Bim
Despite current circumstances, Bim was glad she was presently here in an otherwise unpleasant moment. The car's crowded passenger compartment stank of humanity: their exertion, their suffering and above all their frailty. Their transport was speeding from the conflict, rallied survivors desperately attaching themselves to one another in their flight. It was their curse. Alone, human weakness could not be hidden from. Alone, they would all die.
Such was what it meant to be human.
Even now the car's occupants fought against such inevitable mortal conclusion. The physic, who's true name was Frank, did all his mundane practice could to stabilize Celio and beckon him back from the encroaching brink of death. The drivers, who carried the false names of Tony and Ruby respectively, made best speed toward the fiction of safety. Celio's chief lieutenant, Richardio, was coordinating those vigia who still possessed their loyalty and combat functionality. Coordinating for the outfit, physically absent but otherwise present, was the esper Princess— based on the tactical chatter, the conflict was going well, though Bim was no expert on such things.
Sitting opposite the unwoman, was her Tormentor. Treu wore his usual look of contempt, yet there was more too. It was in the way he kept flicking his left eye to regard Hiiro where he dozed in delirium upon Bim's lap in their shared seat. Her Tormentor almost looked pleased with himself. The thought was enough to summon an expression of disgust to her face. Yet that disgust was only surface deep. Hiiro's presence was a balm upon her being, his skin against her's was sublime, and the aroma of his body more than made up for the disgusting reek of tobacco, gun smoke and burnt rubber that clung to him.
Hiiro's brow furrowed in his fitful rest, he stiffened against her in a jolt of pain. Bim wondered if he was dreaming. It was something she'd read about, yet another human quirk that she would never experience. Just one more difference that separated her from the man in her arms. Bim permitted a hand to gently stroke his healing scars and half-melted scabs. Such actions were supposed to be soothing but she noticed no improvement of his affliction. Together though they may be, each of them would still fight their battle alone.
The convoy's remnants broke free of the city limits into the surrounding countryside. It was was a fraction of their starting strength, bearing those too wounded or depleted to continue the fight now winding down behind them. The radio reports were growing more orderly, less frequent; the calls for aid non-pressing and demanding less support each time they came. This was how victory sounded, Bim concluded. Not of a triumphant bang, but rather a gradual exhaustion as resistance became too taxing and too fragmented to properly quash. It was a far cry from the historical accounts she'd studied of past military actions amongst humans.
They'd arrived at the estate grounds while Bim was lost in thought, idly stroking Hiiro's old wounds. He'd escaped this most recent battle without tangible injury but not without the conflict extracting its toll from him. The returning victors parked their cars with little order and great urgency, maids bearing stretchers rushing each in a flurry of fatigues and frills. Celio was the first borne inside, surrounded by the best underworld doctors money could bribe and Treu who loomed over them all without noticing a single one. Gerald moved about the remainder, triaging them with an efficacy Bim hadn't expected from the aged, portly man.
Bim was uncertain of where she should be. She selfishly wanted to be everywhere at once, observing all, learning, knowing. Yet her prison of flesh could not allow her to indulge such whims, nor could she bring herself to initiate any action that would separate her from the unconscious man lying on her lap. She idly wondered how humans coped with such a crippling limitation. Ignorance, she assumed. They didn't know how freeing it was to occupy multiple 'places' at multiple 'times' simultaneously, though neither term was particularly accurate. To have a mind capable of such decentralized existence without fragmentation or segregation was to be as they theorized a god to be.
"Lady Bim, is he injured?"
Bim blinked from her introspection and found Zoe-Esther leading a stretcher detail of three familiar faces. They'd came without instruction, which surprised her.
"Not that I am aware of." Bim answered. "His role in the battle taxed him beyond his constitution, in so far as I can deduce."
"We'll take care of him." Zoe-Esther stated.
The maids bundled Hiiro off and bore him inside. Something inside of her rebelled at the sight, but it was illogical. The humans could tend to their own better than she could. They were more qualified to soothe him than she was. Yet it pained her to see him go. The irregularity chaffed at her and the lie she'd uttered resurfaced in her eidetic memory to further haunt her.
Nothing you could do would ever hurt me.
Why had she said those words? Why had she indulged in such a weakness that was so atypical of who and what she was? Why did she care for one doomed human more than any of the others amongst the trillions fated to perish?
Was it because she was here in this present moment with him? This damned ephemeral Now that dominated physical existence was all-consuming. It was maddening! Trapped within this body she could only be in one place at any given moment. She was here to learn, not to teach, and as she sat here in an empty car contemplating the past, the present was slipping away from her. The fact that this was how humanity aimlessly trudged through life was infuriating. How had they accomplished anything across the spans of their short terminal lives?
Another stretcher detail exited the palace, glanced at Bim and just as quickly moved on to another casualty, one more in need than she. The four women acted in mute unison to bear one wounded man into the palace sickroom. They'd not said a word to each other, nor been ordered or summoned. They'd just acted in the moment. The observation struck a chord within her and so Bim directed her focus outwards, widening her perceptions to take in her present surroundings.
She discovered a vaguely coordinated chaos.
Those leaders who should have been commanding were absent, yet the work was being done. The desired end state was slowly being approached, albeit in a halting, spasmodic kind of way. Now that she was looking at the wider parts in motion, Bim could spot the influence and desires of the singular whole loosely guiding the fractured multitude. The intent had been vast yet each individual only undertook a minute portion of the undertaking. The wider whole was an eclectic assembly making best use of each seemingly random part. It was an orderly chaos; it was intriguing and repulsive and so very engrossingly abhorrent to her all the same.
While they worked, each individual taking up one tiny fragment of work at a time, Bim thought of them all as the many sprawling limbs of a single entity. She couldn't decide exactly what creature or entity that might be but as she watched, she gathered that there were two essential organs. At this entity's heart was Celio, driving this colossal endeavor forward and infusing its manifold parts with life; then there was Leeroy, the mind steering action towards that end, charting a course through the ever-changing future. Yet neither were present and still the whole kept pressing toward that distant dream just over the horizon. There was no impelling force save for past momentum. It was all so alien, so human, that Bim lost herself marveling at it, wandering from one moving part to another over the chaotically disciplined hours that followed. This was how they got things done, she realized. One human alone was nothing, and so they sought to conglomerate into separate parts of the greater whole.
To be lonely, together.
The broader idea of what she was witnessing boggled her vast mind. The fundamental nature of the human experience was one of being surrounded by those like you yet so utterly and entire unconnected to said surroundings. They were separated—isolated, even—from so much of the universe and they rebelled in the only way they could. They came together, reaching for a communion of the flesh, mind, soul and purpose that they would never attain. Bim scoffed at the idea as she watched them work. Yet… was the Bim that she is in this present moment truly all that different from them?
This vessel of pseudo-flesh and consciousness that she was existed in a constant state of ignorance, blindly groping at understanding with the crass means of a human facsimile. Was she not alone as they were? Her fractional mind severed from her true self, her perceptions and observations partitioned behind a limited vocabulary of expression and rationale. As Bim was now, could she truly comprehend what she had once been? This unwoman that she is was nothing more than an idea thoughtform programed with the intent to seek our knowledge in a foreign land; little more than an idle whim of her true self, a tool to be cast wide, collected and reabsorbed once it had served its purpose. When that happened, what would become of her? Would the Bim that she is and was, the unwoman who had lived amongst these doomed mortals, cease to be? Undoubtedly yes. But what did that mean? What would happen to her, the isolated individual who'd experienced the mysteries of time, afterwards?
These thoughts dominated her higher intellect and all the while she studied the mortals around her. More of the bloodied victors trickled in by the car-load, some fewer still arrived on foot or were delivered, having coerced the assistance of unaffiliated humans to bring them here. It was fascinating, this orderly chaos, and Bim composed a comprehensive mental catalog of future inquires based off her observations as the hours passed. Yet the work was insufficient to keep her from pondering at her morbid curiosities. What would happen to her when she'd completed her inter-dimensional expedition?
"There you are." Bim blinked her eyes, attuning her mind to her vessel and found the albinoid Princess approaching her. "Come on. Command debriefing."
Bim raised a single eyebrow in a stately show of unspoken question. It was an expression she was rapidly beginning to favor as it spared her the effort of speaking and elicited more comprehensive elaborations from those attempting to speak obtusely to her.
"Yes, you're coming. You can drool over bloody meat and tattered auras later."
Bim furrowed her brows in disdain and mentally verified that she'd not been excessively salivating.
"Very well." Bim acquiesced, adding a slight bowing of her vessel's head to show appropriate deference to her nominal elder.
The two abhuman women strode the halls of the palace with purpose, wounded men and weary maids scurrying clear of them. Bim found the reactions curious. That she—a being of decidedly non-human origin—was more accepted than Princess largely due to the pigmentation of skin and eyes, was yet another mystery she'd failed to unravel. But there was more to the present reactions than she'd previous noted. Bim suspected the palace staff were afraid of not just Princess but rather the majority of the Stalking Shadow's mercenaries. Almost as if the staff were expected the day's earlier butchery to be turned on them now that the enemy was out of reach. The vigia they passed reached for their weapons, eyes downcast and breath held as they neared, relaxing only once they'd thought themselves out of sight and hearing. Yet again, Bim searched for parallels between the present mood and historical accounts of victorious military actions, and yet again she failed. The evidence around her suggested a force regrouping in shameful defeat more than anything else.
The conference room cum mercenary operations center was in a similar state as the rest of the palace when the abhuman women entered, terse vaguely-coordinated chaos. There were far more vigia present than at any of the previous meetings Bim had attended, many of which were sporting material degradation from the recent battle— few of this number were boasting of deeds freshly committed, while the remainder maintained an air of dutiful fatigue. Instead of the usual small table at the room's side, this meeting was being held around the excessively ornate oval table with a grime-smeared Leeroy seated at its head.
Few of the mercenaries were present. From the radio chatter in the room's corner, Bim overheard the merc as they hunted down what remained of the shattered enemy force. Princess took a seat beside Leeroy, his proverbial iron right hand. To the man's left was Clancy, a spectacled, bookish sort with his face pressed close to an array of datapads. Nearby, the cyborg woman Chop and the surgeon Gerald spoke in low tones, no doubt discussing the days damage to machines and men.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Bim took her nominal place amongst the mercenaries, masking her discomfort behind a regal air of patient deference.
"Anyone not here yet will have to get caught up later." Leeroy said in a huff. "I know many of you haven't fought a soldier's battle before; that it's not how you 'do things' here. But for any of you harboring doubts or feeling uncertain, listen up, you all conducted yourselves admirably in a difficult first bloodying. I want all of you to know you should be proud of what you did, and make sure your men know that too."
There were no cheers, no approving mutters, nor even a show of acknowledgment. Leeroy could have been addressing a mass grave for all the reaction the men crowding the room showed.
"Now, onto business. The snare was a massive success in terms of enemy attrition. My people are still handling on site clean-up, but we're looking at over eighty-percent enemy casualties, the majority of which are confirmed kills."
Leeory let the fact fill the room. The murmuring that followed didn't even attempt to be subdued or subtle.
"For anyone who can't guess, those numbers are out-fucking-standing. Especially considering our estimated turnout was in the vicinity of seven-hundred enemy combatants to our twenty armored mercs and one-forty men. We can finalize our own force restructuring at a later date, but for now reduced squads should merge into over-manned units until further notice; squad leads, I'll leave handling that to you. We're also estimating that as much as thirty percent of the arms shipment avoided capture or destruction, though the death of Diego Fellype-Giu will likely embolden any combatants who did manage to escape and regroup. Now, some of you have probably heard rumors that-"
The grand double doors flew open with a bang. Celio, chest wrapped in pristine white bandages, stood in the gap as all eyes in the room turned on him— and to a lesser extent the white-robed men standing in his shadow. He barged in, injecting himself bodily into the stunned silence brought about by his arrival. Celio pressed to the head of the table, evicting Leeroy from the seat of honor without a spoken word, before turning to face the awed crowd.
"Men! Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated… Yet again." Celio announced with a bow.
The response was a deafening cheer that shook the palace walls down to their foundations. It was as if the building itself was joining in with the elated cry that banished the earlier tension. In the middle of this triumphant exultation, Celio took his place in Leeroy's vacant seat. The mind replaced in a moment by the heart, new life flooding into the shapeless entity that was Celio's grand dream. And yet, she saw the shadow of something else in the way he slumped into his chair; in that long cumbersome blink that betrayed him.
"Alright!" Leeroy bellowed over the din and the crowd quited to a dull roar to let him speak. "Now that that's dealt with, you lot have until dusk tomorrow to celebrate. Our gracious employer," He gestured broadly to Celio and allowed a lengthy delay for the applause to run its course. "Has assured me that we've got only the best stocked for you all. So go! Have Fun! That's an order, Vigia."
The man had spoke and so it was. The mind alone could not impel the segmented body of Celio's dream, it could only direct that energy once it was present. It was curious, so much so that Bim was lost in thought while the room slowly took their festivities elsewhere, only leaving Celio with great reluctance as the man redoubled their heaped praise and adoration back upon them. The body withdrew, taking its infused energy with it and in their absence Bim found a vacuum at the core of this collective. Leeroy, flanked by his subordinate commanders and specialists, sat beside Celio and his personal doctors. The ebb of joy allowed tension to return and a dour foreboding permeated the vacant room. Bim wondered if she shouldn't leave as well but a morbid curiosity compelled her to stay by her nominal equals at the table's end.
"What are our losses?" Leeroy asked, dispelling any pretense of ubiquitous victory
"Better than it could have been. Worse than it should have been." Clancy summarized, consulting a datapad.
"Dead: Howard, Mike-Mike, Aimy-two, and Eden." Princess stated, her voice cold and clinical.
"We should be able to save all their armor except for Mike-Mike's." Chop added, her mechanized voice more deadpanned than usual. "He took a tandem warhead square on, small puncture, no exit, lots of internal ricochet."
Leeroy didn't acknowledge the death of his subordinates beyond a slow, stoic nod.
"Wounded: damned near everyone except the backup car, Aivery, You, Havoc and Lacey. Tertiary or proximity injuries, mostly." Princess continued.
"Anyone who might not make it through the night?" Leeroy softly asked, a small crack forming in his stony demeanor.
"Rock's got half his brain exposed to sunlight." Gerald said. "Eric got a through and through to the femoral artery, there's likely some cerebral hypoxia. A few others have blast lung."
"Who?" Leeroy growled, curling his broad hands into tight fists.
"Nye, Chad, Alexandra, and Evander." Gerald answered. "I've done what I can for them."
"And my men?" Celio asked.
"We're… still figuring that out." Leeroy admitted. "We've got most-"
"How many is 'most,' Mercenary." Celio growled.
"Seventy-six so far, accounted for here at the palace." Clancy clarified. "There's another fifteen assisting our people with clean-up in the city."
"…And the other fifty?" Celio asked, eyes locked on the wooden table's swirling grain.
"We don't know yet." Leeroy admitted. "Likely dead. Possibly lying low until they can link up with-"
Celio's fist struck the table with a resounding bang. The doctors still hovering behind the man exchanged a nervous glance but neither moved to interrupt the outburst.
"How did this happen?" Celio whispered, voice choked with emotion. "You call this a success?!"
"I achieved the objective you gave me with the means available to me." Leeroy answered with a warning growl. "You wanted a single, decisive battle to shatter enemy moral and I delivered. Those sacrifices, your men and mine, they're the price of letting ego dictate tactics. Most client's would look at a seven-to-one kill ratio against a coordinated, mixed-element, supported enemy fighting force and they'd recognize that what we accomplished today was damned miraculous. If you want to go downstairs and tell your men that their dead buddies and crippled friends failed to meet your expectations, be my guest! But if you do, I guarantee that those men won't stick around come dawn."
Celio curled his fist tighter, whitening his knuckles until Bim could see the purpling veins under his skin. But he didn't move from his plush chair.
"Exactly." Leeroy said once the point had adequately sunk in. "Life and limb are the cost we pay. It comes with the job. We all knew the risks. And for the record, I didn't say the Op was a success. I said we killed a lot of bad guys."
"Wasn't this battle a victory?" Bim asked, puzzled by the sudden confession.
The table's heads both turned to face her, only just noticing her presence. Celio was a man wracked with emotion fighting to be thrown at someone, anyone other than himself. Leeroy was studying her from under his mask of professionalism. She'd evidently asked a rather difficult question based on the table's deafening silence, the sudden lull contrasted by the palace's muffled celebration reverberating through the walls and floor.
"No one really wins in war." Leeroy answered with a profundity equaled by his fatigue. "But today, the other guy lost a hell of a lot more than we did. We killed more of them than they did us, but we lost equipment doing it. We learned how strong our enemy is at the cost of a future ally. We spent our element of surprise to drop a hammer blow but we don't know if that'll be enough to shatter their ranks, or if we've just tossed our trump card on a smoke screen."
"Smokescreen or not, we almost bought it today." Chop stated, her mechanical baritone unable to rob the words of their gravity. "Our warsuits won't be back in the fight for weeks at best."
"The casualties I've been treated look more like what I'd find in a warzone than a gang clash." Gerald gravely affirmed.
"Where the hell did gangsters get that kind of artillery? And did you see those bomb drones? I thought this planet was supposed to be low-tech." Princess bitterly added.
"Two battalions of infantry, supported by mechanized elements for transport and fire support; accurate, effective, on-time artillery; a wing of fast attack drones on call. These 'gangsters and thugs' sure are operating an awful lot like a professional military…" Clancy cynically noted without looking up from his datapads.
Leeroy allowed the statements, and the implied accusation, to linger. All eyes wandered over to Celio, lounging in his chair.
"As I said before-" Celio started.
"I don't doubt your popularity." Princess said. "But arms dealers and smugglers don't throw that much manpower at an assassination. They use bombs, not bodies."
"Celio," Leeroy said, leaning his considerable mass onto the conference table, looking every bit the deal-making devil they'd once accused Bim of being. "You wouldn't be misrepresenting the facts of your adversarial situation, would you? Because if you were, the measure of your remaining time amongst the living might be radically shorter than previously anticipated. After all, the threats to your life might be much, much closer than my current security plan is equipped to handle."
Celio didn't even blink at the implication. He lifted his gaze from the grand table's swirling wood grain, laying his eyes on each of the mercs in turn. He met them all unflinchingly, until he looked at Bim.
'To deal with Devils is to know power and loss, the righteous man is a slave to both. In power he shall rule, and in loss he shall be martyred; for such is the lot of His faithful.' Celio muttered, before drawing up his necklace and kissing the tiny golden cross.
'The tyrant dies and his rule ends; The martyr dies and his rule begins.' Gerald confirmed, reaching for his own necklace.
Bim puzzled at the peculiar display, concluding that both statements were some kind of secret code. Princess flicked her purple eyes about the room, chasing shadows only she could see. Celio mournfully lifted his eyes from Bim, turning back to Leeroy specifically and the room in general.
"Twice now you have saved me from the fate of my forefathers and the great men who came before them." Celio stated, allowing his natural statesmanship to permeate his words with gravitas. "I now walk the valley of death, returning to the way things were is no longer an option-"
"You got what you wanted, Celio." Leeroy interrupted. "We've fired your opening shot in this war, so save the campaigning for those who care."
"…Is this what I wanted?" Celio whispered in a split-second of doubt that faded in an instant. "Your results are irrefutable, Mercenary, but must we be so transactional?"
"Mercs are like hookers, pretending to care costs extra." Princess quipped.
"Then perhaps it's time to amend our contract." Celio retorted fearlessly. "The 'pretending to care' clause. Name your price."
"That depends…" Leeroy started, ignoring his subordinates' prying eyes upon him.
"On?" Celio pressed, drumming his fingers on the table.
"How good your manners are. Honesty and intimacy are too expensive to be a one-way flight."
"Leave." Celio flicked a hand at his hovering doctors, who retreated without a word. "I have enemies like the stars in the heavens. Many are small and too distant to concern myself with, yet some gather together enough to draw notice. Then there are two who dominate this world and all of the peoples who reside here. Vincent Dominar who governs my ancestral lands, and beyond him and his lackeys, The Council of Nineteen."
"The Council of Nineteen?!" Clancy echoed with a nasal squeak, lifting his spectacled face from his datapads to regard the room's occupants for the first time. "The same Council of Nineteen that governs this solar system, deals with the Ice-Breaker guild, and controls the entire economy of the Trastorno system and its neighboring stars?"
"No one group controls any economy, no matter how rich." Celio corrected. "But yes, that Council."
"…You're insane." Clancy croaked, flustered.
"So what's your perfect scenario ending here?" Leeroy interjected. "We stay, fight off an entire solar militia plus their armada and marine complements, you dethrone everyone and we all live happily ever after, filthy stinking rich?"
"Nothing so ambitious, Mercenary. Once I've cast down Vincent Dominar and claimed the Throne of Crux, I'll have a seat on the Council and all that entails. I will have complete, legitimate control over the continent." Celio beamed a smile to the room. "And then, we will conclude our business and you will all be 'filthy stinking rich,' Mercenary."
"You'd need an army and a fleet to stage a coup like that." Princess said dismissively.
"Why?" Celio countered, equally dismissive. "I have public support and-"
"Public support doesn't topple dictatorial warrior regimes!" Princess cried out.
"-there's an election just around the corner. Three short months, Mercenaries. Defend my honor for three months and I will have wealth enough to shower you in whatever you wish. I could make you royalty, grant you lands, furnish you with a fleet of your own. If you can protect me until I sit upon the Throne of Crux, I shall grant you whatever you desire."
The mercenaries turned to regard Leeroy as one, save for Bim. The target of her attention was Celio's pale complexion. His sweating brow line that had nothing to do with the room's chilled climate. The faint, fluttering drum of his fingers on the table's lip. Bim concluded that the man wasn't directly lying, though his honesty was still in question, but rather he was weakened and afraid. And should Leeroy say no, he would be suddenly and utterly alone in his grand dream.
"Can he really make us royalty?" Chop whispered in a grating metallic hiss.
"…It is an elective monarchy." Clancy confirmed.
"I'm more concerned with the finances than the legitimacy." Princess bluntly stated. "Corpses make shitty clients."
"I shall thaw that icy heart yet, Princess das Neves." Celio said, flashing a rouge's smile.
"We don't deal on credit and promises." Leeroy stated. "Clancy, get me a link to the Captain. Alice too. Everyone else, take the night off. And you…"
Leeroy sneered while pointing an accusing finger from his white-knuckled fist at Celio, before collecting himself with a long, hissed breath through clenched teeth.
"You had better get some accountants in here, because if we're doing this, I'm taking you for every-goddamned-thing you own. And get some coffee in here too! This is going to be a long night…"