෴Midnight෴
෴Mercator෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Begin Act 3
Intruder
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Floating in geosynchronous orbit was an exercise in self-deception. Midnight felt as though he wasn’t moving at all. He was traveling over four thousand miles per second relative to the surface. He felt like he could look down upon the entire Earth below and see everything in the world that was happening. He might as well have been looking at a globe. He knew any problem big enough to be visible from space would probably be something beyond his ability to solve, anyway.
Despite this, he took the time to look. Pulling in all the space debris in his range took a few minutes, so he might as well enjoy the view. Once he’d spent a few minutes playing space janitor and integrating the usable material into his suit, he formed his reentry vehicle and powered down into the atmosphere.
The high altitude shock wave of reentry was often the most polarizing moment of his day. Something about the feel of electromagnetic waves on his metal senses as he powered through the exosphere into the thermosphere, giving way to the growing roar of air resistance and surfing the blast wave as the sacrificial nose cone sublimated then phase changed into a stream of beautiful glowing plasma. It wasn’t something he could share with anyone else, so depending on the day, it could either be a private moment of sublime beauty, or a moment of deep loneliness.
Today, the breathtaking view and envelope of plasma around him failed to pull his mind away from the meeting he was hurtling toward.
When his metal losses mounted, Midnight slowed himself down and looked ahead at the landmass on his horizon.
Once clear of the mesosphere, he relaxed and allowed himself to free fall. The rest of the way down wasn’t worth his full attention. He had bigger things on his mind.
He landed gently in a desolate spot in the Gobi desert a few dozen miles from his destination. The hottest parts of the armor flowed off and shed heat quickly. He stepped out of the armor and took a moment to refresh himself in the cool, dry, evening air.
A few minutes later, he sighed and stepped back into the armor. With a mental effort, the surrounding earth vibrated as rocks high in various metals, mostly iron, sifted to the surface. Tiny tendrils and specks of metals emerged from the stone and joined his armor. This continued for quite a while, until he’d formed up what he thought of as his battle weight, if not the specific alloy he’d have preferred.
Once he’d finished rebuilding his suit, Midnight sat down and rested. He knew it wouldn’t help his ability energy level much, but being tired was its own problem. The thought of what he might find kept him from truly relaxing.
He took to the air in his thicker hulled suit and crossed the remaining distance in a few seconds.
At the great stone door, he hesitated. Midnight could smell himself in his suit. The normal actions he took to keep the inside of his armor clean had long since been overwhelmed. He’d been in it far too long. Needed a shower, needed some proper rest.
Without giving himself any more time to think about it, he used his metal fist and started knocking.
He hammered on the door for longer than usual, but eventually the heavy slab of stone creaked open. A familiar horned visage greeted him.
“What a—surprise. I wasn’t expecting you to stop in for another month or two. What brings you all the way to my doorstep?” The giant asked.
“I wanted to talk to you, ask you a few questions. May I come in?” Midnight tried to see past the giant into the long hallway.
Mercator cut a massive figure even in a large room, one that always left Midnight feeling small even at his full combat weight. “Yes, if you can be a proper guest.” his rows of sharp teeth made smiles more an exercise in intimidation than an expression of happiness.
Midnight sighed with mild frustration. His armor flowed away from his head. “Very well, face to face then.”
With a shrug, Mercator turned and walked back down the long, gently descending hallway toward his hidden home.
Midnight narrowed his eyes at this. This wasn’t how Mercator usually received him, and with him, any change was a bad thing. Having no other choice, he followed the giant down the long tunnel.
Mercator stopped and turned around at the room Midnight had long ago mentally dubbed ‘the atrium’. A large, well-lit room, bigger than any other single room in the place. Usually Mercator kept this room filled with decorative furnishings. Today it was a chamber of stark, barren stone.
Midnight looked around and shook his head slightly, suspecting where this would end.
“Doing some redecorating?”
Mercator crouched down on his haunches, still taller than Midnight, but close enough to talk. “No. But I think you know that. So tell me, what brings you here?” his low voice rumbled and echoed in the room.
“Are you breaking our agreement?” Midnight blurted out without thinking, immediately regretting his lack of tact.
Mercator spread his too-long arms out in a broad, expansive gesture. “Agreement? Oh. You’re speaking of your list of demands. I suppose I am, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Not just my requests. You’re getting something out of it as well.” Midnight countered.
“Truly? Sometimes I wonder just what kind of friend you are. You came to me so many years ago, promising me protection from the human weapon that you claim rains fire and renders even stone into ash and dust.” Mercator crouched down on his haunches and tilted his horned head to the side. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re protecting me, or using an imaginary external threat to—what is the word?—blackscale me?”
Midnight shook his head, suddenly wishing his armor was still covering his expression. “I’m not blackmailing you. That you would be nuked if they knew you were here, is not a question of if but when, and how thoroughly they would annihilate you and this place.”
“Are you now threatening me?” Mercator asked in an eerily calm voice.
Midnight matched his volume and cadence, all too aware of the terrible danger of showing weakness to a being like this. “It is not a threat. Simply a statement of fact. I ask again, are you breaking our agreement?”
Mercator smiled, a broad grin that exposed far too many long, sharp teeth. “I am not going out and taking prisoners. I am also not eating prisoners.” He pointed past Midnight. “Look at where we are. I eat the creatures that come through. I do not exactly live near any humans.”
The verbal sparring continued for several minutes. The two appeared to be slowly relaxing into an almost amiable, though still guarded, companionship.
Midnight did his best to appear nonchalant while looking for any kind of opening or more information.
“Well, I suppose that answers my questions. Did you want to try a game?”
The giant smiled even wider than before. “You know I do. Shall I fetch the board? I would indeed enjoy another game. Shall we play tic-tac-toe, or checkers?”
Midnight smiled wryly. “We could try chess again.”
Mercator lifted the checkers box and snarled. “No. I have no need to see that overcomplicated silliness again. I wish to play a game with depth, and strategy. We shall play checkers!”
“I do have another game I could teach you.” Midnight countered.
The giant tapped his clawed fingers on the stone floor. “Is it like chess?” he spat out the word like it was dirty.
“No, it has more in common with checkers. We can even use the same pieces. I think you’ll like it.”
Mercator brightened at the mention of his current favorite game. “Show me.”
Midnight sacrificed some metal and created a vertical free standing lattice of windowed slots and a release lever. “There are many versions of this game. They play some versions flat on a board, others like this, played vertically. Some people call it, ‘Connect Four’.”
All too aware of Mercator’s mercurial disposition, Midnight went very easy on him, allowing him to win about half the time.
During their tenth game, Mercator was absorbed in the board, trying to determine how to stop Midnight’s assured victory. At that moment, something entered the active sphere of Midnight’s abilities.
He looked past Mercator, into the hallway that led further into the giant’s home. A stooped and worn old woman staggered past. “Mo—” he cut himself off and looked from her to Mercator. “Mercator, who is this? I thought you just said—”
The giant didn’t turn around. “Oh, she’s one of my guests.”
Midnight looked over at Adele, taking in her exhausted appearance, and what might have been blood on her hands. “Is it true? Are you here volu—”
Mercator’s fist crashed into the partially formed faceplate that had barely flowed into place in time to help absorb the massive hit. Midnight flew across the room, his several thousand kilos of mixed alloys smashed into the stone wall with a clunk.
“Impugning the honor of your host, is not the behaviour of a guest at all.” Mercator growled at Midnight.
Midnight shook his head to clear the sudden ringing. Without requiring much thought, his abilities shifted his armor into close combat mode. Eight limbs protruded from his suit, some punching into the stone floor for leverage and stability, the rest ready to fight with.
Mercator ignored this. He turned to Adele. “My dear, I’d like you to go back to bed while I deal with this intruder. I’m sure you must be tired. I’ll handle this in a moment and be in to check on you.”
She stood there uncertainly, glancing at each of them in turn.
“Go now. This is about to become a dangerous place.” Mercator’s booming voice cracked like a whip in the echoing stone chambers.
She looked from one combatant to the other, then ducked out of sight into the hall.
“So you are keeping prisoners!” Midnight accused him.
Mercator shook his head. “Oh no. I welcomed her as a guest. I welcome anyone who comes near this place as a guest.”
The giant lashed out, catching Midnight across the body.
Midnight took the impact across the protruding limbs that stabilized him and counterattacked in the same motion.
Four razor-tipped spikes on metal tentacles whipped into different paths toward their large target.
Mercator’s spatial field swallowed parts of two of the tentacles and severed the other two.
The giant grinned savagely at his opponent. “Same old tricks. Is that all you can do?”
Midnight didn’t answer. He could tell Adele was still far too close to the battle to risk more.
Mercator took advantage of the hesitation and slammed another enormous fist into Midnight’s torso, pulling his hand back bloodied from striking the spikes and blades that had erupted from the armor.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“You’ve taken my blood now. Shall we fight in earnest?” Mercator licked the blood away from the already healing injury.
A nearly invisible disc, a shimmery sheet of hungry nothingness, whizzed at Midnight’s throat. The armored figure dodged, blasting to the other side of the room and sending a cascade of blades at the giant.
Mercator’s spatial blade hit the wall and cut in several inches before running out of energy.
Midnight’s metal blades passed into a hastily erected portal and emerged from another portal behind him. The blades struck sparks and skittered off his own back before the collapsing portal cut them off.
Mercator stepped over the severed metal tentacles littering the floor. “You’re going to run out of armor at this rate. I won’t run out of these.”
With that, he flicked several energy blades across the large room.
Midnight spun and zipped around the room, slamming into the wall to dodge the deadly attack. He smiled grimly under his armor and reached out to the severed metal across the room.
“What do you do with these guests?” He asked, trying to hide his panting.
Mercator didn’t answer right away, sending more flying discs of oblivion at Midnight. None connected.
“Don’t be stupid. What do you think I do? I wait for them to violate the guest right, then I eat them.” The giant taunted him.
While Midnight dodged the rapid fire discs of spatial energy, the severed chunks of metal behind Mercator silently reformed into a single wicked looking razor-sharp barbed tip.
Another volley of disks of oblivion flew at Midnight. Mercator laughed as the armored figure’s escape route was abruptly closed in by the shimmering pre-portal surfaces.
Midnight dodged what he could, but took a hit to his torso. As he took the hit, he struck. The barbed metal construct flashed forward to impale his enemy from behind.
Somehow forewarned, Mercator twisted and contorted to dodge the sneak attack. The giant was too large to avoid it completely. The barbed tip found its target and stabbed through. The bloody tip erupted from the side of his abdomen with a wet tearing sound.
He cried out in sudden pain, his concentration broken. The flying disks and portal surfaces vanished without a trace.
Across the room Midnight fell to one knee, his hand clutched over his injury. Blood streamed from under his hand until he sealed the damage to his reformed armor and caused the inside of his suit to put pressure on the deep wound. For a fleeting second he felt as though he might pass out. The pain tore a groan from him.
Needing to change the battleground, Midnight turned and flew for the exit. Mercator saw his enemy fleeing and gave chase.
The armored figure blasted up the long tunnel toward the outer doors. Just before the doors, a portal appeared that led right back to Mercator.
Midnight couldn't stop in time, so he didn’t try. He put both fists forward and was forming blades on his arms when he hit the giant.
The impact drove Mercator back hard against the wall. The giant let out a sharp grunt and slumped to the floor, stunned. The hit drove the impaling weapon further through his body. Midnight straddled his vast torso as best he could and rained empowered blows down on Mercator’s face.
Slam.
Thud.
Bam.
Each heavy blow landed hard enough to force a pained grunt from the downed giant. The sounds of distress enticed Adele to peek around the corner and see who was winning.
Mercator’s face was already covered in bruises and deep cuts visible where metal edges had caught his flesh and bones. He lay there and took it, dazed and unable to fight back.
Midnight paused and looked toward the motion. Spotting Adele, he turned toward her and—
A vast hand grabbed his suit by the head. Mercator squeezed.
Midnight instantly wished he was using one of his more exotic alloys as the surrounding metal flexed under the massive force applied by the giant’s grip.
Spikes shot out of his helmet, piercing Mercator’s hand and forcing him to let go or suffer the consequence.
Midnight flew back a pace before the other hand gripping his ankle stopped him.
The giant whirled and used Midnight like a hammer. Smashing craters into the floor and walls with the now completely rigid armor. “Insignificant human. So puny.”
Mercator lifted the heavy suit and peered at the front of the scarred surface of the normally featureless helmet. “I hate your armor. I want to enjoy the look on your face when I defeat you.”
Midnight tried to reply but was interrupted by another savage strike onto the ground. Mercator lifted him high once more, slammed him headfirst against the stone floor and lifted him again. “Like I was—”
Midnight flew for the door once again. Mercator didn’t let go. Midnight exerted more force and dragged the giant along with him. The giant’s feet slid along the smooth stone floor with an unpleasant rasping sound, not unlike nails on a chalkboard.
Mercator kept one hand on his enemy’s ankle, and the other hand grabbing at anything he could to resist the unstoppable force. The smaller black figure slowly, inexorably dragged him toward the door. The giant wanted to slam his foe to the ground again, but it was all he could do to maintain his grip and slow the armored figure down.
As they neared the door, Mercator couldn’t resist a taunt. “So eager to escape, but you’ll never get through that—”
Mercator didn’t see what Midnight had just done, but four limbs sprung from his body and repeatedly stuck the hinges of the stone doors hard enough to sound like bombs detonating in the narrow corridor.
The great stone doors creaked, then fell to the ground in a loud crash.
Mercator grabbed the edge of the reinforced door frame. This finally seemed enough to stop his foe’s escape. “You dishonor yourself! Stop trying to flee!”
“If I was trying to flee—” Midnight allowed the part of his suit in Mercator’s grip to pop off, revealing another identical layer of armor underneath. The blob of metal in Mercator’s hand fused around his hand, trapping it.
“—I’d already be gone. I just wanted to get outside.” Midnight hovered in the air, eyes on the giant, with one hand pointing at his enemy, and the other reaching for the sky as though beseeching the heavens themselves for aid.
Mercator looked at him in confusion. He reflexively looked to the sky, but there was nothing there. “What are you doing?” his tone betrayed confusion.
Midnight smiled grimly inside his sticky, blood-slicked armor. “Just leveling the playing field.”
Mercador looked up again just in time to see a line of fire approaching from the sky. It closed the distance between them in a fraction of a second and came to rest pressing against his chest over his heart. The spear glowed white-hot, the razor tip searing the giant’s pale blue flesh.
Mercator moved to disengage from the blazing spear, and it followed and pressed in further, slicing deeper into his flesh and filling the air with the scent of burning meat.
“I wouldn’t do that. It’s targeted on you. The only thing keeping you alive is that I haven’t let it kill you. Don’t even try to portal away. You really won’t like what it does then.” Midnight cautioned him.
Mercator tried to shift his weight and realized he was still dragging the black barbed blade impaling him through his abdomen. “Well!? Do it then! Finish me and claim your victory if you think you can.”
Midnight tried desperately to sound solid, healthy, and strong in the fight as he replied. “I didn’t come here to kill you. I came to see how you were and play some games.” he lied.
Mercator sighed and spat, the spittle bright and frothy with blood. “So, what do you want now?”
“I want to see that you’re not eating people! I want to know that if I leave you alone here, you won't bring in more guests and kill them!”
With a heavy sigh that became a pained grunt, the giant replied, “Fine. I’ll try. Bring me one of those cows or three sheep within ten days or I cannot promise anything.”
“Sounds like I should just kill you.” Midnight lowered himself to the ground to save energy, trying to hide how difficult it was just to stand up.
The giant shrugged. The gesture was simultaneously familiar, yet strange and grotesque, in a creature with such long arms and odd proportions. “You probably should kill me.”
“Are you trying to force my hand?” Midnight demanded.
“Are you going to get this thing out of me?” Mercator countered, indicating the mass of barbed steel protruding from his guts.
“Maybe. Once I’m sure I don’t need to make it explode inside you, yeah, I’ll consider getting it out.”
The giant paled at this. He looked down at the weapon that had stabbed him. “I admit I had not thought about that.” He eyed the spear, its tip still embedded in his chest. “So it seems you were hiding more strength than I expected.”
Midnight didn’t reply.
“Will you allow me to sit, or will your spear claim my life?” The giant’s apathetic expression and tone made it sound as though he didn’t care which the answer was, just simply wanted to know.
Midnight nodded. The spear jerked and pulled free from the charred flesh and returned to Midnight’s outstretched hand. It continued to point unerringly at its target, almost vibrating with an eagerness to attack.
Mercator carefully relaxed with a wince and hiss of pain. He gingerly sat down on the shattered doors with another grunt. “You want an accord. What would you have of me?”
Midnight felt the blood pooling at the bottom of his suit and knew this discussion needed to end soon, and on the right note. “How about you start with why you attacked me? I thought we were at least kind of friends.” He locked his suit in place, and sagged inside it.
Mercator spat out another mouthful of blood. “Friends? You have used this word many times, but clearly, I do not understand this word after all. We’re rivals and enemies that choose not to kill each other for as long as it remains convenient to not engage in battle.”
Midnight sounded confused. “Then why the act? Why invite me to teach you more games and then keep playing them with me?”
The giant tilted his head to the side and scratched at his shoulder with a horn. After a long moment, he shook his head and looked at Midnight incredulously.
“Are you truly so simple? I have very little to truly occupy my time here. Your visits break up the monotony for me. You are nothing but entertainment to me.” His derisive tone matched his words all too well.
His expression turned cunning, looking especially malicious with his sharp teeth and horns. “Besides, your military simulation games have taught me much about how you would wage war.”
Midnight smiled grimly inside his armor at the thought of tic-tac-toe and checkers acting as a stand-in for all of military theory. “Well, I knew it was a risk when I taught you checkers, but I guess I’d hoped you might change. We don’t need to kill each other here. You brought us to the brink, but we don’t need to go to war.”
Mercator frowned and then laughed. “Ach! Talk talk talk. You want more talk. To my people, this thing you call diplomacy, is practiced when your foe kneels before you, hoping to keep his pathetic life.”
Midnight reached for his metallopathy intending to bring the long-bladed spear head to Mercator’s throat. With the difficulty of this small action, he realized just how close to the edge he was. His control wavered, and he settled for grasping the haft and pointing at the giant.
“Is that what we’re left with? Should we finish this fight once and for all?” His voice held nothing but calm menace.
Mercator smirked at him defiantly, his expression more in line with a king on a throne than someone sitting on stone rubble and bleeding out.
Midnight didn’t wait for his response. “I see. Before you answer, are you sure you want this? You’re declaring war on me and my people.”
Mercator looked into the distance, but didn’t reply.
The metal armored figure shrugged slightly, “I know you're smart enough to realize you’ll be the first casualty.”
A crack appeared in the giant’s haughty facade. With a pained sigh, Mercator slumped down further into his seated position. As though the idea that he might be killed had never occurred to him and was an unpleasant thought. “You want an accord. What would you have of me?” the giant forced the words out as though they were bile on his lips.
Midnight kept his armor in place to allow him to rest inside it. “Right now? I need proof that you can keep your word. I know just the test. That human I saw. You say this is a guest?”
The horned giant nodded. “Yes. She is a guest.”
“Perfect. Let’s see if you can be trusted enough to give me choices other than your death.” Midnight was starting to feel faint, he hoped it wasn't from blood loss.
Mercator reclined on his less injured side, laying down on the door with a grunt. “Speak plainly. What are you demanding of me?”
Midnight hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. “From your own lips, you are hosting a guest. I’ll take my leave and allow you to rest and recover. You prove I don’t have to kill you by continuing to treat your guest well.”
“And if she violates guest rights?” Mercator asked with a poorly disguised sly smile.
“Wrong answer.” Midnight gestured with the tip of the hot spear. “As far as I’m concerned, no matter what the reason, if that guest is not happy, healthy, and at least as well off as she is right now, when I come back, then I’ll introduce you to a fire that burns hotter than the sun.”
“Your sun isn’t that hot. Even in the hottest times of your year, it is not enough to kill me when I come to the surface.” Mercator countered as though he’d disarmed Midnight’s point.
Midnight resisted the urge to give in to sarcasm. “Right. My mistake. I mean, I’ll introduce you to a fire so hot it consumes metal and stone as a normal flame consumes wood.”
“Your foolish threat reveals your ignorance! Not even the hottest forges reach such a heat.”
With a shrug, Midnight chuckled. “I guess you can take it however you like. But you know I made you bleed today after you sucker punched me. If you show me you cannot be trusted, you’ll do a lot more than just bleed.”
Mercator eyed the spear with distaste and more than a little unease. “Very well. Tell me when you’ll be returning and begone.”
“Hah. No.” Midnight moved the spear to a two handed ready position. “I’ll come back when I choose. We both know that no matter what you say, you’ll try to ambush me next time, so let's at least try to keep it interesting.”
Mercator looked past Midnight, staring as though there were something behind and above him. Sensing a trick, Midnight stayed focussed on his enemy. A confused expression crossed the giant’s face. “Perhaps you do know me after all. Very well. Until next time.”
Mercator glanced past him once more, then passed through a portal and vanished.
A shift in the air behind him caused Midnight to spin in place, then look up. A distant light colored speck that might have been his imagination quickly faded from view. A soft clink at his feet tugged at his attention, but he ignored it in favor of keeping watch on the tunnel.
Midnight looked down the tunnel for several minutes, desperately hoping Adele had been watching and waiting to come out. He considered going in after her, but finally had to admit that it was the much higher risk plan. Finally, he glanced down, and levitated the fancy metal business card up to his hand. The sharp laugh that came from a business card for a medical facility arriving just as he needed medical attention was cut off into an agonizing hacking bark. He looked around his feet and then back at the sky once more. With a shrug, he put the card away to deal with more pressing issues such as blood loss and collapsing at the very doorstep of his enemy.
Still wary of Mercator watching him somehow, Midnight took off north toward the southern border of Russia at a shallow angle and high speed. His strength failed him within seconds. The armored figure crashed to the steppe and bounced along several times before coming to a stop. With the last dregs of his energy, he stapled the deep wound across his shoulder and chest closed and caused his armor to open around him. With no immediate threats, he allowed himself to collapse to the ground and rest.
Back inside his home, Mercator carefully limped past the metal frame for Connect Four. Something on the floor caught his eye. Drops of bright red blood where Midnight had stood brought a smile to his face. He picked some up with his fingers and licked them clean. A broad smile, thick with teeth and hunger, came over his face.