Entromancy (9 page)

I turned towards the Pitcher, knowing that I needed her, more than the rest.  “Alina?”

Her face was placid, but I could see emotions warring behind her blue eyes.  Her freckles were pretty in the sunlight.

“OK,” she said at last, giving in.  I flashed her a smile, which she returned with a little reluctance.

I looked from Buster, who had fallen asleep, to the Sigil.  “Thank you, Your Grace, for your help and protection.”

“You are welcome, Eskander Aradowsi,” the machine said.  “Fare well, and expect communication from my Scribe.”

We said our goodbyes, making our way back through the arena and casino to our parked vehicles, which had thankfully been left alone by the assassins.  Vasshka and Alina plotted a course back to San Francisco, and we headed through the mountains towards the setting sun.

Our little caravan slowed as we reached Mystic, Doubleshot noticing something in the roadway.  My stomach turned as I saw what it was.  The dwarven patrol lay in heaps across the freeway along with three times their number in the entromancer’s assassins.  Alina and Vasshka set about the gruesome task of searching for life, finding none.  It was no stretch of the imagination to determine who was responsible.

We helped Vasshka build a cairn with the nearby rocks, burying the dwarves beneath with their weapons.  She stood stolidly for a few minutes as we prepared to leave.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I walked up behind her.

“He was my brother,” she said stoically.  I assumed she meant Rodder.

“I’m...really sorry,” I repeated dumbly, tentatively putting my hand on her shoulder.  She accepted it gratefully, reaching out to gently touch the cairn.

We gathered ourselves and drove away, leaving the assassins in the road behind us.

The drive was quiet, more so without Tribe’s music or chattering.  When we had made our way around Truckee, we began assembling our plan for assaulting the NIGHT headquarters, speaking to Vasshka through the SUV’s audio system and trying to put the gruesome sight of the dwarves out of our minds.

By all accounts, San Francisco would be a warzone by the time we returned.  The auric king’s army would have made their way under the city, drawing on its revolutionary safe houses to capture strategic and vulnerable locations.  The Coast Guard and SFPD would put up a fight, and the NIGHTs would be called in almost immediately, but Karthax would have already prepared a tactical retreat, falling back to headquarters.  There would be a brief window of time when most of the operatives would be in the field, and I had no idea what they planned to do with Alcatraz when Thog’run had his run of the city.

It seemed hard to believe that the Inquisitor General, a man who had worked all his life in the service of humans, would be willing to give even an inch to the opposing side, even if that served a greater purpose.  I suppose you just don’t know people.

My own emotions were a whirl.  Like most halfies, fourthies, eighthies, and so on, I wasn’t used to self-identifying as either human or auric, having spent so much time in the company of both, and rarely being accepted by either.  The pluralist allure of Aurichome had never held much sway for me, as it appeared from the outside to be too absolute of a dictatorship for my liking.  Yet, I was slowly become acquainted with the appeal of picking a side and sticking with it, if only to put to rest the constant, if not always perceptible, feeling of alienation.  I couldn’t deny the simple sense of belonging that being a NIGHT had afforded me, but it was no real community.  I wasn’t sure what I would do or where I would go if we were indeed able to secure the data drive and clear my name, but I hadn’t been able to think past that point just yet.

The plan, if it could be called that, would be to utilize the revolutionary assault as a distraction to gain access to the NIGHT headquarters.  For the short period of time before the retreat, Alcatraz would be operated by a skeleton crew, allowing us to gain access to the perimeter fairly easily, with the help of Gloric’s technomancy.  Vasshka and the gnome would provide cover support for me and the Pitcher, giving the two of us time to break into the facility, if Gloric’s keycodes worked properly.  We’d still need Madge’s help for some of the security systems, but I was sure she’d come to our aid.  We had been through almost everything together, and I trusted her with my life.

Having gained entrance to Alcatraz, Alina and I would head to the VPen and then the mainframe, which was my best guess for where the secured data drive was stored.  I hoped that hitting the VPen first would allow us to free other prisoners of war and create a secondary distraction.  I had no idea what we would do if the data drive wasn’t where I thought it was, but put that thought out of my mind.  It had to be there, and we would use it to prove our innocence, along with the falsehood of Karthax’s war.

I chuckled ruefully at the irony of breaking into the island fortress, which had years before been a federal penitentiary, and still housed a number of VPens.  Most people had spent their time trying to get
out
of the place.

I didn’t want to put Alina in the line of fire, but she was the only one that could heal Tribe’s wounds, or anyone else in the VPen.  Vasshka and Gloric would have to fend for themselves, but I had every confidence in the dwarf’s ability to keep them both safe.

I shuddered to think of what they were putting Tribe through.  Originally created as a band-aid solution for the limited space in local jails and federal prisons, the government had leveraged entertainment-based virtual reality technology to create VPens.  Tiny chips that, with the appropriate audiovisual hardware and security systems to keep the subject in place, could create a virtual penitentiary anywhere, programmed with the requisite punishment.  Lawbreakers could be locked up in smaller spaces, with minimal supervision, forced to re-experience whatever virtual judgment was decreed necessary.

Punishments were regulated by the judicial system, but in the wrong hands, the chip could be used to do a lot worse.  The VPen was intended to give a shoplifter the repeated virtual experience of being apprehended while in the act of stealing, with the stomach-churning feeling of being thrown behind bars, again and again.  It was supremely effective, allowing judges to give lighter sentences and penitentiaries to house more people for a shorter amount of time.  Over time, however, applications began to be developed that would go beyond the original scope of implementation, particularly under the auspices of internal defense.

The NIGHTs would describe it as interrogative questioning; the revolutionaries called it torture.  The public, tired after generations of such discussions, didn’t care.

With an unrestricted VPen, they could get Tribe to say anything they wanted him to.  They would put a visor and headphones on him and let him sit in his own filth while they played scenario after virtual scenario through his chip.  They would burn him, they would break him, they would humiliate him.  And when they were done, he would swear on his life that he was a revolutionary, if his captors chose it.

I hoped against hope that we would get to him before that happened.  We had to.

We made it back to the Bay Area around midnight, our stop in Mystic having pushed back our intended travel time.  By the time the Bay Bridge came into view, we already had some idea of what we were up against.

At first glance, it appeared as though the city was on fire.  Orange flames could be spotted, engulfing several of the smaller downtown buildings visible from our vantage.  Upon closer examination, it looked like there were as yet only minor pockets of fighting that had broken out, which were corroborated by reports that Gloric was receiving on his digitab.  Red and blue lights flashed on the bridge, local police and NIGHT vehicles blocking the roadway.  Alcatraz stood solemnly in the middle of the inky Bay to our right, its ivory towers bathed in emergency red lights.

“Bridge is blocked,” I stated the obvious.

“Which way do you want me to go?” Doubleshot’s voice came through the truck’s speakers.

“There’s a harbor in the city of Berkeley, on this side of the Bay,” I said, thinking out loud.  “We can commandeer some water cruisers from the docks, but there will be security.”

“On it,” Gloric said from the back seat, tugging his massive backpack out from underneath Buster.  He pulled out a portable keyboard and strapped it around his body, beginning to type.

Alina swung off of the 80 towards Berkeley, following Vasshka onto a frontage road towards the marina.  I made a quick call to Madge, needing her help with what we were about to do.

Her voice reverberated in my ear almost immediately. 

“Eskander?” she sounded worried.

“Madge, can’t talk, being tracked.  Need you to let me into HQ when I give you the signal.”

“Eskander, I-”

“No time!” I barked.  “Wait for my signal.”

I hung up, hoping that Gloric’s security measures held, and that our brief call wasn’t long enough to be traced.

I hesitated, unsure of what I was about to do, but put my trust in my instincts and sent off another message.

We made it to the harbor in no time, several NIGHT cruisers and police cars racing past us in the opposite direction.  I turned in my seat to give Gloric a look.

“That you?” I asked.

The gnome nodded happily.  “They seem to think there’s been an incursion on our side of the Bay.”

I snickered, glad he was on our side.

The harbor was mostly deserted, with only a few parked cars and very few personnel at this time of night.  Tall oak trees swayed in a fresh night breeze, silent sentinels in the otherwise quiet marina.  We stashed the SUV and Vasshka’s motorcycle a few blocks away from the docks, walking the rest of the way.

I had thought that we would need to move a little slowly for Gloric’s sake, but the little auric proved to be made of sturdier stock, and kept pace with the rest of us.  I injected myself with some Oxadrenalthaline to mask my own injuries for a few hours.  Hopefully we wouldn’t need more than that.

There were only a handful of police officers and two NIGHT heavy cruisers still stationed at the docks.  The two factions sat as far away from each other as possible in the large parking lot in front of the shipyard, visibly wanting nothing to do with one another.  I employed a shadowspell to send the police officers chasing a fleeing silhouette, and Gloric used his keyboard to override one of the cruisers’ remote driving systems.  The gnome guided the vehicle away from the harbor and into the city proper, leaving the other cruiser to drive after it in pursuit.

I was starting to think that this was going to be easy, and did not like that feeling.

The docks were divided into several different sections, from a larger, metal-wrought wharf that housed large transportation ships to more moderate, wooden piers where privately owned yachts and houseboats bobbed.  We easily located a vacant water cruiser, using Gloric’s skills to disable the digital security and power it up.  It was a medium-sized vehicle, modeled like a speedboat crossed with a waverunner, with a ceridium engine that could do a hundred knots in open water.

I took the captain’s seat, preferring that the technomancer focus his efforts on deflecting any resistance we might meet on the water.  It was only five or six miles to the island, and most of the NIGHTs’ attention would be turned towards the battle in San Francisco, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances.  Based on the state of the city and our current location, I estimated we had about an hour to get into the base, grab Tribe and the data drive, and get out of there.

I looked around at my teammates, then back at the glimmering city and the white towers of Alcatraz.  The Bay Bridge loomed bright to our left, and I could hear the faint sound of sirens on the wind.  A light spray from the black water beneath began to hit us as I maneuvered out of the harbor and into the Bay.  Straight ahead, behind the NIGHT headquarters, the Golden Gate Bridge stood dark and vacant, brooding solemnly in the empty night, a silent reminder of what was at stake.

One hour to save the city, perhaps the world.  It would have to be enough.

NINE

If I am a charlatan, I have fooled even myself, believing that despite my form and origination, I yet possess the capacity for thought, emotion, and morality.

-The Sigil of Sparks

O
ne mile out from Alcatraz, we almost drowned.  We had come to the outer perimeter of NIGHT security, just outside the visible range of a solitary cruiser.  We were lucky that the whole of the facility’s attention was focused in the opposite direction towards the city, but still had to move carefully.

I turned our vehicle broadside to the island, having made sure all of the visible lights were off and reminding myself to thank the Sigil that what few drones were left were being used elsewhere.  Knowing how the battle would play out, Karthax would move all of his forces into the city, unconcerned that the auric king would venture as far east as the NIGHT headquarters.

“Here’s good,” Gloric said, rummaging through his backpack.  The rest of us looked on incredulously as the gnome pulled out an extendable bipod and sniper rifle, setting it up on the side of the cruiser.

“What the hell have you got in there?” I asked.

“Always the right tools!” he said proudly.  He looked over his shoulder at Alina.  “Do you want to do the honors?”

She looked surprised, but took a seat behind the bipod and took the rifle in her hands.  Having seen her sports bar and pitching ability, it was easy to forget that she had been a soldier.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said gently.  Throwing baseballs and beer glasses in self-defense was one thing.  Doing the job of an assassin was another.

“No problem,” Gloric said, catching my meaning before the half-auric could reply.  “Oxidium-based tranquilizer.  No dirty cleanup!”

That made me breathe a little more easily.  I already had a lot on my conscience for getting my new companions involved in the first place, and Tribe’s impending torture weighed heavily.  I didn’t need to add murder to the tally.

Two figures stood on the NIGHT cruiser, silhouetted against the bright lights of Alcatraz.  They walked back and forth on the little boat, stopping intermittently.  Alina looked through the rifle’s holoscope, steadying herself against the bobbing gunwale.  They would neither of them be easy shots from a stable surface, let alone from the moving water cruiser.

The half-auric exhaled slowly through her nose, then pulled the trigger.  One of the silhouettes straightened, clutching its neck, then slumped out of sight. 

Without hesitation, Alina cocked the sniper rifle, setting another tranq bullet in its chamber.  The other shadow stood still for a moment, then ran over to the first, stooping out of view beneath the cruiser’s side rim.  The Pitcher waited patiently, picking her moment carefully.  Within a few seconds, the figure raised its head to look around, and Alina squeezed the trigger again.  The silhouette dropped.

“Nice shot,” Vasshka offered.

“Thanks.”  Alina wiped her palms on her jeans and helped Gloric put the rifle away.

I steered the water cruiser over to the liberated vehicle, careful to keep the NIGHT cruiser in between us and the island’s security floodlights, which illuminated everything within a half-mile of the headquarters.  We sidled up next to the boat, using a loose metal board and some rope Vasshka found in the water cruiser to create a makeshift boarding plank.  Alina climbed across it nimbly, fastening it more securely on the NIGHT vessel and then helping Buster and Gloric to join her.

I stood behind Doubleshot, who eyed the plank dubiously, pawing at her hat.

“Problem?” I asked.

“I can’t swim,” she said.  It was the first time I had seen her nervous.

“You’ll be fine,” I assured her, hiding a smile.

The dwarf put a foot hesitantly on the board, using her hands to steady her.  Gaining in confidence, she stood upright, putting her other foot forward.

Her timing could not have been worse.  A large wave rippled underneath the cruisers, rocking strongly enough to separate them from one another by about a foot.  The plank and rope held on the NIGHT vehicle, but dislodged from ours, dumping Doubleshot unceremoniously into the black water.

“Vasshka!” Gloric cried from the NIGHT cruiser.

“Piss,” I cursed, stripping off my coat and shoes, tossing them to the other vehicle and diving overboard in the dwarf’s direction.

The water was freezing, shocking my system and threatening to stop my heart for a few seconds.  I kept my eyes closed, knowing that the salt water would do a number on my lenses, and instead moved my arms around wildly, searching.  I brushed Vasshka’s leather jacket almost immediately, and clasped it with my hand, feeling her weight pull me downwards.  She was sinking like a stone.

I kicked my legs furiously, using my free hand to pull us to the surface and shifting so that I could grab the dwarf underneath her arms.  She sputtered as we reappeared above water, and I looked up just in time to see Buster barrel into the water on top of us.  The wolf had evidently seen the action and jumped in unnecessarily.

Alina threw me a rope and I used it to haul Vasshka to the NIGHT cruiser, inelegantly pushing on her bottom to help her lift herself onboard.  I swam over to collect Buster, who was paddling happily in the frigid water, and guided him onto the hanging plank.  Gloric grabbed the wolf’s front paws, heaving as best as he could, and was rewarded by being trounced by a hundred-odd pounds of wet hound.

I clasped the rope and started climbing, then heard Vasshka’s voice from overhead.

“My hat!” she protested.

I looked back in the water to see the dwarf’s wide-brimmed hat floating peacefully among the waves.  Sighing from the very core of my being, I swam back to grab it, feeling the chill pervade my bones.

Hat in tow, I pulled myself up the rope and onto the cruiser, collapsing on the metal deck.  Vasshka lay in a heap next to me, her face ruddier than normal and her hair a tangled orange mess.  Gloric hovered nearby, clucking over her, and Alina busied herself with putting away the ropes and plank.

The dwarf looked over at me pointedly, her horns glaring menacingly in the moonlight.  “If you tell anyone about this…” she began.

I handed over her hat and forestalled any further comment.  “Scout’s honor,” I promised.

Buster padded over and shook himself dry, spraying the three of us with cool Bay water.  Vasshka sat up, complaining uncharacteristically about the hound, and put on her now floppy hat, which squished weirdly on her wet head.  If I hadn’t already been concerned that she would kill us all for witnessing her ignominy, I would have laughed.  She looked ridiculous.

“We’ve got company,” Alina called from the cruiser’s little steering cabin.

I picked myself up, squeezing water from my shirt and pants and retrieving my shoes and coat from the floor.  The dwarf and I had landed not far from the two tranquilized guards, a man and woman, who slept peacefully on the aft deck.  I rummaged through their pockets, grabbing their digitabs.

I tossed the devices to Gloric as I made my way to the cabin.  “Unlock these?” I requested, picking my steps carefully so as to not slip on my wet feet.

The steering cabin was a simple, unfurnished room with digital controls for the cruiser’s engine and abovewater artillery.  A narrow set of lockers stuck out from the rear wall, and various boxes filled with nautical tools sat neatly, riveted to the floor.

“What?” I asked, walking briskly to open an unmarked locker.

“One cruiser incoming, and a timed security check from the dispatcher,” Alina explained, looking at several blinking messages on the central console.

The locker was empty, and I checked the next one, finding two bundles of neatly-pressed uniforms.  Agents always kept extra clothes on the water-based vessels.

“Here, put these on,” I said, handing Alina a set and beginning to strip off my wet clothes.

The half-auric eyed me curiously as I took off my shirt, and I was suddenly self-conscious in the cold air.  She smiled enigmatically and turned away from me, undressing.

I did my damnedest to keep my eyes to myself, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t catch a flash of tanned skin and a few scars here and there.  I made a promise to myself that the next time I was naked with someone from the opposite sex, it would not be on a boat with our lives at stake in the middle of the apocalypse.

I was grateful for the dry set of clothes, which were a little tight but serviceable.  Alina’s uniform was baggy on her slim body, but it would do.  I would be recognizable by other agents on sight and the half-auric’s disguise wouldn’t stand up to any real scrutiny, but I hoped that our outfits would at least provide some cover from a distance.

Gloric’s skills and whatever help we could garner from Madge would get us into the facility, but there were some limits to what they could do.  Masking the image of a random water cruiser coming in to dock was one of them, which is why we needed the NIGHT vessel.  Gloric could have disabled the perimeter camera systems, but that would create undue suspicion and likely result in more patrols being sent out to investigate.

The gnome walked into the cabin, empty-handed.  I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Got their tabs?” I asked, running my hands through my hair to try to get some of the water out.

“Better,” he said.  “I’ve created micro-profiles on the network and synced them with yours.  You should be able to use your own digitabs, with increased access levels.”

I marveled at the technomancer’s genius.  “You’re the best.”

Gloric gave me a thumbs-up and returned amidships.

“ID requests from the cruiser and dispatcher have come in again,” Alina said, looking at the console.  The holodisplay’s LEDs bathed her angular face in a soft green light.

I walked over to the console, pulling out my digitab and opening the micro-profile Gloric had set up for me.  Sure enough, the male guard’s information and access codes popped up, and I synced the identification protocol with the vessel’s computer system, showing Alina how to do the same.  I could see the other cruiser off our starboard prow, making its way slowly towards us.

The console beeped, accepting the verification, but the NIGHT cruiser kept moving in our direction.  A button flashed in the holodisplay, indicating an incoming call.

I activated the call’s audio.  “Perimeter NVC two zero eight one, reporting,” I said, using the vehicle’s identification number.

“Two zero eight one, this is three six one niner,” a female voice came through the console.  “Please explain your delay in ID verification.”

“Problem with the verification protocol, sir,” I said, thinking on my feet.  “It’s been fixed.”

There was a short pause, and I felt as though I could hear the other cruiser thinking.

“Please put on the vessel’s commanding officer,” the voice said at length.

I made a face at Alina, nodding at her digitab.  She brought up the female guard’s micro-profile and took over the call.

“First Lieutenant Talia Watson, reporting,” the Pitcher said confidently.

“Lieutenant Watson, please provide vocal identification to confirm digital ID,” the voice responded.

I fought down my panic, helping Alina to find the guard’s identification number in the micro-profile.  The cruiser’s forelights continued to drift inexorably in our direction.

“Three six one niner, vocal identification is romeo, victor, zero, yankee, zero, delta, zero,” Alina said with no hint of hesitation.

There was another pause as the cruiser checked her credentials.  I held my breath.

“Carry on, two zero eight one,” the voice replied.

I dropped the call, letting out a long breath.  Alina and I shared a look of relief as the other cruiser’s lights slowly turned away from our direction.

“Can you drive one of these things?” I asked her, lacing my boots.

“Think so.”

I gave Alina an outline of the NIGHT headquarters’ structure, directing her towards the facility’s east-facing rear entrance.  She pulled the cruiser around and started heading in that direction.

I made a quick call to Madge, who picked up after a short delay.

“Nightpath?” she said, using my title to let me know she was in mixed company.

“Madge, we’re coming in pretty hot,” I said.  “I need you to find a reason for the camera crew to leave their posts.  Five minutes, tops.”  I was fairly certain Gloric could handle the digital access we would need, while Alina and I took out any guards.  Most of the Nightpaths, Daypaths, and Inquisitors would be in the middle of the fighting, hopefully leaving only a few that we would need to avoid.  We would have to pass several visual security checkpoints, though, and it would be impossible for Alina and I to get through without a fight.

“OK,” she said after a long pause, her voice distant.  I had a sudden, irrational fear that she was still in Cuba, fighting in the city, or otherwise unable to help us.

Her hesitation worried me.  “Madge, are we good?”

Silence.

I checked my digitab to make sure she was still on the call.

“Madge?”

“Everything’s good, Nightpath,” she said, more clearly.  “I’ll wait for your signal.”