They moved the cultists into the hangar, placing their beds right on top of the bay doors.
The better to dump them if the persistent vegetative state was part of some sort of trap.
Fabricator Stone Lake 23571 had fabricated a secure cage to place over them in about 10 minutes.
A few recoilless autoguns were pointed inside.
It all seemed unnecessary.
Every test they had run in the day since Howard’s team had contacted them for the pick up had come back clean.
About the only brain activity they had were the automatic functions that kept the body alive.
Alin wished his dad was present.
This was the big break they had been looking for.
His dad could’ve probably gone in there and gotten what they needed within a few minutes at most.
“This represents potential danger.”
Alin jumped.
He had no idea Unseen had been standing right next to him. Or perhaps the Threnosh had just walked over.
They did seem to pop up near him a lot more over the past few days.
“Yeah, but they have information we need.”
Unseen regarded the holographic projections on the cage walls pointing to each cultist.
“There is no cognitive function.”
“True, but this could be a magic thing.”
“Acknowledged.”
Unseen vanished with a slight shimmer.
He looked around, tried to listen.
Then realized that this represented an opportunity to train.
“Um… don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m going to use my power to try to find you. For practice.”
“Acknowledged.”
The voice seemed to come from the other side of the hangar.
The gray poured from his fingers with an act of will.
It flowed quicker, moved across space faster than it had just at the start of the world event. It felt more responsive even. Like a wet noodle in his hands rather than a wet tissue for all that it was immaterial fog.
Rather than let it spread out indiscriminately he focused and managed to send a greater amount of its mass toward the sound of Unseen’s voice.
He had the feeling that as he progressed in skill and strength he’d be able to shape it as he willed.
Or maybe, that was what he hoped.
Because doing so meant that he was in complete control of the gray, which meant he wouldn’t accidentally hurt anyone.
The darker mass filled that part of the hangar while wispy gray bled over into the rest of the hangar.
His mom cleared her throat.
“People are trying to work over here.”
She and the fabricator were busy fabricating up some ammunition, which was how they spent most of their time.
“Sorry. Keep it out of your work area. Got it.”
Another thing to focus on.
It was good practice.
Like trying to rub his belly, pat his head and move his feet in circles, but each foot in an opposite direction.
He stood there for 10 minutes with an intense look of concentration on his face.
“Aww… you used to make that face when you were a baby… pooping…”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re very welcome!”
10 minutes of failure.
Unseen’s super science beat his superpower.
Power armor trumped fog.
“I give up.” He sighed. “You win. Again.”
A soft-gloved finger tapped his shoulder.
He turned and looked down at the diminutive Threnosh.
“Please don’t tell me you were standing there the whole time.”
“Negative. I completed five circuits around the hangar. Each a different path closing on your position. I stood behind you for 2 minutes.”
“Good to know. Thanks again. I’ll get you next time!” he grinned.
“I look forward to another unsuccessful attempt.”
The Threnosh’s smile was weird.
Not as natural-looking as Kynnro’s or Frequency’s.
Unseen’s didn’t reach the eyes.
Alin released his connection to the gray.
It dissipated as it was pulled in by the skyship’s ventilation system.
Just plain old fog.
“Go, Boy,” his mom said.
“Huh?”
“It’s a break day for most of the ship. Why don’t you go spend some time with Kat or your friends if she’s on duty?”
He regarded the cultists.
“They aren’t a threat. Even if they do wake up or turn into zombies. They won’t be able to get through that before we drop them into the bay.”
The bars were Threnium and the glass was the same as his armor’s faceplate.
His mom was probably right, but the question was would he ever forgive himself if something happened and his presence could’ve made a difference?
“No. That’s okay. I’ll stay here. I can maybe get together with them for dinner.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I can help you guys?”
“Why don’t you keep practicing? Start with the alphabet.”
“Huh?”
“You remember when I taught you your letters.”
“Yeah…”
“Okay. Do it just like that. Use your power to write them in the air.”
He shrugged and got to it.
It turned out to be harder than he had thought.
The writing looked worse than his pudgy-fingered child scrawl according to his mom.
Dinner was a subdued affair.
Just him, Kat and Victor.
Songbird and Luzi were on duty.
Gob was still in medical.
And Lee— was gone, laid down in a cold storage bag.
That didn’t seem right to think of his friend in that way. Like Lee was just dead meat in a freezer.
Alin pushed the spaghetti around on his plate.
“I—”
“I—”
“You go.” He prompted Victor.
“I just have to get this off my chest, you know? I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Kat frowned.
“For hiding like a pussy while our friend— friends were getting murdered.”
“You were following protocols. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I had that bastard dead, but missed.”
Alin squeezed Kat’s thigh under the table.
“He didn’t get anyone else after.”
“Yeah, but I’d feel a lot better if I had gotten him. At least that would’ve made it easier, I think, to accept that Lee’s gone and we’re never going to here his stupid grim edge jokes. That stupid ‘wolf time’ battle cry.”
Kat sniffled, which got him and Victor watery eyed.
“Grim dark and edge lord,” Victor muttered. “That was the joke. He leaned into it cause his parents gave him that name.”
The silence stretched as the three stared at their mostly untouched food.
“Neither of you did anything wrong. Everyone, even Lee and the others, did exactly what they were supposed to do.”
“Me and Songbird found the body. I remember that we weren’t doing the walkthrough with any real sense of urgency. If we found the poor guy sooner we would’ve set off the alarm sooner. Minutes, even seconds could’ve made the difference for every ranger that psycho got,” Kat said.
“Or he could’ve also gotten the two of you,” Victor said. “Lee wouldn’t want that.”
“I know that!” Kat snapped. “None of us would rather have another person get killed instead of us.”
Alin rubbed her leg.
“None of this would’ve happened if I had worked harder to improve my powers. If I had been faster at filling the skyship, I could’ve helped Lee, Gob and the others like I was able to help you and Songbird.”
“Or not,” Victor said. “The line between life and death is as thin as a blade.”
The instructors back at J.R.R.P. had been fond of saying such in a variety of ways.
“Who lives, who dies… changes each time if we could replay the battle.” Victor sighed. “Is it weird that I don’t want to reminisce about him?”
“I’ve been trying not to think about it. Makes it really real.” Alin nudged the meatball around the noodles, drawing a complicated pattern. “Like, part of me can pretend that he isn’t gone. That it’s just over for him. One instant and poof—” a puff of gray emerged from his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes as it hung in the air for a moment before dissipating faster than natural smoke. “I mean, we all have plans, hopes and dreams, that sort of thing, right? We try to understand that tomorrow isn’t promised and that we can bite it at any time. One moment and all that’s gone. Everything Lee was and could’ve been is just… gone forever.”
“No. Not forever. We’ll remember,” Kat said.
“Sure, yeah, but once we’re gone then who’ll remember? My uncle told me once that people die twice. The first time is obvious, but the next death happens when there’s no one left to remember them.”
“One of my uncles said the same thing too,” Victor said. “Basically, a man dies two deaths. One when they die die and the second when their name is spoken for the last time. Told me when I turned 10. I remember cause it was my birthday.”
“Wait? I don’t remember his exact wording, but that sounds really familiar.”
“What the hell is wrong with your uncles?” Kat said. “Telling that to kids. That’s just wrong. And I think they must’ve read the same thing and thought they’d look super wise by copying it. Cause it sounds familiar to me. I think I must’ve read it somewhere.”
“I don’t know about wise or reading. He’s always complaining about not having time for ‘literally’ anything.”
“My uncle, rest his soul, wasn’t what I’d call a wise man,” Victor said. “He just got really talkative when he got drunk. Didn’t happen a lot. Always on my birthday though, for some reason.”
“I think what’s really bothering me is that we can’t even let his family know,” Kat said. “Like, we know, but they’re back home going about their lives not knowing. I’m just picturing his mom, dad and sister eating dinner around their table like we’re doing. Probably, talking about him. Wondering how he’s doing? Hoping he’s safe and that he’ll come back. Except, he won’t and they’re not going to know until this stupid world event is done and—” her lip started to quiver.
Alin rubbed her back as she leaned closer.
She fought the tears, clenching her jaw.
“Am I being weird that I don’t even want to talk about him like this? You know, like a funeral-type thing?” Victor said. “Like I don’t have the right without his family getting to do it first?”
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“The funeral stuff will happen. So, no, I don’t think it’s weird to mourn him. Even if I’m being a hypocrite about that.”
“Have you gone to therapy yet?” Victor said.
“No.”
Alin had no intention of doing that until after the Quest.
He hadn’t lied.
Part of him didn’t want to think about Lee.
Not just because it’d delay reality setting in for just a bit longer, but because the small voice inside of him that wanted vengeance on all people like that slasher was very angry and didn’t want to stop. Deep down he understood that the kind of violence those types of people deserved wasn’t in him. And that part of him wanted to unleash it on them.
“You should go,” Kat said. “I went. It helped… a little.”
“Same, dude,” Victor nodded. “You have to be in the right head space since you’re the one actually going on off ship combat missions.”
“I’m in the right space for that. Don’t worry. I’ll start going after we’re done here.”
Kat stared at him, searching.
“You should go. At least talk to one of the therapists for half an hour,” she said after a moment.
“It’s fine, really.”
“One session is mandatory,” she pointed out. “You’re in this weird spot cause you’re attached to your mom and the Threnosh, but do you think that means you don’t have to do the same stuff as the rest of us?”
He frowned.
“Of course not. Since when have I taken special treatment?”
“Leave the dude alone,” Victor said.
“Look, Boy, you shouldn’t put Captain Molds in a bad spot.”
“I’m not.”
He wasn’t so dense as to not understand how it would reflect on the captain if one ranger on the skyship was held to different rules.
“Then go do the mandatory thing,” Kat said.
“I’m too busy.”
“The therapists will come looking for you anyways,” Victor said.
“I’ll go then. I promise.”
“I don’t know why you just don’t go now. You’ve got a full schedule, but you can move stuff around more than we can,” Kat said.
“Thank you for caring, but I’ll be fine.”
She glared up at him.
“You’re getting that brood-y look.”
“I—”
The denial was on the tip of his tongue, but he had always worked to be more introspective about things, like the darker turns in his mental state.
“Yeah, you’re right. I am getting into that state, but I’m aware and I’m taking measures.”
“The brooding stuff does look good on you. Very, tall, dark and handsome vibe.” Victor gave him the thumbs up.
“Are you hitting on my man?” Kat raised a brow.
Victor tilted his head to one side. “What’re you gonna do about it if I am?”
They stared daggers at each other for a long moment before both broke out into laughter.
“Better watch yourself,” Kat warned, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Don’t worry. I like my men taller, darker and handsomer… no offense,” Victor said.
“You just said I wasn’t good enough for you. I can’t help but take a little offense at that,” he chuckled.
“Sorry, Boy, there’s no chance. Even if you were gay, I still wouldn’t go for you. There is a rule I follow. I don’t mess with childhood friends. It’d just get really messy if it ended up not working out, you know?” Victor said.
They laughed. Not minding that it was a little bit forced.
It was closer to normalcy and they took it.
For a moment their minds strayed away from the thought of their dead friend.
From the dark whisper in the backs of their minds wondering who would be next.
The two people seated at the table next to them?
Those elsewhere?”
Themselves?
----------------------------------------
Holly posed her latest victim.
Something she hadn’t done in a very long time.
The memory caused her to freeze.
Yes.
She remembered.
The dance studio.
Just before Cal had stopped her.
She picked up the rope she had dropped.
It wasn’t a big deal.
She had never derived any sort of personal pleasure or satisfaction from the act of posing her victims. It had been a tactic. Or was it strategy? Another tool in her arsenal. To spread fear of her because that was what her class demanded through instinctive nudges and the types of Quests she had received back then.
The only reason she was going through the time and effort to pose the leader of the murderous adventuring band was because she had gotten a Quest upon killing him.
The rewards were worth 10 minutes of effort.
She used their rope and the shafts of their weapons to fix the man’s limbs in a pose that matched the weird symbol on their armbands. The black, bent symbol was set in a white circle on the red band.
She questioned the aesthetics of their attire.
Matching uniforms in a dark gray. Tactical gear. Skull-themed buttons and insignia for some reason when none of them had displayed any necromantic spells or abilities.
Those looked intimidating when viewed from the lens of a regular person.
Not her.
Never her.
She was incapable.
They also wore pointy white hoods. Some even over their helmets.
She didn’t understand the aesthetic reasons for that either.
It was more comical than intimidating.
Not only that, the hoods had been easier to see in the darkness.
They ruined the look of their uniforms for what?
Perhaps, they were attempting to be ghost soldiers or some such nonsense.
There was a type and these men and women fit that profile from what she had observed before she had killed them all.
Regardless, it didn’t really matter to her. Thus, she supposed she’d never know.
She quickened her pace.
The stench of human waste in the small office had been progressively growing worse over the minutes she had worked.
When she finished she carried the leader’s posed corpse and hung it from the street light like the adventuring band had hanged their victims.
A thought struck her, so she returned to the office and emerged with the dead man’s bloody, torn hood.
No longer dirty white, but rather a dirty pink and red thanks to her blades.
She placed the hood beneath the man and stepped on it, rubbing it into the concrete.
They had seemed so proud of their attire that it was a fitting sign of disrespect to have their leader’s filth drip down on the once white mark of identity.
The man’s corpse probably wouldn’t last long with all the monsters and mutant animals roaming the battle-torn streets, but the spires shared such images on the event page for some reason and it served her purpose to spread fear amongst her chosen targets. Birds tended to go after the eyes and tongue. That would certainly portray the image she desired.
Maybe one of the top slashers would see her work and decide that it was time to go after her.
She wouldn’t mind them saving her the trouble of hunting them down.
That clown, Lindsay, continued to elude all manner of violent contact with people that could fight back better than weak children and weak families.
The butcher and the trapper duo had turned an entire area on the south side of the city near the river into a death zone. Even had a fish store. Not for eating, but as pets, which was odd to her.
She put them lower on her list.
They’d eventually run out of people willing to go after them in their zone.
All she had to do was stay ahead of them in the points race and they’d eventually have to come out and actively hunt targets if they wanted to win.
She avoided the soldiers that were obviously here on behalf of their governments.
Old America had sent soldiers to fight on both sides of the competition.
She had seen the invisible soldier trading information with other slasher soldiers, but the spires had yet to deem that a breach of the rules.
There were also soldiers from other countries.
China from the looks and sounds of it.
Special Forces and assassins the lot of them.
She left them alone since they had been going after acceptable targets.
Then there was the necromancer.
Oddly, she had no idea where that one was.
Undead roamed the streets or attacked walled neighborhoods or everyone else really.
Necromancers had a range at which they could control their minions, which suggested that this one was mobile. Which meant a concealment spell was likely. Perhaps a very powerful level of invisibility considering the perception Skills available to her at her level.
She moved through the streets from cover to cover, using alleys and rooftops.
She considered sending the clown a direct message to bait him into a fight.
He was in the lead and at over halfway through the competition it was looking clear that he could remain there solely through the murder of children.
It didn’t seem equitable that his preferred targets gave him more points than hers when his were easy, defenseless kills, while hers were dangerous people.
Granted on a point per target basis she gained more per single kill.
But, that didn’t matter when he had a much greater pool of potential targets to draw from.
If she wanted to stop him from winning she had to kill him and take his point value.
The math had crystallized as the days went on.
A kill of any of the top 5 would put one in a great position to win.
Take 2, maybe 3 and one built an insurmountable lead.
She headed west toward her latest base.
A basement apartment unit in an empty house inside one of the better defended neighborhoods.
The people had gathered their children in the school across the street in hopes that there was safety in numbers from the clown.
It was a tempting target.
Her slasher senses suddenly tingled.
Ambush!
She dived into a roll and flowed down the side of the building dark cloak fluttering in the wind.
Loud bangs consumed the rooftop in shrapnel and smoke.
The staccato of gun fire nipped at her heels like little hound puppies.
Seemed coordinated at first contact, which meant they were competent at a minimum.
Soldiers.
To kill or not to kill?
The answer depended on what team they were on and there was no way to find that out without getting up close, which carried dangers for her and them.
She dashed down the alley, sensing the ambush ahead she dived through the basement window to her right.
Something fell on her almost immediately.
Gnashing teeth and claws scraped against her Threnium vambrace as she shoved her arm into the mutated rodent of large size’s mouth.
A knife appeared in her hand as if conjured with magic.
She flung the gutted creature aside and headed up the stairs.
The building felt empty of people.
Her slasher senses weren’t piqued as she quickly flowed up the stairs.
She stopped at the top floor.
The soldiers would be on the rooftops.
She dashed down the hallway and leapt through the glass, crashing through a window on the other side of the alley.
She kept running, picked up a dust-covered vase.
What remained of the ancient, withered flowers crumbled as she hurled the vase through two windows.
She slid to a stop and head back toward the stairs.
Quieter now.
Stealth over speed as she strained her senses.
Boots on the rooftops.
Whispers out on the streets.
Instincts told her that she was being hunted, however her hunters weren’t on her direct trail anymore.
She went down the stairs quiet as a mouse.
The handful of large mutant rodents in the building didn’t notice her now that she was focused on remaining undetected.
She found a second story window and opened it slowly as a slasher did. Except, she was leaving the building, not entering it.
She climbed down the wall and made her way back to her original position.
The man she had hanged swayed a little in the light breeze.
Her senses spiked.
Not just her usual slasher senses, but her Danger Sense Skill.
She fell to her back!
The rush of displaced air swept over her face.
She kipped her legs up.
Boots connected with something that felt like solid iron.
She continued the move, ending up in a crouch.
Knives flashed.
Steel rang out on steel.
The air shimmered in front of her.
Movement!
She dived into a forward roll, cutting as she passed.
The rush of wind again. Over her back.
The sound of cut cloth.
The shriek of blade on armor.
Hers and his.
Her senses had focused, honing in on her assailant.
The invisible soldier was a hazy outline in the middle of the sidewalk.
Like her, he was dual-wielding.
His weapons’ shape was wrong to be swords or knives.
Thin shafts, topped by leaf-shaped blades.
Dual-wielding shortened spears.
Who did that?
A memory flashed through her head.
She straightened.
There were many ways to win a fight.
She sheathed her knives and showed empty hands.
“I know you. We aren’t enemies.”
Truth be told she didn’t care one way or another.
It was simply a matter of fact that a fight with this soldier could prove costly.
Besides, he’d be better pointed in the direction of the other slashers.
“Lt. Nicholas List. Special elite forces member of the defunct American Government’s Combined Armed Forces.” She recited what she remembered from memory.
The hazy figure circled to her left.
She mirrored him.
“I can see you.”
“Obviously,” he dropped the invisibility ability.
They had both been there at the fall of the New American Republic. Though they had never crossed paths. Indeed, only a handful of people had ever known she had roamed those streets for months, killing the worst of the slavers.
Tactical gear.
A helmet with an American flag skull mask.
The stupid short spears.
“You think you know me, but you don’t. That’s not what I’m called.”
“Lt. Death’s Dancer then.”
She kept her face in hooded shadow.
Used a Skill to keep all of her features hidden, but for a hint of smile.
A slash of white in the black.
He pointed one of his spears at her. “You’re a slasher.” Then at the corpse hanging from the light pole.
“You will note on the event page that all my targets have been other slashers.”
“Yeah, well, that guy’s a Nazi and a klansman, so I guess I can’t ding you for that.”
“So, that’s what they call themselves. It sounds vaguely familiar.”
She was not one to study history.
“Then it’s obvious that we shouldn’t fight.”
“Why do you think that? You’re ‘Holly Foster’ right? You’re number 2 on the slasher side. Worth a lot of points.”
It appeared that Cal’s file on this musclebound moron was slightly incorrect.
“You are worth a fair amount yourself… but you’d be worth more if you, say, killed someone like the clown. I don’t know about how your mind works, but one would think someone draping themselves in those colors would care more about innocent children than gaining points.”
“Or maybe I rid the world of a high level slasher now and I go after the clown and the rest of them later.”
“How many days since this started? Almost 20 and yet, the worst slashers remain. Have you killed any of note? I believe a team led by a man named Howard killed the hockey mask slasher and the gentleman slasher was killed by Rayna’s Rangers. It seems to me that those are the people doing the whole justice and protection of the innocent thing better than you and that lavender giant. What’s he called? The eidolon of something… what is he exactly? I’ve never seen the type.”
A well-done misdirection if she had to judge from an outside perspective.
“How about an agreement?”
The soldier twirled his spears.
She supposed it was meant to look menacing.
“I’m willing to listen,” he said after a moment.