395: Human After All (Patreon)

Dull orange light washed over pinched faces, shadows pooling in eye sockets and across helmets. The light came from a small pile of plastic bags, full of thermal jelly. They were in the burned out shell of an ancient hotel. It was stood on a rise and had a wall, making it more defensible than most. After they’d crept inside and had a poke around, Maverick had promptly dumped the thermal packs on the ground and proclaimed that it was tradition for humans to sit around a fire, times like this, and this was the best he could provide.

Starlight picked its way through holes in the ceiling, casting pools of silver over the cracked and grimy tiles. Around the outskirts prowled shadowy forms. Three wolves, courtesy of Yue, whom Nicolai had observed with interest as she set up wards around the basement and called them up. She’d said, in response to some rather insistent questioning from Serrin, that they were minor spirits from the fourth layer of the spiritual realm, the Dark Forest.

Maverick passed ration packs around and the others busied themselves tearing the plastic open. Nicolai tucked his into a pocket after checking it for hidden explosives. He’d test it for poison later before disposing of it. Serrin stared down at his in silence before attempting to casually hide it.

‘Not hungry?’ asked Marlo, frowning up at them over his torn-open pack, which contained some kind of burrito, preserved for roughly twenty years based on the colour.

‘Not particularly,’ said Nicolai.

‘And you?’ Marlo looked to Serrin, who turned his helmet, avoiding the man’s eyes, and Marlo scoffed. He’d been grim and silent ever since the rooftop, and it seemed his unhappiness had found an outlet as he continued, in a growl. ‘I don’t trust a man if I can’t see his face. For all I know you could be a pair of robots under the suits. Rogue AI or something.’

‘Rogue AI,’ replied Nicolai, and chuckled as though the idea were ridiculous, both he and Psychology putting excessive mental energy into making sure his chuckle was as natural and relaxed as possible. He wasn’t entirely sure he succeeded, based on the odd look Yue sent his way.

‘Come on,’ Marlo continued. ‘Take it off. Hey, kid,’ now entreating, speaking just to Serrin, holding out the horrible grey burrito as though it were a tantalising treat, ‘don’t you want to eat? Can you do it with that thing on?’

‘Leave it alone,’ said Maverick. ‘If he doesn’t want to take it off, he doesn’t want to take it off.’

Marlo glowered at the dog, and was silent for a moment before indicating Nicolai. ‘What about him?’

Maverick just shrugged, and watched Nicolai. They all did.

So he shrugged, too, reached up, and his helmet clicked, hissed, and he gripped it, twisted it, pulled it off and felt the cool night air in his short hair and the heat of the thermal packs on his face. He smiled at them winningly.

They stared back, silent. In the case of Junko, looking rather shocked. And in the case of Marlo, suspicious.

‘Human after all,’ said Yue.

She looked a little surprised, and her head tilted to eye Serrin. He couldn’t sense her thoughts, through her shields, but he could tell she was having some.

She suspects Serrin is a Hornet, said Psychology, and Threat Analysis was nodding, added, He has been a little obvious. That stinger attack in the last fight was quite the tell.

Nicolai followed her gaze. In due time, the helmet was going to have to come off, and the Hornet knew it. Psychology said Serrin was afraid of what they might think. The Mask said he should talk to him, though he wasn’t sure why.

The curiosity from the others quickly subsided. Nicolai fielded some questions from Maverick and Marlo. They were prying, but he had a hundred thousand ways to wriggle out of questions he didn’t want to answer, and all the while—according to Psychology, at least—he maintained his perfectly friendly, nay, charming demeanour.

Junko almost entirely ignored him, except when she realised she’d left their canteen beside him and grudgingly asked, ‘Can you pass that over?’ Nicolai had done so, watched her drink and pass it on to Marlo while struggling to control his facial expression. A group canteen. Appalling, even in pure hygiene terms, let alone how easy it made them to poison.

Not that he had any intention of doing so, at the moment. He and the Modules had a much more interesting endeavour in mind, and Cyberwarfare was hard at work in implementing it. While they sucked down their backwash soup and talked in low tones, he watched, and behind his chilled-out exterior he was cautious, aware of every glance and frown for signs they’d been discovered.

What felt like long ago and far away, Paxolnaz had injected a Soul worm into him, and Cyberwarfare had been very interested in the capability. When he'd attained Tier 2 the Module had Engraved the ability into his Soul. Now, he'd approved its first ever trial of the Soul Worms, and so Cyberwarfare was ever so subtly pushing tiny spiritual worms out from the edges of his Soul Sense, easing them into the Senses of the others. There they caught and wriggled, slow and careful, digging in to watch and to listen. He was putting them into Maverick and Marlo and Junko, but not Serrin or Yue. She was too much of an unknown, the most dangerous of them all. And though Cyberwarfare didn’t think she would notice the worms, neither of them wanted to risk putting one in her.

In the meantime, he talked with Serrin over their private connection. The Hornet was a little upset, which was actually rather helpful as he was less likely to notice what Nicolai was up to.

‘We shouldn’t have kept moving,’ the Hornet was saying. Nicolai had the impression he’d been thinking about this for some time. ‘They wanted to go to ground at the start of the night, but you wanted us to keep on going, and we got in trouble because of it. It was needless endangerment. You have to remember, they’re not like you and me.’

‘Are they not?’ Nicolai replied. ‘They certainly seem to think they are.’

‘I’m serious, Yue could’ve died. There was no need for us to keep pushing through the night.’

‘Yes, Serrin,’ began Nicolai, speaking slow, ‘there was. We have a time limit. Every night we spend sitting in a hole is time gone that we will not be getting back. Ultimately, we lost nobody. I made the right call. And in any case, Yue was never at any risk.’

‘How is that?’

‘Why, because you were there, and I was there. You saved her. But if you hadn’t, I would have done the same.’

‘I didn’t see you make any recognisable effort to intervene, nor any sign you had any intention to. Though I’m sure you could’ve, if you’d cared to. If I hadn’t acted, I think you would’ve let her get hit.’ The Hornet had raised his helmeted head, was eyeing him.

Nicolai wanted to give him all the reassurances and excuses but the Mask was fighting to stop him lying, and he worried that Serrin might spot it if it kept thrashing so, and in the end all he could manage was a rather pitiful, ‘I would have probably done something.’ Serrin didn’t reply, looked away, so Nicolai attempted a little guilt trip. ‘I shouldn’t have to remind you that if I’m still here in a week, things won’t go at all well for me. My eyes will turn red and then I’ll die.’ Still nothing. Ah well, he knew he’d win him back in the end. One way or the other.

All done, said Cyberwarfare, emanating satisfaction. The worms were in place, where they would gather spiritual diagnostics, record events and conversation, then return to him when the time was right.

###

The sun was a soft orange blur, poking over the edge of the horizon. Nicolai watched it sidle upward from atop the old hotel’s crumbling tower. He’d upgraded his Spectral Claw to Tier 2 during the night, a rather fraught process which had nearly failed. He hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near the others while doing it, so had found a decent hidey-hole, set up his protections, then spent much of the night focused on the process.

Now, he pulled the upgraded Spectral Claw into existence and dismissed it, over and over. It was larger, a menacing green hand with vicious claws, emanating spiritual threat.

With a thought and a twitch of his fingers he sent it out, unwinding toward the very limit of his Soul Sense. There, after a moment of focused intent, it pushed on and sped out in a slash. It would even follow simple commands imbued at the time of launching.

Below, Serrin emerged from the stairwell, spear at the ready, and soon looked up and found Nicolai. Raised his arm as though to wave, then paused and lowered it. Still upset, presumably.

Unusually, the Mask wasn’t pressuring him too much regarding Serrin. It was conflicted. Still surprisingly annoyed and angry with Junko and her group, but also wanting to do right by Serrin.

The others emerged and he leapt off the tower, used a couple of Pegasi rings to slow his fall, touched down gently, and the journey continued.

The mist evaporated quick under the morning sunlight, but while it lasted, the city had a surprisingly beautiful aura, the morning light glinting off the dew on the buildings, the mist rendering everything soft fuzzy. Soon enough, the shapes of the undead down below were visible.

The day slipped by, and they didn’t encounter much of note, spending most of their time dodging undead. Though they did come across an area where a grey fungus covered a large expanse of buildings. It formed thick strands that roved over the streets, between buildings, in and out of windows, and coated the walls and roofs in grey fuzz. Here and there, the shapes of undead or perhaps other things stood frozen, wrapped in fungus.

They went around, though not before Nicolai took readings and collected spores in sealed containers, in response to the insistent demands of Research and Development.

Finally, the light faded as the end of their second day in the Dead City approached, and they climbed to the upper floor of a gutted building to look for somewhere to spend the night. But it was with the encroaching darkness that something new was revealed.

A stretch of city where the lights were on.

‘There are people over there,’ Serrin said. The Hornet was hunkered down, peeking over the lip of a windowsill, the starlight falling through it turning his armour silver.

‘I see them,’ said Maverick, who was reared up on his hind legs, front paws resting on the windowsill beside Serrin.

‘Do you think they’re friendly?’ asked Junko, leaning against the wall beside the next window to peek out.

‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ said Yue, who stood a little back from Junko’s window, arms crossed, frowning, making no attempt at concealment.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ put in Maverick, his eyes clicking. ‘They’re as undead as everything else we’ve seen, only more lucid.’

‘Not just lucid, they’ve got a village! Who says all undead are monsters? Some of those we’ve met are just like you and me,’ said Junko. ‘Aren’t you curious?’ She looked around at all of them, gaze catching on Marlo lurking in a dark corner, frowning at nothing, offering nothing. Then her eyes came to Nicolai, who was at his own window. He briefly met them, but didn’t answer, his focus on the village.

The Village of the Living Dead, as Observation had dubbed it, was about half a mile away. A roughly circular stretch of tall buildings rising from an expanse of destroyed city. The tall buildings were packed close, and between them the inhabitants had built walls of rubble and mortar. Those walls were daubed in gigantic, scrawling symbols of black paint. He recognised them as ritual wardings.

There was also light, a great pillar of it rising up into the sky, outlining a gigantic figure at the centre of the village, a statue with a huge, bald, grinning face atop a narrower chest that disappeared below the level of the buildings.

Torches burned on the rooftops, lights in the windows. Through his zoomed-in view he could see the movement of cloaked undead patrolling the top of the wall.

He was reminded of Kleos and Maric. These certainly weren’t the typical undead that lined the streets, but as for being friendly… he doubted it. Still, he was curious, and he wondered what treasures such creatures might have collected.

On the street below the mist was rising, creeping up from the rubble and the cracks in the ground, pooling in holes and ragged tears. The same mist as the night before, which he guessed resulted from some quirk of the high atmosphere. But there was something different about it tonight. It was dull grey, thick as soup, and it was rising strangely fast. It seemed to reach, grasping with a hundred flailing arms. His attention sharpened when what undeniably was an arm formed from it and clawed weakly at a doorway. Then, like an optical illusion, the mist resolved into something else entirely. It was full up with empty eyes and hungry mouths and clawing hands, and it was coming frightful fast now, pouring from the street and oozing from the walls. Rising, inevitably, toward them.

The others were all still focused on the distant village. ‘Look to the mist,’ he snapped, then turned to Yue. ‘You should see this.’ Neither he nor the Modules were entirely sure what they were looking at, but from what he’d seen, she just might know.

Yue only frowned at him at first, but the gasps of the others and Maverick’s muttered swearing brought her forward to peer down.

In the distance, lights flared around the village. A ring of illumination, brightening like embers, coming from the great shapes scrawled in its shoddy walls. Where the mist met that ring, it stopped.

Yue was pressed up against the window now, staring down with wide eyes. ‘This mist holds Souls,’ she said, alarm in her voice. She gasped. ‘Get back!’ They stepped quick away from the windows as the mist poured through like water from an overfilled bath. With it came shapes, misty spectres who clambered and crawled over one another, tumbling to the floor.

‘Can we kill it?’ Maverick barked, guns taking aim.

‘Not with mundane weaponry,’ said Yue. ‘You need something—’

The green glow of his Spectral Claw tore a crescent of destruction into them, and as it struck, Nicolai felt them through it, felt that this mist had something like a Soul.

Serrin slashed out where one ghostly figure reached for him and took its arm off, and it slid back, screaming in silent fury. Marlo came forward and put himself in front of Junko, fists raised.

But the spectres were pressing forward from all sides, claws lashing, mouths gaping. One of them slashed at Marlo’s leg. Another ducked in and bit Maverick, and the dog shied away with a bark of pain and surprise, the same pained cry everyone else was soon letting out as they felt the chilly bite of the spirits. Maverick’s guns thundered, but the bullets passed harmlessly through, and with a growl of disgust he gave up and backed away. Nicolai felt the pain too, faintly, whenever an attack came anywhere near him, a sense of his Soul being drained, some tiny shred of it torn away. Sneering, he worked his arm to direct the Claw in wide slashes, keeping the spectres back. Marlo and Serrin, the only others able to truly hurt the things, did the same, Marlo’s fists smashing spectre after spectre into wisps.

‘There’s no point,’ Yue was murmuring. ‘We can’t kill this.’ She was right. Each slash of his Spectral Claw tore gaping holes in the encroaching mist, but there was always more.

‘Can you ward us?’ he asked Yue, who shook her head.

‘Maybe, but it would take far too long.’

‘We can go to the village!’ cried Junko, sounding rather eager about it. The others exchanged less eager glances, but no one argued. There was clearly little choice.