Awash in the white halo of the moon, the University had a deathly aura. Turned red by the acid rains, the metal beams looked like a disemboweled rib cage. The warship now resembled a whale’s carcass, like the kind they used to find sometimes across the seashore, when such shores and animals still existed.

Erol worked his way out of the underground and joined Suzanne on the surface. Behind him, above the frail weeping willows that bordered the river, she could see the flames that engulfed Renaissance. She received confirmation from the archaeologist that the attack was not a simple kidnapping attempt. A battle was under way in the city. The Inquisition was, of course, the cause.

Octave had died a few meters from the place where Erol was catching his breath. She remembered. There was still a brown stain amid the grass.

Her companion ran past it without glancing that way. He stopped his march a few meters farther ahead and rummaged in his pockets after sitting on a bench. He took out some small beads that he rolled around in his mouth.

“You shouldn’t swallow those,” Suzanne advised him, her visual interface blinking at the sight of the drugs.

Erol spit. There was less blood than before. “Do you think that miststück pierced my lungs? If that is the case, I will be in big trouble,” he resumed, removing his trembling hand from his shoulder. The blood had coagulated between his glove and his shirt.

“You would have never been able to walk this far with a perforated lung,” Suzanne reassured him. “Can you continue?”

Her question sounded like an order and the archaeologist took her at face value. He got up and pointed at the exit of the Garden of Curiosities. In front of them, the door leading to the library and its skylight were wide open.

“I thought I heard horses beyond the dorms? Shouldn’t we try our luck on that side?” Suzanne suggested.

“As you may have very well noticed…” Erol said while limping. She wanted to grab his arm to support him, but he refused. He spit again. There was almost no blood this time around. “I refuse to die in these cursed tunnels and in fact, I solemnly swear to never set foot down there again.”

He headed in the direction of the library. The path was more direct and faster. There was no longer any use hiding from the Inquisition. Then, once the heavy oak shutters were pried open, he pointed to a dark object that overlooked the shelves. It was a massive hot air balloon.

The blimp was in a pitiful state, a disjointed assemblage of fabric and plastic. It was held down by a mooring rope that was at least as thick as a human being. Various cables hanging from the glass roof held the silicone-coated envelope in the air. The smallest hole would render their escape project obsolete.

So apparently Erol’s plan was for them to ride the skies with a thousand-year-old hot-air balloon mended by a mad scientist. To make matters worse, at the moment, the balloon was imprisoned behind a glass window in the empty belly of a whale-like cage made of steel bones.

Suzanne came immediately to the conclusion that this was a tremendously stupid idea: “And how are you planning on getting that thing out of there? I don’t see any trapdoors on the roof.”

Wordlessly, the archaeologist asked for his gun before climbing into the basket. Inside, he activated several levers that resisted him slightly at first. Perhaps by chance, or thanks to his mastery, the flame of the gas unit lit up and warm air began to inflate the envelope of the hot-air balloon.

“Can you detach the tether? There should be an axe next to the column,” he asked while inspecting the steel loops that tied the wicker basket to the rest of the balloon.

This clearly wasn’t Erol’s first attempt at this. Suzanne could easily imagine him as a child, intruding at night in the library. Climbing furtively in the basket, playing captain. Perhaps Sileo was on his side at the time. “How long have you been preparing for this?” she asked the child that now wiggled around the control panel.

But he was too busy to answer her.

Three axe chops later, the tether was halfway sectioned. The balloon had almost achieved its final shape. It was the size of a bus. The patchwork that formed the balloon was shockingly ugly. By some miracle, the fabric was devoid of any holes.

“Hold on to the basket!” Erol left his place to the young woman before moving between two shelves. From up the rope ladder, Suzanne heard the deaf sound of a weapon being fired and three bullets exploded in the direction of the biggest glass panels. The basket then rose from the ground and the archaeologist managed to grab the footstool at the last minute.

Now fully filled with hot air, the balloon hit against the fine metallic structure of the roof which distorted before giving in. Suzanne grabbed onto the edges of the basket, praying that no stray piece of glass would rip the polyester.

At her side, Erol maneuvered the levers of the burner and the flame went from yellow to blue, before becoming entirely invisible. The hot air balloon slipped away through the roofs of the University. Their escape was basically a miracle.

They gained in height very quickly and were soon able to perceive the whole city from above and follow the evolution of the situation on the ground. The faubourgs had been spared from the riots. Only the doors and the bastions that allowed access to the city were burning. If any were not already aflame, they sported the white flag of the enemy. The arsonists must have managed to get up to the Dome, but they had been stopped by a cohort of guards for the moment. Suzanne could still distinguish the soldiers’ shadows although, from this height, they resembled a colony of ants. Well aligned, they fought in the streets as the rioters dispersed, launching Molotov cocktails and stones towards them. The flashing lights of the drones shone in the night and covered any screams with their shrill sirens. In the midst of all this chaos, the innocent inhabitants were fleeing through the alleys and fell into ambushes. The revolt was transforming into a lynching. These scenes reminded her of others. From another era.

A little after, Suzanne recognized Bacchus’s Liar. Her heart clenched. The cabaret was in flames.

“It’s going to pull through.”Erol’s voice was half-extinguished. He was sitting on the other side of the basket, his hat on his knees. He was sweating profusely and breathing with difficulty.

“Let me see,” Suzanne ordered him as she rolled up her sleeves. She stood next to him. The archaeologist yielded. His shirt was brown and a curious odor emanated from it. It was not that of flesh beginning to rot. It was another smell, much less organic. Like engine oil. “May I?” she asked as her fingers seized the torn fabric.

“In the state it is in…” Erol replied before cursing in Romansh then in Swiss German. He hunched his back and leaned forward.

Suzanne ripped the archaeologist’s shirt and bared his shoulders. His left shoulder was intact, but his right shoulder blade was in a dreadful condition. Covered in dried blood, it oscillated in some spots between black and gray. There was something strange in this tangle of scars that were all older than the new and half-coagulated wound.

“That’s a surprise!” commented Suzanne who now understood that something other than a common past linked the archaeologist and Sileo. The dagger had slipped between a layer of metal and fibers that lined almost the entirety of the archaeologist’s right clavicle and spine. The implant continued through the torso and the back to the left armpit. Upon inspection, she realized that it was meant to replace his arm. The same arm that Erol always kept gloved.

“And what about the wound?” Erol asked, visibly irritated that he had been forced to reveal something that he usually kept very close to his chest.

“It needs to be cleaned. The blade slipped, leaving a fine gash on top of the older scars,” Suzanne answered, getting up. “Impressive, but completely superficial. And there is no trace of poison or infection.”

The balloon did a swerve. Suzanne managed to keep her equilibrium while Erol was thrown against the wall of the basket.

“She wasn’t expecting this,” he joked.

“The cyborg?”

He nodded.

“When did it happen? It’s a quality piece. The ones I came across at the market or your brother’s clients were not this … big. Nor so well implanted.”

“A cursed gift on the part of the Founders. For Sileo and me, when we had just started working for them.”

“It’s not that bad…”

Erol, the cyborg of the third millennium, smiled and popped a pill in his mouth. “It’s only that … it’s very close to the spinal cord, and the pain is never-ending…”

It took a few minutes to stop the bleeding entirely and prepare a makeshift cast using the tatters of his shirt.

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“What is the origin of the animosity between the Foundation and the Inquisition?” Suzanne asked. “What about other… countries? Why do they not intervene?”

“There are no other countries. Other than in the south, in Shandalaar, but the border is closed. Francie, like Trisstiss or the territories of the East, is nothing but a wasteland at the mercy of warlords, self-proclaimed landowners, or who knows what else.”

“And Carascinthia? The city of the Inquisition.”

“An arch. A raft floating on lake Léman.”

“An arch?” Suzanne said, dumbfounded.

“A giant vessel. It’s where those who were afraid of technology and of the harm that it engendered remained hidden for a very long time.”

“Sileo did tell me about the wars.”

“Yes, those recluses gained momentum after the first conflicts. The biggest fanatics formed a cult then a religion that has transformed into a true political force.”

Already, the evening was approaching. At that altitude, they were forced to huddle up against each other to avoid freezing.

“A political force who found a natural enemy in the technophile Foundation, isn’t that right?”

“Yes. But it is not something as simple as a battle between obscurantism and our dear enlightened Founders. Renaissance is today the bastion of a disconnected elite.”

Erol became silent. Suzanne drew a parallel with the memories she possessed of her time.

“Not everyone can have access to technology and its benefits.”

“Yes, although the resources are dwindling. But the Founders prefer to guard them for themselves. At the detriment of everything else. That access to technology conferred them an undeniable advantage until now. And that’s the origin of the animosity between the Inquisition and the Foundation.”

The archaeologist looked sad, but at the end of the day, his universe was not all that different from what she reminded of the year 2100. He remained silent for a moment longer, his head resting on his shoulder.

“The winds are taking us towards the ocean,” he said suddenly.

Suzanne had almost started to fall asleep thanks to the swaying of the basket. Nevertheless, she decided to stay awake until the morning.

Erol awoke with the first rays of the sun. “Despite the pills, it hurts like a rhino-tank rolled on me. Could you tell me what you see?”

Suzanne got up right away, although her legs felt like jelly. The region to the west of the capital seemed to be in eternal mourning, the sorrowful widow of a world whose time hadn’t known how to heal her wounds. A gloomy wind beat down the plains, veiling a village whose roofs appeared more and more clearly as the hot air balloon dropped in altitude.

Suzanne was also able to distinguish some poor shacks with blackened roofs. Glued to one another, they formed a hamlet that was as discreet as lugubrious. They were surrounded by miserable fields that seemed to be completely barren.

“Oddio...” Erol sighed in Italian. “Here comes Trisstiss. Even under the first light of day, this place sends shivers down my spine.”

Farther south, Suzanne contemplated the Dammastock, the mountain of her strange origins.

Meanwhile, Erol had gotten up as well. Stumbling, he reached the command panel. His maneuvers initiated the balloon’s descent, whose thousand-year-old canvas seemed to have been partially gnawed away by the ultraviolet rays. In the absence of a stable atmosphere, even a veiled, filtered sunlight turned out to be dangerous.

“Did you find out something interesting while at Sileo’s or are you contemplating the mountain for nostalgic reasons?”

Suzanne smiled. She could hardly admit to Erol the nocturnal visits of her lover and the man in the yellow suit. She wasn’t sure if she would talk to Marian about it without learning more about him first. One thing was for certain, her path would ultimately lead her back to the underground compound in the Dammastock.

“I don’t know what your Marian might be able to do for me. I am simply worried that I will be terribly disappointed.”

“If I can tell you something, it is that people are never disappointed with that old fool,” he answered. “Now, we must be discreet. Do you see that little wood a little farther away? That is where we are going to land.”

Erol began the descent towards a small wood at the edge of the road. The trees were black and without foliage. Their trunks were shriveled and twisted, but deep roots emerged at their bases, powerfully anchored to fight against the violent winds that swept the region.

These same winds now deviated the balloon from its path on several occasions. At times, the basket almost toppled over branches that could have turned out to be a mortal trap. In front of this threat, Suzanne had finally joined Erol’s efforts to maintain their mean of transportation in a precarious equilibrium. Until now, her temporal implant had helped with its thousand uses.

Nevertheless, some meters from the ground, a powerful blast raised a cloud of dust that enveloped the fugitives, making them disappear in the space of an instant.

“The winds are carrying us away and this sand will end up gnawing our noses off!” screamed Suzanne in the hope that, by some miracle, her voice might reach Erol’s ears.

“Get on your belly and hide your eyes!” he answered, trying one last maneuver. Erol approached Suzanne and covered her face with his coat before protecting himself with his hat.

The blimp finally landed with great noise in the middle of a clearing, but not without breaking the fragile branches of a forlorn tree that looked older than a thousand.

But the winds offered the two of them no respite. They lifted the balloon once more, dragging the basket for another dozen meters and crashing it against another tree that broke down under the choc.

“Let’s cut its ropes!” Erol screamed, drawing his freshly sharpened sword, but the blade unfortunately slipped between his fingers.

The damage might have been disastrous if Suzanne had not immediately grabbed the blade to sever the ropes that were within her reach. Immediately, the basket toppled over, throwing them and their equipment on the ground.

After getting their bearings and shaking off the shock, the two crawled to the closest shelter in complete darkness. Another old tree, whose roots had dug a timid cave big enough for the two of them, became their salvation.

“One more minute and these winds would have sent us directly into the volcanoes of the Averni Colonies!” screamed Erol, in an effort to be heard over the storm.

Once inside, the winds doubled their violent efforts. For a moment, their power was so strong that their makeshift hideout was almost uprooted, making the whole shelter shake.

Scared, a curious animal emerged from its lair, a hole the size of a bottle dug among the maze of knotty stems. Furtively, it went to rest next to the young woman’s legs who let out a yelp of surprise. Erol, by force of habit, drew his sword and its tip sank straight into the tree’s bark. The edge of the blade almost pierced Suzanne’s cheek who received a light jet of pink sap straight to her face.

“A snake?” she asked finally, while cleaning her cheekbones and wincing. The liquid left behind a very unpleasant burning sensation.

Between her legs, a small pink ball purred; it clearly was no longer scared of the storm or these impromptu visitors. The creature looked like a hedgehog whose spines had been completely removed. A furry and tiny trunk stood where its nose should be. The animal opened its four bead-like black eyes and stared at Suzanne before snuggling up at her side once again.

“It looks nothing like a snake or any other reptile,” Erol teased her as he tried to free up his sword despite the narrowness of the place. “But you have found our meal!”

“You are not going to touch one single hair from this poor mutant,” retorted the young woman, caressing the small animal softly.

“Calm down. This creature is not comestible,” he reassured her, as he finally managed to withdraw the point of his blade from the root.

With the thumb of his gloved hand, he plugged the resulting wound that leaked a few drops of pink sap.

“It feeds on these black trees, but their bark is poisonous,” answered her guide, while petting the animal who closed its eyes in pleasure.

Once everything had settled down, the two Renaissance fugitives rested in silence as the storm lost in intensity.

After an hour, their incongruous visitor returned to its lair with its clumsy step, waking up Suzanne with a jolt.

“Sleep well?” Erol asked as he cleaned his blotchy glove.

He was one to talk! As if he hadn’t dozed off throughout most of their journey on the blimp, Suzanne thought. “Not as well as the little pink possum ball,” she answered finally.

Erol smiled then inspected what lay beyond their shelter.

“In fact, I never thanked you,” said Suzanne, embarrassed, while her companion was preparing to step outside.

“What for?”

“The Dammastock. The University. The cabaret. For the incalculable number of times that you saved my life.”

He smiled again. “At Sileo’s it was more the other way around.”

“Let’s say it’s two to one, then. I still owe you one.” She secretly prayed that this would be a favor she never had to repay.

“We should try to reach the village quickly. It’s where Herr Marian was last sighted by the spy drones.”

Erol took another peek outside, the mechanical arm gripping the black root, his real arm standing guard on his blade. Suzanne saw him look in all directions. He was holding his breath, his bare shoulders standing immobile.

Around them, the storm had finally calmed down but, in the end, he returned to the shelter, a trembling finger on his lips. Something he had seen outside had filled him with terror.