Norma rammed the joystick forward, feeling the Stonediver shudder under the strain of carving through bedrock. The mech lurched, angling its secondary drills forward and up. The Stonediver began climbing slowly, and Norma could feel the chassis shudder as it trundled over the collapsed granite boulders.
"*krrshk* Norma, come in."
It was the Linkman, Gombrovich.
"Gom! Did you copy my last? We were ambushed! There was a fucking matter-manipulator!" Norma jabbered.
Silence.
Fuck! What the hell is he playing at!
A beep sounded and Norma glanced at the overhead panel.
Integrity-Calculation: 35.1%. DANGER THRESHOLD REACHED.
WARNING: Oxygen-leakage detected. Oxygen stores 20.2%.
Auto-Recommendation—Full-Servicing.
Norma cursed under her breath. The matter-manipulator had appeared out of nowhere and then started taking chunks out of the drill-rigs. She'd made her escape right then and there, but not before the blue-robed man managed to rip out the Stonediver's primary power-pack and puncture its pressurized oxygen-stores. She had no clear sense of the nature of that power, only that it was truly overwhelming.
And there was another one, an Earthian by his stature—a man in a gas mask whose affinity for the compulsion was absolutely terrifying. Her men had been turned against her in an instant, and even with the built-in Nullifier-Brace they had scavenged off a Paladin Humvee, she herself almost fell under his control.
Strangest of all, Norma felt a certain sense of familiarity about this second Earthian. Though his identity still remained a mystery, her intuition made her feel a difficult-to-describe connection to him.
Owing to a broad curiosity respecting different aspects of culture, Norma Myrmec is able to connect closely with others.
… close observation of a counterparty manifests as a keen intuition regarding such counterparty's actions.
Considering Norma's blessings, she had long learnt to trust her own intuition. She had definitely met that man before.
Who did Rolf cross this time? Their powers are off the fucking charts! We'll need to mobilize everybody to stand a chance.
Her mind raced to cobble together a coherent excuse for her failure. The enemy was too powerful, they had ambushed them... Norma readied the panoply of justifications with which she would armor herself against criticism.
Yes, I never stood a chance...
She'd lost three drill-rigs and severely damaged the Stonediver, together with the more than 30 men comprising the Interception and Extraction Teams. A sizable loss, all things considered, though it was far from catastrophic.
But in the end, she had escaped with her life, which was really the only thing that mattered.
The problem was Gombrovich. He would likely present the worst possible view of her failure to Rolf, and then she'd get flak over screwing up the whole Interception arm of the operation.
"*krrshk* Norma," Gombrovich's voice filtered over the comms. "Redirect to Princeps FPSO-Factory, West District."
Norma clicked her tongue. That hadn't been the plan.
"Gom, what the hell do you mean? We're supposed to collapse into the west boundary-tunnel—"
"Hold on, Norma," Gombrovich replied flatly. His words didn't betray any hint of emotion. If Norma didn't know better, she would have thought she was speaking to an AI-Tableau.
"How many men are with you now?" Gombrovich asked.
"Didn't you hear me? We got fucking ambushed!" Norma yelled, despite herself. She brought the Stonediver to a halt and tapped furiously at a screen to her left, trying to bring up the shitty low-res digi-map they'd picked up off the Jegorichian black market.
"... How many men, Norma?" Gombrovich pressed, remorseless.
"They killed everyone. I'm the only one left," Norma said, wincing involuntarily as she did so.
Silence. A low rumble sounded from somewhere behind her, as piles of rubble rolled down the upward slant.
"I read you. Get to Princeps FPSO-Factory, West District, marker T2 on the digi-map. Gom out. *krrshk*"
And Norma was left to herself. After some tens of seconds sitting in the darkness, the oxygen warning flashed and beeped, drawing Norma from her stupor and forcing her into high alert.
WARNING: Oxygen-leakage detected. Oxygen stores 15.0%. DANGER THRESHOLD REACHED.
An automated voice filtered in through the speakers—female, monotonous, unemotional as Gombrovich's: "Oxygen levels critical—please restock at the closest aid-station—otherwise, please contact your local Commissary agent—otherwise, please fill in and submit your SUPDEP form to—"
Norma slammed a hammerfist into the control panel, cutting short the message and eyeing the digi-map with a hostile stare. With a shaky breath, she turned the Stonediver and pressed forward and up, seeking the surface, seeking freedom, seeking escape.
***
The Stonediver burrowed up into the red-fogged day, as gloomy dusk transitioned to gloomy dawn. By then, her oxygen supplies had almost been completely depleted and she pulled on her modded exosuit-helmet, then worked the mech slowly between the slumlike complexes crawling with human creatures flashing across dirt-encrusted windows. The windows themselves were gouged and scratched with deep grooves, but were not cracked completely through.
Thick windows. A gift from their long-sighted forebears.
Gehen was amongst the oldest of Desertian cities—perhaps the only city which had survived the establishment of the Sylvan Protectorate relatively intact.
For almost five centuries, Gehennite factories had darkened the sky with chemical fog. Their slit-eyed guide had explained as much to Norma, back when they'd first arrived with their cargo of Bejana flesh.
But over the last month—over the hundreds of times that they'd been shuttling to and from this ancient city—Norma felt the crushing sense that the long churn of industrial progress had halted.
Less factories, more slums, more flesh-breeding pools popping up daily. The entire economy had shifted.
'The culmination of two centuries of Protectorate dysfunction,' thought Norma.
To be clear, Rabid's crew were beneficiaries of the flesh trade, but the fact that it was so lucrative spoke to the kind of societal and industrial degradation experienced by Gehen. It manifested as a cloying feeling to Norma, as though the whole fabric of Gehen was threatening to dissolve.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The streets became narrower. Slums gave way to crumbling factory-buildings and smokestacks so tall their tips disappeared into the translucent oceanlike haze that blanketed this section of the city.
Norma piloted the shuddering Stonediver past staring figures stirring from sleepless nights and drug-induced unconsciousnesses, past vehicles clanking noisily and looking in far worse condition than her malfunctioning mech. There were masked children sitting in wrecks and tracking the Stonediver's tottering bipedality with feline intensity, emaciated creatures staring out transparent plastic hovels clotted upon the sides of dilapidated structures, mutant scrappers with funny-looking bodies picking over patches of debris for the ten billionth time, hoping beyond all hope that they'd find a piece of copper to exchange for Proxy.
Wounded society. People copulating in the polygonal plastic tents arranged one on top of another, the tents lit from the inside by blazing OLEDs and taking for their uncertain support the walls of concrete and steel that once housed productive processes. Now the dead factories were home only to beggars, prostitutes and ancient, rusting machines.
Out on the streets, hawkish pimps stared with locust eyes, competing with one another in a neverending spiral of human degeneration. Beside them were piles of Bloaming masses, no longer human, no longer worthy of participating in the market for flesh.
All tents were transparent; masked people, fucking in the open. Makeshift-brothels turned permanent eyesore.
Norma cleared her throat.
Gehen had no more capacity to heal. Something had changed very recently—the culmination of centuries of dissolution and degradation—and Norma could feel the oppressive atmosphere dig into her soul.
'… Put it out of your mind,' she told herself. 'There are more urgent things to worry about.'
Like survival. Like warning Rolf and defending herself against Gombrovich's sly tongue.
The Princeps FPSO-Factory hove into view. The five-story structure was the tallest building in the immediate vicinity, and its smokestack released impressive volumes of smog. It was tipped by a gable upon which the six-pointed Hebron Star was burnt. The symbol of General Rabid, recently adopted.
As Norma piloted the Stonediver closer, the distant clumps resolved into individual figures. Beggars, pimps and prostitutes. Corpse-hawkers with large cylindrical barrels strapped to their backs, plying the route just outside the loading bay of the Princeps FPSO-Factory, soliciting for customers. Norma had heard from the others that corpse-food could be tasty, but could never bring herself to try it. She hadn't the stomach for cannibalism.
General Rabid was not merely the cruel warlord that pillaged Gehennite enclaves whenever he felt like it, he was a budding source of order in a crumbling society.
In desperate times, people clung to any source of authority. General Rabid had 'liberated' the Princeps FPSO-Factory from the Kushan over the course of the last fortnight, and already the rumors of a 'Resurrection' had spread. Where he had set up, the informal Gehennite flesh-market followed, attracted by tales of his magical power.
Norma continued on toward the rusted doors of the loading bay. A legion of people were there, crushing their bodies into the red soil in wretched supplication, praying to their cruel god, General Rabid.
Liberator, Father-Of-All, Leader. Shaman, Fetich-Wielder, Divine Phylactery. These were some of his names.
'The Gehennites are a superstitious lot,' thought Norma. 'The Democracy's technocratic institutions don't graft well onto their society. Gehennites rather follow Rabid than the pretend-technocrats heading Gehen's Coalition Government.'
The devout scattered before the Stonediver's heavy steps.
The comms crackled to life as the mech came before the loading bay's ancient doors, and for the merest moment she doubted that the opening-mechanism was still functional. All eyes were upon her; it felt like the entire market had frozen. The devout prayed even more fervently, their eyes blown wide behind the lenses of their gas masks, staring raptly, if only to catch a glimpse of the insides of the Shaman's Temple.
"*krrshk* Colonel Nympho, do you read?"
"Fuck. Stop calling me that, Talia," Norma returned. She hated the name.
A thin chuckle replied to her, sensuous and melancholic. The sound triggered in Norma the image of a woman, her skin deliciously tanned. Talia, with her long legs, her straight features, her strong and mannish jaw—
She shook her head, emptying her mind and forcing her feelings down. People had died. Think about that. All of them died just so you could survive.
Don't you have any shame?
"You came back alone," Talia said, managing even through the comms to sound concerned.
"It is what it is," Norma returned, pressing her lips into a hard line. Yes, people had died. But so what? All that mattered was that she had survived.
"Let me in, Talia."
"... Roger that. Did Shiteater tell you about the Assault Team's withdrawal?" Talia asked.
... What?
"No. Have they returned?" she asked.
"Yes, yes. The General instructed you to see him," Talia replied. "... Opening doors now. Be careful, Norma."
Norma sighed. Did Rolf abandon the attack on Queen She because the Interception had failed?
Or maybe it was... that man... Maybe that man had had a change of plans.
The doors juddered open. The devout raised their hands to the smoggy sky, then pressed forward as Norma piloted the Stonediver through into a bright and capacious hangar. Soldiers that were deployed near the entrance raised their weapons, shouting at the rabble and forcing them back by the threat of death.
Norma piloted the Stonediver carefully into the hangar, and then the doors were closed again behind her.
She exited the mech and stepped quickly across the metal ground. Hundreds of workers swarmed forward tools in hand, eager to prove their worth, trampling on each other in their eagerness. She saw none of it, advancing through an automated door into a blue-lighted corridor
It closed, leaving Norma in a silent dimness.
"Sanitization process initiated. Please raise your arms to both sides," went the automated voice.
Norma did so, putting them at right angles to her body. A hidden mechanism hummed and whirred, then an oblong plane of light passed over her body from head to toe.
"Sanitization process complete. Have a nice day. *krrk* Day. Day. Day. Day…"
The automated door at the other end slid open and Norma stepped through. A young Gehennite man was waiting there, thin-looking and hungry, bowing his head as the speaker continued repeating its farewell.
"...Day. Day. Day. Day..."
Norma didn't recognize the man. Not that she recognized anyone anymore, ever since Aminata Waggon had taken over recruitment from Michael Thane. Now Aminata was admitting every fucking person who wanted to join 'the Holy Cause', 'the Purpose', 'the Shamanic Oath' or whatever else the ecosystem of Gehennite cults seemed to be throwing up that morning.
The idea of General Rabid had taken over whole swathes of Gehen, supplanting even the militant feminist cells that had traditionally staunchly resisted the Democratic urge to technocracy. The outcome, however…
The young man brought Norma to a hidden-stairwell and then ascended it with her to the fifth floor—the highest floor— of the FPSO-Factory. The air-conditioning had been set to a pleasant 21 degrees Celsius here, and the entire floor was reserved for the original members of the Ash Brigade that formed the core of General Rabid's power.
Norma knew the path to Rabid's office, but let the man lead her on anyway.
The corridors were rather empty. Eventually, they came to faux-wood double-doors upon which was neatly carved: GEN. RABID.
"You can go now," Norma said, nodding to the young man.
"Yes, ma'am," the man mumbled, bowing his head low. Before he could leave, Norma dug into her vest and retrieved a gray packet.
"Wait a moment. Take this. It's cricket-rations," Norma said.
The man raised his head with an expression full of confusion.
"Take it," Norma said, pushing the packet into his hand, and the man did. As he scrambled away quickly, Norma wondered if, just for today, he would avoid the corpse-hawkers.
... Why did I do that? Guilt? Guilt at getting all my men killed?
A little good doesn't make up for a lot of bad.
Norma pushed past the doors, stepping into a mellow-lighted office. Sheafs of paper were strewn across the floor, and at the opposite end was a large table painted the color of oak, at which three figures were sitting.
Hrodwulf Granger—Rolf—was positioned behind the table and hunched over a plate. A knife and fork were held in his hands, and he was in the midst of digging into what looked like a succulent piece of meat. It smelled good, Norma thought, but at the same time it sickened her. She tried her best not to look at it.
Gombrovich was there also, having swiveled around on his chair to face Norma, his hands clasped over his stomach, his face beaming, as if he had won some great victory.
Norma's heartbeat quickened. It wasn't Gombrovich or Rolf who intimidated her, but the man beside Rolf. This man, supposedly hailing from the super-Earth Consus, possessed peculiar features: high cheekbones, an oval face and a bulbous nose. He was dressed in a fine cashmere suit and looked far older than any of them, and Norma observed within those intense staring eyes a dangerous and all-consuming drive.
A drive she couldn't completely understand. His latent intentionality frustrated her enhanced perceptions, and her intuition was all scrambled by his mere presence. If he wanted to compel them, they would all be under his control in an instant.
Melk Ayerstein.
He was the man who had guided them to Gehen and aided them in ousting the Kushan from the Princeps FPSO-Factory. Without his help, they wouldn't have stood a chance in flushing the many thousands of Kushan gangsters. Even now, Norma didn't completely understand Melk's decision to fall in with Rolf.
"Glad you could finally join us," Gombrovich began, his flabby cheeks bunching. "I've already filled Rolf and Melk in on the deets."
"They had two guys with them. A matter... no, it was more like a spacetime-manipulator, and a compulsion-specialist. I didn't stand a chance," Norma blurted.
Gombrovich leaned forward, peeling his lips back to show dirty yellow teeth.
But it was Melk who spoke next, his voice soft and lilting. As he spoke, the entire room seemed to increase several degrees in temperature. The lights went out. The speakers popped and Norma's transceiver buzzed violently then went silent.
All electronics ceased operation. Not merely jammed, but completely shut off. Melk's intentionality filled the space like a suffocating miasma.
"Describe them to me," Melk said, and he was so polite that no one could ever think to reject his request. "Especially this... matter- or spacetime-manipulator. Leave nothing out."