Clea stepped in through the Portal, looking around the warehouse in interest, and her eyes fell on some of the firearms stacked up here and there. “Are those extras you’d be willing to part with?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
I smiled slightly, as did everyone else around. “How many would you like?” Castle grunted without batting an eye.
“All of them?” she smiled widely. “And someone to train villagers in the basic use of them?”
“Nat, if you could arrange some trainers,” Castle said, hoisting two ammo boxes onto his shoulders, the Black Widow nodding silently. “Dealer, bring it all in. Dispatcher Clea, everything on that wall and in the next room is open for removal if you want it.”
“Clea, this is Mr. Spector, Mr. Russel, Mr. Hannibal, and Mr. Morbius,” I introduced the Moon Knight, the former werewolf, the ex-vampire Blooded, and the bat-mutate to her. “Moon Squad, Dispatcher Clea.”
‘Ma’am’ and ‘Miss’ came back in courteous reply. She’d talked them into a lot of werewolf clans and vampire dens in previous years, when she’d been training under Strange.
“Let me whip up a storage chamber for all this. I can distribute it as I get trainers,” she smiled gleefully, heading back through the Portal.
Dealer gestured, Cards flew into the air, and grew and resolved into rather flat-bodied force constructs with numbers and Suits for bodies and functioning limbs, which marched over in perfect lockstep to empty the rest of the truck. I gestured to open the side door, and they streamed out that way to get into the backs of the other trucks waiting outside.
“Supply depot?” I asked Marc casually, both of us watching as the scavenged loot began to stream in.
“If they hadn’t had the trucks right there, I’d’ve had to blow it all,” he confirmed. “Still in the middle of a Hellride?” he asked curiously.
“Random Rift incursions on a Limbo realm. Demons, devils, angry spirits.”
“I’ll get the Chariot ready.” He whistled gently, and the other three Moon Squaders put their loads in place and headed after him as he moved swiftly out of the arsenal, their tasks quickly taken over by Card-Servants.
“Hey, Castle.” He glanced over at me as he came back in from dropping the ammo by his van. “Take one of the spares and some rounds, use a crate as a target. Make sure there’s no problems with the ammo. Fires burn dimmer in the Dark Dimension, but not necessarily cooler, but it’s good to be sure. Otherwise, they are going to have to do some extra work on the ammo to make the firearms viable.”
Without a word, our most qualified firearm expert plucked up a spare .357, a handful of clips, and an empty crate, heading back through the Portal and leaving Natalya to direct traffic on what was staying and what could be removed.
Black-Suited Cards were bringing the stuff in, and a line of Red-Suited Cards formed up to start bringing the rest out to wherever Clea was going to put them.
Interdimensional arms dealers, that’s us, I mused. I could have contributed with superspeed, but it just would have meant more re-organizing, and this wouldn’t take too long.
The Road had an interesting way of handling wreckage/loot. Sure, on a tight side Road, stuff was just thrown off The Road, and if you wanted to pull off close by, you could scavenge it; it was what scavvers did.
The rest of the time, the stuff got dumped into Scrapyards next to the Pit Stops that were just off The Road. If you were willing to explore, you could totally make up new rides, scavenge weapons, power cores, fuel, tires, chassis, anything imaginable there. You just had to be good with tools and tech and magic, and you could make a new Ride and get back on The Road from the remains of those not as lucky as you.
If you couldn’t, well, you were stuck until someone came along and let you ride with them. It was why the real Drivers were all master mechanics and Artificers. The Team had stopped in several Pit Stops and come out with some crazy Driver tech that was part of their vehicles now, especially the Shields and some sweet engine mods.
Some of the long-haulers even made money stacking up the junk and transporting it out of The Road. A dull job, but it always had a pay-off, and as functioning clean-up crews, they didn’t get bothered on The Road that much. They transported out plain scrap metal instead of tech at times, making sure The Road stayed happy with them and the Scrapyards didn’t build up too much.
The Road was nowhere near as fast or as safe as Worldwalking, Teleporting, Portaling, Gating, or any of the other various magical means of traveling between places, planes, worlds, and dimensions. Long Roads, those between different planets, were faster than hyperspace, for sure, but naturally starships were far bigger and could transport more.
The advantage of The Road was that it took you where you wanted to go. There were some working maps of The Road, true Mega-highways that didn’t change, but only serious Road Warriors ever had to use them, dominated as they were by Ancient Travelers and the like in their endless caravans, even death unable to keep them from The Road.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
If you didn’t know where you wanted to go, The Road took you where you needed to go. Sometimes that might mean a Long Ride on The Road, especially if you lost Races and the like, showing you what you needed to do to improve, and if you couldn’t adapt, you died. Sometimes that meant a destination you had no idea was even there.
The Road bypassed Interdictions, hyperspace, and real-time barriers, and all other such obstructions, and was dominated nowhere by anyone, as The Road was ever-changing, and the Drivers ever-traveling. As long as there were roads at the destination, The Road could deliver you there, and a Driver could reach The Road from there.
If you were a mounted Rider, it instead was the Trail that took you. The Road and the Trail intersected at times, as did the Path for those who Traveled afoot. They could occasionally see one another here and there, hikers watching from mountainsides as Drivers streamed by on flying Roads above, and Riders rode along through canyons below. Pit Stops catered to all the Travelers, regardless of type. The workers drifted in, and retired Travelers took up positions there to stay near The Road, sometimes for ages.
Castle’s crew was using The Road for tempering experience to go into Hell, and as a result, The Road was sending them to places to fight Fiends, making sure they were Chased by Damned and Cursed, and otherwise tilting their Journey to fit their desires.
When Castle hit Fifteen, and they were all definitely post-Ten, it would be time to go down into Hell and see what a certain Grigori had to say about Pacting up a mortal without his knowledge and threatening his family.
In the meantime, they hit The Road, got some Karma, fine-tuned themselves to fight devils and other Fiends better, harder, and faster, then just took Portals home, skipping the Hellride on the way back.
“Going to be late for work this morning?” I asked Natalya, as she oversaw the stacking on the transfer of the stuff coming in.
“In Great Bear’s Russia, you save angels!” she winked at me. “One sees and hears about the crazy things, but until you live them, ah, they are just stories! My sisters are so envious that I am dealing with more than zealots and madmen and fanatics and greedy fools now. It is a big step up for one of us!” She beamed widely.
“Does Russia sell arms interdimensionally?” I inquired, watching the Cards troop out with armloads of shotguns.
“Selling firearms to the poor mortals laboring away in the demesnes of Lords of Limbo is considered very rude,” Natalya pointed out with a straight face.
“Stealing those mortals from the mortal plane so that said Lords can enforce worship and recognition from them in the first place?”
She smiled slightly. “Also considered very rude, but it is the privilege of the strong to be rude to the weak.”
“Some privilege,” I mused. “Although I have to admit, sometimes they earn it.”
“Surely the struggles of the weak to be free of the strong by any manner are forgivable!”
“Heaven and Hell don’t think so.” ANY manner was pretty broad...
“Arbitrary abstract forces whimsically enforcing their decrees upon the living. Merely more rude strong forces, yes?” she continued.
“If you call the cornerstones of Creation whimsical and arbitrary, instead of the building blocks of all that exist, I suppose?” I riposted.
“Please, do not introduce concepts that cannot be understood by beings of below average human intelligence as something to be believed correct or followed properly,” she scoffed at me.
I glanced over at her. “Are the Widows aware of the alternate Russias?”
She eyed me carefully. “There is a branch under Yelena who work almost exclusively in Alternities. They have stories...” she trailed off.
“In Soviet Russia, stories tell you!”
She grimaced despite herself, outrage flickering in her eyes for a moment. “Those worlds... they are so different from ours, in so many ways. The Russias...” she shook her head in sorrow and disbelief. “I am so very pleased I do not live in those worlds...”
“None with a Great Bear, or a Golden Hag?”
“No, no others. Our Terra... is a very different place because of them.” She straightened slightly. “Seeing them is one of the reasons the Widows stay so loyal to him. We have seen what Russia became without him, on dozens of worlds. They are sad and pitiful places with cruel rulers, places of tyrants and despots. We will not let such men take Mother Russia here!” she swore softly.
I just nodded. “It is almost the exact opposite for the United States, of course. Without a Golden Hag, they would have become the greatest country on the planet.”
“Yes. She changed the fates of many nations and those who lived there in the face of colonization. If they are not so advanced in technology, they are given leave to excel in other ways.” Magic, psionics, and chi, of course. It was a system that catered to individuals, not communities, of course, but if a tribe didn’t want their floor raised, they weren’t forced to accept it... although technology naturally infiltrated in, nasty subversive thing that it was.
“The other problem with them?” I prodded her.
“Failure to make longstanding positive change, especially the States. Even now they are beginning the start of the Sentinel program here, thinking it a secret. The wonders of Stark and Richards and so many others are co-opted by corporate interests and drive engines of repression and division, instead of unity and expansion, or inspire radical organizations into violent activity against all others.” Natalya shook her head, her green eyes flashing as she recalled some of the reports she’d read or related, or even seen those worlds through the eyes of her sisters. “What technology they can understand brings horrors, not hope.”
“And one wonders why the Two are so deadset against AI’s,” I murmured.
“The free Ultron, Master Mold, and Machinesmith problems, yes.” She smiled harshly. “The destruction of malevolent AI’s is part of our remit. We are very good at it.”
If AI lived, they could die. They tended to be really surprised by the fact, too.
“Do the Widows do much time-shifting in those Alternities?” I asked, earning me another look.
“Yes. Particularly looking for pivot events and incursions we may have to defend against. It is among the highest responsibilities of our Sisterhood, because the Bear and the Hag cannot do likewise,” she said with pride.
I nodded. Forsaken couldn’t time-travel, and people couldn’t time-travel around them. The only way to do so was to go to alternate worlds, but there were no alternate timelines spilling off this world. None of those others could have alternate versions of Briggs and Sama, only completely new lines who might come in at any time in the past or future... or not at all, creating more divergent timelines that didn’t fit into the greater multiverse, and thus would be even harder to reach or contact, if they existed.
For all intents and purposes, Sama and Briggs probably felt quite alone in many ways, looking for the original homeworld of the Power of Ten and being unable to find it... until I dropped in with news.
I still didn’t know why I was here. The big forces at play, confused by what Briggs and Sama were pulling off?