May you live in interesting times.
Whoever coined that term should have been taken out back and shot.
Clive had been eaten, Karol dissolved by a dimension, and Jeavell was currently being beaten to death by Hailien again and again and again.
In interesting times such as these, 30 relied on the screens more than ever. Despite being the source of his anxiety he looked to them for sights that could cure it.
There in the food court a few refugees were messing with a placebo, stacking up plates as he went through his route. Harmless fun, but there was no joy to it. They were counting time, nothing more.
In a balcony near the top of the spine, former reserve members were daring each other to balance on the railing.
He turned his head right when the current ressy started to wobble. Onto the library.
No one seemed that interested in the books themselves, but they had cleared out space to make a dueling arena. Non lethal of course. No wait, lethal. Very lethal.
This didn’t help him.
Every screen showed ennui that would soon lead to abandonment or the aftermath of Devon’s rampage through the Helot. He gripped his compass tightly and prayed that the Grand was real. What he was doing was good, perhaps they would see that.
”What's going on friend, you seem down?” Someone said. The voice was light and feminine, 30 didn’t recognize it but sensed no malice. It was nice to have company.
Still, he kept one hand on the pistol in the cubbyhole below the screens. It was a pre Deluge relic, he had found it in a dead man's grip when he arrived. Conventional weaponry might have been obsolete, but bullets still hurt.
“Everything I work for is being cannibalized in front of me. It was a mistake to think they’d all kill each other” He waved at the screen. “Morgan is lucid again, so people are heading back to Gutworth. Stability has returned, praise the Grand.” He spit on the ground and rubbed his foot in the saliva.
”That's too bad. Sounds like you were really banking on imminent collapse. What went south you think?” There was the hatred. He pictured the speaker sporting a cruel smirk. With a quickness that surprised even him, 30 drew his pistol at the shadowed speaker.
“Not what, who. Montanna didn’t stick with his side of the deal. He flaked.” He turned off the safety and cocked it.
A dry chuckle. “True, but have you asked him for his side of the story?” The voice lowered an octave as Montanna stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing that damn purple bandanna.
30 sighed and rubbed his temple, but kept his pistol locked on the little shit. “Alright. what happened?”
”Consider this. The job never went wrong. I did my part then I left.” He shrugged. “Shame on you if you thought Gutworth would be unstable forever. The place has a way of disappointing you. It can’t even collapse right.”
30 took this in. He lowered the pistol slowly, giving Montanna the chance to change his mind with a sudden movement. ”So… you’re leaving town then?”
“Something like that.” Montanna took a step forward. 30 bought the gun back up.
”Easy there Charles Bronson, there’s a reason they don’t make those movies anymore,” another riddle 30 couldn’t decipher, “you want to come with me?”
He did, and had trouble framing it in a way that didn’t make him seem needy. “… This place is clearly falling apart,” 30 settled on.
”Clearly.” Like he belonged there, Montanna walked towards the screens. He whistled. “I’ve never seen it in person, pretty nice.”
”Yeah, it’s quite-“
”Can we get a cam of Her?”
His stomach turned.
30 fumbled the gun and Montanna picked it up like a tossed aside pamphlet.
”It’s not bad to ask, is it? Some sort of faux-pas?” He checked the cartridge to see if it was loaded. 30 didn’t actually know. Montanna seemed pleased with what he saw, if he could see with that bandanna. ”I tend to make those often.”
”What do you want with her?” She was a monster of the highest order. It made his skin crawl to know she was right above them, but thankfully dominion here gave him control. As long as his Remark was out she couldn’t be freed.
”I just want to see her.”
”Why?” Though he understood. She was the brain of the Helot, a monster from a forgotten age. He had spent hours staring at her through the screens, wondering how someone who looked so small and withered could at any moment unleash such destruction.
With reluctance he moved his mitt-like hands over to the side of the keyboard, and pressed a small blue button.
”Which screen do you want her on?”
”All of them.”
”Well, you’ll have to settle for six.” The six middle screens flared into the head of the Helot as seen from the ceiling. It was a forest of chains, all taut and still. They were connected to a small figure in the far opposite wall. The chains might as well have been her body, all that could be seen of her was long brown hair thick with centuries of growth.
Montanna whistled. “Speaking of pretty.” He got uncomfortably close, yet had the frustrating wherewithal to keep the gun pointed at 30. “They say she was a prodigy, and this whole structure is her Remark. Ain’t that something?”
30 had heard differently, that this place was made to be a prison, but somehow she had taken it over. Who knows how long she had been in slumber, but it was the only thing keeping this place habitable.
”You know a guy like me could use something like this.” He lowered the pistol till it was pressed into 30’s backside. “Could kill two float rats with one stone by waking her up. You’d be dead, and Gutworth would be doomed. I bet she’s gonna head straight to it.”
Fuck. Somehow he already guessed the correlation between his Remark and her slumber. He had only been to her chambers once. When he had first fled to the Helot, it had taken many hours of hard work to scrape off the bodies of placebos that coated the outer shell like a skin, and more skilled Remark users than him dealt with the hostiles inside.
The last thing the final aberration said before it choked on its own blue blood was to not let her wake. Well, like a fool he had gone up to the head, and he saw her.
He felt the pure hate that radiated off her. Every second one was in there gave her strength. He ran out, locked the door, used his Remark to make it unreachable, and then cried for three days straight.
If there was nothing he could do, then it was a relief he wouldn’t be alive to see it.
“Alright then. I’m fucked either way. Just kill me.”
“Oh this?” Montanna looked at the gun with suspicion, then he burst into a wide smirk. “It’s not even loaded.”
30 sputtered. He came this close to running up to Montanna and strangling the pest, but then Montanna laughed.
It was infectious, it rattled the room. 30 joined in. He had to admit it was funny. The two were staring at each other wild eyed, braying not in joy but in a sort of shared insanity. The world was cruel and they were crueler, and despite it all they’d go their separate ways and survive another day.
When Montanna raised the gun and pulled the trigger. It should have just been part of the gag.
And it was. Only the punchline was different.
*bang*
.
.
.
In front of Hailien was pure displeasure.
*snap*
She butchered him, leather jacket to secret bone. That didn’t stop his hand with the bizarre machine attached to it. Hailien sliced it off for good measure.
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*snap*
She gutted him. Not unlike the fish she saw before her as the girl who wielded it stared up at her with admiration.
”Holy crawl shit Hailien, I thought I was dead.”
The girl behind her was missing the skin on her left arm. She waves with the good one.
*snap*
She crushed his skull. The creature moaned in tones that weren’t human. He was the ferry captain who brought her straight to misery, he was the Good Samaritan, he was an abuser of absolute power, he was the center and the center would soon be missing.
*snap*
She bent his neck, driving her Remark through his abdomen till the organs hung loose.
”We almost died Hailien!! Well like, I did. Adam’s fine you know, cause he’s…but wow!” Her voice was harsh and striking and it made Hailien wince. “But hey, another Constant down. Only two to go. It’s… it’s such a rush to change things, to get rid of people who deserve to die, you know?”
*snap*
”… you know?”
She sliced his body into smaller and smaller pieces, watching as the Constant’s strange Remark tried desperately to knit himself back together.
*snap*
A severance of the limbs. Leaving a torso. Screaming.
“Hey Hailien that's enough alright?”
*snap*
”Hey Hailien…”
*snap*
“Hey…”
*snap* *snap* *snap* *snap*
”Hailien STOP IT!” A blow from behind. A nuisance she must destroy. The girl with the skinless arm. Something about her rage was familiar. She was the Center, she was the-
And then the girl hugged her. Tears streamed down her face. And she saw through the rage.
”… Devon.”
.
.
.
It was a relief to see life return to those eyes. Hailien looked around in disbelief, as if taking everything in for the first time. Devon didn’t understand the outburst, but she was certainly happy for it.
She firmly removed herself from the hug, then gave Devon a gentle blow to the shoulder. “How many have you killed, are the others dead?”
Hailien was covered in blood and viscera. So was she. “Um, I encountered three. They’re all dead, if there’s any more I’m sure we’ll-“
”Good.” She turned lazily to where Jeavell laid in a heap. Moaning softly, his eyes rolling wildly as her body contorted into the painful shape of submission.
“Ah… let me finish this one.”
”Wait, I needed to ask him-“ Jeavell’s canonical death was a steel Remark to the head. His perfectly coiffed hair and clean white teeth ruined forever.
It would be wrong to say Devon regretted her death. But there were certain loose ends that would never be tied up. Still, she felt like she could breathe easier. Hailien turned from the body and walked past Devon without a word. “H-hey, what happened back there?” She scampered on the concrete, running to keep up with Hailien’s fast and steady stride.
The curtain disappeared like ripples in still water. The room they were in was actually quite small. It was a lounge of some sort, in a tacky baby blue. Ratty sofa, buzzing soda machine, and a table with a glowing screen. Jeavell’s remark… tooth… whatever must have distorted the space to the point where none of it had been recognizable.
Hailien ripped the exit off the hinges and walked into a hallway. Devon kept close behind.
”There were others with you. Are they safe?”
Devon asked the question on Adam’s behalf.
”All dead.” She said bluntly. This hallway felt like being on the inside of a pipe, it curved at the edges and there were stains on the wallpaper so routinely it read like a pattern.
Devon found it hard to believe, no, no, she didn’t want to believe it. Felt bad to believe shit that sucked if she hadn’t seen it herself. The Constant had been busy with her, who else could have killed them? “Who attacked you?”
Hailien shook her head, her back muscles writhing like thousands of squish snakes. “A cult that doesn’t believe there should be a consensus for reality. There are far bigger dangers than the bottom feeders in Gutworth.” Devon waited for her to elaborate.
She never did.
The hallway was surprisingly well populated. Some of the bottom feeders Hailien had referred to. Disgraced Lemure members, trying to hide the pulsing number on their neck. Opportunists competing to hook them up with their vice of choice. A bleary eyed drug dealer, clearly in the midst of sampling his own product, peeled himself from the wall and stumbled forward.
”Hey man, you wanna feel like you’re on yourself?”
Hailien’s hand engulfed the man and shoved him into the wall, leaving an impressive dent as the man slumped down, dead or close to it.
”So, are we going?”
Hailien’s head turned first, then the rest of her followed in a viscerally discomforting way. Her eyes bulged and teeth clenched, and Devon had the very real fear that she could be hurt.
“Devon…” Adam felt it too.
Hailien turned back, making her point clear. “We need to kill him.” though they were not words meant for Devon, but private words. A mantra she was trying to take to heart. “The center, the center is missing.”
”Hey who’s-“, Another druggie, motivations vague outside of a need for contact, shoved their fingers into Devon's face. There were too many fingers, and Devon held back expletives as she shoved the stranger into a pile of chairs. “Who’s he, Hailien? Who are you talking about?”
“A man I have killed five times now,” Hailien said, “somehow I’m seeing him everywhere.”
”I don’t feel comfortable with her being like this right now Devon, we should try and disengage.”
“What?” She said in a whisper, “no? She’s… I owe her a lot, and she saw a bunch of our other friends die,” maybe. Devon didn’t fully trust Hailien’s read on the situation, surely someone was still alive. “We can’t just abandon her, she’s suffering from something, maybe another duelist’s Remark, I don’t know.”
Hailien stood rigid straight and shoved her weapon into the side of the wall. It gave, and she dragged it screaming through the metal as she walked. Devon thanked the concept of existence that this was not a load bearing tube. The lights above flickered, but that was the extent of the damage.
“She could kill us at any moment, she’s not connected with reality.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Devon muttered. She killed three, count em, three Constants, and here Hailien was acting like this was meaningless. If anything could have snapped her out of this weird vengeance fugue, it was that.
They came to the door at the end of the hall. It bulged out to greet them.
A body in consummate regalia of red and black hung from a wall right to the left.
A door guard, Devon thought with zero humor. He didn’t deny passage as Hailien ripped the door off the hinges, breathing heavily all the while.
”Do you know everyone in the world wants to kill you? Their eyes are gripped in knives. Do you know what a knife does? A knife lacerates.” A man checking himself in a pocket mirror was too enthralled in the task to notice the bulky woman who had replaced the door, and bumped into her.
”Oh, my apologies ladies,” the man's face was smeared with grease paint. It made his cheeks pale white and his eyes dark pits. “You’re probably surprised by my appearance. Don’t be alarmed! I am what’s known as a Concept Duelist. The face paint I’m wearing, and yes, it’s only face paint, my actual skin tone is not at all this ghoulish. Anyway, the face paint is part of my concept, you see, I’ve modeled myself after that caretaker of the dead, the Casket Man! Creepy fellow, brr, I’d never want to meet him. So, you’re probably wondering why a cool guy like me modeled myself after one of our worlds most disturbing legends. Well, multiple reasons. For one, I’m acknowledging the crucial role death plays in duels. More than that, I’m reminding us all of our responsibility to death. Furthermore, I’m-“
Hailien rushed the man and held him by the cheeks.
”Aughh! What are you doing??” The man yelled, black tears smearing down his face.
“Look at his eyes Devon, do you see it?”
“What do you want from me???”
”Do you see the hate that’s been implanted there? Ideology as clear as the wheel turns, Devon. We are stuck in a system of the killers and the killed, nothing can exist outside, and nothing does. It imprints on us like fingerprints, you can see it in their eyes. Where is the Grand Council? Their chairs are empty, who turns the wheel in their absence Devon?” She pulled so hard red surged into the poor man’s pupil, “who turns the wheel?”
”Hailien!” Devon summoned her true Remark. There was an immediate repulsion of those surrounding her. The druggies on the floor squirmed, the pushers turned away, even the corpse on the wall seemed to slump down further.
Hailien snorted, and dropped the man, who took off without a word. “Good answer,” she said. She grabbed it before Devon could even think of desummoning it.
The eye on the blade looked up at Hailien as she studied it. “Fantastic tangibility, powerful aura, its effect is working right now I feel-“ Her face was surprised, like a sudden catch of breath. “Pure and utter revulsion.”
”Um, apologies?” This was all new to her, she didn’t quite understand Remark etiquette. “I’ll get rid of it.”
“No, it's good. It’s good.” She gave the Remark back and held Devon by the shoulders. It was a motherly gesture Devon never had the pleasure of receiving. “It’s far less intense than what I was feeling before. It helped me Devon! Devon, you helped me.”
”Uhuh, that’s great!” Devon wasn’t as relieved as Hailien wanted her to be. There was still that manic intensity, that single mindedness masquerading as calm. Her grip was motherly, but still a vice grip. “Could you talk to me like a person?”
”Certainly. I was zealous there, none of us can afford to be that zealous again.” Hailien said, shifting her metal jaw, “We need to avenge our comrades. They were butchered, all five of them.”
”Geez.” She didn’t know them well, but they did not deserve to have their deaths summarized in a sentence. “I’m sorry.” It was strange though, Hailien didn’t seem saddened by their deaths, it seemed to energize her in a way that was quite frankly disturbing to see.
”Where did the killer go?” Adam asked reluctantly, and Devon relayed his message.
“Well I’m not sure.” A shaggy haired man wearing a purple bandanna pushed past them in a slight hurry. “He was a massive man who’s grin could cut stone. I lost track of him.”
”Crawl shit, yeah, he could be anywhere.” Devon said, having the oddest sensation that something was amiss.
”Devon, the man from the hotel just passed us by.”
“What? What do you-“
Hailien readied her Remark. “Montanna!” She yelled. Devon’s heart dropped like a broken crawler.
Hailien clamored down the tube after the poor idiot as he doubled his stride. Devon followed. Grand help them all.