The corridors had grown progressively nicer the further up Jonquil went further up, the hallway floors made of marble, the walls of glowing alabaster, the doors of close-grained, darkly stained wood. Here and there, a Garden Room was set up, clear floor to ceiling glass walls making them look more like terrariums the size of small parks, the lights hidden in recesses and the exotic plants well maintained, the fountains abstract and stately. Cafes and bars dotted the airy hallways with ceilings at least twenty feet up, all closed, but with clear windows showing dimly lit interiors with luxurious counters, expensive antique espresso machines, beautiful art hanging from dark wood-paneled walls.
He ground his teeth, looking into a dental office, where each arm chair in the waiting room was made of strange leather he couldn’t identify. He could hear his teeth squeaking against each other as he fought the urge to just trash every business he saw. But he was busy. There were scant directories, mostly showing maps to shops and businesses, lawyers for small-claims, doctor this, ophthalmologist that. Pausing in front of one unlit directory, he dragged his finger over the lettering, searching, searching…finding. He tapped at a sign, grinning. Administration. It was on the next level up, it seemed.
Finding a stairway was never difficult in the Tower, especially since it was a safety measure in case of attack or emergency. The elevators were obviously out. But years of cardiac and hand to hand combat training, ostensibly to maintain the physical health of their precious investments, had left Jonquil more than fit enough to sprint up the steps. He burst into the Administration level, one of the highest as far as he could figure, glancing out the window at the landscape. His eye level was now about half-way up the mountain, Level 150 per the marker on the wall. The Big Brother wasn’t sure what was further up, aside from the private park on the top level. He assumed penthouses; it was valuable real estate, after all. Finding another directory, he stabbed his finger against it once more. ‘Communications and Armory.’ “Finally,” he muttered, sprinting down the hallways, strings of black glittering metal grain trailing him like snakes. Any larger pieces of metal he held against his shirt, making a sort of abstract, spikey armor that creaked and squealed as the loose metal edges ground against each other. It probably wouldn’t help against the security captain’s railgun, but it was better than nothing.
The door to the Comms and Armory was a solid wall of steel, made to slide to the side into a wall. He paused in front of it, placing his hand against the cool metal. Concentrating, Jonquil ‘felt’ the door. At least two inches thick. He tried to press his Psionics against it, but it was simply too heavy to shift against the locking mechanism. Trying to shift it would just throw him aside…or cause a brain hemorrhage. “Gāisǐ…” He paused to think, then glanced back at the trails of writhing iron and nickel. “Mm,” he grunted, then concentrated, stepping away from the door.
He was getting far more comfortable with his telekinesis. It was becoming part of him, despite the short time he had had them. There was a certain amount of finesse that he had been developing, and his mind seemed to adapt and change moment by moment to accommodate the slivers of metal, the grains of iron. He couldn’t feel each individual grain, but he could feel them as a whole, trembling and vibrating as if quantum locked to ‘lines’ of psionic power. He willed, and the metal obeyed. Slowly, he drew all the disparate lines of metal dust into a thin band several inches wide. The edge of the band was as thin and as jagged as he could make it. Then, he willed the band into a circle, thin edge out, a diameter of four feet or so, a large iron and nickel ring. “Let’s try something new.”
The band began to spin as if on a central axis. Slowly, it began to revolve and accelerate. A high-pitched keening began to whine in the dark hallway, as what was essentially a massive hole drill began to spin up, the individual grains quickly blurring into a cohesive band. It was fast. Very fast. Iron and nickel grains ground against the air A gentle orange glow gradually grew within the band, then an angry red, before just brushing against a sharp yellow-white. The air in the hallway began to heat quickly and he stepped back, shielding his face with his arms. He began to press the band against the door.
It tore viciously into the steel, shredding and heating the metal as it went. He strained against the friction, willing it tight against the door. The sharp, hard shrieking of metal grinding on metal was nearly deafening, but he continued. It was an incredible strain, and he could feel his body consuming itself, hungrily breaking down any available calorie to feed the psychic fire, core temperature rising, making him feel hot and sweaty, feverish. He swore gently under his breath.
Globs of super-heated steel sloughing off the door were incorporated into the band, and the heat in the hall continued to climb, worsening his situation. He was about to stop and rest when he felt the band push through the last quarter inch without grinding; it had simply passed through molten steel into the room beyond. A perfect circle scored the door, and he shoved it with mind and body, kicking at it while pressing his telekinesis at it. It fell inward with a harsh thud, while carbonized metal dust flaked off the now fused band in the dark room beyond, still glowing an angry red-yellow, which he dropped with a clang. He stepped through, careful not to get burned on the molten edge of the circle.
The dark room beyond exploded with light as a line of plasma shot towards him, striking him on the chest, thankfully slamming into his ‘armor’. The steel plate on his chest sizzled and glowed red, burning the skin beneath, but he gave it little thought as he dove to the ground and beneath a table, kicking it over as two more bolts of thermal plasma shot out of an adjacent room, pockmarking the plastic of the tabletop, burning just through, liquid plastic dribbling onto the floor beside his leg. Wide-eyed, breathing frantically, Jonquil looked through the hole, starting as someone stepped through the door of what was probably the armory, lit by a flickering, spastic blue-white glow. An Ignis.
In the dull glow of a flickering blade of white-hot plasma floating before him, a man encased in a helmet and armor paused in the doorway, staring towards the table. “Neat trick, getting through the door, Brother,” came a voice modulated through a speaker. The helmet looked a bit like something a motorcyclist would wear, but without a glass plane for vision. Instead, it was a blank slate of graphene/carbon nanotube composite, usually just called G-Con, with optical sensors implanted at various points along the periphery. His suit was matte black, mostly a thick fabric impregnated with carbon nanotubes, but heat resistant G-con plates were also placed at the chest, groin, legs and arms. Thick gloves encased his hands, the fingers and palms plated with jointed G-Con, like medieval gauntlets. On his chest, the number ‘5’ was emblazoned in dark red. “Very flashy entrance, sir. You gotta die now, though. I’ll make it quick.”
“Abednego!” shouted Jonquil. “It’s me, 23. Jon!”
The Ignis, Abednego, or Subject 5, paused, then a tinny laugh clattered from the helmet’s speaker. “Jonquil! Hey! Long time, no spar. Boy, you are looking rough, Brother. You forget to eat the past several weeks?” A low chuckle sounded through the speaker. The Igni were pyrokinetics, versed in the generation of heat. This ranged from making the air around them a little warmer by a few degrees to the much rarer generation and concentration of flame into plasma. And Abednego was by far the most talented of all the Igni.
Jonquil slowly raised his head over the edge of the table, smiling, palms up and out to show he meant no harm, although for a Homo Sapiens Psychicae, showing one had no weapon in hand was a useless gesture. Abednego, for his part, tapped the side of his helmet, and a portion slid out and up, revealing ochre eyes, that strange yellow iris particular to the Ignis psychics. Perhaps in his 60s, the man sported a tight, short white goatee, and although the helmet didn’t show it, Jonquil knew he had short salt and pepper hair. Deep smile lines creased his face and at the corners of his eyes. The flickering blade of plasma dulled to a little tongue of fire the size and power of a candle flame.
“Little Brother,” self-corrected the pyrokinetic. “Still a Little Brother, right?”
“Not since 1900 hours last night, good sir.” Jonquil flashed a smile that he hoped was disarming; it came out strained and harsh. He didn’t have time for this. “I’ve been busy, you see.”
“Yeah, I see. I see a big hole drilled through a steel door. I see a Child caked in blood and looking skeletal from psionic overuse.” He chuckled, tapping his helmet with his finger, winking, as if an idea just occurred to him. “1900 hours, eh? Around when the whole ‘evac’ thing went down. Around the time I was ordered to stay put at my station here until the ‘all clear’. You had something to do with that?”
“Look--”
“Jon, what the dìyù did you do?” The smile on his face never faltered, but there was a tightness to it, like the corners of his mouth were held by taut string. “Now you’re breaking into an armory on the Upper Levels.”
“Not the Armory, Commu--”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve walked into my turf. I have to handle you now, thanks bunches, Brother.” A hard edge was beginning to emerge in his voice.
“Would you just liste--” He ducked as a flare of fire shot over his head like a flamethrower, scorching the wall and further warping the plastic tabletop.
“No, Jon, you listen.” The helmet clicked back together as he strode forward, concentrating the flamethrower into a long blowtorch-like flame as he came towards the table. The room writhed with wild shadows, the Ignis’s frame casting a dark silhouette against the Armory door.
Grunting at the approaching heat, Jonquil kicked the table with everything he had, and it slid forward which promptly took Abednego’s legs out from under him, dashing his concentration and the room went dark as his flame blinked out. A sharp crack could be heard as his helmet struck the floor, but he immediately began to roll to his feet, flaring flames around him from a crouched position. Jonquil had bolted, however.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The room was not huge, apparently more of a foyer for both the Armory and the Comms room. There was the table he had kicked, a vending machine, some chairs, a few desks with holo-monitors. The ring of metal he’d used to carve through the door had welded itself at some point to the circle kicked out of the steel door, where they’d overlapped for a little too long. Too clumsy and heavy to use in his current state. That little hole drill trick took an incredible amount of energy.
He dodged another gout of flame as Abednego stood and started to move forward, palms out, breathing heavily inside the mask. “Scurrying like a rat, Jon? Not like you. You were always real aggressive during our sparring sessions.”
Jonquil kicked a desk over, all fake wood made of plastic, and he dropped behind it, pens and pencils scattering on the ground. He began to use them to pelt the Ignis, but for the most part, couldn’t get the mostly plastic pens to penetrate the thick heat-retardant fabric of his armor. They glanced uselessly off the G-Con plates. “I’m trying to free the Children! Why are you fighting your own kind?”
“You’re a fool.” Abednego held up his arms blocking his face as a pen whistled through the air at one of his helmet sensors. His cackling laughter came through the speaker, slightly distorted, robotic. “The Families won’t stand for free Children. They’ll just hunt you down and drag anyone as stupid as you back, collared and Stripped. I like my brain exactly how it is, all intact and un-lobotomized, thank you kindly.”
Frantically, Jonquil felt for any metal he could use. The shards of metal he was using as armor were too few and too precious a commodity to spare, especially after the central pieces saved him from having a well aerated chest wall. The desk in front of him was made of plastics, 3D printed and without screws. Useless. The walls and floors were sheets of aluminum, welded to massive steel girders, part of the structure of the Tower. Too big to be used. Hopele--wait. The girders.
Jonquil’s desk skittered quickly towards Abednego, but the Ignis was ready this time, and he crouched to stop it with one hand, the other raised, flame hovering just a few inches from his palm, aiming at where he thought the telekinetic had kicked the desk from. “This is stupid, Jo--”
Crack.
From behind the desk, Jon sprang upwards unnaturally fast, slamming his open palm into the chin of the helmet, snapping Abednego’s head back. He had shoved his Psionics hard against the girders behind the walls, and instead of moving them, shoved himself and the desk towards his opponent, giving himself cover and the added bonus of surprise. Then, he pushed against the girders beneath the floor, fueling an explosive palm-strike as he jumped.
Jon slipped beside him in the dark while Abednego was stunned, stumbling backwards, and plowed his fist into the man’s stomach, driving the wind out of him. Assuming a stance, Jonquil swept a leg, judging rightly that at least some of the Ignis’s peripheral vision was altered by the sensor placement. They were placed on the helmet surface, and the visual they fed his HUD was likely at least two to three inches distant to his normal vision. Abednego fell backwards, Jonquil striking hard at the helmet and ribs. Crack-thud. The Ignis hit the ground face first, splinters of G-Con falling from the helmet. One of his sensors flickered out.
A wide swatch of flame gouted outward from Abednego’s sprawled body, but Jonquil had already moved towards the entry door. The band of fused metal on the ground was charred and welded fast to the piece of door, but…Bringing his leg down, he drove his boot through the charred hole drill, the metal shattering after being subjected to high heat; turning hard and brittle. Light flared behind him and he instinctively shifted the metal shards he’d been using as armor from his chest to the back of his head, neck and back as a scorching blast shoved him forward and against the door. His ‘armor’ sizzled and an acrid smoke stung his nose, but they held. Another flare of light behind him. Using the girder trick, he shoved himself violently aside just as a blade of plasma pierced the wall as Abednego lunged at him.
Jonquil drew the shattered pieces of brittle metal on the floor to him as he turned to face his assailant, back against a wall. Abednego was standing a few paces back, a pulsing purple plasma blade floating before his palm, a pyrokinetic’s ability to control and yield flame being directly related to how close to their body the flame was. Igni were just as flammable as any other human, unfortunately, so the heat-suit was absolutely essential to effectively use their powers. Most Igni had horribly scarred hands, an unfortunate consequence of Shattering.
“Not gonna just let me crisp you, Jon?” The chuckling voice again, impersonal and distant through the speaker. A second blade of plasma burst to life near his other palm, and both began to rotate around him wildly. “Just doing my job. Your hide or mine, I’m afraid. No man’s an island, right?”
The flickering and shifting light of the plasma lit Jonquil’s face in swatches of wild shadow; it was twisted in range, a mask of grotesque fury, his fragments of burnt steel floating around him like will-o-wisps. This…insect…
“You don’t frighten me, Jon, with your ‘scary’ face in the dark. Just give up, you petulant child. You’re out-classed here.”
This worm thinks he’s better! Than me! “I have a destiny, Abednego,” he said in a flat, tight voice, fingers twitching spastically. “The salvation I offer is only for those strong enough to bear it.” He said it as a matter of fact, a simple relating of truth. “I’ll display your corpse to the other Children, a warning to the craven. The revolution will come. And cowards like you have. No. Place! In! It!” He bit the words off as he telekinetically catapulted himself at the Ignis, slipping through a gap in the rotating plasma, inhumanly fast, again startling the pyrokinetic. His shoulder, encased in metal, slammed into the G-con chest plate, shattering it. Coolant spray spattered out the suit as the underlayer of tubules was ruptured. Beneath that, he felt Abednego’s sternum crack. Then Jonquil flicked away again as Abednego stumbled backwards, wheezing and grasping his chest.
“H-how…?” Abednego had never seen a telekinetic move that fast. What was Jonquil doing? He spun in place, struggling breathe, each gasp crystal agony as his fractured breastbone shifted. Even the most powerful Kinos couldn’t do so many things at once; maintaining a shifting metal armor, levitating shards, that all took calories, as well as a level of finesse that simply wasn’t possible, especially without the augmentations. And the inhuman speed! He’d never seen any other telekinetic do that.
From the dark behind him, pieces of metal flew at him. One fragment shattered on his backplate, but a second one slit his suit at the shoulder, jettisoning coolant and a line of blood. He gasped in pain, grabbing at his shoulder. Several more whining pieces of shrapnel flew at him, and he ducked. He felt one impact the top of his helmet and then his thigh, cutting through the suit again, cutting deep into his skin. His leg gave out on him. Without thinking, he blasted a massive jet of flame at the direction the metal had come from. He managed to set one of the desks on fire, but there was no one there. “Where are you!” he roared, glancing around. The sensors flickered slightly, and he could feel the heat at the points where he’d been cut.
Belatedly, the fire sprinkler system came on, soaking the room, covering the ground in sooty water. Droplets sizzled as Abednego moved through the room, swinging his head from side to side, HUD trying to find a lock, night vision straining against the rapid changes between light and dark.
Metal flickered in and out of view, from multiple directions. Zip. Snick. They rent his clothing, his flesh. He began to dribble blood and coolant on the floor. A large chunk of steel struck his faceplate, and it shattered, exposing his left eye, pupil dilating in the dimness. The HUD went dead. Abednego began to panic, gouts of blue flame swinging out randomly at barely seen glints of metal. Some pieces combusted, but did not deviate from their course. He was being ground down.
“J-Jon! Wait! Stop!” He couldn’t see him, couldn’t spot him. It was all chaos, metal, flame, burning, aching heat, and water. The Ignis wasn’t smiling.
With wild gestures, he concentrated his fire back into plasma and began to strike randomly into the dark. The vending machine glass exploded, holomonitors fell into neat pieces, plastic desks collapsed, walls glowed with gouged channels. And the heat rose exponentially as he screamed in feral, impotent rage. Water boiled into steam, hazing the atmosphere further. “Jonquil!”
Abednego’s arm caught fire first, where a particularly large gash exposed his bleeding skin. Agony. The sprinklers quickly put the flame out. But the metal kept coming, kept cutting, kept grinding. His leg caught second, smoldering and sizzling. He couldn’t stop though. He couldn’t find him. He was maddened by the swarming metal. The heat.
Swinging his arms wide, he bathed the room in fire as his armor fell from him in shreds. His screams were wild, inhuman, but his flesh was all too mortal. Psionic overuse and heat began to consume him hungrily and he slowly collapsed to his knees, smoke pouring from him as his voice grew shrill, then began to weaken. His internal temperatures grew deranged, unregulated, and his Psionics bent inward instead of out. Fire began to ignite his bones, working outward, his skin catching fire only to be put out again by the sprinklers. Immolation was a slow process. The Ignis grew still.
Jonquil dropped heavily from the ceiling, where he’d pressed himself to avoid the majority of the fire, but his clothing had caught in several places despite the sprinklers, giving him tidy little third degree burns. He rolled on the watery ground to put out the flames before they grew too big, before laying still next to Abednego’s corpse, letting the sprinklers taper off.
Breathing heavily in the dark, his hands shaking, he looked over to the stiff, kneeling body, bent over in death. He frowned, then shoved it with his foot. It collapsed with a splash, still smoldering, before rising up slowly, body weak and trembling. “Time to make a phone call.”
---
The communications room was dark, wet, and smelled of smoke, but none of the equipment seemed damaged, having been behind a closed steel door, this one unlocked. It seemed to have an auxiliary power source, and the lights grew brighter as he stepped through the door. A desk, a chair, a microphone, a screen. Nothing else.
He sat in the chair, studying the microphone and screen. He selected ‘all-frequency broadcast’, tapped the microphone, and took a breath.
“Attention Families Moloch, Dagon, Asheroth, Baal, Asherah, Eshmun, Mot. Your power is now in its dusk. The Towers shall fall! The Families will burn to ash! The Children are arising and they shall inherit the Earth.” He drew a deep breath, hearing the announcement through the emergency PA system in the Tower, but knowing it was also being broadcast by satellite to everything that could accept the signal. “A portent. Family Moloch’s shielding will fall at dawn.” He cut the signal, leaned back in the chair. In the room behind him, water dripped onto the wet floor where a burned corpse lay toppled on its side. The Tower was still, quiet, silent.
Subject 23 smiled a true, sincere smile.