. Kalyani was speaking through the mecha
speakers themselves. He was transmitting himself through every piece of
equipment the clan of Skaine had built.
"As of now, all hostilities toward the clan of Binky will cease."
Viveka came to a stop in the center of the tunnel, let the others
move on ahead and leave her in darkness.
"I will not have a bloody war destroy our clan. Those who are
fighting, retreat or lay down your weapons. Do not sacrifice yourselves
unnecessarily, but take no more lives. The objective of all unoccupied
units is this: Find the Avatar of Binky. Inform him or her of my desire
for a cessation of hostilities, and a treaty. Do not let any harm come to
him or her."
He couldn't. Viveka's hands were ice cold, the blood rushing to
her legs and heart, sweat beginning to form on her skin. She drew her
gun, and lifted it to aim at the back of Savannah's head, let her finger
depress the trigger just a hair. It calmed her.
It didn't matter what the new Avatar of Skaine wanted. If she
didn't mention this change of events to Lily in the infodump, then
chances were the rest of the family wouldn't stop to ask questions of the
Skainites. She still had time. But she had to get out of here and to
Ind.IO, fast.
"<kssh> Lord, this is Vince 3. We are within minutes of the
Binkhalian Avatar. Vince 1 and 2's units were paired with agents of the
Reality. They have shut off their radios. Have reason to believe they
plan on ignoring your commands. <kssh>"
"The Reality has been... unhappy with my decisions," said
Kalyani. "Follow them. Do not allow the Avatar to be harmed. Sacrifice
yourself if necessary."
"<kssh> Yes, Lord. <kssh>"
Viveka started a slow glide through the darkness, owl-silent and
watchful. Sarah was looking up ahead, and the colors had died down around
her skin.
"Sarah? You okay back there?" asked Bryan. Viveka could have
killed him.
"I'm fine," said Sarah, though her voice shook.
Viveka eased back. Everything hinged on this girl, this pawn.
Viveka Reeves had been stupid once in her life. Never again.
She saw Bryan turn his head to look back, the glowing stone in
his hand lighting up the whole side of his face. "Maybe you should come
up here with us."
Sarah turned as well, until they were both looking back at her.
Viveka stopped and watched them both, expressionless. If she tried to
look harmless they'd just get suspicious. Sarah was backlit, but it was
just bright enough to see her eyes. The way they narrowed, looking back
at her as if she was something dangerous, something to be wary of. Damn
right, thought Viveka, I'll eat you alive.
"No," said Sarah, "I'm fine. I'm the Avatar of Binky, after all."
The girl's look had turned to anger. Viveka kept her face still
and expressionless, and watched her reactions. More anger. Ah, the pain
of trust betrayed.
Bryan was still stopped, watching them both.
"Skaine's men and the Reality are gaining," said Viveka. "We
should hurry."
"What do you know about the Reality?" asked Bryan. Viveka
realized he was talking to her. Nothing, she wanted to say, stop paying
attention to me and the girl back here.
"They don't like superpowereds or magic-users. Anything that
isn't normal is their enemy. They started a few decades ago, and picked
up backing from the clan of Skaine. They got a lot of nice toys, and in
return they killed a lot of people for them.
"But Skaine's not normal -- "
"Sometimes you have to sleep with a snake to kill a snake. And
whoever said the Reality was particularly sane? They're killers, some of
them raised from birth."
"Like you," said Sarah.
Viveka met the girl's gaze for a moment, and Sarah glanced down.
"No. We had a book with the future written in it, and I was its keeper. I
was the Prophet, and it said _nothing_ about Marcelyn dying."
The emotion in her voice surprised even her. After all these
years. But it served to make Bryan glance away in embarrassment, and Allen
and Savannah were still watching the passage ahead of them.
A clang reverberated off the stone wall, as one of Skaine's three
war parties closed the gap. Sarah chose that moment to spin on her, venom
in her eyes, all the poison of a girl whose world had just been broken.
"What happened?" she spat. "Read the wrong page?" Viveka looked
away for a moment.
Then she slammed a foot solidly into Sarah's knee, caught her as
she crumpled, and cracked the side of her hand into her temple. The girl
went limp in her arms.
Then she closed her eyes. Damned questions. Damned memories.
They came. Five of them, and she was only sixteen, and raised on
books a farm in Montana for all that. She trusted, she believed in her
duties, and it _said_, dammit, the prophecy _said_ --
And they shall enter the house of Binky.
She didn't want anyone getting hurt fighting off some invasion,
and since it was prophesied it was going to happen anyway, right? Why
fight them? She told no one, because she thought there'd be less
bloodshed. How could she have known? Sixteen, and stupid with the future
in her head like carven stone.
"I let them in," she whispered, cradling the unconscious girl
close. "I turned off every security system, unlocked every lock, and
opened the door myself."
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Sarah woke to gunfire. At first she couldn't seem to focus her
eyes, and all she got was a blurred sense of movement and the constant
percussion in her ears. Her right leg was a mass of pain, and she realized
she was being carried.
Sarah let her head continue to dangle back as she brought her
eyes into focus. Darkness. Then something exploded out of sight, and
threw everything into sharp relief. All she could see was the uneven wall
of the tunnel, with the mouth of a small opening in the middle of it. A
small furry creature crouched inside, holding a makeshift spear. Their
eyes met and Sarah shivered. Then she was swung around, the darkness
punctuated by constant flashes of light and noise. A battlefield.
The tunnel had opened out into an oblong nexus of sorts, with
openings into darkness all along the sides. In the flashes of gunfire and
explosions she could see mecha and vague human forms with guns. She
didn't see Bryan, Savannah, or Allen anywhere. She realized with a sick
feeling that Viveka had knocked her unconscious, and the arm wrapped
around her shoulders was clothed in the familiar dried blood color of
sweatshirt.
Her entire side turned to fire, and Viveka dropped her. Sarah
tried desperately to break her fall, and succeeded only in wrenching her
thumb backward when she hit the ground. She didn't know how far they'd
gotten, or how long she'd been unconscious. Where was everyone else?
"Stay away from her!" shouted Bryan, and something else exploded
nearby. Relief washed over her. He was here, and he was talking about
her. He must have thrown something to get Viveka --
At that moment the woman loomed into view, lit in the flickering
blaze of firepower, looking not at her but in the direction that Bryan
had shouted from. Viveka's eyes narrowed as she raised the gun. An image
of Kismet flashed in front of Sarah's eyes, the three holes blooming dead
center in her chest.
She tried to shout something, but her mouth wasn't working, so
she just flung out her good hand. Almost unbidden, black-gold-fuscia, her
powers flared around the gun. For a split second Viveka hesitated.
The stun bolt caught Viveka in the hand, and the gun clattered to
the ground. Another hit her in the stomach as she dove to the side and
out of sight. Sarah lifted her head and saw Savannah crouched behind a
rock against the other wall of the cavern, already moving the gun to
point at a new target.
Then a bullet cracked into the stone near her head, and Sarah
realized she was out in the open. The ultimate target. She flung herself
to her feet and fell back down just as fast. Her leg couldn't hold her
weight. Darkness fell and a strange quiet descended for a moment.
Everyone was reloading. She forced herself to her knees, dragging her
useless right leg behind her, and scrabbled toward where she thought a
wall should be. Until someone started firing again, and the rest of the
world followed suit. In the sudden light she realized she hadn't been
heading toward the wall, after all. She was in the center of the whole
cavern.
She almost froze then, and let the world fall in on her. Bad
enough when she'd been on her own, or when the mecha had cornered them in
the warehouse. But now she couldn't even run away. Sarah felt her muscles
give out, let her head fall to the cold stone.
Then a massive metal foot clanged into the ground nearly on top
of her, and her body pushed forth another supply of adrenaline. She threw
herself to the side and just rolled, tried to move away as fast as
possible without having to use her leg. A bullet crashed off the stone
nearby, and she almost brought her powers up to shield herself.
But all this was happening because they were after her, and as
long as she didn't give herself away no one would shoot at her. At least,
not more than at anyone else. A bullet crashed through the faceplate of
the mecha that had fired at her, sending the machine into a slow
avalanche of a face-fault. It landed right next to her on the cave
floor. No one would think to look for her there...
Sarah dragged herself the few feet over to the hulk and crouched
near the legs. Still too exposed. She moved up closer to the body of the
machine, out of sight of most of the battle. After a moment she realized
she could hear a man's voice, barely audible, babbling.
"You bastard, you and your kind are on their way out. The
Avatar's dead. We won't stand for this, the Reality won't let her live.
We called in backup, people you can't touch, machines you don't know
about. Your boys'll never make it in time."
She could hear a second voice, filtered as if through a speaker.
"Vince 1, I order you to stop. Vince 1 -- "
"She's dead, you bastard," whispered the man. "The Reality won't
have her live."
Sarah stared wide-eyed into the cockpit. A man lay there, covered
in blood. His eyes drifted over to her, but he didn't seem to really
recognize anything at all. Then he went still, leaving the other voice to
natter on and on.
"Vince 1, this is idiocy. Vince 1 -- "
"Hello?" asked Sarah. For a second there was no reply.
"Who is this?"
"Who are _you_?"
"I am Kalyani, Avatar of Skaine. It is imperative that I -- "
"Sarah Loman, Avatar of Binky," she said. Another second of
silence.
"Ms.Loman, I greet you with the best of wishes. Call off your
family. We are willing to make concessions to stop the killing. There
must be peace."
"Tell your men to stop shooting," she said. Everything went black
again for a moment, one of those eerie bits of silence, then a shot
echoed into the darkness and someone screamed.
"They are no longer mine to command. They have rebelled."
"Then what good are you?" Sarah started looking for an off switch
to the speaker.
"Your family has been harmed just as much as mine. More will die
if we don't stop this now."
"Look, I never met this family, and they aren't mine."
"It doesn't make the dying any less wrong," he whispered.
"Screw you," she said, desperately ignoring the dead man. It was
suddenly very important that this voice be halted, that people stop
making demands of her. They didn't understand that she couldn't do it.
"Then, if I can guarantee your safety, you will sign a treaty. If
I ensure that you, personally, will be unharmed." Sarah stopped.
"You can get me out of here?"
"I can."
"Then yes, God yes."
"I don't know exactly where you are. Find the nearest electrical
outlet and -- "
"We're underground. Tunnels."
"Then... There is a unit in the area that remains loyal to me.
Find them. Declare yourself. Tell them I wish to arrive. The driver of
the mecha knows what to do. They've modified the internal structure of
this one. I can barely control the voice systems." He sounded almost
annoyed, as if she wasn't at all what he'd expected. Well, this whole
screwed up saga wasn't anything she'd been expecting, either.
"Deal."
Everything outside the mecha's cockpit went wildly bright, and
she didn't hear what he said next.
"We are the Reality," boomed a voice from outside. "Help us
destroy the Avatar, or get out of our way."
Sarah looked up, and froze. Some kind of flare had been stuck to
the ceiling, lighting the whole place up bright as day. Three mecha were
left standing, and the floor was littered with the bodies of Reality
agents, in pools of blood or just stunned unconscious by the gun Savannah
carried. There was a streak of silver, the sound of metal hitting stone
in front of the three mecha.
A man in a thin exoskeleton of poles and wires, all gleaming
silver and slashing knives, knelt at the center of the cold stone floor
and grinned. Viveka stepped forward, all attempts at civility gone. She
looked like a killer, moved and breathed as if she didn't have the
feelings that humans were supposed to have. Sarah shivered.
"Get the hell away from here," said Viveka, gun in her hand. She
looked angry but battered, and when Sarah got a good look at her eyes she
saw too many memories behind her eyes, as if all the emotion that had
drained from her body pooled there.
The exo took a step forward. "Care to open us another door? Give
us another pretty Avatar for our prize?" Viveka closed her eyes.
"Oh but Viv," it said, "You made it so easy for us to give your
sweet sister a kiss."
Viveka lost it.
Two of the three mecha exploded, without Viveka even seeming to
move. Then she was over the last one and at the creature.
It seemed that they danced, gleaming metal and dull skin,
spinning paired across the open floor. Sarah saw Allen and Savannah pull
the triggers on their guns in the same instant, and the last mecha
toppled to the ground before it could do anything.
Three more of the men in exos dropped from the ceiling, just as
Viveka dispatched the one she was fighting. Allen fired, taking one in
the leg. But Savannah was still aiming, and in seconds the last two men
were on Viveka. One went down headless, but the other got in a cut.
Viveka's blood sprayed onto the floor. Savannah had the third one in her
sights when a strange cry began to play out of its speakers. It was a
child's cry, a woman's, full of anguish and loss.
For one crucial second, Viveka hesitated. The blade sunk into her
chest up to the hilt, was wrenched to the left and right, then removed.
Savannah shot the exo making the noise. Allen's bullets took out the one
with the knife. Viveka fell.
Sarah stood even as Savannah ran to Viveka's side, surer on her
feet than Sarah had ever seen before. Savannah knelt by the older woman's
side and took her hand in her own. Sarah just watched. She felt empty, as
if something had sucked out all the feelings from her and left just a
shell behind. She'd felt empty for the whole battle. Viveka's eyes were
unfocused, darting around the room as if searching for something.
"Viveka?" asked Savannah softly, her eyes on the gaping wound.
There was no way they could stop the bleeding. The floor around her was
already covered in red, soaking stickily into the knees of her jeans.
Viveka opened her mouth, and a bubble of blood rose up from the
darkness behind her teeth.
Her hand clenched over Savannah's so tightly that Sarah heard the
bones grate together. Viveka looked into Savannah's steel grey eyes
without really seeing them, her face covered in sweat and thin streaks of
blood.
"Tell her I'm sorry," she said, then her voice disintegrated into
a series of whimpers and short, fast breaths. She closed her eyes and
thrust one hand straight up, as if she could touch the stars. Then it
drifted back down, and Savannah took hold of it as the older woman
shivered and grew still.
Sarah let out a long breath. "Who'd she mean?"
"I don't know." Viveka's body relaxed against her, and Savannah
slowly shifted out from beneath her. Allen was already at the mouths of
one of the other tunnels, pendulum in hand, motioning them to hurry. She
nodded at Sarah to follow him, then turned back to Viveka's body for a
moment. The pool of blood had grown around her, spreading until it lapped
at the soles of Savannah's shoes. The front of her shirt was soaked in
it, the cloth sticking to her skin in a layer of soggy red.
There was nothing to say.
After a moment Savannah took a deep breath, and stood, following
Allen and Bryan further into the tunnels. Sarah stood for a moment,
swaying just a little, then lifted Binky up from where he lay on the
floor, stepped carefully around Viveka's body, and continued on.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Paytan knelt in silence. The chalk circle had been finished, and
most of the internal linework was done. There were some final touches she
needed here and there, which was why she was pouring over the
Net.crominicon, reading by the light from her eyes.
Never trust a demon or an angel. Both of them were big team
players. But something that was no longer an angel and not yet a demon
was very fair game.
The three artifacts made a tilted triangle in the center of the
floor, three of the five points of a pentagram. They had begun to radiate
power, more and more strongly as each artifact was added. She could feel
it vibrating through the air, like waking up and going on a fresh morning
jog, or the air just before the lightning struck. It coursed inside of
her, and she could feel it clear away all the darkness, the raw feeling
she'd had for days now, ever since the island in the middle of the ocean,
those dammed wrecked monoliths and what lay beneath them.
Angels could fall. But sometimes they simply drifted down, slow
but sure. Morphiel and Zurial.
They were like angelic siamese twins, inextricably linked, and
once they had reigned over the realms of mortal chance. But life's random
patterns had their own sultry draw, and these days Morphiel and Zurial
could never resist a bet. Too fascinated with the dance of the dice and
the cards, the chance of wind on a hill or rain the next day. Until they
gambled away their pretty wings and haloes, but not their power. Never
for very long, anyway. They'd lend it out for the right price.
A price that was different every time. It depended on their mood.
They had broken kings and sorcerers, asked a boy for the bravery of a
lion, and a hero for the collection of pressed flowers he had made when
he was a boy. They had destroyed a kingdom for a single gram of spice,
but would not lift a finger to open a simple door until a certain man had
brought them three thousand emperor butterflies, tiny corpses each a
vision of perfection in and of itself.
She didn't know what they would ask her for.
But with demons at her command, and the power she was leeching
from the artifacts even now, she would do anything.
With a boom, the earth in the corner of the cave burst upward and
a stream of teethed worms crawled into sight. They were beaten and
bloodied, some of them torn near in half. But two held a torus in their
mouth, and suddenly the energy in the cave was a whole lot stronger.
Paytan laughed and tilted back her head, let the power roar into her and
prepared to summon a few more demons, to go help out the rest of the
worms.
A body returned, a soul brought out of the mists, that was worth
any gamble. Any number of dead butterflies.
A sky she could walk beneath.
Four down, one to go.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
It was when the second Skainite war party arrived that the real
trouble began. But not yet, it's still a few minutes before.
Savannah was hurrying after Allen, letting Bryan guide her so
that she wouldn't fall behind. If the amulet was any indication, they
were nearly on top of Paytan. Sarah was limping somewhere behind them, in
the darkness. Savannah didn't care where.
The front of her shirt stuck to her chest, heavy and wet with
Viveka's blood. Just when she thought she'd managed to forget it for a
moment she would swing out an arm, or twist her body just so, and the
soaked fabric would drag across her skin. She shuddered involuntarily,
and Bryan gave her a worried look. She didn't respond. Somewhere in all
this something had gone wrong. She felt like the whole world was
crumbling between her fingers and she couldn't keep hold of it anymore.
Allen was going nuts with that gun of his, and ever since Brittany -- and
Viveka, standing there with that smirk on her face, thinking that losing
Brittany was a good thing, as if that kind of sacrifice was worthwhile.
She was still gone. Only now Viveka was gone too, swallowed by her own
demons. They should never have left Paytan alone, and now they'd lost
Nei. People just kept _dying_.
None of them were getting out of this place alive.
Savannah shook her head, and the motion dragged the fabric across
her shoulder a little. The air smelled coppery and rich, almost
sickening. Which was when the first shot rang out.
Not mecha this time but mere humans, far more quiet. Savannah
heard Allen curse in front of them, then Sarah screamed.
From off to the side a light blazed out, giant spotlights hooked
to the front of a mecha crouching in one of the side tunnels. They'd
gotten around in front somehow, surrounded them. Bryan stopped, so
Savannah stopped with him. Allen ran ahead, out of the range of the mecha
spotlight and Bryan's glowing piece of stone, into the darkness. Bryan
lofted the stone at spotlight mecha, just as another one of the machines
leaped out of a different tunnel, sides running against the stone with a
screech, nearly on top of Sarah.
Savannah heard Bryan's stone explode, but she was too busy
watching the second mecha try to land from the leap. It's great metal
feet touched the ground, and the whole floor fell in beneath it. The
stone crumpled up and showered into a cavern below, and the mecha
disappeared from sight with a tremendous crash. Sarah almost did as well.
The first mecha, evidently not greatly harmed by the explosion,
began to fire. "Eyes!" shouted Bryan, and she closed hers as he took her
and gave her a tremendous push to the side. She didn't hear him coming
after her, and opened her eyes just as her foot caught on a rock and sent
her sprawling. Her vision blurred for a moment as she lost her focus
point, but she didn't go unconscious. Thank God for all that practice.
Bryan must have gone in a different direction, splitting the mecha's
targets. She opened her eyes again, and saw Sarah.
The girl was hanging most of the way into the pit the first mecha
had made, her arms clutching at the crumbling stone, everything from her
shoulders down hanging beneath ground level into the empty space. Her
eyes, already red and bloodshot, were full of tears again. Didn't she
ever stop crying?
Savannah just watched her, the front of her shirt sticky with
Viveka's blood. If she went to get Sarah she'd have to leave her shelter
and put herself in the line of fire.
So she did nothing.
But Sarah saw her, met her eyes. "HELP ME! I'M SLIPPING! I'M
GOING TO DIE IF YOU DON'T!" Her voice was raw and panicked, several
octaves higher than normal.
Savannah could see the resemblance to Brittany, though, in a
thousand little ways. Not just the goldfish or the powers. Sarah's skin
tone was the same, and she had the same ears, the lobes attached to the
rest of the her skull so that they moved down in a single graceful line
to the curve of her chin. Her hair was different. Darker, and a little
thinner. Probably her father's genes. One of the mecha rattled off a
burst of bullets, and the light gleamed off a bracelet that wrapped
around Sarah's wrist. A pure gold, like Kismet's wing, who was gone as
well, the whole universe just draining _away_ --
Kismet's words came into her head all of a sudden, as if the
winged girl was there beside her on the cold, bloody stone. "You three
always had each other."
It's why she was going after Paytan. Why Paytan was doing this
now, why it made everything so important. Because ever since the moment
they reached that tiny island in the middle of the sea as darkness fell,
everything had seemed broken.
That was a little girl out there. Barely into her teens,
screaming for help, and Savannah was laying here watching. Alone.
"I'm not Brittany, do you hear me? I have NEVER been Brittany!"
screamed Sarah.
"No, you haven't," whispered Savannah. Then she was up and
moving, praying that the ground was solid, that it would hold long enough
for her to get there and back, a bullet whining by on her left. She
rolled to the ground, and her hands closed solidly around Sarah's
forearms.
Savannah got her feet beneath her, and pulled. A crack grew
around her left foot, so she shifted most of her weight to the right one,
but then there were cracks everywhere and she was giving one last
tremendous yank that sent them both backward as the ground gave way
beneath her feet. She landed heavily on her side with nothing but empty
space beneath her legs. Then she was kicking and scrabbling, one hand
still holding onto Sarah's arm, bullets thudding into the ground nearby.
She got a glimpse of the caverns, and two new mecha. She didn't know
where they were all coming from. Then they both forced themselves away
from the hole and on the other side of a low rise in the floor,
collapsing.
Sarah was halfway on top of her, crying as if her life depended
on it, a voiceless repetitive whine like a wounded puppy. Savannah put
her arms around her in a daze, the words dropping from her mouth in an
endless chain of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
How dare Paytan leave them like this, to muddle after her in the
darkness? She had no more right to run off than Brittany did, and look
what had happened then --
Savannah looked up into the barrel of a gun, a man standing
sweaty in a business suit without any jacket, his tie all awry. He smiled
down at her, and began to pull the trigger.
"You're with the Reality, right?" shouted Bryan.
The man looked up. "Yes," he said, and lifted his gun.
A ball of carmine energy thundered from the darkness and slammed
him into the wall. Everything went silent for a moment. Sarah curled into
a ball and rolled off Savannah, who threw herself to her feet. Bryan was
smiling.
"What was that!?" she shouted.
"Remember that phone call I made before we went into the sewers?"
asked Bryan.
And into the silence came the voice of a young girl, so shaken
with fear that it was barely understandable.
"I just have to wonder who`'od win... these metal guys or MOUSE
AND WRITERS BLOCK WOMAN!!"
In a sudden warping of space and time, the purple and gold clad
righter of wrongs and her daughter/sidekick stood before them. Mouse had
just enough time to get a good clear look at the mecha before they opened
fire.
"Oh shit," she said.
Then WBW had grabbed her and flown upward, out of the line of
fire. Forced into combat with the two newly arrive net.heroes, the mecha
turned their attention from everything else.
A girl seemed to walk right out of the rock wall on Savannah's
left, until Savannah realized she had just blended into it,
chameleon-like. There were others, too, coming out of the tunnels and
gathering slowly around Bryan.
"Savannah," said Bryan, "This Kid Camouflage, Hooded Ho'od Win
Jr., Rebecca, Mr.Exposition, and Dust."
"Do you have any idea how long it took to ditch Fossavellus!?"
snarled Dust.
Kid Camouflage jerked her head at the battle going on behind her.
"So this is the Reality, huh?"
Savannah heard Mouse scream something very angry and improper,
then the mecha stopped firing and began to twitch confusedly, as if
unsure of what to do next. "Yes," said Bryan, "This is the Reality."
Behind him Mr.Exposition began to swing a hook on a long line,
the teeth of his smile gleaming in the darkness. Rebecca was already
watching another one of the Reality agents, her mouth forming words that
glowed carmine in the air. Dust just slammed her fist into her palm and
smiled. Savannah watched as Kid Camouflage's and Bryan's gazes met. The
look that passed between them held relief. Success. Closure. Like they
didn't have to say anything at all.
They just smiled.
________________________________________________________________________
Binky, Mr. Fossavellus, the Junior Brotherhood of Net.Villains, Out-of-It
Lass, Perdition, Viveka, and Sarah, copyright Jennifer Whitson, 1995.
Explosion Boy and Kid Camouflage on permanent lend, and WBW and Mouse
belong to Jaelle. Allan is Jamas Enright's. Everyone else is someone's.
Next Issue:
The biggest brawl of the whole damn series in the tunnels beneath
Net.ropolis.
Can Savannah and Allen get through this chaos and stop Paytan in
time?
Do they want to?
========================================================================
