CAELUS
ADAM
Adam flipped his phone closed. “That was Derek. He said I should stay away from the dorm for a while. Ling and Akane are apparently testing their powers a bit more.”
Lily just grabbed his arm and smiled. “Then that means we have more time alone.”
He winced as she pushed at his wounds. “Sure, just not doing anything physical. I still ache from that gargant.” The stupid metal bristles on its plating had been sharper than they looked, and had slashed the entire front of his body pretty badly. Not to mention that his shoulder still ached from being dislocated last night.
She frowned, loosening her grip. “I thought you said Doctor Clarke patched you up?”
He sighed. “Yeah, he did, but the toy maker can only do so much for me. He said something...” Adam paused. “Okay, he said a lot of things, but Laura explained that they were pretty much just accelerating my natural healing, which takes time.”
“Hm. I forget that without the toy maker, you can't just pay a fee and your wounds disappear.” She shrugged. “It's been such an integral part of the city for so long, I can't even remember a time when we didn't have it.”
Adam scratched his chin, trying to remember the timeline from his high school classes. They had only barely touched upon the toy maker. It wasn't a military school, after all. “So that's been, what... ten years?”
“Fifteen,” she said. “That's when Doctor Clarke invented it, and Mister Butler started selling it.” She smiled a little, her fangs peeking out. That had been disconcerting at first, but he was starting to find it cute. “Soon after, Butler started his crusade to unite the city.”
Adam nodded in understanding. “Money opens a lot of doors.”
“Yes, but the toy maker caused a lot of problems too.” She indicated a couple of canes chatting on a street corner as we passed. “A gang is just a group of people. Eliminate the leader, and they disperse. Cultures are harder.”
“What about—” Adam stopped before he said the wrong thing. Lily always got edgy when he brought up Malcanthet, and he didn't need to understand the details. “—Orcus. The leader of the orcs. They dispersed when he died, right?”
“That's actually an excellent example,” she said warmly. She always liked helping him understand the city better. “When he was around, they were an army, fighting to keep the cultures from destroying each other, specifically the vampires. That was before the Big Boss realized the cultures were dangerous.” She shrugged. “When Orcus was murdered, the orc gangs dispersed, but the orcs themselves remained. They weren't gangs any more, they were an ethnicity.”
“And ethnicity gives people another reason to hate each other,” Adam said.
Lily nodded. “The Culture Wars are hard to place. On the one hand, they're gang wars, as there is nothing stopping people from switching cultures at a whim. But on the other hand, they're race wars, since people consider their culture more natural than their own skins.”
“So, while Butler was stomping down the drug rings and smuggler groups, the vampires and the kemos and so on were getting established?”
“Exactly. Like a cancer. You can't just burn it out without damaging the host.”
“Well, from what I've seen, it's not too bad. I mean, two of my friends are a vampire and an angel, fighting side by side.”
She smiled sadly. “The 'sarians are different, sweetie. They're full of people who have given up their hatreds in hopes of attaining peace.” Her crimson eyes dimmed with sadness. “But while they're huge for a gang, they're not nearly enough to protect the entire city. The cultures outnumber them a dozen to one. And now with the screamers...” She shook her head sadly.
He grinned down at her. “You seem awfully knowledgeable about all this, for someone who claims to have skipped college.”
She rolled her eyes. “My sister rants about this whenever I give her half a chance. Besides, I hear rumors at my jobs. The point is, the people respect Necessarius, but the gangs just fear them.”
“Better to be feared than respected, right?”
“No,” she corrected. “It is better to be respected, it is easier to be feared. And it is vital not to be hated, which is the reason Necessarius is winning. Very few people truly hate them.”
“That's something, I guess.” He thought for a moment, before barking out a laugh. “I'll admit, I didn't expect to spend the day arguing philosophy with you.”
“Well, we don't have the whole day,” she sighed. “I have my job at the BOB's down Nirvana street in about an hour.”
Adam strained his memory. “BOB is the one that makes the Olympian guns, right?”
“And other stuff. But yeah.”
He grinned. “Pick me up the Zeus while you're there?”
She just rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and shotguns? I thought the Saint George was enough for you.”
“It's supposed to be the best one out there,” he said. “But the Zeus has better recoil.”
She just looked at him sideways. “You don't actually expect me to buy you one of those, do you?”
He pulled her a little closer, despite the fact that it made his wounds ache. “Of course not. I'm just teasing.”
She cursed under her breath. “I'm never going to live down that time I offered to bring back clothes, am I?”
Adam chuckled. “Don't be silly. Of course not.”
Before she could say anything, a scream tore the air.
At first, he thought it was a screamer, but he quickly realized his mistake. It wasn't a scream in the literal sense, but the tortured shriek of burning air as an aircraft hurtled through the sky. Adam had heard it pretty often a few years ago, when his dad became convinced he could make miniaturized rockets.
He looked up and saw something streaking across the sky, trailing enough smoke and fire to trace its course back beyond the horizon. It was impossible to tell what it was, but it was too small to be a shuttle, and too large to be something natural.
He turned to Lily, frowning. “I thought today's drop was done already?”
She nodded, still looking up. “And it's way too close. It's gonna—”
With a thunderous boom that shook the entire street, their worst fears were realized. The object had crashed less than a mile away, throwing up a huge cloud of debris that they could see from here. The dust cloud was already settling back to the Earth, but was fast being replaced by a large plume of smoke.
Whatever it was, it had missed its mark. Launching something from space and landing safely on solid ground was possible, but too difficult to do when the ocean was nearby. The shooter or pilot or whatever had missed the water by nearly fifty miles. Considering how much smoke the thing had been giving off, it might have been clipped by anti-air fire. But who would be shooting at it? It had come from the west, which meant the mainland. Had they fired at it, or launched it in the first place?
“C'mon,” Lily said, grabbing Adam's hand. “It's not far. Let's see if we can help.”
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He let her drag him along, towards the crash site. He was still focused on the cause.
Space drops happened every day, at noon sharp, as the space stations and colonies shot pods containing goods and materials at the city, or more specifically the ocean surrounding it. Domina's space cannons, controlled by Necessarius, returned packages containing whatever the space habitats might need—such as food and water—exactly half an hour later. As far as Adam knew, it was the only physical trade the city did with the outside world.
It was after two now. There was no reason for anything to be anywhere close to their airspace for almost a full day.
They reached the crash site in just a few minutes. The object had scored a long, deep furrow in the street, only ending where it had plowed into a building, which was now on fire and spewing black smoke. Luckily, the structure was relatively small at five stories, and it looked like the occupants were having an easy time escaping by the roof.
There was a crowd standing around the object, which Adam realized was a small escape pod with the Chinese flag—scorched nearly beyond recognition—on the door. Nobody was getting too close. They were probably worried about the heat.
“We have to do something,” Lily said.
He looked at her sideways. “Why?”
She glared. “This could be a life or death situation, not just for the person still inside but for the entire city. Escape pods are designed to not land in the middle of cities.”
He cursed under his breath. “You're saying it could explode?”
“Possibly.” She stopped at the edge of the mass of people, not wanting to elbow through the crowd, but Adam had no such compunctions.
If Lily was worried, he was worried. As he was elbowing his way through, he realized that nearly half of the people were two or three feet taller than him. More than a few had strange skin colors, like blue, purple, red, and yellow.
Right. This was giant territory. He had forgotten. Well, that could be to his advantage.
Once he was on the other side of the ring of people—the same side as the pod—he pointed out the biggest giant he could see, a massive Middle-Eastern man perhaps ten feet tall and with muscles to match. “You! Start organizing a team. I need at least two strong guys not afraid to get burned to get the door off. You!” He pointed at one of the trolls, one with purple skin. If memory served, they were the stealthy ones. That wouldn't be helpful directly, but hopefully she could run fast. “Find the nearest Colossus, tell him what's going on.” She ran off, pulling out her phone at the same time. Smart girl.
“Honored Paladin,” the first giant said. “I have some strongarms.”
Adam started at first, before he remembered that “paladin” was catching on as a general honorific for baselines. He didn't know Adam was a Paladin.
He had found one normal-looking giant and two red trolls with claws. Adam was pretty sure that meant they were warriors, but in this city it could just mean that they really liked canned food.
“Thank you, Honored Titan,” Adam said. Best to be polite, even in an emergency. He looked over at the escape pod. It didn't seem like it was about to explode, and by some miracle the hatch wasn't buried under more than a little rubble, but they needed to be quick. “Okay gentlemen, there's a Chinese astronaut in there that needs our help. Let's start with the door.”
The big giant handed Adam a pair of leather gloves in his size—well, not giant size, anyway—and he nodded in thanks. He stepped forward, not pausing on the hot rocks of the crater, and tried to pull open the hatch while wearing the gloves. He could only pull for ten seconds or so before the heat became too much and he had to let go, and it didn't seem to move at all.
“There goes Plan A,” he said. “Plan B: Guys, see if you have any better luck.”
The trolls grunted and stepped forward. They were barefoot and shirtless, and as they got close to the pod Adam could hear their feet sizzling on some of the hotter concrete. They didn't seem to notice.
They didn't bother just yanking the door. Instead, they used their claws to tear out the hinges, then pulled off the hatch itself with minimum effort. It was still fused into place from the heat, and every time they touched the metal it sounded like someone cooking bacon, but they managed to get it off.
Adam jumped inside—none of them could fit anyway. It was a tiny, cramped space, with barely enough room for the one seat with the astronaut strapped in, still in one of those temporary maintenance space suits. It was uncomfortably warm, but not hot. Adam guessed the insulation was working. The astronaut began to move slowly as he started cutting the crash webbing off him.
He groggily muttered something that Adam didn't understand. His suit's radio made it come out tinny.
Adam cursed under his breath. Of course he'd be speaking Chinese. They'd need a translator. It wasn't exactly the most common language in the city... did Ling speak it? Adam didn't think so. He remembered something about her being a third generation immigrant, not to mention an orphan.
“I'm going to get you out of here,” Adam said slowly, trying to look the astronaut in the eyes. His mirrored visor made that difficult, but hopefully he looked trustworthy. “Do not move.”
“I... I speak English,” he said, although with a pretty thick accent. He tried to move a little, but Adam placed a hand on his chest, and he stopped. “Who are you?”
“My name is Adam,” he said in a smooth voice. His mom always said people were the same as horses: If you spoke calmly, they'll be calmed in turn. “What's your name?”
“Ru. Ru Yu.”
“Interesting.” Adam finished cutting the straps around his arms, and handed him another knife so he could help get his legs and torso free. “I know a Chinese girl with that last name. Is it common?”
He shrugged. “A... little. I think.”
“Why'd you get in the escape pod, Ru?”
“Uh... it was...” He touched his helmet. “I think I'm bleeding.”
“We'll find you a doctor in a minute,” Adam said, cutting through a few more of the straps holding his legs in place. There were a lot of them, and he didn't see any sort of emergency switch to get rid of them all. Who designed this thing? “Just tell me what happened.”
“There... was a mutiny. Aboard Shaohao Station. Peng just went crazy, and locked himself in the control center. He started isolating sectors, refused to explain anything, and he destroyed the communication relay.”
“Shaohao...” Adam searched his memory. “That's the big one in charge of making new shuttles, right?”
Ru wasn't cutting anymore, which had Adam worried, but he nodded. “Among a few other space technologies.”
“Like toilets?”
He chuckled slightly. Good. “Yes, like toilets.”
“How did he take over like that? It's a big station, surely there are failsafes.”
“That's just it. He subverted the failsafes. He can't kill anyone, but he can shut down production and keep the sale from going through.”
Adam paused in his cutting. “Sale? What sale?”
“Sale of the station. The USP is going to buy it.”
Adam frowned. “Wait, I thought everything in space was already owned by the United Space Program?”
He barked out a laugh. That was good, but Adam hadn't meant it as a joke. “No, not for... ten years now. Longer, probably. I'm not sure. Oh.” He moved his arms and legs and the last of the straps fell free. “That's it.”
Adam pushed his concerns about space and politics to the back of his mind. “C'mon, let's get you out of this thing.” He didn't add that he was seriously worried it was going to explode. With what he had seen so far of its design principles, he wouldn't be surprised.
Adam slung the astronaut's arm around his shoulder so he could support him better, and pulled him out as quickly as he could. Part of it was the risk of serious danger, but mostly it was because Adam's wounds screamed every second the astronaut put weight on him. It felt like some of them had opened up again. Wonderful.
Before they even cleared the hatch, long arms reached in and pulled the astronaut gently from Adam's grasp and placed him on a stretcher far too big for him. Adam had half expected him to freak out when he saw the giants, but he didn't react. The blow to the head probably helped. Adam waved him off as the ambulance shut its doors and sped away.
“Honored Paladin,” something rumbled nearby. He turned to see the biggest giant he could imagine, almost twenty feet tall, looking down at him. All he saw was the sun shining behind his silhouette.
Adam brushed his apprehension aside as much as he could. “Honored Titan, perhaps we should get away from the escape pod. I'm a little afraid it might be... volatile.”
“Hammer and spear,” the giant cursed under his breath. “David. Send a tech team in. Remove any fuel cells.” He turned back to Adam, although he could only tell because the shadow shifted. “Necessarius has already been informed of the situation. Thank you for your help, but we can take it from here.”
Adam frowned. From some of the stories Derek and Akane told, he had assumed this would go a little differently. There were more questions, for one. “Honored Titan, I—”
“Thank you for your help, Mister Anders,” the Colossus interrupted. “I'm sure Necessarius will debrief you later. Expect a call in a few minutes.”
Adam nodded. Of course. The 'sarians wouldn't know whether this was secret-level or not. They wouldn't want any information to leak out. He was sure the moment they figured out who was heading the rescue—somebody probably gave MC his description—they had interceded with orders for the Colossus. He probably didn't like that. Now would be a good time to go.
Adam looked around for Lily. He had left her at the edge of the crowd. Where was she?
He spotted her in the same place he had left her. Although the crowd had started to disperse, she hadn't moved. She was standing quietly at the lip of the trail of destruction the pod had caused. She seemed to sense my gaze, and turned to lock eyes with him.
She smiled, proudly.
Adam smiled too. Today was a good day.