As we sit, taking a break from the day’s travels, a vision creeps into our minds. A dark room, stale air, walls covered in cramped writing. Adam’s cell. An ominous voice addresses Adam from the darkness.
"It was they who left you here, you know. To sleep. Forever."
I hear, rather than see, Adam stand in the darkness. "It was a choice that was made."
"But... not a choice that you made?"
"No. My choice... was to allow her to have that choice." Adam shakes his head, fixing his gaze in the opposite direction of the source of the voice.
An uncomfortable cracking sound, as grating as screeching steel, drifts from the other side of the room. Adam does not move.
"Then you've played right into his hands."
Finally, Adam turns to face his intruder. "There are many things you do not..." His voice cuts short, as his eyes narrow. "You."
An unnatural chattering sound begins to fill the room. "Yes............"
"It was they who left you here, you know. To sleep. Forever."
I hear, rather than see, Adam stand in the darkness. "It was a choice that was made."
"But... not a choice that you made?"
"No. My choice... was to allow her to have that choice." Adam shakes his head, fixing his gaze in the opposite direction of the source of the voice.
An uncomfortable cracking sound, as grating as screeching steel, drifts from the other side of the room. Adam does not move.
"Then you've played right into his hands."
Finally, Adam turns to face his intruder. "There are many things you do not..." His voice cuts short, as his eyes narrow. "You."
An unnatural chattering sound begins to fill the room. "Yes............"
"Me."
"Worry not," the figure continues in a voice that is all the more unsettling for its soothing tone. "I'll not harm you."
Adam stands firm, eyes still narrowed and defiant. "Then why are you here?"
The other emerges grin first from the darkness of the far wall, directly over the strange symbol etched there.
"He has left you here, in this space between Nothing and Extinction. And before you prattle on about the choices that you've made, consider this: did you honestly believe that he didn't know what you would choose? Did you consider that such may, in fact, be part of his plan? Methinks you to be more of an open book than either would admit, after all."
"It doesn't matter," Adam replies sharply.
The head, now fully visible, turns slowly. The being we have come to know as No One, Chaos, or Chess regards Adam with apparent curiosity. "He must have known that, by your choice, you would be left here... to me. He expects that I will destroy you... will consume you. He has betrayed you, and his Children have betrayed you... without you even realizing what has been done to you."
Adam's jaw tightens at those words. "That does not concern you, nor would I let it. I say once more: why are you here?"
Letter by letter, stroke by stroke, the writing on the walls unravels itself, until the room is once again a blank slate.
"As I said before, I'm not here to harm you." Chaos’ chuckling laughter fills the air, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere “I have something far more... interesting in mind. I am here to set you free."
A shiver runs down my spine. I glance at Grace, wondering if she’s still there, still okay. I wonder if she has any more idea what this means than I do.
I see Grace's jaw tighten at Chess’ words. "This is part of his story. Not mine. His choices." Grace stands now, eyes suddenly unsteady and unsure. "His choices."
"You never meant to hurt him, Grace. None of us did. And Adam knows that." I put a hand on Grace's shoulder. "I think you're right. What happens next is up to him. And I trust him to do the right thing."
Mercury's eye narrows. "It takes more than a choice to leave who you were behind," He grins. "You really think it's that easy? That our choices hold that much power?"
Grace blinks, confused. "In this case, yeah, I do - a single choice determined which of us walked free and which of us stayed in that room. That's what this is all about, Mercury. I walk free and he faces whatever that thing is. It could have been me. Maybe it should have been." Grace sighs. "I'll probably never know for sure - never know whether I was right."
"That's what you were shown, but do you think it's true?” Mercury looks at Grace sternly. "It's pretty easy to rely on someone's... predictable choices... to make them think they're making a real decision."
"Manipulated, then. Yeah, maybe - hell, it would fit the trend. There seem to be strings we don't know about attached to every decision." Grace answers, casting a sad glance in my direction. "Doesn't matter, though. Adam and I made our choice, and even if we didn't know what the consequences would be, we get to deal with them. Doesn't mean we have to like it, though. Doesn't mean we don't fight back."
Adam, his back once again turned on the intruder, places a hand on the wall that separates us. For a moment, it’s as if he’s looking through the wall and directly at us. His eyes meet Grace’s, and his stern countenance changes to a smile.
He whispers "Never doubt. In the end, you will know. And until that time comes.... no matter what happens next... never resign yourself to apathy. Never stop fighting."
Grace is silent for a moment and then nods grimly. "You as well, my friend. One way or another, we'll make this world a better place."
We come back to ourselves, uneasy. I want to give Grace a chance to talk about what we just saw if she wants, but circumstances don’t permit. Before we can even get moving again, we’re engulfed in another vision.
A coven we don’t recognize is overtaken by darkness. We see an entity of pure shadow looming over the coven, but tendrils of his presence extend in all directions. The Daedalum orbit the figure’s head like a crown, and the light of the fifth daedalum illuminates him from behind in a blood-red corona. The King. He wraps shadowy hands around the coven, and a fence made of rusty metal materializes, enclosing the area.
We watch as a tall, attractive woman runs through the streets. Her long, dreadlocked hair flows out behind her. Her face is scratched and bleeding. Her clothes, which seem closer to the things Kassandra wore than what I’ve seen on anyone else, are torn and dirty. Whoever she is, she looks terrified. She turns a corner, and finds herself surrounded by a group of tall, slender figures clad in leather and chains. Inquisitors. Are they after her? And if so, how and why?
The woman, eyes wide with panic, desperately scans her surroundings looking for any means of escape. Suddenly, a shrill whistle pierces the air. The woman spins on her heels to find the source of the sound., and finds herself staring at Chess. He leans nonchalantly against a wall, examining his nails. When he notices he has the woman’s attention, he flashes one of his too-big smiles and beckons her over. It takes me by surprise when the woman immediately reaches out to Chess, and rushes toward him with a look of recognition on her face. With just a few steps, the woman closes the gap between them, and grasps for Chess’ shoulder just as she reaches him. She’s caught off balance, however, when her hand finds only empty space where Chess should be. She stumbles forward, through the thin cloud of chalky dust he left behind, and catches herself on the bars of the rusted metal fence that now surrounds the coven. The bars give a little under her weight, and there is a loud clang as something heavy and metal slams against them. The woman’s eyes widen in surprise, and she reaches out to grasp the bulky lock apparently holding this section of fence together. A gate, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there a moment ago.
The woman frantically works at the lock, looking over her shoulder every few moments. Each time she checks, the Inquisitors have moved a little closer. I don’t see exactly how she manages it, but suddenly there is a loud click, and the lock falls to the ground. With one last backward glance at her pursuers, she tugs at the now unlocked gate. The hinges scream as the gate swings open to reveal a path enclosed in rusted barbed wire. The woman takes off in a sprint, leaving the gate open. I can’t help but notice the sense of purpose behind her haunted eyes. As much as she is running away from something, it seems she’s also running toward something else.
Suddenly our perception changes, and we’re looking at the woman through the walls of a dark and filthy room. Another figure is with her; a woman, identical to her, but clean, unhurt, and seemingly happy and unaware of her surroundings. As the woman moves up to confront her untarnished twin, it becomes apparent that there is a third presence in the room. Chess appears, eating an apple.
He moves behind the less disheveled of the two women, placing one hand on her shoulder and stroking her cheek paternally with his other. Over her shoulder, he speaks to the battered and haunted woman we have been following. “Charming, isn’t she? She refuses to comprehend what has happened to her... to her life, her home. She cannot acknowledge what you now accept. An understandable response, perhaps. But only one of you can leave this place.”
I see Grace grit her teeth. “No. I’m not going to stand by and watch someone else go through this.” She lunges forward, digging her fingers into the transparent wall of the room in a shower of blue sparks, and, with a sudden burst of energy, seems to wrench the invisible barrier open. She tries to move forward, but something still blocks her way. The disheveled woman glances in our direction, as if she can hear the sounds of Grace’s struggle. “You don’t have to do this,” Grace shouts through the wall. “You don’t have to make this decision...”
Chess also turns to look at Grace through the wall. “There is no other way out,” he says, his voice level.
“So, she has to make the same choice Delilah and I did? Leave Adam in the cell, or stay there myself? Leave Lenore in torment, or take her place?”
“Adam made his own choices, and Lenore isn’t in torment anymore.”
“That’s not the point,” Grace begins, but she seems to lose her grip on the wall suddenly and is pushed back out of the room before she can say anything more. Now the exterior of the room looks like a rusted, warped metal cage, and we’re standing on a thin steel framework just outside. I look down, and see that the cage is being supported by a monstrous pair of black hands - the King’s hands. Below is the ruin of the coven from earlier in the vision, perched on a crumbling scrap of land floating in an endless black abyss.
A wave of vertigo sweeps over me as I stare into the abyss, and I tighten my grip on the rough metal of the cage and turn my attention back to the room. As we watch, the woman we’ve been following takes the other version of herself into her arms and rocks her gently until she seems to drift off into sleep and then fade away to nothingness. The remaining woman then stands up and turns to the gate from which she entered.
She looks through the gate, and I shudder with her as I see what awaits her at the end of the corridor. An enormous hulking beast pulls itself steadily toward her on insectile limbs, its claws clicking against the walls like the ticking of some nightmare clock. Bits of viscera and gore, remnants, no doubt, of the monster’s previous victims, are impaled on the spikes jutting out of the beast’s back. This poor woman, whoever she is, is facing Shi’raska.
Shi’raska opens the gaping maw where its head should be, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and lets lose a bone-chilling roar. The beast picks up speed, leaving a trail of darkness in its wake. The woman rushes head-long to confront her tormentor, but both of them stop cold when they meet in the middle of the long hallway. Shi’raska opens its maw again and regurgitates the severed head of one of its victims, holding it in its mandibles, as if for the woman’s inspection. The head fixes its dead stare on the woman, and she cringes in guilt and horror. For a moment, I think she’s going to succumb to the beast, to collapse and welcome oblivion, but she seems to find some reserve of strength as she closes her eyes and charges forward. As she barrels into Shi’raska, the beast’s body explodes in a spray of white, chalky powder.
Our vision shifts yet again, and we see the woman we’ve been watching (will we ever know her name?) amid the ruins of what I assume was her coven. The houses around her are now jagged heaps of stone, as if they’d been struck, one after another, by a titanic hammer. The decapitated bodies of the covenfolk are displayed on the Icon like some macabre sculpture. Shi’raska prowls the wreckage, tearing into the shattered buildings as if looking for more bodies to desecrate, but takes no notice of the woman we’ve been watching, though the only thing that separates the two is a chalk line on the ground.
As the woman stands there, frozen in horror, a gun appears in her hand. She manages to turn her head, and comes face to face with Chess.
“You'll starve to death out here... or worse,” Chess coos. “But there is a way. Images come back.”
He peers at her for a moment, eyebrow raised, as if waiting for something.
"Courage isn't always what you'd expect, you know," he remarks quietly.
This time there’s no invisible wall to break through, no sense of our presence here at all. All we can do is look into the woman’s haunted eyes as she raises the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger.
We snap to, back in Freedom’s Pass, and stare at each other for a moment. I see my feelings of confusion and helplessness echoed on the others’ faces. We tried our best to help her. There was really nothing else we could have...
“Hey, there’s an alert light blinking on the Icon!” Frac exclaims, running over to investigate. “It’s picking up an image!”
“She followed us through!” Grace concludes excitedly, hurrying over to assist Fractal. ”Somehow, she followed us through!”
I hear several beeps and whirs from the Icon, and several muffled curses from Frac and Grace. Eventually, a previously dark light flashes to life on one of the instrument panels, and the monitors indicate that an image, identified as one Zyphania Israfil, has been successfully downloaded.
Frac and Grace step back from the Icon with a sigh of relief, and we begin to search the coven for biomass to fuel Zyphania’s reimaging. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much we can use. Whatever happened to the people here, they didn’t leave behind anything alive. The most suitable thing we can find is what’s left of Father Valentine. Frac examines the body, and determines that, other than the distasteful fact that the exomorph had recently been inhabited by Chess, the body possesses no anomalies that would make it unsafe to use to reimage Zyphania.
Frac stands at the control panel, ready to enter the command to begin the reimaging process. Suddenly, he notices something on one of he readouts, and his face grows grim. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s wrong?” Mercury asks.
“She’s got some corruption,” Frac frowns. “And she’s infected.”
“Infected?” Mercury moves over toward the Icon. “Then we can’t let her out. We can’t let that spread.”
“You’re right,” Grace chimes in. “But I’m not ready to give up. There’s got to be a way we can help her.”
“We could take her to the King, and see what He says,” Mercury suggests.
Shi’raska opens the gaping maw where its head should be, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and lets lose a bone-chilling roar. The beast picks up speed, leaving a trail of darkness in its wake. The woman rushes head-long to confront her tormentor, but both of them stop cold when they meet in the middle of the long hallway. Shi’raska opens its maw again and regurgitates the severed head of one of its victims, holding it in its mandibles, as if for the woman’s inspection. The head fixes its dead stare on the woman, and she cringes in guilt and horror. For a moment, I think she’s going to succumb to the beast, to collapse and welcome oblivion, but she seems to find some reserve of strength as she closes her eyes and charges forward. As she barrels into Shi’raska, the beast’s body explodes in a spray of white, chalky powder.
Our vision shifts yet again, and we see the woman we’ve been watching (will we ever know her name?) amid the ruins of what I assume was her coven. The houses around her are now jagged heaps of stone, as if they’d been struck, one after another, by a titanic hammer. The decapitated bodies of the covenfolk are displayed on the Icon like some macabre sculpture. Shi’raska prowls the wreckage, tearing into the shattered buildings as if looking for more bodies to desecrate, but takes no notice of the woman we’ve been watching, though the only thing that separates the two is a chalk line on the ground.
As the woman stands there, frozen in horror, a gun appears in her hand. She manages to turn her head, and comes face to face with Chess.
“You'll starve to death out here... or worse,” Chess coos. “But there is a way. Images come back.”
He peers at her for a moment, eyebrow raised, as if waiting for something.
"Courage isn't always what you'd expect, you know," he remarks quietly.
This time there’s no invisible wall to break through, no sense of our presence here at all. All we can do is look into the woman’s haunted eyes as she raises the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger.
We snap to, back in Freedom’s Pass, and stare at each other for a moment. I see my feelings of confusion and helplessness echoed on the others’ faces. We tried our best to help her. There was really nothing else we could have...
“Hey, there’s an alert light blinking on the Icon!” Frac exclaims, running over to investigate. “It’s picking up an image!”
“She followed us through!” Grace concludes excitedly, hurrying over to assist Fractal. ”Somehow, she followed us through!”
I hear several beeps and whirs from the Icon, and several muffled curses from Frac and Grace. Eventually, a previously dark light flashes to life on one of the instrument panels, and the monitors indicate that an image, identified as one Zyphania Israfil, has been successfully downloaded.
Frac and Grace step back from the Icon with a sigh of relief, and we begin to search the coven for biomass to fuel Zyphania’s reimaging. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much we can use. Whatever happened to the people here, they didn’t leave behind anything alive. The most suitable thing we can find is what’s left of Father Valentine. Frac examines the body, and determines that, other than the distasteful fact that the exomorph had recently been inhabited by Chess, the body possesses no anomalies that would make it unsafe to use to reimage Zyphania.
Frac stands at the control panel, ready to enter the command to begin the reimaging process. Suddenly, he notices something on one of he readouts, and his face grows grim. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s wrong?” Mercury asks.
“She’s got some corruption,” Frac frowns. “And she’s infected.”
“Infected?” Mercury moves over toward the Icon. “Then we can’t let her out. We can’t let that spread.”
“You’re right,” Grace chimes in. “But I’m not ready to give up. There’s got to be a way we can help her.”
“We could take her to the King, and see what He says,” Mercury suggests.
“Okay,” Frac says, reluctantly. “Let’s meet him halfway.”
Frac instructs us to climb into the Icon’s regeneration pods. Once inside, he activates his centroglyph, and we soon find ourselves at the foot of Golgotha. Alastor descends slowly from his throne, down the mountain of skulls, until he is standing in front of us. Everything outside our circle fades into darkness.
“Why have you come here?” Alastor asks, his voice stern.
As he speaks, a transparent box wrapped in chains materializes in the center of our gathering. Inside, Zyphania’s image is curled into a ball.
“We came to ask your guidance, my King,” Mercury says, bowing.
“And why have you brought... this.... before me?” Alastor asks, looking disdainfully at the box containing Zyphania.
“Because we want to help her,” Grace answers. “We want to know if there’s a way.”
“You know what you should do,” Alastor narrows his eyes at Grace. “The threat needs to be eliminated.”
“There’ s got to be some other way,” Grace objects. “We can’t just send her into nothingness without even talking to...” Grace’s voice cuts off in a gasp for air. Her hands reach to her throat, pulling at the collar around her neck. She glares at Alastor, eyes filled with rage.
“You do no know with what you deal,” Alastor drops his clenched fist, and I hear Grace breathing again. “You have no idea the danger she poses.”
“We came to you for guidance, and...” I try to voice my anger, but Alastor casts me a disapproving glare, and Mercury cuts me off.
“And He has given it...”
He isn’t offering guidance, Mercury. He’s simply berating us for bothering him. And, if he’s not even going to pretend to listen to us, then I’m done talking.
“Do what you will,” Alastor sighs. “But know this: Your actions will have consequences.”
Grace casts Alastor another glare, and pointedly turns toward the box that holds Zyphania. She places a hand on the top, and tries to move it. Fractal and I join her. To my surprise, Mercury follows, too. Nothing he had said earlier had indicated that he had any interest in saving Zyphania, especially not if Alastor objected. Just when I think I have him figured out, he does something I never expected.
As I find myself being drawn back to reality, my attention is momentarily drawn back to Alastor. He has returned to his throne, and is observing our departure with a soft chuckle and an inscrutable grin. In his right hand, he holds an ornate goblet, which he empties onto the ground. Alastor tosses the goblet away, and begins to applaud us with the same infuriating slow clap I’ve seen so many times from Atravitus.
Firm in our decision, we emerge from the Icon ready to reimage Zyphania. Our enthusiasm dulls somewhat when we realize we still have no idea how to accomplish the task safely. Just when I thought this bad situation couldn’t get any worse, I notice Chess has appeared nearby. He walks between us, trying to attract our attention. Fractal pointedly turns his eyes from Chess whenever he passes by. Mercury, Grace, and I watch Chess, but don’t engage him. Eventually, he appears to tire of his game. He moves to the area in front of the Icon, and stoops down, seemingly examining the dirt. After a few moments, I’m unable to stifle my curiosity any longer, and move a little closer so that I can see what he’s doing. I’m surprised to see he’s drawing diagrams. I don’t understand them, but something tells me they might be important, or at least useful.
“Frac, you may want to look at this,” I suggest.
Reluctantly, he walks over and observes the drawings. “I hate to admit it, but this gives me an idea,” he announces after a moment.
“What are you thinking, Frac?” Grace asks, joining him in looking at the figures.
“It’ll be tricky,” Frac explains, gesturing to the diagrams. “But I think if we take her image apart and put it back together attached to some of ours, it might just work.”
“And how do we...”
Frac answers Grace’s question mid-sentence by pointing out a particular equation under one of the diagrams. “If I’m reading this right, I’m pretty sure I can handle it once we get inside.”
Once again, we climb into the Icon’s regeneration pods and drift off. When I open my eyes again, I’m as surprised as anyone to find we’re in a warped version of Arcadia. It’s not the Arcadia I remember, but it’s not the King’s Arcadia, either. Everything is strange and out of place, and yet somehow familiar. Our path lies down a long hallway. The metal walls reflect the dim light dully; a ghostly memory of brilliant gleam the panels would once have given. The corridor ends at a large elevator, reminiscent of the one I remember in City Prime. In silent contemplation, I step up to the control panel, wait for the others to join me, and then activate the lift. Gears long still grind into motion, and the scent of rust and dust fills my nostrils as the platform begins to descend.
“I don’t know that I trust this thing,” Mercury comments as the machinery gives a particularly loud, metallic scream.
“I think I can stop it if anything goes wrong,” Frac says, looking around, and then to me. “Where does this thing go?”
“Well, this is City Prime,” I say, feeling the slow chug of the elevator. “Below that is the Echelons, and then the Sectors, and then, places I never went.”
Frac nods. I turn to watch the scenery as we travel through this twisted version of my city. We move steadily down, into the Echelons, and most of the way through the Sectors, but suddenly things begin to feel like they’re moving too fast. The layers of the city, and ghostly flickers of its former inhabitants, begin to fly by. I look away, trying to avoid the painful imagery, but looking down is worse. The only thing below us is a black abyss, and we’re hurdling right toward it.
The thought is enough to send my heart racing in panic. My knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor, and grip the platform as tightly as I can. “Frac, you said you can stop this. Do it! Please! We’re going to fall. We’re going to go right through! I don’t want to fall again...”
“Okay,” Frac says, almost yelling in frustration. His voice softens with concern, however, when he turns and sees the terror in my eyes. “Okay... I’ll stop it. Just.... Just calm down.”
Frac reaches out his hands, grits his teeth, and wills the machinery to a halt.
Frac instructs us to climb into the Icon’s regeneration pods. Once inside, he activates his centroglyph, and we soon find ourselves at the foot of Golgotha. Alastor descends slowly from his throne, down the mountain of skulls, until he is standing in front of us. Everything outside our circle fades into darkness.
“Why have you come here?” Alastor asks, his voice stern.
As he speaks, a transparent box wrapped in chains materializes in the center of our gathering. Inside, Zyphania’s image is curled into a ball.
“We came to ask your guidance, my King,” Mercury says, bowing.
“And why have you brought... this.... before me?” Alastor asks, looking disdainfully at the box containing Zyphania.
“Because we want to help her,” Grace answers. “We want to know if there’s a way.”
“You know what you should do,” Alastor narrows his eyes at Grace. “The threat needs to be eliminated.”
“There’ s got to be some other way,” Grace objects. “We can’t just send her into nothingness without even talking to...” Grace’s voice cuts off in a gasp for air. Her hands reach to her throat, pulling at the collar around her neck. She glares at Alastor, eyes filled with rage.
“You do no know with what you deal,” Alastor drops his clenched fist, and I hear Grace breathing again. “You have no idea the danger she poses.”
“We came to you for guidance, and...” I try to voice my anger, but Alastor casts me a disapproving glare, and Mercury cuts me off.
“And He has given it...”
He isn’t offering guidance, Mercury. He’s simply berating us for bothering him. And, if he’s not even going to pretend to listen to us, then I’m done talking.
“Do what you will,” Alastor sighs. “But know this: Your actions will have consequences.”
Grace casts Alastor another glare, and pointedly turns toward the box that holds Zyphania. She places a hand on the top, and tries to move it. Fractal and I join her. To my surprise, Mercury follows, too. Nothing he had said earlier had indicated that he had any interest in saving Zyphania, especially not if Alastor objected. Just when I think I have him figured out, he does something I never expected.
As I find myself being drawn back to reality, my attention is momentarily drawn back to Alastor. He has returned to his throne, and is observing our departure with a soft chuckle and an inscrutable grin. In his right hand, he holds an ornate goblet, which he empties onto the ground. Alastor tosses the goblet away, and begins to applaud us with the same infuriating slow clap I’ve seen so many times from Atravitus.
Firm in our decision, we emerge from the Icon ready to reimage Zyphania. Our enthusiasm dulls somewhat when we realize we still have no idea how to accomplish the task safely. Just when I thought this bad situation couldn’t get any worse, I notice Chess has appeared nearby. He walks between us, trying to attract our attention. Fractal pointedly turns his eyes from Chess whenever he passes by. Mercury, Grace, and I watch Chess, but don’t engage him. Eventually, he appears to tire of his game. He moves to the area in front of the Icon, and stoops down, seemingly examining the dirt. After a few moments, I’m unable to stifle my curiosity any longer, and move a little closer so that I can see what he’s doing. I’m surprised to see he’s drawing diagrams. I don’t understand them, but something tells me they might be important, or at least useful.
“Frac, you may want to look at this,” I suggest.
Reluctantly, he walks over and observes the drawings. “I hate to admit it, but this gives me an idea,” he announces after a moment.
“What are you thinking, Frac?” Grace asks, joining him in looking at the figures.
“It’ll be tricky,” Frac explains, gesturing to the diagrams. “But I think if we take her image apart and put it back together attached to some of ours, it might just work.”
“And how do we...”
Frac answers Grace’s question mid-sentence by pointing out a particular equation under one of the diagrams. “If I’m reading this right, I’m pretty sure I can handle it once we get inside.”
Once again, we climb into the Icon’s regeneration pods and drift off. When I open my eyes again, I’m as surprised as anyone to find we’re in a warped version of Arcadia. It’s not the Arcadia I remember, but it’s not the King’s Arcadia, either. Everything is strange and out of place, and yet somehow familiar. Our path lies down a long hallway. The metal walls reflect the dim light dully; a ghostly memory of brilliant gleam the panels would once have given. The corridor ends at a large elevator, reminiscent of the one I remember in City Prime. In silent contemplation, I step up to the control panel, wait for the others to join me, and then activate the lift. Gears long still grind into motion, and the scent of rust and dust fills my nostrils as the platform begins to descend.
“I don’t know that I trust this thing,” Mercury comments as the machinery gives a particularly loud, metallic scream.
“I think I can stop it if anything goes wrong,” Frac says, looking around, and then to me. “Where does this thing go?”
“Well, this is City Prime,” I say, feeling the slow chug of the elevator. “Below that is the Echelons, and then the Sectors, and then, places I never went.”
Frac nods. I turn to watch the scenery as we travel through this twisted version of my city. We move steadily down, into the Echelons, and most of the way through the Sectors, but suddenly things begin to feel like they’re moving too fast. The layers of the city, and ghostly flickers of its former inhabitants, begin to fly by. I look away, trying to avoid the painful imagery, but looking down is worse. The only thing below us is a black abyss, and we’re hurdling right toward it.
The thought is enough to send my heart racing in panic. My knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor, and grip the platform as tightly as I can. “Frac, you said you can stop this. Do it! Please! We’re going to fall. We’re going to go right through! I don’t want to fall again...”
“Okay,” Frac says, almost yelling in frustration. His voice softens with concern, however, when he turns and sees the terror in my eyes. “Okay... I’ll stop it. Just.... Just calm down.”
Frac reaches out his hands, grits his teeth, and wills the machinery to a halt.
I finally regain my composure to find the elevator has stopped in the center of a platform. Bridges radiate out from where the elevator now sits, and I can guess where they lead.
One by one, we begin to follow our individual paths. I walk across the bridge in front of me. At the end, as I expected, I see the hulking form of Be’elzebub. Even from this distance, I can hear the flies and smell the stench. As I get closer, I recognize bits of Lenore and Nora, and possibly others, in the mass of carrion that makes up the monster. Be’elzebub looks lifeless; the hulking figure doesn’t speak or move. A ribcage rests in its hands, as if the monster is presenting some macabre offering.
I move forward tentatively, expecting the monstrosity before me to stir to life at any moment. With each step, the stillness gets more unnerving. When I’m finally close enough, I reach out to take the ribcage, only to have it slip out of my grasp as it slides into the mass of rotting meat. I grimace, but do what I feel needs to be done. Slime and filth close in around my arm as I attempt to pull the ribcage from Be’elzebub’s chest. Each time I feel the ribs at my fingertips, something pulls the bones farther in. Before I know it, I’m up to my shoulder in putrid carrion. I push my arm deeper once more, and the foulness engulfs me as I am pulled inside Be’elzebub.
I can’t move. My eyes search in vain for even a hint of light. There is no sound other than the beating of my own heart.
“What will it take for you to stop pushing?” I hear Nora’s voice in the darkness.
“I have to keep fighting,” I respond. “ I have responsibilities.”
“And who made these responsibilities yours?”
I pause for thought before answering. “I did.”
“Do you really think you’ll be able to get around every obstacle you encounter through sheer force of will?”
“Well, it seems to have worked so far, but maybe not.”
“You fight so hard to keep moving forward that I think you sometimes miss what’s around you.”
I consider her advice in silence, allowing my mind to clear and the stillness to wash over me. Once I have quieted myself, the silence and darkness is strangely pleasant. I find myself unexpectedly drawn to the idea of simply letting go, giving up the struggle, and resting.
“There, see?” Nora’s voice breaks in again. “It’s not so bad, is it? Just remember, everything comes to an end eventually.”
“No, it’s not so bad,” I answer. “And someday I’ll stop fighting. But not yet. I still have work to do.”
“Consider this a repayment,” Be’elzebub says, still using Nora’s voice. “You had the chance to destroy me, and you didn’t.”
I feel someone place the ribcage into my hands, and then I slide out of the ooze onto the bridge, unharmed.
I make my way to the center platform, where I meet up with the others. It appears the three of them were similarly successful. Mercury holds a heart, Grace has an eye, and Fractal clutches a pale hand with a candle on the back.
“Where do we go now?” Frac asks, though I’m not sure he’s addressing us.
In response, an enormous ghastly hand grasps the edges of the platform and pulls it down.
“What the...” Grace gasps.
“I think it’s Collusion,” Frac says, turning a little pale.
The elevator soon screeches to a halt, and we find ourselves facing a dim walkway leading to another platform.
At the end of the corridor, in the center of the platform, is a huge, mutilated body strung up by chains. As we get closer, we realize with horror that the hanging figure is Fractal. One of his eyes is missing. His arm reaches toward us, a stump where his hand should be. A gaping hole in his chest marks the place where the ribcage and heart should rest. Be’elzebub and Ja’hi stand to either side of him. They appear lifeless, yet they also seem to be straining against the chains that bind them to Fractal and hold Fractal up. A third chain hangs loose. I have a feeling there’s a story behind that, but now is not the time.
Grace moves forward first, and places the eye in the bloody empty eye socket.
Seeing that Fractal is, understandably, too afraid to go next, Mercury turns to me.
“A heart needs a home, Delilah. You first.”
I walk up, and push the ribcage into the dark void in the Fractal-thing’s chest. Mercury follows right behind me, sliding the heart inside the ribcage.
Frac stands frozen for a moment, his gaze shifting between the stump in front of him, and the hand he is holding. Grace steps up beside him, and places a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs her away. She looks at me pleadingly, and mouths “go to him.”
I want to help, but I have no idea what to say. I’m also pretty certain he’s not going to accept my help if he won’t accept Grace’s. He needs someone, though, so despite my uncertainty, I move toward Frac.
“It’s okay,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn’t immediately push me away, I continue. “You can do this. We can figure this out.”
Frac doesn’t really seem to hear me, but perhaps it was enough. He moves forward and puts the hand in place.
As soon as the last piece has been replaced, the platform begins to shake. Something pulls us down into the void below. As we try to regain our balance, the darkness pulls back to reveal that we’re actually inside the hole in the chest of a world-sized Collusion. She lifts her head to reveal eyes each as big and bright as one of the daedelum. A ring of city-sized nails, pointing inward, circle around her. The massive Collusion parts her lips, and breathes out a Collusion more the size we’re used to dealing with. This normal-sized Collusion moves serenely toward us across the void. Her eyes remain locked on Fractal, and she stops in front of him.
“If you would help her, there is your path,” Collusion says, languidly extending an arm to indicate the darkness beyond where we stand.
Fractal looks at her for a moment with a mix of confusion and fear. Almost as if in response to the questions I can see forming in Fractal’s mind, the same enormous black hand we saw earlier rises to meet the edge of the platform. The hand is wreathed in darkness which rises off of it like smoke, evaporating into the same blackness as the void. With trepidation, we step from the platform to Collusion’s hand, and the darkness closes around us.
When the light returns, we’re standing in Zyphania’s coven. Zyphania is bound to the Effigy of the icon. Well, sort of. She’s in pieces, and each of the pieces is bound by the same black chains that we had seen holding Be’elzebub, Ja’hi, and the huge Fractal.
Zyphania seems to be drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s speaking, but only in incoherent mumbles. I can’t really tell if she’s in pain, or even how aware she is of what’s going on around her, but I hope she knows we’re here to help. I just hope we can.
Mercury, seeing a piece of Zyphania’s image within reach, grasps it with an ungloved hand. He closes his eyes, and begins to chant softly. Shadows begin to swirl from the portion of Zyphania that Mercury is holding. Tendrils of darkness snake up his arm, and disappear into his tattoos. As Mercury’s concentration deepens, a viscous black fluid begins to trickle down the chains from the other pieces of Zyphania’s image. The substance flows into and then through the section Mercury is holding, as he draws out the corruption.
Grace climbs the Icon, sword in hand, to try to assimilate one of the more far-flung parts of Zyphania’s image. I make my way up next, latching on to a piece closer to the ground. Frac goes last, settling on a section a little below the one Grace chose.
As we concentrate on the task before us, the light dims and shifts to a blood-red hue. I look up to see the red daedalum looming overhead. Metal groans and strains, as four shadowy creatures with leathery black wings force themselves from the center of the Icon. I recognize them as the same black winged creatures that emerged from the Icon in Absolution. A shadow of the same revulsion I felt then rushes over me as I remember watching those things devour the monster Ted had become, knowing I was really watching Grace, Frac, Mercury, and Kassandra.
Suddenly, the Icon shudders, and begins to turn into something reminiscent of the blasphemous Icon back in Milhaven. The air echoes with the screams of twisting metal as the Icon begins to come alive. Frac wastes no time in springing to action. He tackles the first of the monsters to emerge, jabbing the knife in his arm deep into the creature as the two of them begin to tumble from the Icon. It looks as if Grace is going to move to attack the second creature, but she’s stopped short as Zyphania’s chains ensnare her as well. I feel the chains nearest me wrap around my legs, and hear Mercury cry out in surprise as he becomes entangled.
One by one, we begin to follow our individual paths. I walk across the bridge in front of me. At the end, as I expected, I see the hulking form of Be’elzebub. Even from this distance, I can hear the flies and smell the stench. As I get closer, I recognize bits of Lenore and Nora, and possibly others, in the mass of carrion that makes up the monster. Be’elzebub looks lifeless; the hulking figure doesn’t speak or move. A ribcage rests in its hands, as if the monster is presenting some macabre offering.
I move forward tentatively, expecting the monstrosity before me to stir to life at any moment. With each step, the stillness gets more unnerving. When I’m finally close enough, I reach out to take the ribcage, only to have it slip out of my grasp as it slides into the mass of rotting meat. I grimace, but do what I feel needs to be done. Slime and filth close in around my arm as I attempt to pull the ribcage from Be’elzebub’s chest. Each time I feel the ribs at my fingertips, something pulls the bones farther in. Before I know it, I’m up to my shoulder in putrid carrion. I push my arm deeper once more, and the foulness engulfs me as I am pulled inside Be’elzebub.
I can’t move. My eyes search in vain for even a hint of light. There is no sound other than the beating of my own heart.
“What will it take for you to stop pushing?” I hear Nora’s voice in the darkness.
“I have to keep fighting,” I respond. “ I have responsibilities.”
“And who made these responsibilities yours?”
I pause for thought before answering. “I did.”
“Do you really think you’ll be able to get around every obstacle you encounter through sheer force of will?”
“Well, it seems to have worked so far, but maybe not.”
“You fight so hard to keep moving forward that I think you sometimes miss what’s around you.”
I consider her advice in silence, allowing my mind to clear and the stillness to wash over me. Once I have quieted myself, the silence and darkness is strangely pleasant. I find myself unexpectedly drawn to the idea of simply letting go, giving up the struggle, and resting.
“There, see?” Nora’s voice breaks in again. “It’s not so bad, is it? Just remember, everything comes to an end eventually.”
“No, it’s not so bad,” I answer. “And someday I’ll stop fighting. But not yet. I still have work to do.”
“Consider this a repayment,” Be’elzebub says, still using Nora’s voice. “You had the chance to destroy me, and you didn’t.”
I feel someone place the ribcage into my hands, and then I slide out of the ooze onto the bridge, unharmed.
I make my way to the center platform, where I meet up with the others. It appears the three of them were similarly successful. Mercury holds a heart, Grace has an eye, and Fractal clutches a pale hand with a candle on the back.
“Where do we go now?” Frac asks, though I’m not sure he’s addressing us.
In response, an enormous ghastly hand grasps the edges of the platform and pulls it down.
“What the...” Grace gasps.
“I think it’s Collusion,” Frac says, turning a little pale.
The elevator soon screeches to a halt, and we find ourselves facing a dim walkway leading to another platform.
At the end of the corridor, in the center of the platform, is a huge, mutilated body strung up by chains. As we get closer, we realize with horror that the hanging figure is Fractal. One of his eyes is missing. His arm reaches toward us, a stump where his hand should be. A gaping hole in his chest marks the place where the ribcage and heart should rest. Be’elzebub and Ja’hi stand to either side of him. They appear lifeless, yet they also seem to be straining against the chains that bind them to Fractal and hold Fractal up. A third chain hangs loose. I have a feeling there’s a story behind that, but now is not the time.
Grace moves forward first, and places the eye in the bloody empty eye socket.
Seeing that Fractal is, understandably, too afraid to go next, Mercury turns to me.
“A heart needs a home, Delilah. You first.”
I walk up, and push the ribcage into the dark void in the Fractal-thing’s chest. Mercury follows right behind me, sliding the heart inside the ribcage.
Frac stands frozen for a moment, his gaze shifting between the stump in front of him, and the hand he is holding. Grace steps up beside him, and places a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs her away. She looks at me pleadingly, and mouths “go to him.”
I want to help, but I have no idea what to say. I’m also pretty certain he’s not going to accept my help if he won’t accept Grace’s. He needs someone, though, so despite my uncertainty, I move toward Frac.
“It’s okay,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn’t immediately push me away, I continue. “You can do this. We can figure this out.”
Frac doesn’t really seem to hear me, but perhaps it was enough. He moves forward and puts the hand in place.
As soon as the last piece has been replaced, the platform begins to shake. Something pulls us down into the void below. As we try to regain our balance, the darkness pulls back to reveal that we’re actually inside the hole in the chest of a world-sized Collusion. She lifts her head to reveal eyes each as big and bright as one of the daedelum. A ring of city-sized nails, pointing inward, circle around her. The massive Collusion parts her lips, and breathes out a Collusion more the size we’re used to dealing with. This normal-sized Collusion moves serenely toward us across the void. Her eyes remain locked on Fractal, and she stops in front of him.
“If you would help her, there is your path,” Collusion says, languidly extending an arm to indicate the darkness beyond where we stand.
Fractal looks at her for a moment with a mix of confusion and fear. Almost as if in response to the questions I can see forming in Fractal’s mind, the same enormous black hand we saw earlier rises to meet the edge of the platform. The hand is wreathed in darkness which rises off of it like smoke, evaporating into the same blackness as the void. With trepidation, we step from the platform to Collusion’s hand, and the darkness closes around us.
When the light returns, we’re standing in Zyphania’s coven. Zyphania is bound to the Effigy of the icon. Well, sort of. She’s in pieces, and each of the pieces is bound by the same black chains that we had seen holding Be’elzebub, Ja’hi, and the huge Fractal.
Zyphania seems to be drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s speaking, but only in incoherent mumbles. I can’t really tell if she’s in pain, or even how aware she is of what’s going on around her, but I hope she knows we’re here to help. I just hope we can.
Mercury, seeing a piece of Zyphania’s image within reach, grasps it with an ungloved hand. He closes his eyes, and begins to chant softly. Shadows begin to swirl from the portion of Zyphania that Mercury is holding. Tendrils of darkness snake up his arm, and disappear into his tattoos. As Mercury’s concentration deepens, a viscous black fluid begins to trickle down the chains from the other pieces of Zyphania’s image. The substance flows into and then through the section Mercury is holding, as he draws out the corruption.
Grace climbs the Icon, sword in hand, to try to assimilate one of the more far-flung parts of Zyphania’s image. I make my way up next, latching on to a piece closer to the ground. Frac goes last, settling on a section a little below the one Grace chose.
As we concentrate on the task before us, the light dims and shifts to a blood-red hue. I look up to see the red daedalum looming overhead. Metal groans and strains, as four shadowy creatures with leathery black wings force themselves from the center of the Icon. I recognize them as the same black winged creatures that emerged from the Icon in Absolution. A shadow of the same revulsion I felt then rushes over me as I remember watching those things devour the monster Ted had become, knowing I was really watching Grace, Frac, Mercury, and Kassandra.
Suddenly, the Icon shudders, and begins to turn into something reminiscent of the blasphemous Icon back in Milhaven. The air echoes with the screams of twisting metal as the Icon begins to come alive. Frac wastes no time in springing to action. He tackles the first of the monsters to emerge, jabbing the knife in his arm deep into the creature as the two of them begin to tumble from the Icon. It looks as if Grace is going to move to attack the second creature, but she’s stopped short as Zyphania’s chains ensnare her as well. I feel the chains nearest me wrap around my legs, and hear Mercury cry out in surprise as he becomes entangled.
While we’re immobilized, Chess appears before us, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
“Do you hate me?” he asks Grace.
“I don’t hate anyone,” Grace replies.
“Mercury?”
“You’re against the King,” Mercury answers simply.
“Fractal?” Chess inquires, looking around. “Never mind.”
“Delilah?”
“Yes?” I say, partly in answer, and half in an attempt to force him to ask me a question directly.
Chess smiles inscrutably, and disappears. Seconds later, he blinks back into existence a few yards away from the Icon.
He calls out to the winged beasts, and the four of them look up in unison. They all attempt to fly to Chess, but Fractal jams his knife further into the chest of the one he’s been struggling with to keep it from escaping. When the three dark angels attack Chess, he doesn’t fight. In fact, he smiles and holds perfectly still as they viciously tear him limb from limb. Then, with a maniacal cackle, Chess explodes in darkness that devours the three dark angels around him.
Fractal manages to turn himself so that he’s on top of the beast he’s struggling with, causing it to plummet. The knife in his arm finally pierces its heart when they hit the ground. For a split second, just before the winged creature dissipates, I catch a glimpse of it’s face reflected in Frac’s goggles. But, my eyes must have been playing tricks on me, because the creature’s face looked just like Fractal’s.
The Icon howls and flies into pieces. I blink, and we’re standing in front of the coven I’ve been assuming is... or was... Zyphania’s. Zyphania is in front of us, facing the coven. She turns slowly, and I see a look of determination and pain on her face as she walks away from her coven to join us.
I blink again, and I’m back in Freedom’s pass. The rejuvenation pod hisses, and I step out to find the others. We all still feel a little strange, and it takes us a while to find our feet in the “real world” again. Zyphania introduces herself, and tells us what happened to her coven. The story is pretty much just as we saw; Shi’raska attacked, and Zyphania was the only one who made it out alive.
“We’ve seen that monster’s work before,” Frac says, after a long pause. “And the four of us are planning on fighting it. You’re welcome to join us, if you want in.”
“I’d like to help.” Zyphania responds, sounding unsure.
We let the subject drop for now, and Frac goes to the Icon to take a look at our scans.
“Guys, you aren’t going to believe this,” he says, his voice tinged with excitement and fear.
“What’s up, Frac?” Mercury asks.
“Our corruption,” Frac answers, looking up from the monitor, his eyes wide. “It’s gone.”
Grace and Zyphania rush over.
“What the...” Grace exclaims, looking at the screen. “He’s right. It’s gone. There are traces left, but it’s almost like they’re sealed away. Just harmless anomalies.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Zyphania says, looking over Grace’s shoulder.
“Neither have we,” Grace assures her.
There’s a long pause.
“That corruption was part of an agreement,” Frac finally says, looking at Grace, Mercury, and me. “And, I don’t know about you guys, but I still remember the information that we got in return.”
We all nod.
“So, what does it mean?” Grace asks.
“The corruption happened because the information the King gave us was so incompatible with our perception of the world.”
“Right,” Mercury says. in his ‘Get to the point, Fractal’ tone. Frac obliges.
“The nature of the information hasn’t changed, so that means we have. It’s not driving us crazy anymore because we’re no longer a part of the world in the same way we used to be.”
The others stare at him, looks approaching horror on their faces. Confusion is the best I can manage. I suppose you have to have had a normal life at some point to be shocked by the idea you can never return to it.
We take turns recovering image in the Icon. Those of us outside at any given time explore the coven. There are still no signs of any living souls besides the five of us. There are also no signs of personal belongings, or hurried exits, or even struggle. It’s all very strange; almost as if the coven was full of people one minute, and empty the next.
I give up on finding anything of use, and join Fractal, who is sitting near the Icon. I’m just about to attempt to make some small talk when I see Zyphania walking up to us.
“Well,” she says, looking a little disappointed. “All I found was this.”
Zyphania holds out a little rag doll, obviously once well loved by a young child. Fractal and I look it over.
“You should let Grace take a look at that,” Fractal suggests.
“Take a look at what?” Grace asks, heading toward us from the Icon. Zyphania hands her the doll.
Grace looks at the doll for a moment, and then we begin to see glimpses of what it shows her through her Centroglyph.
The coven is full. People are going about their daily routine. Some of the covenfolk notice a stranger in their midst, and begin to eye the newcomer with something between caution and mistrust. We immediately recognize the Metatron garb and the smile, and realize the covenfolks’ unease is not at all unjustified. It’s Father Valentine.
Father Valentine takes a look around the coven, and then begins to walk down the streets. He doesn’t say a word, or even look to the right or left. He simply raises a hand, snaps his fingers, and one by one, everyone he walks by disappears.
“That son of a...” I hear Frac mutter.
The vision continues, and we see a little girl holding our discovered doll. She runs full speed down the street, flings open the door to a small house, and slams it behind her. A few moments later, Father Valentine stops in front of the same house, and calmly enters. The girl’s parents turn to face the intruder, but before they can voice the anger and confusion obvious on their faces, Father Valentine snaps his fingers again, and they’re gone.
We can hear frightened sobbing coming from across the kitchen. The little girl is huddled underneath the kitchen table, still clutching her doll. Father Valentine walks over and crouches down to talk to her.
“Do you like it here?” He asks with a smile that is attempting to be reassuring.
The little girl nods.
“And do you love your Mommy and Daddy?”
Another nod.
“Don’t be afraid. They went with everyone else, to somewhere better, because something bad is about to happen here. You’ll see them all soon.”
The little girl looks up at him with a hopeful smile, and the doll falls to the floor as Father Valentine snaps his fingers, and she disappears just like the others.
We all look at each other for a long moment after the vision is over. There’s no rhyme or reason to what happened here, that much is obvious. Father Valentine was the embodiment of Chaos at that point. He may have been telling the truth when he said he sent those people somewhere else. Or, he could have just snuffed them out. The worst part is we may never know.
We silently begin to gather our things. There’s nothing more we can learn here, and we’ve all had a rest. It’s best if we move on. I shift my gaze toward the horizon in the direction I think we’ll be headed, and my heart skips a beat.
“We’ve got trouble,” I say, directing everyone’s attention to a spot in the distance. “I see military vehicles.”
Mercury follows my gaze, and I see his eye flicker as he zooms in to get a closer look.
“I don’t think they’ve seen us yet,” he says, a hint of worry in his voice. “But, I don’t think we can avoid it. Our best bet is to just stay put and talk to them.”
No one else, including Mercury, looks any happier than I am with this plan, but no one can think of a better option. So, we sit tight, waiting impatiently, while the convoy makes its way toward us.
After what seems like hours but was probably only a few minutes, the vehicles roll into the coven. Soldiers immediately jump out and start unloading equipment and gear. I see medical devices, crates of weapons, and various camping supplies. There are also monitors and control panels for which I can’t even begin to guess the purpose. Within what must be record time, the soldiers have set up a makeshift base.
While the others are setting up, the soldier who looks to be in charge glances around curiously at the empty streets, and then comes over to us.
“Are you five alone here?” he asks, looking us over suspiciously.
“Yeah,” Grace answers. “We got into town not long ago, and found it completely empty.”
“Can you tell us what happened here?”
“Not really. Like I said, we’re just traveling through, and we found the place just like you see it. The Icon was still running, so we took a rest, and we were just about to leave when you got here.”
The officer looks unconvinced. “There’s been some trouble toward the south,” he explains to Grace as he motions to one of the other soldiers to join him. “We’re setting up base here to keep a lookout.”
“Wait,” Grace says, allowing her emotions about all the horrible things we’ve seen recently to show on her face. “ I’m from Milhaven, and I have friends in Lightsfall. Did something happen there?”
The two soldiers look at each other uncomfortably. Grace’s attempt to make our story more convincing seems to be working.
“I’m sorry,” the lower-ranked soldier says finally, taking Grace aside while casting the commanding officer an angry glance. “There’s been a horrible tragedy. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Milhaven and Lightsfall are gone. “
“Gone?” Grace cries, looking upset. “But, how? And do you know if anyone survived?”
I walk up beside Grace and put an arm around her comfortingly.
“Look, I don’t know the details, but I’m sure we’ll be able to help you find out,” the soldier says, trying to sound consoling. He gives Grace an awkward pat on the shoulder, and walks away.
We wander back to the others. Mercury, dressed in his Metatron gear, is talking to the commanding officer.
“Our sect has very strong beliefs about the sanctity of the body,” we hear Mercury explain.
“I understand, and we’ll try to be as respectful as we can to your beliefs,” the commanding officer says, “But for security reasons, we have to take some blood to run some tests.”
Blood tests. Oh, bad. This could lead to trouble.
“Isn’t there any other option?” Mercury asks.
“We all spent some time in the Icon,” Grace offers. “Everything looked fine.”
“Well, if the lot of you already have thorough scans stored in the Icon, we may be ale to find the information we’re looking for. I’ll have one of our Iconotechs take a look.”
I feel myself go pale. What was she thinking? Corruption or no, I have a feeling that the minute one of these guys gets a look at my scans, I’m going to end up in a lab in Megathalema. I see my panic reflected in Frac’s expression, but then I see a smile flicker across his face, and he closes his eyes. Good. He has an idea.
The commanding officer takes one of the other soldiers, probably an Iconotech, aside. As they talk, everything else continues on as normal. The soldiers continue setting up equipment. The Icon keeps humming. None of the military types seem to notice that Frac has his eyes closed and is talking silently to someone. Or some thing.
The Iconotech the commanding officer had been talking to makes his way over to the Icon and begins to pull up files.
“Lieutenant, we have a problem. You should come look at this...”
I see Frac grimace as the commanding officer heads over to investigate.
“What’s going on? the Lieutenant asks the Iconotech.
“Just take a look at these...” The Iconotech is cut off as the Icon suddenly shuts down.
“She shut down and dumped our files,” Frac explains quietly to us as the military personnel frantically try to figure out what happened. “When she comes back online, there shouldn’t be any trace that we were ever here.”
“Looks like there was a malfunction with the Icon,” the commanding officer says, coming over to us. “My men are setting up a portable one, so we should be fine for now. We’re going to want the lot of you to stay close by, though.”
We look at each other in exasperation. Back to square one.
Mercury suddenly gets an odd look on his face and walks away. The rest of us can do nothing but sit, wait, and wonder how we’re going to get ourselves out of this one.
A few minutes later, the Lieutenant pays us another visit.
“You’re free to go,” he says, a confused look on his face.
“That’s great,” Grace says with a smile. “But what happened?”
“You’ve been cleared,” the Lieutenant says. “I don’t really know much beyond that.”
He walks away just as Mercury returns.
“We’re free to go, Mercury.” Grace says, looking at him quizzically. “What did you do? You talked to Millennium, didn’t you?”
“It’s taken care of,” Mercury says. His face makes it clear that whatever he just did, it wasn’t as easy as he wants us to believe it was.
“Nice work, Mercury,” Frac says with a smile. “Really. Thank you.”
Mercury gives a half smile, and after a pause, looks at each of us. “Look, I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen down the road, but I want you guys to know that if it ever comes down to it, I’m going to try to make sure that it’s me he takes, and not you guys.”
None of us really know how to reply to that. Mercury certainly is full of surprises lately.
Despite the fact that Night is falling, we pack up our skiff and get out of town before anyone has a chance to change their minds. As we pull out, we see the lights blink on behind us as the Icon comes back online.
After a day’s travel, we come upon a sight that feels eerily familiar. Open plain broken only by a lonely ridge, and on top of the ridge, one huge, gnarled tree.
“What the...” I hear Grace exclaim.
Frac glances over at Mercury. “Any of you seen this tree before?” he asks, wryly.
Against our better judgement, we investigate. Everything is just like last time. We walk up to the tree, and touch the handprint. The entire vision we saw when we were here before repeats itself in our minds. As we watch the tree burn once again, the memories of the vision begin to fade unsettlingly quickly, as if the whole thing had never been anything more than a dream. A normal dream.
A feeling akin to disappointment settles over the group, and we pick up and move on.
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