I nearly lost my hold on Regina as Vishnu whisked her away. It felt like the momentary lapse in concentration precursing sleep, a daydream I snapped out of violently as the quartet reappeared in an empty intersection. Some distance away Providence rose up out of the forest of buildings, still blazing like a beacon.
We were in a more upmarket version of my local neighbourhood. The towers were shorter and less boxy, with taller storeys, wider windows and longer gaps between them. Fading plants grew out of the asymmetry in artificial terraces and rooftop gardens. Shops and restaurants crowded the blocks at street level, closed and shuttered, in surreal contrast to the New Year decorations still garnishing the city’s urban corridors. Sporadic figures peered out from windows and balconies in full-bodied rictus like someone had played a prank on a city-wide scale, replacing them all with puppets.
Vishnu’s voice sounded far too loud as he pointed to an indistinguishable building among the crowd. “Proceed with vigilance. We will enter via the front doors. There must be no surprises.”
“I agree,” I said to Regina. “Let’s give him what he expects. Hold out your palms in front of you, scrunch up your face and make occasional grunting noises. Pretend it’s a workout.”
Regina eyed me as she stepped forward, her expression out of the COO’s line of sight. She splayed her fingers and closed her eyes for a long moment.
“Okay,” she announced, opening them again in a conspicuous absence of grunting.
It would do.
The apartment entrance took the form of a narrow corridor wriggling between a florist and an art gallery, and required a key card. Regina stopped in front of it and extended an arm forward, as if pushing something further back to make room for a small group warping forward into the space beyond.
Instead, the lock mechanism glitched. It came back tilting to one side, its formerly black metal an uneven orange-brown and very, very old.
Vishnu paced forward and reached around Regina to grasp the handle, which made a crumbling sort of crack and split into multiple pieces. The god dropped them to the floor, only for them to freeze before hitting the ground. He stepped over them and pushed at the handle-less glass pane. It swung open easily.
“Proceed,” he said again.
What existed of my stomach knotted in recognition, by reputation if not experience. Rust had been used in the early days of the war in India. Supposedly the original plan had been more humane: consign the invaders to stasis where the rest of the world could carry on without them. But once they’d realised Yahweh could reverse it, particularly with seers on his side, tactics had changed.
Prophecy was less effective at dealing with psychological damage. All it took was to keep a brain ticking along while the universe took a holiday, aware of its personal monopoly on time marching on. And on, with the only upper limit falling somewhere under infinity. And after aeons had passed, the world would return in the blink of an eye to face their ruined enemies.
Rust.
It had worked. Overnight, India had shifted the front of divine war from battlefield to back alley, where gods hid their movements and struck from the shadows. Knowledge became the new superweapon and Yahweh, assured of personal immunity, cemented his public leadership as the obfuscating shield. His allies had been all too happy to let him have it. Or so I’d heard. I’d avoided Earth the moment I’d heard the rumours.
I revised my earlier estimate. Vishnu probably wasn’t the oldest god in the business, non-chronologically-speaking. Just the oldest still sane. Ish. I was glad he was first on our hit list.
A lift sat at the end of the corridor accompanied by an electric hum cutting through the uncanny silence.
“Is that still working?” Neetu asked. She stepped forward and jabbed the call button with a finger. A familiar thrum filled the air and the doors pinged open a few seconds later.
“Time needs to restart before Vishnu can go under,” I informed Regina as the group piled in. “Tell me the necklace has a plan.”
He says, ‘twenty minutes’.
“That’s a timeframe, not a plan.”
Yes it is. Deal with it.
I wasn’t happy with that answer, but didn’t have time to start an argument. Not more than sixteen minutes’ worth, anyway. Under Vishnu’s direction, the group exited into an empty landing – much nicer than the cheap beige tiles I’d shared an address with – and moved five doors up. Regina kept her arms out, tense and strained.
“I can knock,” Neetu offered, raising her hand slightly. “I can tell them we’re on official business.”
“No need.” This time, the entire door crumbled along with the handle. Although ‘crumbled’ mightn’t have been the right description for the resulting grey, desiccated pulp.
Regina gagged beside me.
I put a hand on her shoulder, careful not to press hard enough for the indents of my fingers to be visible to others. “It’s just tree meat.”
We entered into a well-lit residence with open windows, light despite the clouds in the sky. Rather than searching the apartment, Vishnu ignored it and made a beeline down a short hallway, ensuring Regina remained one step in front.
An elderly woman rested on a tan sofa in the living room, potted plants to either side. A cloud of grey hair poked up over the brim of a hardcover book sitting open in her hands with one of its pages frozen mid-turn.
Vishnu signalled for Regina to approach, and when the whole group was in place, cleared his throat.
The page completed its turn, and the woman glanced up. Her clothes were casual and elegant, a blue silk scarf tied at her waist. She slid a woven bookmark from the inner cover and inserted it into the current page, then closed the book. Her expression didn’t change.
“I was wondering when they’d send someone,” she commented. “Or three someones, as it appears. To be honest, it’s almost a relief.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Oh, I’m not –” Neetu began, only to clamp her mouth shut at a gesture from Vishnu.
The woman studied Regina, whose hands were still raised. “You’re the one blocking the signal.” She turned her head towards Vishnu. “And you aren’t bothering with pretense. They must finally be taking us seriously. Who am I dealing with? I presume Lords Shiva or Vishnu.”
“Shiva has been indisposed for some time,” Vishnu replied.
“Has he? Well, he wasn’t one of ours. Unfortunate for him; we would have treated him better. Unlike your kind, humanity has the ability to evolve past the brutality of bygone eras. Whereas you can’t help but be a product of your time. I’d feel sorry for you if you didn’t hurt so many innocent people in the crossfire.”
“Ah, such pretty words,” I drawled to my unhearing audience. “They almost make me forget they end in genocide. If you weren’t trying to kill me, we could have been so close to working together.”
Vishnu displayed considerably more gravitas. “You are labouring under a misconception,” he countered. “Providence harms no mortals without justification. In fact, it is part of our policy. My team has specifically worked to save millions of your lives at no return to the business.”
“Apollo,” I butted in. “That was Apollo.”
“Except that’s all an excuse, isn’t it?” said Scarfy. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “We’ve seen past the blindfold. You could end war, pain, scarcity and disease tomorrow, but you won’t. Why? Because you can’t bear to lose control. You could have created us to be equals; instead you made us small and weak, incapable of posing resistance. You don’t need us; our lives are playthings to you. Entertainment.” She spat the word. “And when our frail bodies give out after only a few years, death isn’t even the end. Subject to the flawed, corrupt judgement of the very people who set us up to fail from the beginning, should we be so lucky. Judging by recent reports, it seems not.” She placed the book on the seat beside her and rose to her feet. “You watch as we squabble and fight between ourselves for resources you withhold, tearing ourselves apart for a sliver of what you take for granted. And you take that fighting and point to it as a sign of our moral failings, proof why we shouldn’t be given more. Excuses to keep you safe from the fallout you know will come if we ever claim the opportunities you denied us. The peace you stole from us.”
Her voice had grown steadily stronger and angrier, the smile dropping from her lips now as well. She took a small step towards Vishnu. “Not so pleasant to be on the receiving end, is it? Now you have a choice. You can negotiate with us, or one by one continue to fall. We are many, we are hidden, and we have the souls of gods at our beck and call. We aren’t afraid to use them.”
Tez’s reflection nudged his eye in her direction, moving from Regina to Scarfy and back again, before coming to rest on my approximate location.
Fourteen minutes, Regina relayed.
“Your colleagues are already dead,” the Preserver stated flatly, as if the speech had made little impression. “Whether or not you can control your illicit goods is immaterial when you cannot reach them. I am looking for my staff, and I will increase the consequences by increments until you provide them.”
Scarfy’s anger fractured, replaced by cunning calculation. “So there is something you want. For us to pay such a hefty price, we would expect something of equal value in return.” She took another step forward, past Regina.
I leaned forward with her, curious to see where this was going. She’d known Providence would come. Mighty Siphon and its leader wouldn’t be so willingly defeated. Her gaze was too fixed; her movements too measured to be coincidental. She had something planned.
Vishnu made a sound of disapproval. “Are your lives not valuable to you?”
“Valuable enough to know they’d be lost the moment we fulfilled our bargain, regardless of any promises. But there is something else you can give us.” She held out a hand to the god, palm up, who stared at it.
“And what is –”
He didn’t get any further. With surprising agility, the woman’s other hand dove into the scarf at her waist. It came out with a small kitchen knife. She lunged not at Vishnu, but Regina, pirouetting gracefully to the side. The strike aimed true. I moved to intercept it on instinct, and would have succeeded if the blade hadn’t phased through my palm.
It stopped centimetres from the demon lord’s throat.
“Tch,” said Vishnu.
Regina recoiled, rasping as if struck, and clutched at her neck as Neetu swore and fumbled for her gun. Forgetting the act.
“Hands,” I called sharply. “You’re fine. Hold back the containment fields.”
“I –” She bit off the rest of the sentence and pressed her lips together, then returned her palms to their upright, if substantially more shaky, position.
Fortunately, Vishnu was focused on Scarfy. Siphon’s leader was poised like a masterwork, each strand of hair frozen in suspended motion. Untouched by gravity, the silk scarf fluttered loose around her waist. The Preserver reached forward and plucked the weapon from her fingers.
The sound of Regina’s heavy breaths filled the air.
“This is madness,” Neetu cursed, training her pistol on the would-be executioner while her eyes flicked to Vishnu and back, considering an alternative. She edged around the coffee table, unclipped a pair of handcuffs and extended a ginger fingertip towards Scarfy’s arm. When it moved without incident, she pulled both of them around behind the assassin’s back and clacked them into place.
Secured, the woman shuddered back into life, momentum arrested with a sharp grunt as the cuffs threw off her balance. She stumbled, shins pitching into the coffee table with a crack. Most people would have reeled. Scarfy jerked once, before her features smoothed into practiced nonchalance.
“Well,” she said, straining against the cuffs before relaxing her muscles. “Can’t blame a woman for trying.”
Smart, but desperate. Incapacitating Regina might have brought back up the containment fields, but it might not have, and she’d still have had Neetu to deal with. Not to mention a frozen universe. Though I imagined the latter would come as a surprise. Poetic justice, at least until Yahweh trundled along to reclaim his missing stream of validation.
“Of course you can,” Neetu snapped at her, pulling down on the handcuffs so that the older woman buckled back onto the sofa. Tugged free by the motion, her scarf fell to the ground. “That is literally the definition of criminal law. And it’s that lack of fundamental understanding that makes you people steamroller over anyone you feel beneath you.”
Scarfy tilted her head as if noticing the officer for the first time. “You’re in their pocket,” she responded, in about the same enthusiasm levels as an aquarium full of blobfish.
“Absolutely not.”
“What a loss. If you truly care about human life, you should put your bullet through the head of those monsters. Don’t let their pretty faces fool you. We are not the villains here. They cut off the city. You must know that much, given your occupation.”
“Look,” said Neetu, shifting uncomfortably in the lie. “I don’t even know what’s going on, except that we may be the only people alive right now and you tried to murder one of them in front of me unprovoked. If you’re going to talk about scarcity, we’re it. That’s like worse murder.”
“We did break into her house,” Regina pointed out. One hand was still up, while the other rubbed at her throat. “And the threats.”
Neetu scrunched her nose. “Details. You’ll stay here until I can figure out what to do with you.” She lowered the pistol, checked its safety, and strapped it back in her belt.
“Stations are full, are they?” Scarfy let out a low chuckle.
“She will not be staying here,” Vishnu spoke. “She will be collecting my employees. Let us see.” He reached up to brush the amulet around his neck, turning his head slowly until it fixed on a door leading out of the living room. “Ah.” He waved Regina forward.
Scarfy stared pointedly at the sergeant. “Monsters.”
Regina stepped forward, emerging into a dim bedroom. Something seemed off about it I couldn’t place; not the pristine presentation, although there was that.
Vishnu spared it barely a glance, directing Regina to a cabinet along the opposite wall. It glitched as she drew close, becoming more of the grey paste. A few surviving chunks of porcelain and glass lost their comparative longevity status as they fell to the ground with it.
Regina shuddered.
Behind the cabinet lay a full-length window and accompanying balcony. Providence’s white tower hovered directly ahead, dominating the skyline like an anorexic chess piece. The bishop, of course. Whatever that made Siphon. Or us. The former, hiding behind their walled fortresses, could only be a rook. The Vatican Concord, scattering in all directions, a promoted queen. Best part of that wretched game was what happened when you left pawns unsupervised.
All the other relevant pieces had already been taken.