50. Blue-Dark
Blue-Dark
Isaak
The colours of the Tapeworld were an assault on their eyes, an onslaught of a shimmering transition from grubby, rainy reality to the wonderment of this other place.
As they walked down the tape-tube, Dylan practiced her kickboxing moves.
A punch, a kick, another punch, two kicks, then a run leading into a somersault, turning the rebound on the floor into a roundhouse kick, followed by a pirouette, hands flat on the tube’s holographic floor.
Dylan’s fists were adorned with white knuckle-dusters, shiny and gleaming in the blue-purple lighting.
“Those are new.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said with a look of surprise. “This must be Elodie’s gift for me.” She punched the air.
Isaak looked on, chest tight with pride and the privilege of being here, next to her.
They came out of the tube. Sweat gathered on his forehead.
“It looks uncanny,” Dylan said.
Isaak nodded.
The tape-space was an exaggerated version of its real-life counterpart.
Not a perfect replica – far from it. The walls were nearly translucent, and the wood panelling above the windows looked milky and slightly blurred.
It also wasn’t raining here, though the view from the windows looked dark and gloomy.
Suddenly there was a shockwave. A black hole opened and, for a quantum of time, everything was black and white.
“Look out!” Dylan screamed.
Colour rushed back. The room looked hyperreal, the windows glossy.
Two sleptigrades came out of the black hole. Black-translucent gunk emanated in a line from behind each of the humanoid shapes, floating in the air.
“Those things connect them to their bodies.” Isaak took a few steps back. “We need to connect them to the device!”
The sleptigrades rushed at him, one large and muscular, the other athletic and lean.
They pushed him around, and he kept backing away. His eyes darted to Dylan. She was okay, looking more concerned about him. He steeled himself for what was coming. He tightened his knuckles, set his feet apart and tensed his legs.
With one arm extended, he whispered, “Gunkatana…”
Grip, frame, and trigger guard came into existence in the empty space around the fingers of his open hand, the components interlocking and fitting into each other in a perfect synchronous display.
The weapon let out a satisfying click. It was ready for him.
With a confident gesture he gripped the gun-sword, blade lengthened to a deadly point.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he shouted at the shapes. “Don’t make me!”
The bulky one tried to grab him but he easily dodged out of the way. The more athletic figure went for his legs. He dived to the floor to avoid it.
“Dylan!”
He shivered, watching the other shape coming closer, its bulk looking more and more ominous.
Dylan swooped in from the side, her white dress fluttering in the air, and kicked the shape away from him, then she hook-punched it to the ground, the white knuckle-dusters leaving a mark on it, the impact augmented.
She followed it with a foot stomp, her full power behind her black boots.
She looked at Isaak and smiled. The bulky shape lay still. “These things can stun them!”
The lean sleptigrade lunged at her while she was distracted, hitting her in the stomach.
Isaak attacked it, slicing its shoulder open with the sword. White light began pouring out of the wound, blinding him. The sleptigrade fell, and Isaak raised an arm to cover his eyes.
The translucent cablery behind the shape began evaporating. Squinting against the brightness, he followed it with his eyes to see it led to a woman, who was now convulsing and foaming at the mouth.
He cast the Gunkatana to the side. It derezzed in the air in a blue haze. The woman’s spasms were becoming more violent by the second. “Fuck, I’m sorry! Dylan, I had to save you.”
“Fuck, Isaak!” Dylan shouted, pain in her voice. “You could have just punched them!”
Isaak’s stomach roiled. “Elo, are you there? Sacha?” He tried summoning them on the device in his ear, but there was no reply. “Astrid must be jamming our comms.”
Dylan taped out without another word. Her translucent form stayed in place for a few seconds, until it completely derezzed.
Isaak wondered if he should do the same, and he almost did, until both sleptigrades and their connecting cables disappeared. His chest went tight, and his breathing became more difficult.
Dylan returned to the Tapeworld. “They’re okay.”
“You used the lobster phone?”
She nodded. “After connecting them to it.”
“What about the one I hurt? I’m sorry.”
“She’s going to be okay. I was able to remove the Sleepers from them, and they were both breathing steadily. They’re still knocked out IRL. The Sleeper must take a lot out of them.”
“I am so fucking sorry. I almost killed her.”
“Isaak… Don’t blame yourself… It was instinct. You wanted to protect me.” She ran to him and embraced him. “And she’s fine. Just be careful next time.”
He stared at the nothingness deep in the building’s depths, where the blue-dark and purple met in a dance of light, serene and quiet.
“Those sleptigrades we defeated before… They’re all dead.
” He choked. “They all died like this.” The warmth of her hug hadn’t been enough to keep his worst thoughts at bay.
“Stop.” She beat on his chest with a fist. “We’ve talked about this. We both have blood on our hands. We had no choice.”
He felt like retching. Unable to exorcise the guilt the same way they’d done before, in the concrete bedroom at the Royal Car Wash, he was confronted with the reality of what they’d done once more.
Dylan stepped away for a moment with a sigh.
He focused on trying to keep his mind from spiralling. They had a job to do here. He needed to—
He took a punch to the face from a large shadow that appeared out of nowhere. The new sleptigrade unleashed a flurry of blows at him. He cried out, but lost track of Dylan in the commotion.
“Stop!” He blocked the blows with his arms, as the shadow attacked him relentlessly. Then he finally got a proper look at it.
“Wait! I recognise her face!” he blurted out.
“It’s Jewel!” Dylan shouted, from somewhere several metres away.
Jewel snapped her head towards Dylan’s voice, reacting to the noise like a predator, her rippling muscles weaving through her shape’s translucency.
She let out a threatening roar. From her open mouth, impossible teeth grew in all directions, a cacophony of splintering bones.
She was twice as big as she was IRL, and now she was running towards Dylan like an act of nature.
Isaak summoned the Gunkatana and, gritting his teeth, he swung the blade at Jewel’s arm. Its red aura collided with the dark shape, sparks and electricity jolting into the air.
“What?” Jewel snarled.
“She can talk?” Dylan raised her fists, ready to take Jewel head on.
Jewel looked back to Isaak, who’d caught her attention with the swing. The attack had pierced her skin, and a dim light shone from within. “You…” Her voice was a song of pain, heavy and tired, teeth bared, muscles bloated.
Dylan ran to them.
He holstered the Gunkatana and hooked it to his belt. Jewel might have worked for Astrid, but she wasn’t like her. He didn’t want to kill her.
She swung a fist at him. He tried to dodge, but the full force of her punch hit him in the face. As he fell to the floor, dazed, a red tape-portal opened below him. He reached out desperately, trying to grab on to anything that would stop him falling through it.
But the portal pulled him in, and the hospital beds, laden with kidnapped teachers, police officers, firemen, cooks, binmen, programmers, hackers, corporate slaves, sex workers, late-shift radio hosts, musicians, painters, poets, and gamers were all gone. Dylan was nowhere to be seen.
Adrenaline flooded his veins, accreting in mass, fighting the fear chemicals released by his amygdala at what he knew must be coming.
There was a sound.
It was music.
Orchestral. There was flavour to the harmony… No, a taste. Metallic. Bloody. Horns and piano in a dissonant hymn to bloodlust and carnage.
To its notes, she descended from the dark sky above him.
Bare feet, legs wrapped with strands of black tape, applied erratically over a tattooed garden of decorative branches and leaves.
The way the tape was placed, it was like Astrid was trying to hide her tattoos, but they were still visible, and Isaak already knew they were there.
Her arms and feet were slick with liquid, blackish and revolting.
She wore a tight black dress and hovered a few inches off the floor.
Like Christ on the cross, she held her arms out, eyes white, mouth open.
Astrid.
A vision from hell.
Like a man possessed, Isaak ran and vaulted towards her before her feet even touched the ground.
Astrid waved a hand. “No.”
And Isaak flew backwards to the floor.