Sofiane was anxious about whether or not to start deploying Heroes. On the one hand, there was enough light out that Daisy or Natsuko could be of use clearing out the remaining Non-Heroes on the other side of the moat. On the other hand, ranged FDJ was still a threat. Adding to that, he wanted to have all their resources, even skill cooldowns, in reserve until they were absolutely necessary. Once the other Heroes arrived, the battle could hinge on something as simple as whether or not Daisy had Peng available.
What tempted him the most was the lull in fighting around dawn. After the initial chaos had subsided, lines of battle organized themselves, forming a large bubble stretching around the city walls and out into what remained of the tent city. The crates, barrels, bundles of wood, campfires, trays, bottles, and other miscellaneous things had all been jettisoned from Po-Lin and now only larger objects, whose classification in the eyes of the Yishang exempted them from dimension-jumping, remained. What was left had been pulled into a tight circle by the survivors of the initial attack and now formed an ad-hoc extension of the city walls.
In this moment of comparative calm before the storm, Sofiane walked with Vronsky down the empty lanes of Vermögenburgh.
“Give me the latest casualty report,” Sofiane said.
“From the ground forces, Spriggansnout estimates around 825 dead. From the aerial, Medea says 56. We had around two dozen injuries from various accidents, but most of these fixed themselves this morning,” Vronsky replied.
They had begun the previous night with a little over three thousand Non-Heroes. They were nearing 2,000 now. Still appreciable, but many of those were equipped with melee FDJ weapons now and—though Sofiane hated to admit it—would be cannon-fodder once the Heroes showed up. Joad’s team was churning out as many ranged FDJ weapons as they could, but they were running low and conventional weapons to convert. The Cascadians had only come with so many muskets.
“Any more injuries are permanent. Have Spriggansnout and Medea tell everyone to be careful. And then… what do you think of sending a Hero out to clean up the rest of the enemy Non-Heroes?” Sofiane asked.
“It’d be good for morale,” Vronsky said. “I’ve heard a few folks wondering why they’ve been taking the brunt of it so far while the Heroes are hiding.”
Sofiane rubbed his temples. “Ugh, this wasn’t the plan…”
He hated that he was still saying that. There was no plan at this point. At least not one more complex than, ‘survive until Shuixing can save us.’ Between a night without sleep, anxiety that had him on the verge of throwing up, and not getting a fix of his Gomiko addiction, Sofiane’s brain was running on fumes.
“I say go for it. Send Natsu up,” Vronsky said. “I think our people could use a fireworks show to wake ‘em back up.”
Sofiane was happy to share the decision-making load. He sent Vronsky to convey their next steps to the other committee members and then left to find Natsuko.
He spotted Daisy first since her ‘battle uniform’ was a neon pink overcoat and a white ushanka obtained from one of the Sibe-Lander Non-Heroes. She was standing over Natsuko and Kane squatting in the dirt and playing tic-tac-toe. They were in almost the exact same spot where he’d once played hangman with Natsuko before the adventure for the Cursed Demon’s Eye.
“Oh rats! You win again!” Kane said.
Natsuko cleaned her dirty finger off on her kimono. “How many is that?”
“Sixteen.”
“Best seventeen out of thirty-three?”
Sofiane cleared his throat and Natsuko looked up from the game.
“Hey, Puffball, this war is boring as hell. Let me blow something up.”
“Funny you should mention that…”
Natsuko hopped up from the dirt already vibrating with excitement. Sofiane filled her in on the details of her mission which included Daisy flying her in on Peng since he wanted Natsuko to be able to use Black Fire to escape in an emergency.
“So, besides that, it’s just bomb the hell outta everything?” Natsuko asked.
“That and don’t die,” Sofiane said.
Natsuko shot at him with finger guns. “Ain’t a chance.”
Daisy added her own guns to the volley and then so did Kane until Sofiane was being shot at with six separate finger guns while all three made ‘pew pew’ noises. He replied with a long exhale.
“Just promise me you’ll be careful. And I’m sorry to say, Kane, but you won’t be going up with them. You and I are going to be guarding the gate to the city in case we need to help the Non-Heroes fall back,” Sofiane said.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Kane stood up and started marching in place. “Roger that!”
With a mission to fulfill, Daisy wasted no time pulling Peng free from the cobble street while Natsuko hopped aboard. Daisy gave her the briefest of warnings before taking Peng into a straight vertical climb. The air beat down against Natsuko as she held on for dear life. Bullets soon joined the roaring wind and Daisy didn’t stop until the bullets no longer whined past their ears and then had Peng circle in a holding pattern.
“Ready for our bombing run?” Daisy asked.
“Where we hittin’?” Natsuko asked.
Daisy gestured to the forest where a wiggling line of ants were moving between the trees.
“What’s the range on your Megaton?”
“Not that far,” Natsuko said. “How close can you take us?”
“Pretty close. Now ask me how close I can get without killing us.”
“Take me that close,” Natsuko said.
Battle plan decided, Daisy drove Peng into a diving plunge towards the edge of the forest the two of them had meticulously decimated the day before.
Natsuko had barely enough time to think of what she had to do before Peng pulled into a stomach-churning corkscrew to dodge the bullets racing towards them. Natsuko felt like she was about to take fall damage from the raw G-forces, but instinct took over and with a split second of sightline she triggered Megaton, blowing up 100 yards of treeline and putting a damper on the volley firing at them and Vermögenburgh.
Peng soared out and around the city walls and over the tent city as screaming and cheers from below joined the popping gunfire. Urged on by the close air support, the Non-Heroes on the walls opened fire on the handful of their foes who had enough stats not to be blown to pieces in the initial bombing run.
“What’s your cooldown!?” Daisy yelled over the wind.
“Twenty seconds and counting!” Natsuko said as a laugh bubbled up inside her.
It was dangerous to be this close, but she couldn’t help but gaze down at the enemy Non-Heroes scrambling for safety. They looked to be mostly made up of Non-Heroes from the ‘good’ factions of each region. Among them were Cascadian musketeers, Imperian national guardsmen, and Shikijiman loyalists, people she’d fantasized about blowing up for years.
She and Daisy made more passes until the area around Vermögenburgh was reduced to smoking cinders. The few remaining gunshots came from excited defenders shooting at the moat in celebration. As Daisy prepared to make a landing, Natsuko pointed at a smattering of colorful dots off in the distance, some zipping forward or around, a few fluttering in the air.
“Heroes,” Natsuko said.
~~~
Shuixing swam through the streams of Numberspace. She no longer felt as though she were a fish fighting against the tides of an ocean. She could dance with the numbers. Slice through them. Float amongst and within them, effortlessly and without fear of being interrupted after instructing Hilda to ensure regular re-dosing of Aqua Shen.
Unless, of course, the defenses failed. But it was with the totalizing concentration of someone with no other options left that she threw herself into her task.
Not long after Shuixing discovered her newfound ease in navigating Numberspace, she also realized her perception had changed too. She found that the less she focused on the individual numbers and what they meant, the broader became her understanding of the world they represented. She was able now to notice both the casualty estimates leaving Vronsky’s mouth a second after they were generated in his mind and also to notice that his number was short by 45.
But as the ecstasy of her fluidity wore off, Shuixing was more aware than ever of the two immediate challenges facing her and the research team who were bound to her consciousness like moons orbiting a planet. The first was the continual problem of being unable to interface directly with Po-Lin. Here, they were merely omniscient observers. This also meant even if Shuixing could find the routes through which the CPA and the Yishang’s network of worlds were connected to the outside, they would still be stuck on one side.
The second problem was that although she had a theory about how to solve the first problem, she had no means to test or enact it. What she needed was for the entire CPA to act in concert and to reverse the direction of the information flow so that what was contained in Numberspace, including that thing called Shuixing, was jettisoned outwards into whatever circulatory algorithms existed amongst the Celestials.
However, this was impossible.
For starters, the CPA included not only Shuixing and her friends, but also the opposing Heroes and Non-Heroes who outnumbered them ten-to-one as well as the Pengwu who were the part of the CPA interpreting the Yishang's wishes. The part of Po-Lin rebelling against the Yishang constituted no more than 10% of the entities interfacing with the CPA, and the CPA itself was not a living thing with its own wishes but something like a storm made out of individual raindrops.
Before speaking with Pechorin, Shui had held out hope that the algorithm would transform of its own accord and solve their problems. However, what she realized after talking with Pechorin was that their world would never cease to be all of its smaller parts and become a seamless, larger whole. The CPA was already in the form it would take. Or had taken. And whatever process it was undergoing was wholly contained in all the smaller parts that made it up. Parts like herself. Parts like Zhidao. Parts like Boulanger. There was no higher order to take over and guide them all to an escape from the Yishang—they were the CPA. There was no one and nothing else.
The thought had terrified Shuixing at first, but with time to think it through, she realized it couldn’t be otherwise. Freedom was the process that granted itself.
This notion, resounding like a mantra through her mind, kept her from panicking as she swam through the ocean of data. What did make her panic, however, was when a clear and unmistakable voice broke through the abstraction of the numbers to form words.
“Hi Shuixing! You’re not allowed to be here,” Zhidao said.