“Explain yourself,” Till Ingo demanded while working on the unconscious patient in a circular-shaped medical dome of his private transport.
The object of his indignation shrank on the video screen, trying his best to become one with a wall while holding a helmet in his hands. Keon, an enlistee from the conquered lands of Techno-Queen, had attracted Ingo’s attention for a long while. The boy quickly understood the method behind the working of the seized drones; he eagerly trained to become a full operator on the Inevitable, occasionally assisting with manual tasks, always brimming with energy.
The rejection of his offer to take Keon under his wing surprised Till. He had used the crawler’s cameras to locate the youth, then sent a repurposed Techno-Queen drone through a network of air tunnels. Keon, who gained weight and proudly wore an official uniform, had nestled himself in a ventilation shaft, painting the Wolfkin’s helmet black.
“Please be quiet, or they’ll hear you, Mr. Ingo,” Keon whispered to the buzzing drone. “I don’t want to get punched like the wolf hag.”
“The Wolfkins were aware of your presence from the beginning, Keon.”
The vent looked at a small warehouse that housed a very unusual gathering. Warlord Eled, still blindfolded to ease the strain on her cloned eyes, stood atop the crates, dressed in a flowing, slightly glittering gown of black silk that left her shoulders open. She played a simple harp for Arruda, Ashbringer, Melina, and Macarius Voidrunner, filling the hangar with a pleasant melody reminiscent of a long-lost home.
Ingo wasn’t a sentimental man, but something in this slow, methodical play reminded him of his own apartment, family, and the dried tree outside, the most precious artifact of their village. It took him back to the days when his family exchanged gifts and his sisters encouraged him not to get frustrated over a small technical problem. What a time it was; he was younger, foolish, more closed in, and his older sisters were never afraid to barge into his private laboratory to get him to eat or carry him into his bed.
Have I lived to your expectations? Ingo shrugged his shoulders and hit the record button. If Eled’s piece had such an effect on him, it should make a killing on the market. No doubt the warlord wouldn’t worry about losing the rights to the music. His brain’s microprocessors offered to slow the flow of time and enhance his memory so he could relive his past in perfect clarity, but the scientist declined the offer.
Some things had to be treasured in a natural way.
The last member of the assembly, Wolf Hag Sarkeesian, glanced at the vent, holding a paw over a swollen dark eye. Ashbringer, without opening her eyes, raised a fist, and the wolf hag quickly sat down, pretending to enjoy the concert.
“Why are you painting the helmet? Have you been drafted for maintenance too?” Ingo demanded to know.
“No, but yes, a little.” Keon smiled cheerfully. “Warlord Onyxia had asked me for a favor. She said that someone was pranking her wolf hag by painting her helmet white all the time. The warlord didn’t want the girl to be distressed or sad, so she asked me to fix the vandalism while she was away and keep an eye on who it might be.”
“Keon, you must learn how to say no, my boy, or the people will walk all over you. The warlord has her own soldiers,” Ingo grumbled. “Why have you refused my offer? If tokens are the problem, just tell me and I’ll solve everything.”
A mutilated body lay on the medical table in front of him. A girl, approximately nine years old, extracted from the cruel harnesses of Techno-Queen. Prior to the first four operations, pus had oozed from every open wound, a blood clot completely covered her remaining eye, and her trachea suffered from severe inflammation and tissue necrosis. Every time the poor thing regained consciousness, she tried to scream, her voice cracking and barely audible.
The microprocessors redesigned Tecno-Queen’s emotional transmitter, recording and transmitting the calm and happiness taken from several eager volunteers into the patients’ brains. It could hardly help with the mental state problem, but Till Ingo wasn’t a therapist, and this was the best he could do to combat the constant nightmares that his patients experienced. They slept better, under the effects of the drugs that blocked dreams, and no longer wanted to die.
That left the problems of the body. Leaving the patients in such a tortured and partially rotting state was unacceptable, no matter what Ravager might say, and Ingo worked day and night, keeping himself awake with medication. He replaced hearts, lungs, treated the deliberate sensory overload that kept the victims in a state of perpetual hellish agony. Currently, the mechanical manipulators have completed the task of severing and extracting the trachea. An additional set of clean mechanical arms lowered the artificial replacement so that the child could breathe on her own. Pus no longer plagued the girl’s body, but her kidneys still needed treatment.
Frankly, the surgeries went much better than he expected. Partly, and it pained him to admit it, the success of the operations was thanks to his Iternian colleagues. He had paid them a visit, explaining the situation when they came to pick up the wounded, and for the past several days, their doctors had repeatedly joined him during the medical sessions, providing invaluable insight into the treatment and berating outdated equipment.
Naturally, he recorded it all. Information should never be wasted, and medical colleges and universities can use it.
The other victims of Techno-Queen madness had slumbered in their capsules positioned on the walls, each bearing their own cybernetic augmentations: chrome engines replaced hearts, elastic rods in place of spines, new stomachs, bones coated in metal, and the like. There was little practical use in treating non-lethal damage, but Till Ingo considered himself a cautious man. After visiting Houstad, his private platform will take them on a week-long journey to his company’s headquarters. The cybernetics will only ensure that the trip will not be unpleasant if they somehow wake up and reduce the potential risk to their lives in the event of a sudden power outage.
“Sorry, sir.” Keon bowed. “I… I was a coward…”
“You were a young slave who never tasted freedom,” Ingo interrupted him. “It’s hard to call someone a coward when they have been bred to be submissive.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Keon set the helmet aside. “I never was a part of anything. I was a cog…”
“Still are.”
“But this time I have friends and people who care about me! I have comrades-in-arms, teachers, mentors, and even…” he blushed.
“Fast boy,” Ingo whistled approvingly. “Never miss anything, live to the fullest.”
“It’s nothing serious, not yet! Regardless, I have a chance to save lives, to help break chains that hold people like me as slaves…”
“There are many ways of saving lives,” Till made the last attempt. “A soldier fights, a soldier kills, but a skilled programmer can create wonders capable of both preserving soldiers’ lives and aiding in everyday life. And I am sure that many of your countrymen are upset about the deaths wrought by the Third.”
The Reclamation Army experienced rapid expansion and grew excessively dependent on individuals. Numerous intelligent and youthful men pursued careers in construction, the army, field medicine, or mechanics to earn easy tokens, as well as because of the generational trauma that shaped them.
Those who survived the extinction were resilient individuals. They had to become so to ensure the survival of their families. They had to learn when to cut their losses and let an infirm die so the rest of their children could survive. Unconsciously, their beliefs were passed on to their sons and daughters, and rather than “wasting” time in university, they sought to learn the craft on-site, helping scavengers and technicians learn how to assemble equipment, or helping hunters learn the skills necessary to join an army. The idea of mastering a skill that would require years of study seemed like pure folly to many. If you didn’t earn your keep right away, you weren’t pulling your weight.
Till Ingo never blamed people for the views that helped them survive, but a thriving modern society could not function without microsurgeons, scientists, programmers, engineers. Every profession had its value; automated medicine and knowledge stored in vaults could only take them so far. A janitor or a sewer worker are theoretically simple jobs, requiring little complexity. But they are hard, and the manual labor takes a toll on the body, and these professions are invaluable to society.
The problem of simplicity and complexity remained. Experts in intricate fields such as genetic cloning or surgery frequently joined the Army. War was no longer simple; it involved the complexity of making sure your fighting force remained capable, recovered from PTSD, stayed healthy, and used the latest war gear.
Had the Dynast hadn’t been so hell-bent on expansion, an equal distribution of personnel would have allowed for the creation of universal free healthcare even in the Outer Regions, but as it was, even in the Core Lands, there was a shortage of qualified medical and civilian personnel. Private clinics helped, but it was harder to find automotive designers, programmers, or engineers for new power plants, since most of them served in the military.
No one could be irreplaceable, so Till Ingo made it one of his life’s goals to find bright lads and lasses and send them off to study or take them under his wing. After graduating, his students had their own students, and the process of preserving, spreading, and accumulating knowledge continued and will continue far beyond his expiration date.
As it should be. No one should die from a lack of heart surgeons, as his dear father did.
“Sorry, but no, Mr. Ingo.” Keon shook his head. “Yeah, there are a lot of angry people. How could there not be? Almost every family has lost a member or a friend, and some still hold on to the illusion that we could have lived in utopia if we hadn’t been conquered. It’s hard. It’s hard to accept that I worked my entire life to bring the end to the people I love. I thought I was helping people! I thought the rebels were crazy. I was cheering their deaths beside my dad, but instead I was poisoning the air and ruining children’s lives…”
“You did nothing of the sort,” Ingo interrupted the usual melodrama. “The fault lies with the one who committed the sin, you moron. Have you ever intentionally harmed another person? No? Then shut up; otherwise, by your logic, every victim of a theft is indirectly responsible for the thieves’ lavish lifestyle and subsequent thefts. Self-blame is nonsense; snap out of it.”
“Thank you, mister.” Keon smiled. “I just pray every night so my people can move on and live their lives free of anger. But I’ll be a crawler operator. Maybe a part-time assistant in the arsenal. It is the way I want to live and how I set things right. To… if not undo what I did, then to do something right now.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
There it is. Another! Ignacy, Keon, and twenty others declined, leaving him with only two students to send to the UNU.
“Will you shut up!” Arruda snapped from below, and a knife landed near the vent. “Get down there, Normie, and stop your chatting! We are trying to listen to the concert here!”
“Live well, Keon,” Till Ingo said to the panicked young man, shutting off the communication and setting the drone to return in automatic mode.
His hands operated the console, sewing the girl’s horrid wound, but Ingo’s thoughts were elsewhere. How many people denied themselves the future because of self-guilt or family traditions? Geneticists, nuclear engineers, robotics specialists, augmentation surgeons, potential creators of artificial intelligence. So many bright minds, all of them not exactly wasted, but rather lost to the annals of history, their breakthroughs denied, their glorious aid not realized because of the never-ending conquests…
“You will stay away from war and danger, young lady,” Till Ingo said to his unconscious patient, performing the final checks to make sure the new trachea was working nicely. “No excitement, no traumatic events, a simple, quiet and boring life in the Core Lands, a proper education…” He gritted his teeth at a sudden din in his brain.
‘DANGER! DANGER! IMMEDIATE EVACUATION IS REQUIRED! FAILURE TO LOCATE AN ESCAPE ROUTE! ACTIVATION OF THE DEFENSE SYSTEM‘ A din of voices erupted in his head. The microprocessors had adopted some human habits, but in their panic, they filled his skull with screams more befitting frightened children.
“You lied…” A predatory whisper reached the researcher’s ears, but he didn’t turn too focused on completing the task at hand.
Mechanical tendrils slid from the ceiling of the dome in response to the unauthorized intrusion, preparing to wrap around and stun the unexpected guest with electricity. Should the guest be resistant to conventional tasing, the tendrils also bore sharp molecular needles around their edges to pump in sedative drugs. Most of the time, that did the trick.
The floor trembled as Ravager grasped the tendrils, disregarding the surges of rapidly escalating electricity strikes and the needles scratching at her hide. She ripped them and the mechanism in the ceiling free and stomped on the shattered debris, growling lightly.
Emergency lights flickered briefly in the room, and the pods holding the wounded sank into the open passageways in the walls. The honeycomb structure of Ingo’s private flying saucer allowed entire levels to be moved up and down in response to changing circumstances or to prevent unexpected artillery fire from destroying valuable artifacts. Even the control room was interchangeable, and as Ravager continued to destroy his medical center, the sleeping people were safely moved to the safety of the storage area, whose walls could withstand even a point-blank nuclear explosion.
“Enough,” Till Ingo said as a crack in the floor reached the patient’s platform. He turned, a small child compared to the rapidly approaching black shape wrapped in metal tendrils and flashing her fangs. His instincts called him to dodge aside, but he refused to expose a child to the danger. “I said enough! There is a patient here! Cease, Ravager!”
Her claw stopped a centimeter away from his eye. The mad rage in her amber suns faded, replaced by some kind of recognition, and Ravager looked around in confusion, twitching nervously at the sight of empty medical tables and the still-twisting tendrils on the floor.
“I am not in the Room; I am not the Room.” Ravager pressed her forearms to the sides of her head, squeezing with all her might. “It’s gone; he wasn’t here; he wasn’t there; I am too strong; nothing can happen; I am in control; it wasn’t there…” she kicked the broken flying vehicle of the raider’s leader, who had assaulted Just Peachy. Ravager never told Ingo what she did to the man himself, as she brought it to him as a gift. “It… It… Why is it always this shit?” Her eyes stopped at the tendrils.
“It’s the most effective non-lethal method to stop an intruder,” Till Ingo stated. Today’s outburst ended better than the last time, when her tantrum had forced him to undergo a knee replacement.
Drones appeared from the open recesses in the floor and walls. Skittering over the ground, they cleared the dust that Ravager had brought in, removed the broken equipment, and scanned the room for structural damage. Given enough time, they will fix the dome back into its original form. Several of the smart machines climbed over the sleeping girl, checking her connection to the life-support system. Then they wheeled her away, and Ravager glanced over at the girl, softening her expression.
“Y-you promised,” the commander said accusingly.
“Biological parts, yes.” Ingo rolled his eyes as Ravager slashed the dome’s side. She shook, drooled, and then stormed out.
Before his friend could cause a ruckus and wake Banshee, who was sleeping for the first time in weeks, Ingo followed her, obeying the silent order. Besides, the idea of teasing his creation for completely failing in her bodyguard duties was amusing.
Ravager clenched a paw to her chest, her heart pounding so loud Till could hear it from several paces away. She stumbled out of his flying lab, punching in access codes she shouldn’t have known. Once outside, she reached the crawler’s edge and sat, nervously breathing. The researcher joined her.
“Why didn’t you ask the Iternians for help when they picked up the injured?” Till Ingo inquired after a period of silence. Small talk wasn’t something he had mastered, and the sight of green fields and working engines was boring him.
“Because it would’ve caused a political shitstorm,” Ravager said, hiding her face in the knees. “By healing them, they would be indirectly siding with our conquests.”
“Unexpected restraint. I would have thought you, of all people, would enjoy setting Iterna up like this for what they’ve done in the past.”
“You sound like Ivar. What’s the point?” Ravager raised her head. “Revenge, hatred, murder, mutilation, lies… Against whom? The guilty are in prison; there is no one left for me to punish; there is nothing left to set right, and they had offered their help out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“And to prove to those around them they no longer harbor genocidal intentions towards New Breeds,” Ingo remarked.
“Yeah. Politics. So what if the end result is positive? Us, them, these religious freaks... If the little ones are fed, I am satisfied.” Ravager shrugged and looked at him. The light in her eyes intensified. “You’re dancing around the argument, Till. You promised.”
“The promise will be kept,” he assured her. “Ravager, you saw the girl. First, we will deliver them to Houstad. But we can’t treat them there, so my ship will leave for Stormfiend, where the main laboratory will perform this act of charity. The implants are merely temporary band aid.”
“Thanks.” Ravager was silent for a bit and then asked. “Did the board give you any troubles?”
“The usual whining,” Ingo sighed. “The costs are too high; can’t we use the emotional technology in war…”
“We…”
“Can’t,” he finished for her. “We’ll be tiptoeing too damn close to breaking the treaty and giving Iterna a chance to use their holograms in the next scuffle. No, it’ll remain strictly for civilian use. But Techno-Queen’s stored knowledge is enough to finalize the prototype of the prediction engine and to manufacture the disruptor cannons and mechanical suits for the soldiers. I will stay in Houstad and begin research immediately.” He patted Ravager on the back. “Get ready to see our own mechs in combat in a few years. I bet your girls will love the support. And they will soon receive a very special gift to help them survive on a battlefield.”
“They’d be better off loving peace,” Ravager growled. She noticed the twitch of his eyes and continued: “I am not blind, Till. But it won’t work. My children… they are as wretched as I. Monsters. Butchers. This is all we are good for. Almost killing each other all the time, even though there is no enemy here. I hear them roaring, growling, dishing out pain and receiving it in return. No nobility, no future, unlike the Ice Fangs. War is our home.”
“Such a melodramatic gloom and doom.” Till clicked his tongue.
He didn’t bother to argue against the obvious bullshit. What was the point? Ravager lived in her own made-up world, stuck in childish naivete. The Orais, as a whole, had become more civilized. The Ice Fangs, having risen above their incestuous heritage, strictly avoided repeating such disgusting practices. Many of their descendants subsequently founded businesses and corporations.
As for the Wolf Tribe… Eled’s music touched his heart; Soulless One proved herself to be more than a rigid priest, and their younger generation was caught reading inappropriate magazines or eagerly helping in the arsenal. Monsters do not behave this way, nor do they perform for the entertainment of children; they subjugate, not collaborate. Even the blind could see that the Wolf Tribe was fully capable of integrating into a functioning society.
“Your meeting with the mayor is scheduled for today,” Till said. “Want me to stick around for moral support?”
“No,” Ravager responded. She deeply inhaled and stood up on two legs, straightening to her full height, the fear and anger of the cornered prey disappearing from her eyes. For a second, Ingo thought that his heart had skipped a beat. The commander looked an entirely different person—majestic, in control, all-knowing, and commanding. “For my sins, for my sons, for my daughters and my troops, I will keep holding on. I can do it. Little Sis believes in me.”
“And I believe, too,” Till said against his will. He had to stand on his toes to reach and grab her knee. “Stay well, Ravager. Live. You never know how life will turn out. Don’t give up.”
“Same to you, Till,” Ravager smiled. The corners of her lips quivered nervously, but her eyes were calm, and that scared him to the bone.
She was normal. Ravager had, by some inhuman extension of will, had gotten a grip on her madness.
****
“So,” Janine said slowly. “We meet at last, thing.”
The Ice Fangs’ chambers weren’t like their desert cousins. White marble tiles covered the walls and ceiling, so pristine that Janine’s eyes hurt from the sheer brightness. This place was devoid of any scent marks or dropped fur, and separate booths covered about three-quarters of the spacious room. Each booth had a stone floor and a sink that smelled wet. On the opposite side of the booth entrance was a panel full of various buttons, and above it was that thing. A long metal-encased hose connected the decadent, diabolical, and devious circular hole capable of pouring water.
“You are fooling me,” Bertruda accused her. The sword saint left her spear outside of the bathroom; her black brows were raised high in disbelief. “You can’t not know how it works. I thought you dragged me here to talk!”
“If you want to mock me, go ahead.” Janine gritted her fangs, pissed off at her own inadequacy. In desperation, she approached the woman and asked for aid, petitioning for permission to enter the Order’s territory. “Otherwise, uphold your promise and explain to me which button makes the water the hottest.”
“You can’t not know how it works!” Bertruda exclaimed again, giving Janine the impression that she was panicking. “It’s… it’s a prank, right? A humor beyond my understanding? It’s impossible to operate a combat armor and not know how a damn shower works.”
“I have never seen this device before. Normies used a hose to clean us of gore prior to the Dynast’s commendations…”
A Wintersong sage peered from the entrance. Camelia had assigned her own private guard to prevent any possible conflict between the two rivals. Janine accepted this precaution and maintained a relaxed posture, holding her head high to expose her neck in a show of harmlessness.
“Please… No, please. Twins, have mercy,” Bertruda begged. “It’s a joke; yes, I’ll just play along, and then we will have a laugh.”
Janine said nothing, but listened intently to the explanations of the purpose of each button. The Blessed Mother visited the dens in person, accompanied by Zero and Alpha. It was rare to see her walking on two feet so casually, and it was doubly unusual to hear the command of getting presentable before the official meeting. Most warlords followed the standard protocol and enforced compulsory self-licking in their packs. But in the absence of sand to clean the fur, the best Janine did the unthinkable. She asked her rival for help.
“This is the hottest, got it.” Janine pressed on the yellow button, and numbers appeared on a small display, rapidly increasing as mildly warm water poured onto her head.
“Stop pressing it!” As the numbers tripled, Bertruda jerked her arm back. “Only First takes baths at that temperature! You’ll boil yourself alive, Janine!”
“Perfect…” Janine muttered as the numbers stopped rising.
She could actually feel the heat of her home in the water. It wasn’t the bitterly chilly waters that the regular army had used to purify them decades ago in preparation for the Dynast’s arrival. This water… It was awesome! It got hotter and hotter; streaks ran down her limbs, warming her bones; steam rose, hiding the confused Bertruda from view; and Janine spread her arms, enjoying the divine stream, wanting nothing more than to soak in it a little longer.
It wasn’t bad. It was divine.
“Use a gel, barbarian!” Janine blinked and caught a bottle that the sword saint threw at her from outside the booth.
“Is this a snack?” She asked, examining the bottle. “Thanks for the offer. I’m not hungry.”
“Stop! Stop pissing me off! You cannot… It’s to make your fur cleaner! Rub it in! Not the whole thing!” Bertruda slapped a paw across her muzzle. “Not in the same spot, either!”
Janine ignored her rival hysterics and followed the instructions. She would tolerate this rude behavior for as long as it took, for the entire pack needed to look their best for the meeting, and Janine was only the first volunteer to test the Ice Fangs’ contraption and confirm its safety.