Chapter 8-11 Limbo
Shard-3: Greatling is going to make his move next week.
Mirror-Convex: Received. Does he have any information regarding the incident in the gutters?
Shard-3: Negatory. Hes clueless as the rest. Ive tapped them Well, maybe not all of them. Chambers is still missing. Two techs with him. Dead or captured. Scalpers have them.
Mirror-Convex: Dead, then.
Shard-3: Most likely outcome. They took the ghoul with them. Memory leaks came back with it smeared though. Looked like the damn thing put up a hell of a fight. Rotlick had some pretty weird wards on it. Looked almost professional. Only got a glimpse while it was making a victim out of Rantula though.
Mirror-Convex: Yes, the Moonblood?
Shard-3: Another one of Greatlings hair-brained ideas. I swear to Jaus, its like babysitting a bomb waiting to go off. The half-strand wont stop giving me conflicting orders. I think hes having a mental breakdown.
Mirror-Convex: Received. Continue monitoring the situation. We move to intercept if nothing else changes.
-Conversation between Incubi and Handler, Ori-Thaum
8-11
Limbo
Time passed. Draus blinked. What?
He didnt answer her immediately, choosing instead to revel in the sensation of the falling spray washing the wounds from his body. Real. Do you feel like you exist?
The fuck kind of question is that?
Honest one.
Avo what the hells are you talkin about? Are we still fighting?" She sighed. "Are are you havin another moment? Is that what this is? Because if this is, I wanna talk about that
Her words drifted past him while he cupped raindrops with his winds, shifting them aimlessly from one to another. Before the Soul. Before all this. It was like a dream to me. Limbo. An unlife. Wasnt miserable. Wasnt happy. Just was. Tried being what my father wanted. He twitched his claws and curled them, feeling his joints move anew. I think thats what happened. When the node forced me to kill him. Ended the dream. Ended my limbo. Set me free.
Draus stared, blankly. Thats uh real poetic and stuff.
Avo frowned. Real poetic and stuff.
Cmon, Draus said, shrugging, What do you want from me? A hug? I shoot shit and kill half-strands, Avo, Im not a fuckin philosopher.
The honesty was appreciated, but the alienation remained.
Souhyou havin a moment there or we still fightin?
In a moment, Avo said.
She shook her head in disbelief. Youre unbelievable, you know that.
No, Avo said. Its just this isnt supposed to happen.
What?
Me. You. The fight. Youre supposed to kill something like me. What I used to be. Kill me easy and move on. He looked up at the highest ring again, where his brothers lay dead and pasted. Where he butchered them with contempt and ease. Not what I was before. Was this what he wanted?
Rolling her shoulder, Draus wiped the blood streaming out from her reforming eyes. Your pa?
He used me. Hm. Not him. Another offshoot. Still dont fully know what he is. But he used me to kill him. Made me feel it for a reason. Broke me. Broke me from my parameters. Draus was walking over to him, tension bleeding off her posture as she shook off the post-fight adrenaline. Now, I
Not you anymore? Draus offered. Her rig was gone. A few pieces that remained of the wings drifted upon the shaking waters. Now, she was clad in but the thermalskin undersuit, its hexagonally laminated scales plastered to her musculature. Reaching down, he noticed her clicking something, a hidden pocket patched along the side of her hip. She pulled out a thin sticka line of hiflass.
Didnt take you for a smoker, he said.
Its hiflass. It steadies the nerves after gettin bloody, she held one out to him. He considered rejecting her as he had with Chambers; he never much liked smoke. Not with how they reminded him of the aftermath wrought by fusion burners. Hows your booster?
He flexed his Celerostylus. Pain stung his senses. He held back a wince. Healing. He reached out and accepted her offering. Lasts longer in this body. Dont feel the strain as much. Dont know how long I can keep it active.
Draus snorted a laugh. Long enough. Congrats, consangyoure a real boy now. The wrist on her right arm twisted, a projectile launcher jutting out as her hand folded over her forearm. Avo lurched back, Echoheads rearing. She fired twice to the side without looking and swiped the glowing barrel over her stick first before offering it to him. He brushed his smoke across the shimmering heat and watched as the tip of his hiflass came afire.
Awkwardly, he tried to fit between his fangs.
Dont suck it all in at once. Youll choke. Take it slow. Sip. She took a light drag, and the burn danced down the pale column of her nootropic. A fraction of it peeled away, trailing off into the wind as specks of ash.
Reaching out with his Heaven, he felt them dissolve further and further until they were so small they might as well have never been.
Mimicking the Regular, he took his own sup from the smoke, expecting a certain kind of filth to knot his throat; irritate his lungs. Instead, the mellow flavor of grass and soil expanded inside him, layering over his mind like a blanket.
He exhaled again, and this time, a certain weight felt loosened. In a strange sense, he felt more kindred to the winds than ever before.
Ah, yes. How easily the flesh is persuaded. Such is the unfortunate design of chemistry, master: your emotions are fickle, and will fail you. Only a devotion to a Domain fixes you on higher path. I offer only good intentions when I state this: consider parting your mind from such persuasions. Seek only the highest path.
Where his words slipped past Draus earlier, he felt the same about his Woundshaper. He was a Godclad. It was a Heaven. He would choose to feel and live however he so pleased. It would accept. It had to accept.
For a few moments, he stood there with Draus, watching the blood-stained waves crest and fall, lapping at the rising ivory pillars.
Why stay here? Avo asked. He noticed her blink, but she said nothing. You could go anywhere. Offer services to Fallwalker. Run street squire crew. Steal things. Sell out to another Guild. Return to Tiers. Be someone again. Why suffer here? Why get yourself killed fighting golems and Syndicates for FATELESS? For a ghoul?
She drew in a deep breath, dangling her hiflass half-finished between her fingers. Digits caked in blood and grit, he noticed crenulations running along her skin. Cybernetics probably. Part of her projectile launcher. I didnt do none of that for the FATELESS. She smirked. And sure as shit I wasnt plannin on startin no fistfight with a Sangeist over you.
But you did.
But I did. Draus nodded. Life makes you do stupid shit sometimes. Never told you why I came down here." She took another drag. "What happened after my discharge.
She did not. No.
Pulling the smoke from her lips, she opened her mouth to speak, but seemed lost in a forest of memories instead. They called the Regs of my generation the Orphans. Nicomas Orphans. Nicoma was my She frowned, uncertain how to respond. Well, he sure as shit wasnt my pa. I remember that poor half-strand dyin along with my ma. Enclave got breached. Fallwalker got dead. Weird shit came in to kill us. Real typical ending for a bunch of rusts livin next to a open Rupture.
Saved you? Avo asked. Nicoma?
She shot him an insulted look. No. Half-strand came a day too late. By the time he got there, it was only me. Somehow managed to keep myself alive and kill whatever those things were. She shrugged. I guess I lived because I wasnt so scared. It could follow your fear. Materialized inside people. But after it did it to my ma I just didnt feel so much of nothin no more.
Anyway. I went through all that. Decided to jump in with the Regs. Took everythin they had. The training. The conditioning. The wars. I might notve been born in the Tiers, but I was Highflame to the bone. She smiled then, the expression a genuine spark of forgotten joy, recalled with the shimmering haze of her smoke. Then, with the ashes, the moment was lost and her face hardened back into a cold slab of steel. I was worthy.
She turned her eyes on him again, her gaze burrowing deep into his. I dont know nothin bout this dream shit you keep talkin. Shit, I dont think anyone does. You might be the single most weirdest half-strand in this here city, and thats a hell of a thing to say. But limbo yeah. I know a thing or two about purgatory.
The Warrens, Avo asked. Thats your purgatory?
Draus shook her head. Naw. Youre right. I could leave. Highflameafter they discharged me, one of the Seraphs she uh she offered me a deal. A sponsor for a Soul. A chance to go Clad under them instead. Something of a side-promotion, with a new identity.
You didnt take it?
Her face broke into a vicious sneer. Of fuckin course I didnt take it. The deal was to keep the Greatling name clean. After what they did to me and mine? After how they wasted our lives durin the war. She spat. Were soldiers. Regulars. Dyin just a part of the gig, but it had to mean somethin. We didnt die for the hell of it. We died for objectives, to save people, to protect the Reg next to us.
She paused. You know, fightin you and yours was the happiest time of my life. Because for once just once there was no question we were doing the right thing. You ghouls were a bunch of godsdamned monsters carved out of a childs nightmares. And we were finally there to stop you. Save the people. Highflames finest hour. Shouldve known it wouldnt last.
You stay because fighting here made your deaths feel meaningful? Avo asked.
The Guilds have been at war with each other for a long, long time, Avo. Draus sighed. I saw the end of the third war. All the fourth. Thousands of skirmishes in between. Nukes and thaumic weapons exchanged. Billions dead in an afternoon. But when the sun cycles back around, its like it was all just a hallucination. Like all the killin never happened. Its why Im jealous.
Jealous? Avo said. You said you were envious before. Of my Frame? The Heavens?
Nah, Drausr replied. Ive seen plenty of Clads and Heavens. Its what you did with it that I wanted.
Hurting the Syndicate.
Yeah, Draus said. Nullin all those folk. She whistled. Now, there was a time I wouldve hated you for that. Voiding the minds of all those tax-payin citizens. But now Now I just think you managed to do in a little bit over a month what I never could in all my years down here. Thats what pissed me off most of all: you were changing things. Breakin things. Shit I could never touch.
So, Avo said. The refugees
--Oh, no dont get me twisted: that was still stupid as shit. Gave the Exorcists and Paladins a full five hundred minds to scry through. Makes our run on Mirrorhead all that much more miserable.
He couldnt help but smile. Draus, they felt so free when they did it.
Who?
The refugees. When I gave them the chance to kill the jocks. They were unchained. It was wonderful. With a mental command, he caressed Reqs deep memories using his Metamind. Through countless walls and hundreds of miles, a single gleam flashed down through walls and layers, all the way up in the Tiers.
Mem-locking someone was a beautiful thing.
Thats why you did it? She snorted. Youre lookin for a new hit.
It wasnt a hit, he hissed. I wanted I wanted to know To feel what it was choice. Choice in totality. He paused, his black eyes intent on hers. Draus. If I can. If the Frame fixes the other Soul. Do you want it?
For the first time, he watched her gaze quiver, breaking away from him. She spat her near-finished hiflass into the water. Drop it.
He cocked his head and chittered softly. Whats stopping you? Avo asked. He leaned down, closer, speaking directly to her. You can choose to. Take back your mantle. Show Highflame
Her elbow smacked him across the chest. He stumbled back. I said fuckin drop it.
She fears what it means, the Woundshaper laughed. Poor, poor girl. She fears the power that it will grant her to exceed her station so much. Pure thing, she was made to be a soldiera lion of a sacrifice, but a sacrifice still. Should she ascend to master, what mockery would that make of all her kindred that fell? How you shake her reality.
It needs to just be me? Avo said. My Frame It can change things. Free us. Free everyone.
And what the hells would that do? Draus asked, more frustrated than enraged. What what kinda world you think you make if everyone's free? To be as they want? Probably just this one." She stepped up to him and jabbed a finger into his fungus-plated chest. "Because Ill tell you what freedom is Avo, freedom is maximizing your own choices, and a hell of a lot of time, that means takin someone elses options so they dont do you first. Well just end up like the Guilds again. You aint thought this through.
And you are running from it, he replied claws clenching. He turned his head. You were happy when we fought. When you kill. Happy to battle. Why wont you let yourself be happy now?
Because it aint gonna change nothin Draus snarled. The people I wanted to save? That life I wanted to live. Thats all done and gone now. I just missed my chance to die then.
With a Heaven you can die all you want
Avo! Rotlick, thats not the point
A ringing spectral wail washed through the circuit chamber, the rising pitch a warning klaxon broadcast through chains of ghosts. Avo shifted his attention from Draus to the descending messengers, the noise delivered on wavelengths of thought instead of vibration.
A request flashed across Avos cog-feed. Green River wanted to link him.
GHOST-LINK ACCEPTED
+River, what+
+Yosanna Kivranpuvak. She messaged me earlier. Told me that her husbands Auto-Seance came online, that he used it to call her.+
A knot formed at the base of Avos guts. Mightve been the sudden clench of worry brought by the news. Might just be some lingering damage yet to heal.
What? Draus asked. He ignored her.
+When?+
+Now,+ Green River replied. +Just now. Avo, the Strix said+
+I remember what the node said.+ He hissed, mind racing. The node all but stated that Yosannas husband was dead. Now he was using a session to contact her?
A packet of mem-data danced along their interlaced ghosts. A new marker manifested in his DeepNav: the location of the turncoat. She was two traffic stops away from the docks, on the thirtieth floor of a hab-block. The details marked it as one in a series: building Ox-Three. +Seal her. Cut off all loci. No ghosts. Place your best wards around her.+
A spike of annoyance greeted him. +I dont need you to tell me rote procedure, ghoul. I have accomplished my end, but the Nether must be left to you.+ A lull followed. +Please. I do not possess the skill nor means to contend with whatever this is.+
LINK LOST
Avo growled. Draus. Turncoat. Her husband called her. Auto-Seance. Shes at the docks.
Immediately, all hint of animosity was lost. Got it. Do you
He didnt hear the rest as he parted into a rush of wind, diving up vents and gaps, washing through halls at speeds that sent drones careening against walls.
Someone was entering the turncoats mind. Someone that probably wasnt her husband.
A churn of apprehension spiked inside Avo. He had a strong suspicion as to who he soon might have to face.
And despite all his newly amassed power, he didnt know if he was ready.
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