“We should be careful in our cause, that we do not become enamoured by it, knowing that it one day will end.” - quote attributed to Aamod Gharsanja, Defender of Ambarsar, founder of the Steel Kipran.

_____________________________________________________________

“…we’ve got options.”

Martin woke from the dreamless sleep of the dead in spurts, pieces of memory coming to him in the fragments. Bouncing along the sand. The molten hell dimension. Not knowing why he needed to find her, knowing only that he had to.

He bounced up. He needed to——“Martin, sit down,” came the call.

The scene that greeted him looked positively homely.

Cameron Westerfield sat against a nearby wall.

Dijkstra was playing chess against Calix, and judging by the indignant wolfman's body language he was losing.

Berenice was reading.

He…the portal that Westerfield had made had vanished at the turn of midnight. The arguments had been cut short by the fact that he was too tired. That their little cadre was too tired, too unfocused. Against better judgement, he followed their demands. They had decided to spend the night in the cave.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Playing.”

“Getting his queen taken, more like it,” came the reply from Calix.

“I’m reading a book about aurics.”

Westerfield didn’t answer. His chest rose and fell to an even rythm. Was he snoozing?

“Why are you all so calm?!”

“Because the Regials haven’t come for us,” Calix temporised, pawn moving up on her board.

“Not yet,” retorted Berenice.”Besides, we don’t know whether the interdiction is maintained by a Regial or a feature made by Elder and Sviratham.”

“They haven’t escalated across all of the pocket worlds. Only some,” Dijkstra said, pieces on the board vanishing rapidly.”My experience and Soleri and Sonnentag’s differ.” ”I fold.”

“You owe me one then?”

“As agreed.”

“So,” Martin began.

“We don’t move until we know,” Westerfield issued, awaking from his snooze.”We have shelter here, wards to protect ourselves from sight and scan. Going out there we’d lose all the advantages and be on open ground.”

“I thought you were one of the hot shots. Legacy and all,” Dijkstra commented, a veiled challenge.

Westerfield shrugged.”I won’t make a comment as to whether I have more experience than anyone else. But I have fought Regials before.”

That held the group. Their cadre.

“If there is one here, that’d made sense. Sending out one with wide-range interdiction abilities is a classical technique. Pin down Proxies and make them come out. That being said, interdiction is unilateral.”

“Meaning?”

Martin was unfamiliar with that last word.

“That interdiction goes two ways. Applying it selectively is a dream that High Command has never managed to fulfil.”

“You put blocks at the badger’s den, you’re going to have to go in,” Dijkstra reiterated.

Ah. The interdiction went both ways. They couldn’t teleport, but neither could the Regial.

“We still don’t know whether this is a Regial,” Berenice protested, turning a page as she did.

“Which is why, when we leave, we strike out in search for the standing stones. If this is a effect over all the pocket worlds, then we enter the next one. If there is a Regial here, we kill it and then enter the gateway.

This is what we’ll do…”

The confidence in Westerfield’s voice was a balm to their worries.

_______

They trudged through the sulphuric morning.

He could admit that the rest was neccessary. The days had caught up with him, and what was worse was that his Chassis had duped him further. They were taught better.

Sviratham had taught them better. A Chassis always attempted to bring a Proxy to their default state: rested, mildly invigorated.

That might seem like a good thing, but the various bureaus had commissioned studies that showed that a Chassis would enable a person beyond their limits. Martin had been tired, and what was worse——he hadn’t even known it.

Westerfield had. His knowledge of Chassis and tactics were different from those which they were taught in a classroom though, that this exercise had shown.

Paris——like the song went. They’d always have Paris, until it fell twice over. And Westerfield had gone there. Wonder if Sviratham would author a permit for a extracurrical visit?

“Dijkstra,” Westerfield said, fist raised as their cadre stopped.

He sniffed, great black ear rustling.”Smell nothing. Same old hell scents. Hear nothing.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Sonnentag?”

“The perimeter ward has been untouched.” She paused.”There readings remain the same.”

“Soleri?”

“I haven’t seen anything,” Martin said.

“Calix?”

“There was a series of ashmounts this way when we tried to find Sonnentag. They’re gone. Other than that? Nothing.”

Westerfield said nothing.”I can’t make out the kind of Field warps that you’d associate with invisibly nets or the like.”

They remained there, locked in position until Westerfield’s fist came down.

On they went.

That scene repeated itself, as it had five times already. In the mandatory schooling, as part of remedial session, Martin had read an autobiography written by some old general. That woman had written that war was a series of spikes followed by lows of boredom. This, he felt was all the same.

They went on, walking through the landscape, the red clouds shaking with blue veins. The ground beneath them stirred, a drunk man shaking in his restless sleep, but nothing came of it.

Thrice Westerfield had Dijkstra go out and kill ants that occupied their path. On than the pest removal, theirs was a simple walk.

They came on another set of standing stones, dramatically backlit by a waterfall of lava, the platform itself of a material that would make onyx flinch.

“Group up.”

“Recite,” Westerfield ordered.

10.

“If we get lost, we try the communication wards,” Dijkstra faithfully recanted.

“And if they don’t work?”

9.

“Find low ground and ward it up. For Soleri that means dying of poisoning.”

8.

“Hey,” Martin said.”I resent that, Berenice.”

7.

“It’s true.

“What she means is finding high ground and try to locate other Proxies,” Calix smarted off.

6.

“Just so,” Martin nodded.

5.

“And if the cadre is not disbanded?”

4.

“Guns blazing!”

“Calix no,” Dijkstra said, though his voice wasn't in it.

“Calix, yes,” she said, though not so loud that Westerfield could hear her, and not through the communication ward.

3.

“I’ll ward up a defense. Westerfield will go on the offensive. Dijkstra and Soleri will act as my protection. Calix will be your back up.”

2.

“Affirm.”

1.

“AFFIRM,” came the call and then there was light.

_______

Westerfield moved first, stopping only to confirm that Calix were at his back. Martin stared at Berenice and the shining shell of the ward she was making, he to her right, Dijkstra to her left.

They had gone together as a cadre, which begged the question why he and Berenice had been separated before.

Westerfield and Calix sped into the noon, down the inclining road. These set of stones stood on a hill covered in short grass. Martin’s brow furrowed. The arrangement of the placement of the gates——the grass, the inclination. It was like staring at picture from an old cast or book.

Mound. It reminded him of an old class, the purpose of which had been to tell the ancient history of North America. Mound. He stood on a mound, an ancient structure raised in antiquity for some purpose unknown.

It was a shame really that so many of the sciences had stalled in the wake of the Arcology Accomodation. Well, the sciences that didn’t focus on the war.

“It’s clear.”

The ward brought Westerfield’s voice back to the group, inflections and all——but Martin thought there was something in it.

“You’d better come,” Calix repeated, much the same.

He, Dijkstra and Berenice followed the path down on onto a grassy plain where a series of tents, huts made from dirt and even a small house sat.

Proxies sat around bonfires, a few dancing around a stereo from which music echoed, other grilling meats that must have been carried in hyperstorage.

It had all the markings of a festival and made absolutely no sense.

Their approach had been spotted by a couple of Proxies that acted as scouts; and soon a group went out to greet them. Greet Westerfield more like it.

Two Proxies stood out. One wore chrome like a second skin, a model for male fitness. Another wore a metal skirt with a barrel-like chestpiece, twin swords at her hips and a dragonmask.

The Proxy in chrome spoke first.”Glad to see you Westerfield.”

That was Guo Hong.

“Likewise,” Westerfield mouthed.

He pointed at the tents.

“What are you doing?”

Doing during a live exercise. What, the subtext read, are you doing during a time where we are supposed to stay alert?

“When was the last time you were attacked?”

This from the masked Proxy. Lisa?

Martin exchanged a glance with Berenice. As did the others in the cadre. It had been some time since they fought a Host. But what did that have to with the impromptu festival?

“As far as we can tell, the attacks have stopped since midnight, and they have slowed down since the third day,” Lisa Hong continued.

“And you just started celebrating early?”

Calix’s tone could mummify a corpse.

“We have scouts open, and there is rotation of sobers and volunteers,” Hong defended.

“Let’s get you sorted out,” Lisa claimed, pushing their cadre into the gathering of tents. To Martin’s eye there was a sense of attention focused on their cadre, which the two Chinese Proxies seemed to want to divert.

Westerfield made sure that they all ended up in the same section, a pit of stone and wood already arranged.

”I don’t like this,” Berenice said as she sat down on stone bench placed around the pit.

The rest of the cadre shrugged. It didn’t take long to become used to Berenice’s paranoia.

Privately, Martin thought she had a point. There were scouts, but those scouts would only serve to buy time. They should perhaps raise fortifications…

The Guos opted to remain with them, outsiders, but warming to the group. Lisa started a fire and brought out meats on a stone pallet.

“Where did this all come from?”

Martin couldn’t help but feel woefully underprepared. All of these supplies, the tents, the meats, the wood, it had to have come from outside. Meaning that the items had been carried in hyperstorage.

Was he the only one who hadn’t prepared?

“The meats are from Akira Aizawa. Sis, I can’t remember who brought the water——Somaronov, Lagergren and…?”

Lisa Hong stepped back, the swords on her hips moving in tune with her body.”Who didn’t? I think there were two in our class who brought the tents. Sanchez and——what’s that guy with the clip in his ear?”

“Ah, Talinnonen.”

“Sanchez doesn’t surprise me,” Calix intervened.”That guy is…intense.”

Martin made a note of standing as far from Sanchez as possible. What would you have to do earn that qualifier from Calix, of all adjectives in the world?

They put a stick over the fire, one held with sticks rather than suspended in air as when Martin boiled water. Had he really used an auric, the power to sunder reality, meant to fight a Host…to boil water?

Lisa caught him staring at the meat. The Chinese Proxy didn’t know him very well, being better acquainted with Solzhenitsyn and so he scrambled for an explanation.

The impression some people in the class had of him wouldn’t be helped by staring at meat like had never seen it.

“I got poisoned. The second day.” He scratched his chin, remembering the fever, the warmth…

Martin’s head rotated focusing on Berenice.”If Berenice hadn’t been there…”

Lisa Hong nodded, the lids of her mask closing with the motion. Unlike her twin’s monochrome Chassis, hers was painted in the colors of the rainbow. The stripes of the rainbow were patterned on her helmet in such a way as to highlight her cheekbones and her nose. Once, they were taught in school, that combination of colors had been famous for being a symbol to people with different sexualities. In a time when people had the time to prosecute those were different.

Oh, there definitely existed homophobes in the world, but when mankind was faced with apocalypse…that, and the Administrators stamped real hard on such crimes.

She nodded.”A good friend.”

“A good friend,” he echoed. Another thought came to him. Were did the protein come from?

“The meat? Is it vat grown? Rat? Made from a limited translator?”

Hong stared at him, and it was then he knew the gaffe. The answer must be obvious to anyone from an arcology but he wasn’t from one.

She shook herself.”I think it’s insect-based. Crickets? There is a farmer that grows them on Level 3.”

Lisa Hong paused, heralding Martin’s anxiety.”What’s it like?”

She wasn’t asking him about eating rat, Martin thought.

He leaned back on the stone bench.

“I don’t know what to say. It’s all I have ever known. I’m not philosopher to give you some great insight in the camp-born.” The path and the road of his thoughts coalesced into a theme.

“Have you ever thought about ceilings?”

In the background, the rest of the cadre began grilling. Calix and Guo Hong were having a debate as to what manner of seasoning was the best.

“Ceilings? It’s one of those basal needs. What is it an animal wants? Food, maybe sex and a roof over the head.”

“Indeed.”

She was making her point for him.

“In a arcology there is always a roof, always a ceiling to be found, regardless if you’re on Level 1 or 14. In the camp, there is no ceiling. There is a wide blue sky, like a single teardrop that have stretched until it covers the entirety of the world. You can smell the scents from kilometers away. The sounds, there is always a sound, a bang, noise coming from somewhere.”

He wet his lips.

“But on the other side of the coin, a Host could drop out from the sky at any moment. When it rains, you have to find a walkway, an inn, somewhere to hide. In the winter, it snows and the children make angels on the ground, in the summer great cultivated vines grow on the buildings and you can smell the green everywhere…”

Martin trailed off. The exhortation had made him thirsty, but more than that, it left him hollow.

“Here.”

She handed him a mug made from pottery, scented like mint.

He drank deeply, and the clear spring water soothed his parched throat.

“I had never thought it like that,” Lisa began.”The way a camp is without…borders.”

The irony being of course that for such a limitless place, there were plenty of limitations. You just couldn’t see them. But he didn't say that. She was trying, in her own way. It did help him, if only a little.

“My first night in the arcology——when I woke up, I couldn’t find the bathroom. But more than that, it was the silence. For all you know, someone might have a big party in the apartment next door and you’d never know…”

The conversation flowed on. Lisa described the top apartment she and her twin grew up in Shanghai. It sounded like a slice of heaven to Martin's eyes, but her twin added the clause that the new servants had a tendency to get lost.

Berenice described the cobbled roads of the Schwarzwald Arcology and the chalk paintings on them, left from generations of the children.

Calix told them a story about a fishing trip outside Bilbao Arcology and a genemodded whale that kept spewing water on them.

They ate then in companionable silence. It could be a scene from a cast, from before the Devastation, when the sky wasn’t a threat. The fire became a thing of dull coals and they retired to to their tents.

By unanimous decision, they decided to set the internal clocks of their Chassis for midnight. The fifth and final day was coming up and they had yet to see Sviratham and Elder show their hand. The cadre relaxed.

All was well.