Seventh Passing

The parade was in full swing.

The swing of the gallows as a dying man goes limp.

Devon, Adam, who gives a shit they’re both the same had torn the beating heart out of the Legacy and eaten it in full view of the lumpen. A Constant had been killed. The one who did was free. More attacks were imminent. That was the assumption, that was the prophecy, that was what people were betting on.

Constant Clive Bowen was no different. He had put fifty orbits on another assassination before the week was out. It wasn’t cruel to wish death on your compatriots, they called that being practical.

He was surprised they had even gone through with the parade. Surely at this point any attempt at showing strength would be evidence of weakness? The Triumph Of The Wyrm was an annual event meant to celebrate Lemure’s quote on quote vanquishing of a Death Wyrm. Being in the inner circle, Clive knew differently. He had to admit it was clever how vague the wording was. Who’s triumph was it exactly?

As expected it was no triumph this year. Only a dozen or so Numbers were still showing their face. A cloth and wire wyrm was the centerpiece, five or so people puppeteering its patchwork body as two reserve members chased after it with wooden swords. Clive would have been embarrassed, if he was one to care about such things.

Things would be back to normal once that girl and her freak Remark were dealt with. The people lining the street, feigning interest or outright heckling, they’d remember how to beg for servitude. Clive would teach them.

He breathed through his nose, laughing. Actually, who was he kidding, he was way too lazy for that.

“They don’t make public shows of strength like they used to” Clive said.

“Agreed. I think a true demonstration is in order.” Constant Karol Meager said. The massive man was behind him, everything but his bright pupiless eyes masked in darkness.

A good 50 feet above the ground, they were standing beneath a massive carved angel of some kind, the face weathered from years of neglect. The curves of her dress and spikes from her shoulders shadowed them as they stood on the buildings outcropping. The angel some long forgotten deity, from when the diving or maybe the architect just thought it was pretty. The outcropping was wide enough that Karol could practically be right behind Clive. A flabby hand rose from the blackness to his right, and a tiny Remark in the shape of a straight razor was produced. So small, so un-intimidating.

So deadly, so very deadly.

Clive shook his head, doing a good job seeming unphased. “Naw, lets not go there yet buddy.” The hand moved back into the darkness. By sheer coincidence, he saw Jeavell below him, attracting a crowd as the main body moved on. “Looks like Jeavell about to make enough trouble for all three of us.” It didn’t make him feel good to have a majority of the surviving Constants here. Prime assasination spot. If anything happened to the other two, he’d surely get blamed.

Jeavell Deth, the bad boy (and also girl) of Lemures Legacy. Slick black pompadour, rock hard chin, and a body perfect for the tightest leather jackets. He was coolness personified, and easily the cruelest person Clive had ever met.

“That’s right, that’s right, here’s one Constant who’s not afraid to show their face. How are my people doing?” He could hear her say from his perch. They flooded Jeavell like scavengers on a carcass, all wanting to get a chance to touch his skin, like her greatness would rub off on the unwashed masses. Jeavell’s gender seemed to oscillate. At moments a tomboyish girl, and at others a svelte but very masculine heartthrob. Clive preferred when the light made them feminine. Easier to hate her compared to him.

Anyway, this shit was classic Jeavell. Fucking text book. He made an art out of baiting fans to an early grave. It had become an honor to be killed by her. Despicable, disgusting work, and what bothered Clive the most was that he hadn’t come up with it. In a lot of ways, his own cruelty had just been playing catch up.

“Who do you think it’s gonna be?” Karol said.

Clive considered this. He scanned the crowd, looking for the person who best fit Jeavel’s love for the naive and nubile. He finally settled on a young looking blond girl who wore a purple ribbon over her eyes. Weird accessory, but she had a goofy smile and clumsy hands that made this seem like a harmless eccentricity. He didn’t understand the youth.

Ah who was he kidding, he had just turned thirty.

Karol snorted in derision when Jeavell approached the ribbon girl, reaching out her hand for a private dance. “I’ll never understand that one. I was sure she would go for that lovely fellow.”

He pointed at a figure at the far end of the crowd. With his large bulk and handlebar mustache, the man looked identical to Karol. “I don’t think you’re her type” Clive said, hiding a smile.

Karol was incredulous, and he blustered and blushed. “Oh you think- the man I pointed to simply possessed the fine grooming and robust physical condition that marks one as a worthy mate. You take me for a narcissist Clive, but it’s only his cleanliness I noticed. Nothing more. Honestly, the standards in this place.”

Jeavell took the girl through the steps. Before long she was moving with him like they had been dancing for ages.

“You know what’s about to happen, baby?” She whispered. Too far away to hear now but Clive could read lips, he had taught himself out of boredom. She bought out her remark, a mechanical thing of heat gushing smoke. Only a few faces in the crowd were surprised. Unless you were fresh out of the crack, you knew this was a death sentence.

The girl nodded, but her eyes were fixated on something behind her. Where the parade had already traveled through, where people were already departing from, a float was coming down the path, this wasn’t one he expected, nor did he think they had the budget or resources. Boy was it strange. A giant orange triangle was cresting it’s way into view, moving slowly from behind a large abandoned building. Others were starting to notice. What was this?

“Hey Karol-“ The massive Constant had his Remark out again, his hand thrust forward. Without a word Karol pushed Clive aside jumped down, using his Remark to cut the air near him and slow his fall, emptiness had a surprising amount of weight to it, you had to really put effort into cutting it. Clive had to take the stairs.

There were narrow windows out into the street on each level he passed, allowing him to see, in a sort of stuttery fashion, how things were progressing outside.

People were panicking now, they could see enough of the triangle shape to see that it had eyes and a mouth. The girl stayed calmed as Jeavell let go of her.

The parade float was no float, it was a monster. A giant stories tall Abberation. There was someone riding it, someone wearing a conical purple hat that obscured their face.

Fuck it. He bought out his remark. A piece of string that could cut through bone.

He jumped out from the second floor, nothing but muscle memory to go by to gauge his success. He sent the Remark at the girl with the ribbon. She was dead anyway, and if he was right, he’d be viewed as a hero. Her head came off without a fuss.

By the time he hit the ground the strange grinding sounds from the Abberation stopped.

The Abberation was gone. Potentially a hallucination, or even the girls Remark. He noted that with her death, her ribbon had disappeared, revealing closed eyes. The figure who was riding the Abberation was nowhere to be seen.

Miracously no one had been hurt. Clive was always looking on the positive side of things. Assassination attempt foiled, but culprits and motivations unknown, and assumed still out there. This would do wonders for their recruitment.

It was time they all took a trip. Fuck telling Lemure, Clive was getting bored, and he wanted to see this so called Constant killer himself.

…

Eight Passing

”So you’re known as a Constant killer now” Trip said through the grating, red spectacles glinting. “We may have let slip some stuff a few stops ago. How do you feel about that?”

Devon put a hand to her face and considered this. “Well, I definitely am a Constant killer, so I’m glad they have their facts straight. But really I think-“

WHAM Hailien shoved a hand on Devon’s face and slammed her into the grate. Adam fought valiantly on her behalf but once the sword went through her gut it was all over.

*Snap*

The pain vanished and Devon slumped down to the floor. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the irritated buzzing in her brain (three guess on where that was coming from)

”Aw man, I almost had her that time.”

”You obviously didn’t” An annoyed Adam buzzed. “You got distracted seconds in and then were promptly stabbed.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Well when you put it like that it certainly sounds bad.” Devon said, getting into her now familiar dueling stance. “Consider the long game here, Adam. Last round got her off guard. Now she thinks I’m not taking this seriously.”

“I can read your thoughts and most aspects of your body, you’re not.” Hailien was standing near the stairs, used to the one sided rants Devon would go on at this point.

“Au contraire!” Devon said with a cheek straining grin. The truth was she wasn’t taking it seriously, but she was having fun. More fun than she had ever had in her life. The sheer viscerality, the feeling of being cut and cutting into, the strength that grew with every day. All she had to do was kill a few people and now she was in heaven. An endless fight with no repercussions.

She beckoned Hailien forward, not even running for the stairs. She wanted a duel today and the opportunity to flex a new muscle.

Hailien charged over and jumped in the air being landing with a diagonal slash. Devon dodged it, hung in the air for a few seconds thanks to Adam, and came down on the former Number’s head. Hailien blocked it with a blunt swipe and Devon jumped backwards, dismounting off the wall of the cabin onto the floor and right at Hailien’s ankles.

But before her swing could connect Hailien cut through her right arm. The hand holding Adam fell limply to the floor. Hailien readied a finger, about to click.

”Okay you’re gonna hold that for a second.” Devon said, wincing through searing pain. The stump of her shoulder was spurting fresh blood and the crew watching from the grating were in a frenzy. “I wanna try something”

”Devon you’re close to blacking out. You just lost a limb, I think we should-“

“I’m trying something, just hold still!” She hissed. Ignoring the pain, she concentrated on Adam. She had been able to control his movements before, but that was more relaying a message and having him follow it. What she was doing now-

“Oh. I understand”

With stops and starts, Devon slowly raised Adam from the severed arms death grip. It floated slowly through the sky until it rested about two feet from her bleeding nub. She pictured her arm still being there, holding the Remark, and practiced moving it. With her will she moved Adam as if her arm was still there. He wasn’t helping, this was all her. Her movements weren’t perfect, but it was impressive considering how drained she was from losing an arm.

Looking up at Hailien, she winked, and started fighting again like nothing had happened.

It didn’t take long till Devon had lost the other arm, but the snap back left her feeling invigorated instead of dissapointed. She knew the object was to escape the cabin and prove she was strong enough to take on the other Constants, but she had never accounted on how fun becoming strong would truly be.

Ninth Passing

36 sat at the steps of her favorite Reminder, waiting for the one who, in theory, should have been below her.

In theory, she should have been calling the shots, not having to send him multiple messages that she had no way of knowing if he would see or respond to.

The Reminders were what they called the massive artificial things that had been and would forever be fished up from the sea. Through by all account of a shape and size that should have made them heavy, they were shockingly light and easy to move. Their purpose was impossible to tell, all anyone could say for sure is that they were once parts of a larger whole, and somehow that whole had broke.

They were reminders that the world was a very difference place before the Deluge. Even though it had been only four generations much had been lost, so much that even those who predated the Deluge, like Morgan Lemure, did not even know or could remember their purpose.

It was a favored pastime to show the latest outsiders the newest Reminder they had fished up. That is until one sheepishly admitted they had many in their home town, and that almost every visitor previous were simply being polite and pretended to be impressed. She said they called them “Gritytense”, a nonsense word imprinted in very large text on two of the pieces they had found. She admitted that, due to both the damage, and the way the word was cut off, they couldn’t decide which way the two parts fit together, but they all agreed that “Gritytense” sounded better than “Tensegrity”.

This one was her favorite because it resembled her hand. She had a defect hand, born with only four fingers, and this was a reminder that such things happened, and were okay. Its shape was like a rounded rectangle, there was negative space at the top in the form of three triangles pointing downward. While not a perfect match for her hand, she understood the connection, and that was what mattered. The collection of Reminders, around five dozen of them, were kept in a sand garden that overlooked the town. From where she sat she could see the port, Luminescia, and the massive ring of the Drum, its cool blue surface a better fit for the sky.

“So I find you here, at a memorial for macro fullerenes.” 35, Montanna as he asked to be called, then laughed, as he often did after saying something he knew was nonsense to anyone else.

He acted like he had access to some secret knowledge, and the worst part was that he very likely did. He glanced up at her favorite, as if only now just noticing it. “Very Wolfian. Their existence I mean, it’s the thing that clued me in on what’s really going on here.”

“I don’t have time for this today.” She said. “It’s been a week, have you heard anything?”

“Since you’re next in line for 41, shouldn’t you know better than me?”

She wrinkled her nose and didn’t dignify that with a response. Lemure had been silent, so had the other Constants. There were strange rumors that half of them had left after that bizarre Abberation attack. She was glad she had missed it.

35 sighed and bowed his head, taking off the bowler cap that hid his naturally messy hair. For all his faults, he respected the hierarchy, he knew who held the power here. “Well Yucian is absolutely dead. Been able to confirm that through my usual sources” Sometimes he mentioned unusual sources instead, whoever they were was as unknown to her as his usual ones. Eventually she would have to learn their identities, befriend them. And once they were her sources, he would become unnecesary. Numbers didn’t suit him, he needed a name, one better than Montanna, and a coffin to have it engraved upon.

“What did they tell you?”

“That that girl with Adams remark was the one who murdered her. Potentially with some help, 37 is either dead or in on it. The Fall Collective is definitely in on it, there boat hasn’t been seen since, and there’s reason to believe they might be in Luminescia, which would be unfortunate.”

36 considered this. “Wouldn’t lifting a new Constant be his priority?”

“Yeah no way” 35 replied. “He’s been all about resisting change, he’d rather turn to wyrm juice than actually acknowledge the devastation Adam, and now this girl, is causing. I’ve heard he’s been in a bad way recently, that mad side of him taking over more and more often. Most of the Constants are leaving, three of them went off to the Helot, who knows why.”

It was frustrating news. She would be first in line for lifting, but that was irrelevant if there were no plans for it.

“That whole thing, the Constants, it’s a pale imitation of what the other murder games are doing.” 35 said. “Now those are games. 100s of contestants, what we call constants numbering in the dozens. Seeing them fight is a real treat. Here we’ll be lucky if any of the Constants try to lift a finger.”

“They became Constants for a reason”

“They’ll die as their houses burn.” 35 took out a lighter as a visual. “Their power is connected to their ranks. Take that away and they’re weaker than reserves. We all know it, you hear whispers in the street. The proletariat is preparing to remake La Commune. They’re in need of a Peter Watkins.”

She laughed. “Thats the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard.”

35 shrugged, blushing a little, to the surprise of 36 “Oh, don’t think much of it. I just repeat what I hear.” He gestured towards the Reminder. “What's your take on this?”

36 spoke with authority. “They are unfathomable presents left for us by the Grand Council, long may they foresee that we are careening towards victory.”

“No” his face soured “What do they mean to you specifically?”

It did not feel right divulging a secret with someone she loathed, but she relented. “This one makes me feel less alone.” She took off her glove, and showed him. Her hand was perfect, just like the other. “I was born with one less finger than I should have, Lestat corrected it, so now you can’t see, but I still feel connected to that version of me, even if the history of it is invisible.”

“I understand, I was born a woman.” Such transformations were not unheard of, but the casual way 35 said this was surprising. “And my original name would mean nothing to any of you. It’-“

He said something that was like static. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t understand it.

She patted the empty space besides her, asking him to sit. 35 did not move from his spot two steps below. “Well, our names mean nothing to no one, Morgan is the only one who can know their true meaning.”

He looked away his face darkening, “Thats not true”. After a tense moment, he said “I’m going to leave soon, I have to wrap up some loose ends.”

“By all means” 36 said, waving him away.

He simply stood there, the breeze choosing now to make itself known, ruffling his hair and his coat in a manner most intimidating.

“I have to wrap up some loose ends” he repeated.

At that moment 36 knew what was about to happen. Reality around him was being played with. His Remark would soon come out, and so she beat him to the punch by taking out her own, her nails lengthening until each was long enough to skewer him straight through. And then she could finally-

He was holding a thing in his hand she had no name for. It was like a counterpoint to the Reminders, made to make them all look pedestrian in comparison. It was not made of metal, but it wasn’t flesh either. It was a weapon of some kind, but she only assumed that because what else could such a cruelty be used for? It was a black box of an object. Something in her brain was censoring it. Just like his name had. Visual dead air. He wanted to kill her with it, only that was clear.

For some reason the memory of the last few minutes (actually, come to think of it, her entire life) was fuzzy. She didn’t remember him turning to look at her, she didn’t know his mouth could make a face like that.

“You could say this is a gift from the culture. But that wasn’t that strange, just a rail gun disguised as an ordinary pistol. With all respect to the estate of Iain M Banks of course, still a great story. I relate to the protagonist.” He squinted. “You have no frame of reference for what I’m gonna kill you with. Outer context problem. That’s it’s name. Another Banks reference.” He grinned in a strange way that made his face looked like it was melting, it did not look pleasant. “By the way, what’s up with your fingers?”

She noticed strange juts at the edge of her vision, she looked down at her nails, and screamed. They were spires being yanked in all sorts of directions. What had he done to them?

His weapon bit down hard on her neck.

As she bled out, she tried to understand what had just occurred. He used a weapon, one she couldn’t understand. She looked to the Reminders. That made sense to her. They were a reminder of the Great Deluge, where her precursors fought valiantly with… why couldn’t she see them? Why were her memories of their instruments so strange and unknowable in the same way his was? How was such a thing possible, how could she be ignorant?

And as her vision was fading, it came back to her.

That’s right… they called them Remarks… didn’t they?

…

The effects of his trick wore off a little too late. Montanna debated burying the body, then decided not to. It was a shitshow now, and part of the fun was that Morgan Lemure was denying it. Well, more like doing nothing. So why not add to the fun? Anything to speed up to that second phase, it would make it so much easier to get rid of the chaf.

It annoyed him that those loose ends would take months to tie up. But by the end of it, he’d be the boss of Gutworth, for however much the ruins were worth.