Chapter 24
24
Together, they wandered the green Parklands area, visiting the stalls people had erected where tables of goods were displayed. This was a market but one where payment was arbitrary and seemingly random. A cooking fire wafted high the smell of smoke and roasted meat, as well as a hint of burned plastic, and dancers swayed and twirled around the fire. People swapped things, kissed, and hugged. They discussed where they’d found the clothes, the food, the weapons, or the other pretty things they’d souvenired.
These souvenirs gave forever. Free ones. Objects stolen from the dead and gone. Yet laughter was common. The place was lovely, bathed by moonlight that lent a fine blue tone to the side of anything and anyone facing the opening. A backdrop of stars and those faraway hills. She’d grown used to the whole seeing-in-the-dark phenom.
She had to pause and look.
The height and breadth of this place the Worshippers had chosen took away one’s breath and gave back awe. Trees and grass and people doing everyday things, even if this was nighttime. It made her feel accepted and a part of something special and magical.
What if the Ghoul Lords attacked? They never did at night, she was told. Never. Why? That was her next question, and no one knew the why.
You have to sit on the edge and check out the Below , was said to them by many. The last who said it was a beaster trading his found and re-assembled weapons. The Top had become a place while she slumbered those five years, and now she found out the ground had too. It was the Below . Another hundred years and it’d be a mythical place. Who would go Below when death was your reward? The GLs might not live there, but they obliterated any people who dared to try.
During the early days of the invasion ordinary people had tried. Later on, beasters had. The Worshippers had tales of seeing them die or be lured away.
Oblivious to her musing, Vargr was chatting to the stall owner.
“Like this, Cyn?” He held up a pistol like his own, with a well-worn leather holster. The gun was a blued-steel revolver with gold accents and some adaptations surely borrowed from the Ghoul Lords. The grip bulged curiously, and the barrel was a triple cylinder with wires running to it. “It’s not a revolver anymore. It fires energy bolts and has to be recharged. Thadd will be envious. Kiko here has worked out the adaptation.”
“I’m allowed a weapon now?”
“Course you are. You’re a bonafide goshdarned beaster.”
“Yeahhh.” She took the gun from him. Did nanite in your blood truly equal beaster? It was a question she couldn’t answer, yet.
Kiko grinned, displaying a mouth missing a couple of front teeth. Though he had small horn-like bumps on his hands and arms, the blue arm markings were similar to Thad’s and Locke’s. A weaponsmith then. She smiled and shook his hand.
“You can fix things better due to your nanites? I’m guessing it’s some sort of instinctive knowledge or a skill?”
“Ahhhh.” He looked contemplative. Brow furrowing, he scratched at his chin. “I can do things better, yeah. I can do things with my head even, inside really tiny, intricate mechanisms and circuitry. Ask me how. No fucking clue.”
“Okay,” she grinned. “I will trust your work then.”
“Pfft, woman. You’d better. It’s good. Just don’t overfire it. It might explode.”
“Small worry, hey?” Cyn weighed the gun in her hand and wanted to lick it. Heavy for a pistol, but nasty in its potential violence. The prospect of an explosion didn’t bother her. Which she found odd. Again with the not worrying about shit she should be worried about. “Let’s buy it.”
“Price?” Hands on hips, Vargr looked ready for serious bargaining.
“Pay me back when you find something good. You’ll know when you do.”
“Really?” Vargr cocked his head. “A weapon from the Top?”
Kiko shrugged his massive shoulders, leaned his butt against his table of wares. “Sure. Or better.” His grin was infectious. “I’ll throw in a big knife for your girl too.”
They shook on it and moved on.
“Haggling is a whole new art,” she muttered.
“You don’t bloody say. I’ll bring him a cruise missile and stump him. He’ll never find the change for that. Let’s go see this edge-sitting area.”
“Maybe I can practice with it there.” She strapped on the belt and holster, unsheathing the ‘big knife’ from where it hung at her left hip. Engravings ran down the shiny blade and swirled on the metal butt.
“Just don’t potshot at that glass that hangs from above.”
“Hah.” Replacing a mile-wide chunk of glass would be difficult.
As they drew nearer to the edge, she could appreciate how the glass visor wasn’t perfectly clean—there were bird feathers, and bird guano, and other dirt that could be anything from dead bugs to fallen pieces of paper—yet zero cracks.
It was a grand feat of engineering that would last until this scraper fell. Maybe until no one was alive to see it.
The sitting place was a long terrace of artificial grass that dropped a few feet into a step where it was guarded by a shoulder-height glass fence. Climb over the fence and you’d fall until you hit a level of the scraper that stuck out just a bit further. It was also several stories below. There were park benches here, but she gathered most sat their rears on the lip of the terrace. People could dangle their legs and that appealed to the crazy in her—as did licking guns.
They sat, and she snuggled closer to Vargr. The heat from him warmed her heart, which was really something new. Her eyes stung with totally unneeded tears.
“How many footballs were kicked over this?” she pondered.
“Tons. Fucking tons. Can you imagine the suicides?”
Ugh. She elbowed him. “Shhh!”
Someone slipped down and sat next to Vargr then leaned forward. It was Locke, with his dirty-blond hair flopping over his eyes.
“They used to have a net below to catch people and things. Or so I’m told.”
“Yeah. Sounds about right. Messy to let them fall. How are you Locke? Willow helped us.”
“I know.”
“I have nanites, in case you’re wondering,” she told him.
“I knew that too. Nothing gets to be a secret for long here. Congrats?” He reached in front of Vargr to shake her hand. “And I brought something to celebrate with.”
He leaned back, and she saw a woven cane hamper he’d left behind him on the artificial grass.
“Champagne.” He pulled out a bottle. “Vintage, sometime-long-ago. And food, and some people to help us make this a proper picnic. Happy Beaster Day?”
“A moonlight picnic. Nice.” The people he meant were obviously those walking up in a ragged line. They carried more bottles and bags and were waving and smiling. He’d assembled almost everyone she knew.
Maura was with them, shining the torch they’d found for her and lighting a path but switching it off as she neared the edge. The moon must be providing enough light for her human eyes.
If being infected with nanites was something to celebrate, they were doing this in style.
Willow sat beside her, while Maura and Tom, the beaster who reminded her of an angel, parked themselves to the left of Locke. Though she was unsure where Maura had been hiding, the woman had adapted to their tenuous, linked existence and stayed near enough to be safe from the Lure. Anyone who’d felt it more than once would recognize its subtle creep.
Others arrived, people she didn’t know, and they chose places to sit at either end of the gathering.
Champagne was poured, and they toasted to Cyn’s future. Snack packets were opened, a pan of BBQ wings was passed along, and she was never going to ask what sort of wings these were. They tasted good, and the dribbles of marinade were delicious to lick off her hand, and Vargr’s too, when he laughingly offered.
Fresh fruit, it was the one thing she pined for still. The crunch of an apple under her teeth. Even a chunk of broccoli would be heaven—yes, she must be mad.
Then Rutger turned up. After many apologies, he had Willow shift along so he could sit to the right of Cyn.
“Punched enough walls then?” Though his expression said mild annoyance, Vargr looked closer to intrigued.
Here she was with the beaster who definitely wanted to fuck her on one side and Vargr on the other, and that only made him look curious? It made her feel all sorts of possibly taboo things. What if she had both in bed with her or wherever? On table, room, against wall… Gah. She’d seen the suggestion of size in those pants, and this Worshipper beaster had grown a cock to match his new body.
If Rutger stayed there for long, she’d need new underwear. His thigh was touching hers. Then she remembered she had none on.
Priority note: Find new underwear.
“Yes. I have punched enough walls.” His fists were bloodied. Studiously, he wet a cloth with white wine Willow gifted him and cleaned his knuckles. “I call it PNT—post nanite trauma.” Rutger tossed the balled-up cloth over the glass fence, watched it fall. “I get angry, feel the need to hit something well up inside me, and I’d rather damage a wall than people.”
“Wise. A glass for the man?” Vargr asked Locke, and he rummaged behind him, poured a new glass and handed it along. She gave the cool glass to Rutger. Fingers brushed fingers. Her chest hitched, and she became far too aware of how close his hand had been to her breast.
The conversations resumed. The electric sensations having their own party in her intimate zone subsided, a little. She sighed and tried to act civilized. Glass of bubbly in hand, the bubbles rising in the yellow, she drank and listened, smothered by maleness but happy.
How could she be happy at such a time?
Yes, it was true. Here be more than darkness. The times were… macabre, yet one could not survive by swimming in anger and turmoil, in musing of the coming end times, it would destroy you. Her dark-accustomed eyes let her interpret the moon-washed land that unrolled below. She’d not seen the ground for years.
“A game reserve?” she murmured. “Is that what this once was?”
“Yes.” Willow chimed in then squealed. “What the hell was that?” As she turned, a large tongue swiped at her again, straight up the side of her face. “Awww, it’s you, sweetie.”
The nanodog, Toother, had tracked them down. Or rather, maybe he’d aimed for Willow in particular. She was scratching under his chin and cooing at him.
“You’ve met, I gather?” Rutger asked the question she was thinking.
“We sure have. I think he likes me.”
“Or your taste?”
That made Cyn giggle-snort.
“Pfft.” Willow waved a dismissal with one hand. “Rutger, you might act like a civilized man, but I swear you are not underneath that thick hide.”
His laugh rocked Cyn, then his fingertips brushed her thigh. A second later, Vargr’s hand landed on her other thigh.
“And I swear this is absolutely true. I’m an uncouth sort.” Rutger squeezed her leg.
Fuck. She needed a distraction with these two playing with her legs. Cyn cleared her throat. “So. If we ever get rid of the GLs, do you think we could go down there again? Repopulate?”
“ Not without kids.” Her man gulped some wine. “But farming and all that, of course we would.”
“We would. I’d be the first to try.” Combing her hand through her short white locks, Maura added, “And with time and scientific effort we might reverse this infertility problem. It’s our land even if we cannot inhabit it currently.”
The others agreed. More wine was poured, and Cyn held out her glass. She could sleep this off before the meeting.
Maura’s somber tone affected her. She held the glass to her chin, thinking. For the first time in a while she sensed the threads of the Lure. Pale pink threads. She’d never seen them in color before.
“Humanity didn’t do such a great job, did they? Or rather, we.” She gestured at the land. “We wiped out half or more of the animals on this planet—lions, tigers, elephants, all gone. We’re a sad fucking race to be talking about this being ours. It isn’t ours. It belongs to everything alive on Earth. There has to be something better than us being the masters of the world.”
“Except, not the Ghoul Lords,” Tom pointed out. “No fucking way is it theirs.” And spoken by such an angelic-looking man. His fair locks curled stiffly against the bluish light, as if he’d used far too much hairspray. She could see him in a museum—a sculpture by Michelangelo.
“Not them,” she agreed.
Millions of innocent children had died too, not just adults, even if one lumped all the adults together in their guilt. Of course, she’d have to throw herself in with the humans who’d fucked over the environment.
“So. To the future and the end of those above.” She raised her glass. After everyone drank, another question came to her. “Did everyone here who joined the beast horde experiment come from the army? What was your past? I am really curious.”
“You first.” Rutger nudged her.
“Me…” She tapped the glass with a fingernail, listening to the quiet tings. It was getting very quiet. Dawn approached, sketching in the far range of hills with pale light. This was why the threads were showing. She must take care. “Me, I barely recall anything. Maura seemed to know me. Once?”
Maura nodded. “I still don’t remember where or how I met you. I’m sorry.”
As if on cue, Little Mo crept in closer to her butt. His tiny claws bent the grass. He’d been lurking, as she wanted him to. Wasn’t safe away from her and Vargr. He was a little library of info, if only they could coax him to reveal it.
“All I know is, I was in that last experiment after yours— Maelstrom . And I have an octopus tattoo on my ass, and red eyes, and I can push away the Lure, if I try.” She really should be practicing that. “I’m stronger than normal, can fight well, move fast, and I heal from wounds like no one else can.”
An array of gasps and mild swearing added a full stop to her statement. She checked Vargr, and he nodded. Yes, it was time. Felt right to tell this crew even if she’d only known some of them for a day.
“Like me?” The god-monster was startled too.
She clicked her tongue. “No, better than you. No scarring. I had a piece of steel through me here.” She lifted the edge of her shirt and poked her stomach. “It healed up in a day.”
His eyes danced with amusement.
“I got to kiss it better is why.” That declaration came from Vargr.
She eyerolled.
“All this, all the more reason for us to have this meeting,” Willow leaned back onto the grass beside where Toother had decided to lie. Her hand brushed through his soft fur. “You’re a sign or something, girl. We are going nowhere. Time to put a spanner in the works of the Ghoul Lords.”
“You want to know who I was?” Rutger said quietly. “I was a master sergeant in the army. Willow, I think you were in the air force?” His hand slipped off Cyn’s thigh and he lay on his side, propped up on his elbow. His great horns looked stranger than ever. Puck on steroids. A very large sexy Puck.
“Nah, I was a hairdresser.”
The laughter gave the lie to that.
The others followed with their stories. Locke had been in the army. Maura in research, of course. Tom had been a security guard for Dr Nietz’s company. That left Vargr.
He finally shrugged. “A spy. A low-echelon, data-mining spy. I lurked and spied.”
“Wow. I’m dating James Bond.”
“I was not quite him, but it’s way more than dating, female.” His stern look made her smile.
Then she glanced down at Rutger on her other side and found him contemplating her. Ohhh my. The slow swallow she tried to conceal was noticed.
Pink threads moved in the air between them. The Lure intensified.
Conversation continued around her while she thought and simply enjoyed sitting with people who were, sort of, almost normal. If it wasn’t for the whole nanites and beast-horde thing, and them sitting in the dark yet seeing as well as a SWAT team with night vision goggles, and the apocalypse around the corner. It was still rather… peaceful. Muted voices, loud laughter, friends, wine, and a picnic under the stars.
She listened to Maura talking to Locke. The wistfulness in her voice almost made her tear up.
“If I ever get the chance to see the research, if I could get equipment, supplies, I’d duplicate it. I’d make more nanites and inject myself. I envy you, all of you. You have freedom, sight, and a life.”
Locke said something in reply, and she could tell he was empathizing and being kind, even if she barely caught the gist.
What Maura said gave rise to speculation: what if? What if they could do it again? Would the remaining humans ask for it?
The meeting wasn’t happening until the next phase of night. Dawn approached, when everyone would disappear like rabbits into burrows. There was something they could accomplish before dawn. All those she needed were here with her.
Little Mo.
Willow.
Locke.
Maura.
“You want something to talk about at this meeting? What about we try to extract some info from Little Mo? Him.” She pointed with her pinky finger. “He knows where to find a vehicle called Big Daddy that may contain a database about the last experiments. This AI critter was sent to watch me, and it did so for five years.”
Slowly Willow sat up. “Seriously?”
“Oh yes. Little Mo said the files to locate Big Daddy were corrupted. But you and Locke with your talents, and maybe Maura with her memories, are exactly the right people to try.”
She crooked a finger at Little Mo, and it rose on its angled limbs.
“Be good, Mo. Let them in if you can. We need this.”
“I obey,” it chirruped.
“Come over here.” Patting the ground near her, Willow backed away, leaving space for Mo. Locke rose to his feet and joined her.
“I’ll do any physical repairs, you do the file sorting, Willow.”
“Gotcha. I need my hands contacting Mo. You?”
“Ditto.”
“Maura, anything you might add to this?” she prompted the woman.
“I… doubt it. Memories are slowly filling in, but this? I have no idea where it might be. I recall a vehicle the doctor had manufactured that he called Daddy and the other was Mommy. He had two identical ones. They may have been adapted after the invasion.”
“Go on.” She nodded.
“That’s it.” Maura shrugged. “I can draw what it looked like?”
“Mo has visual recognition.” She sucked on her lip. “Sure. While they work. Anyone have a notepad? A pencil or pen?”
“I can see the problem,” Locke soon whispered. His eyes had rolled up in their sockets. Blue wisps emanated from them, teasing the air.
“Me too.” Willow’s fingers pressed to Mo’s chassis. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
The bright blue on her skin intensified. Twinkling violet specks flaked off and floated away.
Cyn had an inkling no one else could see the motes and mist silently erupting from her fingers, Locke’s eyes, and from Rutger’s horns. She wasn’t telling. They already thought her different.
A familiar dread arrived—the one that muttered at you when anything came too easy—qualifications, friendship, lottery wins, though she could recall none of those in her life. It was a shapeless dread that had no reason behind it, no substance. If it had, she’d have stabbed it and told it to fuck off.
To occupy herself and feel as if she was doing something worthwhile by warding off the one obvious danger, she began to work with the threads of Lure. They flourished everywhere, even dangling before and tangling with the beasters. Work became play as she discovered how to unstick them, knit them, and push them out into the void, though a side effect she’d not noticed before surfaced—she became hungrier and hungrier. A pity as the food was eaten and only bones and wrappers were left.
After twenty or so minutes, Locke announced he’d fixed something internal, and Willow declared she’d found files that seemed relevant and had made Little Mo reconstruct the remnants.
The AI bug actually hopped about looking excited—even more so when Maura showed it her sketch.
That was Big Daddy? She’d expected wheels and engines, and maybe a chunky military style to it. This looked like a truncated centipede with legs similar to Little Mo’s and a cone-shaped nose.
“I have recovered files regarding the location of Big Daddy. Video and data files. Do you wish this shown now, Cyn?”
It wanted her permission.
Well. She squinted. “At the meeting, yes. Is it far?”
“To reach Big Daddy? Yes.” The eye lights rapidly scrolled from side to side. “The journey by foot will take many days. Nineteen to fifty-two days approximately, depending on the route.”
“Crap. Still, that’s quicker than this Armageddon is advancing.” She smiled at Willow. “We go there, and if this Big Daddy is intact, we find out what we are, what I am, and I have a feeling that will be a nail in the coffin of the Ghoul Lords.”
It was a huge leap of faith.
“There will likely be much violence required for any party to reach this destination,” Little Mo said.
“Damn, woman, you’re getting this sorted fast.” Surprisingly, Rutger had said that.
Vargr chuckled. “She is something else.”
“Hmmm.” Cyn wanted to crack her knuckles and lick that gun, again. She loved leaps of faith.
She loved violence, death, destruction.
Which… was news to her.
I do?