War for Old Dolkaria

Royal Conniption

I'm not a very well-read person. In school, I'd flunked reading two years in a row. It hadn't seemed all that important to me, given that I was a C shift security officer. What did I need to read for? There'd been one book though that I'd read quite extensively as a kid: King Galagus and the Dungeon of Darkness. It had cool pictures, and the Teacher hated it on account of it giving young children ideas of leaving the compound; that made it literature as far as I was concerned. She'd finally fed it to the recycler one year. Still, the images in that story of a hole dug into the earth with bars and chains had been burned into my mind an image of what a dungeon was. We passed by several strange chambers on our way. Libraries that I had no doubt Greischt would have given a few molars to examine. A cold, defunct chemistry laboratory that still held an acrid tang. A huge purple gemstone carved in the shape of the moon that filled me with a sense of numb fear.
When Hera, Tenebra, and I reached the bottom of a winding staircase, I beheld a massive, round, gear-toothed door with the symbol of the Galagian crest on it set in the wall of dark basalt. A modification had been made, though: the crescent moon in the center had been turned on its side, points upward, with wings drawn up and out from the sides and a star-topped wand rising from the center. Hera walked to the control panel set beside it and typed something in. "There's a compound down here?" By reflex, I checked my wrist for a location tag.
"Indeed. Where did you think we got our food and water? While Stygius and my husband enable us to bring in fresh food, there's no way we could both rely on just that and stay hidden." The door groaned and hissed, then rumbled slowly away. "It took almost three years to build, using a wide variety of clandestine contractors and secret arrangements with Ren-tech"
Pæx's arrangement with Rennod, looking the other way while he planned his bunkers and their various social experiments. "But why are you living up there if you have a compound down here?" I asked as the door rolled aside. I half expected there to be a whole crowd of people within, but the door opened to a large, empty, and dimly-lit entry chamber. Tables were set in rows beneath banners that read 'present identification', 'military personnel', 'government personnel', and 'civilian personnel'. "Did something happen to the compound?"
"Not at all. We'd simply prefer to live in our ancestral home rather than a hole in the ground. We also lacked the technical skills and numbers to run this facility," Hera said quietly. "Our ancestors simply put as much on standby and automated maintenance as they could and left it down here. Every year we come down, do what we can to keep things tidy, and raid the food stores and water talismans."
There was something amiss about this compound. We walked from the entry into what I'd assumed was an atrium. Instead, we walked past directories pointing to the left and right. 'Atrium A', 'Atrium B', and 'Atrium C'? "How big is this place?" I said as I gaped at the map on the directory. 'Galagium Megacompound Redoubt' was printed at the bottom.
"As large as the castle above, and then some," she said as we walked to an elevator. We stepped in, she pushed a button, one of twenty, and the car started to descend. "This place was built with the intention of protecting critical features of the Galagian government in the event of a catastrophic attack. Being in the shadow world, even the most powerful assaults could be endured. The war, if necessary, could be commanded even if Galgador was lost."
"And after Batallion learned about Horizons, he made sure nobody used it till he was sure it was safe," I said, Wendok's memories niggling at me with impressions of him trying to weed out who was loyal, who was useful, and who he could purge to win points with Batallion. "The evacuation plans were all messed up. No wonder only the sky watchers were able to regroup and organize." And the Charred, by commandeering other compounds and smaller bunkers.
"Yes. Only a token skeleton crew remained. We took over, but even then we didn't even have a tenth of the number this place was made to hold." The doors hissed open, and I immediately shivered. Our breath turning to mist in the frigid air. Hera started forward, and a minute later I followed. "Without the Redoubt, Galagium was in chaos. Command networks were destroyed, but there were still some agents that continued with the old plan."
"Garnet. You shut the door on her," I said with a small smile, remembering her dying slowly of radiation poisoning. Normally I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but Garnet had been abnormally vile. I could appreciate the fitness of their decision. If Garnet had made it in here, she'd have probably killed everybody who crossed her. "What about Pæx?"
"I don't know what he said to my ancestors, but somehow he convinced them not to execute him, or throw him out into the green snow to die. I know not why, but he was entombed, by his own request, within this empty place. Every year we come down and find him still sealed."
I shivered as we walked along. Behind glass walls were racks upon racks of boxes. "What is this place?" I muttered, lifting one box off its shelf. My hands brushed off the frost. 'Seed stock AJ-2011-BM: Wheat' was printed on its side, along with an expiration date almost three hundred years in the future!
"A storeroom. One of many. Some, like this one, hold seeds and spores. Others hold animal embryos." I twitched at the word; I'd gotten a D in reproductive education, but I'd answered that one right on the multiple choice test. "Hundreds of different species." There had to be enough seeds here to cover the World in food. Or more. No telling how much of it might have spoiled, but still.
Tenebra added, "There's a surprising amount of material for fabrication. Machine shops. Almost no weapons though. Curious, given the purpose of this place."
We reached the end of the hall. Etched on the door was one word: 'nobody'. I glanced at her, then at the door. It hissed open. There was a second door on the far side of the cubic room within, one every bit as heavy as the entrance door above. A desk and a computer sat in the middle of the room, facing me, with with a beam turret in each corner. A trio of memory orbs sat in a sealed glass case beside the terminal, each one radiating that golden yellowish light. I tried to tug the case open, but it remained shut.
"What the heck is this?" I asked as I pointed a finger at the four turrets. Was it just me, or did they look like the extra hot beamy death model? Gloria'd know for sure. Damn, I wished she was here.
"They were installed per Pæx's request, to discourage idle attempts to access his prison. My husband has the override to the turrets, but I'm afraid I do not know it. Since a cyber is needed to use these memory orbs, we've never risked opening those doors." She gestured to the terminal with her hands. "Once you turn it on, the case will open. I can only assume they contain memories to help you open the door."
I looked at the three in their case. "Oh, is that all?" I said sarcastically. "No," she replied evenly. "There is supposedly an enchantment upon them. If you do not know the password, your heart will stop and you will never wake again." I gaped at her, and she gave a faint smile. "You asked."
I sighed, then chuckled softly. "Yeah. I did," I said as I sat before the terminal. "I don't suppose I could just chat with him without going through all this, could I?" I asked lamely, hoping the answer would be a surprise 'yes'.
Hera smiled and shook her head sadly. "That is not the way these things are done, Sparks. Good luck," she said simply as she leaned in and hugged me. "May the night comfort and bring you rest," she said solemnly before turning and walking out of the room.
Tenebra averted her eyes, then moved closer and gave me a shoulder nudge. "Thank you for your assistance in the riverbed." She backed away, glancing over her shoulder at her retreating mother. "I..." She met my gaze again. "You don't have to do this. Give me a few days. I'm sure between us we can get Father to relent!"
"In a few days, none of this is going to matter, one way or the other," I replied with a quiet smile. "Either Cognitum or Amadi will win, or Horizons will obliterate everything I care about. Pæx has answers. I need to know. . . " I trailed off as my eyes returned to the computer. "You should get out of here. Knowing my luck, I'll sneeze and seal you up in here with me."
"Right," she said with a sheepish smile, then started for the exit. I turned, examining the keys. Okay. Time to do this. I stretched out a hand and– "Because I just. . . " Tenebra blurted behind me, and I froze, my hand inches from the button. I turned, glancing back at her with a hard stare. "I just wanted. . . I mean. . . Whisper said how you like to drink, and. . . "
"I'll ask Gloria," I said as lightly as I could, then gestured to the door with my cyber arm. "Now excuse me, but I need to set off the room of death for answers to questions."
"Come, daughter. She'll return on her own later," Hera said in that offering- condolences tone of voice.
"Right. Right," Tenebra said as I returned my attention to the computer. I sighed, checked to make sure she was going, then reached out a hand again to the buttons. Time to get this party– A thunderous sneeze detonated behind me, and I jumped in shock, landing with my hands splayed to either side of the terminal. I glanced back at the blushing princess standing in the doorway as she wiped her upper lip with a sleeve. "Sorry. All this dry air. . . "
Funny how a spike in anger can give you just enough force to toss a princess down a hall like a paper airplane. Hera watched her sail overhead and sighed, gave me a shrug of resignation, then, shaking her head, moved down to assist her offspring. I walked back to the computer and smacked the keys with a hand before the universe conspired some way to somehow accidentally throw her into the chamber and seal her inside with me.
As soon as I did, there was a flicker as an energy shield was erected around the room. The turrets hummed, all four orienting on me. Finally, the memory orb case popped open. I saw each orb was conveniently numbered. I stared at the cursor on the computer.
> Who did it?
Well, that was refreshingly vague. "Mister Mustard, in the atrium, with the candlestick," I drawled sarcastically as I lifted the orb. I stared into the golden depths. "Okay, Pæx, deal the deck and let's play." With my courage and bravado running neck and neck, I touched the orb to my cybernetic arm.
As soon as contact was made, I felt a growing pressure building in my head, the world's strongest migraine. It felt as if my skull was going to explode, and for all I knew, it was! A rasped question thudded in my skull with each throb. 'What did I teach?'
Betrayal and lying? Secret conspiracies 101? But with each flippant thought, the pain increased. The thudding was starting to grow and grow, yet every muscle in my body was frozen in place. Was it just me, or could I feel blood dripping out my nose? Think. Think! It'd been before Rennod. . . at Littlehorn. Geology? No. . . arrgh, my head. No, he'd taught something else. Something that'd made Rennod pick him. Politics? Government? Nnnnnngggh... things were getting really blurry. History! He'd taught– the world swirled away.
oooOOOooo
I didn't recognize the body immediately. Pæx always felt like a sack of rusty nails in all the memories of his I'd been in thus far. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that this was Pikes. He lay in a bed in a room filled with books. A hand rapped on the door over and over again. "Mr. Pæx ? Mr. Pæx?" a boy said to accompany each knock.
Pæx sighed and slipped out of bed, his body fatigued. He shook with a yawn and then walked to the door, opening it and staring down at a young lad with a small frown. "Icebrand? What's wrong? It's two in the morning."
"There's a problem with a Reltr, sir. The dean wants you to come talk to her and calm her down before something bad happens," he piped. Pæx gave a small nod and immediately stepped out into the amethyst and ebony-lined hallways with decorations depicting silver stars and crescent moons.
"Are you adjusting well, Icebrand?" Pæx asked in quiet tones as they walked past doors. Through one that was half open, I saw a half dozen bunk beds. "It must be a big adjustment from the orphanage to here."
"A bit, sir. Mum always wanted me to get an education. She wanted me to be smart enough to avoid stupid fights," he replied. "I didn't expect the school to be so big though."
"Littlehorn has almost two hundred students, and it had been built for a thousand. Unlike Elder Tul's school, we accept any person of merit who yearns to learn," he gave a little smile. "Not that Tul's school for the gifted isn't a fine institution, of course."
"I'm just glad they took me. My grades haven't been good since Mum. . . ahem. . . " he flushed and dropped his eyes. "I didn't expect them to, mister."
"Special accommodations were made for orphans and victims of the war effort." There was a pause, and then a muttered afterthought, "I didn't think there'd be so many, though."
As they walked along, I could see through windows that the school was shaped like a giant crescent with a round structure in the middle of the arc. Four stories below us were a cluster of a half dozen wagons. Noks and Augers could be seen sleeping and keeping watch in the moonlight. At the end of the hall, we stepped into an open-topped cagelike elevator hanging in a vast central shaft. The car dropped silently in the grip of levitation talismans. "Um. . . sir?" the boy said hesitantly.
"Yes, Icebrand?" he asked, his eyes staring straight ahead at the wall of the shaft as it slowly passed by.
"Is it true you used to live with Augers?"
"When I was your age. Maybe a little younger." Pæx smiled a little. "Mother liked to travel. She went all over the Auger Empire, and I went with her."
"What're they like?" he asked, shuffling his foot. "What do you mean?" Pæx asked, glancing down at him. "Which Augers?"
"All of them," Icebrand said as he shuffled on his feet. "Thimble said they're all witchdoctors with spooky masks, but Rose told me they have big cities. And Sweet Grass, he... ah... said they... um... did..." He went bright red, the rest of his words lost in a mumble.
"Sex stuff?" Pæx asked with the arch of a brow. Icebrand let out a faint squeak, and the pale man chuckled. "The Carnilia celebrate life. All life. And the creation of life. For details, see Mrs. Amber in health class." He watched the boy squirm in embarrassment for a moment, and then went on, "These Augers were a different tribe, though; you can tell by the feather decorations they wear."
"On their clothes?"
"In their ears." Pæx chuckled. "These are Tappahani. Refugees. The Tappahani are jungle hunters and shamans. Excellent cooks too, by the by."
"I thought all Augers were the same," the boy muttered. "The way they live and fight..."
"Tappahani? Fight?" He laughed softly, shaking his head. "No, Icebrand. They're not fighters." He rubbed his chin with a hand. "Though, their duels are rather interesting. Some will attempt to cook meals so spicy that their enemy is incapacitated with tears. Or they'll compete to see which can steal the egg of a giant roc. Or shoot the leaf from the tallest tree with a blowgun. They are not Galgadorian fighters yearning for combat and battle. This war has been harder on them than on us."
That sounded like my kind of Auger! Make lunch, not war. I wondered how Gloria's cooking would stack up against theirs.
The doors chimed and opened, and the pair stepped out into another hallway. The shrieks and cries of a woman could be heard in the distance, echoing off the dark walls. "I can find the way. Get to bed, Icebrand. And remember, you have a test on the Champions tomorrow."
"Still?" the boy whined. "Sir, there's a camp of Auger refugees in the school court- yard. How can we have a test now?"
"The Tappahani aren't going to hurt us. Not unless they plan to cook dinner for us. Now get to bed. I'll see to the dean."
The boy nodded, started to reenter, then paused. "Mister Pæx? Can you tell me more about Auger tribes tomorrow?" Pæx smiled and nodded once. Icebrand beamed. "Thanks!" He pressed a gemstone, the cage doors swung shut, and the lift rose silently out of sight.
"Such a good kid..." Pæx muttered jogged in the direction of the cries.
As he approached an office door, it flung wide, and a short man emerged. "There you are! What's taken you so long? She's been screaming and babbling for an hour in her savage tongue. I nearly cast a sedation rune on her." His angry scowl instantly made me want to knock him upside the head.
"I came straight here, Dean Birew," Pæx said evenly. "Is she okay?"
"Okay?" The portly man sneered. "She's a sneak thief. We caught her away from the others, skulking about. Soon as we caught her, she started babbling and jabbering." He looked back over his shoulder. "Probably poking around for something to steal. The principal said a whole box of spark batteries, a mana capacitor, and some conductors have gone missing from the student lab. Who knows where she stashed them."
"She was likely looking for a bathroom, sir. If things have gone missing, we can take it up with the arcane sciences club. They're likely working on a project."
"How do you know she didn't take it?" Birew asked, narrowing his eyes.
Pæx replied coolly, "She's Tappahani, sir. If she wanted to hide from us, we wouldn't have spotted her. And she wouldn't have hidden a belonging. The Tappahani are communal. They share everything."
"Savages," Birew muttered before opening the door to the office. A young Auger girl sat curled tightly in the corner, crying out in rapid fire speech. Three other officers stood to the side, looking tired and uncomfortable. "Go. Get her to shut up. See if you can find out what she did with the things she stole."
Pæx nodded and approached. He took a seat, cleared his throat, and then flung his arms wide. "Sastimos, sendrin a Tappahani. Du' dera o ushalin zhala sar o kam mangela."
She stared at him, falling silent for several seconds. "Rakesa tu Propli natsia?" she asked in bafflement.
"Me shavora xari Propli." He paused, then laughed. "Ne me ohano kushi tràshful." The girl relaxed just a little. Her hair and face were speckled with dozens of dots of red and blue dye, and there were bird feathers piercing her ears. She didn't share the laugh, though, and Pæx soon frowned. "Noros," she whispered. "Noros kinshna-wowa lelled lendi. Diktom-ye lendi wi-ye mok vardos. Kako muk-me. Te shordjol muro rat. . . Kako. . . "
"What did she say?" the others asked.
"Noros. She said a Noros took it," Pæx murmured. At their baffled expressions, he sighed. "They're a different tribe from hers. Cursed. Dangerous."
One of the teachers adjusted her glasses. "Actually, 'cursed' is a misnomer. There actually aren't really curses but instead–"
Pæx spoke over her. "Thaumaturgical nomenclature distinctions aside, she wouldn't have spoken their name unless she was deadly serious. Naming them brings a curse of misfortune down upon you. Normally they're called the Fallen One, or just, the One." He looked from one to the next. "Did any of you see a Auger with magical markings on their face? Or maybe a Auger that took great pains to cover himself?"
"I think there was at least one, but everything was so crazy with the injuries and all," the woman said nervously. Then a low, cynical laugh interrupted them both.
"Oh, please. This is just too much," Birew said with a sneer at the trembling giril. "She steals from us and then conveniently says the 'evil Auger' took it. She must think we're children."
"She wouldn't have said that name if she wasn't serious," Pæx snapped. "It would be like us joking about Titan returning. It's brings great curses upon the speaker."
"Ugh. Why does everybody make that mistake? They're not curses! They're–" she began to lecture again when he silenced her with a hand over her mouth. Very softly, he heard the click of a door closing. "Everybody is either asleep, patrolling the other wing, or watching the Augers, right?" Her eyes wide, she nodded, and he jogged down the hall, checking doors. The one to stairwell wasn't locked.
"Oh no... The children..." she said as together they made their way up.
"Try and stay silent. We don't want a panic," Pæx said. "If you see him, be careful. He could be up to no good, or he might have been thrown out of the wagons for his marks. I don't want to provoke a Noros if we can help it." Within a classroom, a cloaked figured worked furiously, attaching wires and cables to a baseball-sized slab of pink quartz with a dark purple talisman glyph within. The Auger was in the process of duct taping the spark batteries to other equipment. "What are you doing? Keena-te sa ru?" Pæx asked, and the Auger in the ragged cloak turned to peer at him, breathing hoarsely. "Kasana–"
"Don't profane my language with your foul tongue," the Auger snapped back.
"What are you doing?" Pæx asked as he stared at the talisman. "Stop. This is a school." Then he turned his head and snapped, "Silverspire! Anybody!"
The Auger finished taping the wires to the talisman. Pæx yanked it into the air. "I don't know what you think you're going to do with this, but–"
In a flash, the Auger closed the distance, spinning in the air and slamming his out- stretched hand across Pæx's neck, snapping his focus. Smoothly, he caught the wired talisman and ran over Pæx, out into the hall. Silverspire, who'd been running back, let out a shriek. "Who are you? Stay back!" Pæx groaned as he rolled to his feet. More teachers were appearing, some thundering up the stairs and others coming out of their quarters. The Auger backed away as the talisman began to glow. "What is that, Silverspire? Is it a bomb?" Pæx asked tensely.
"No! I think. . . I think it's some kind of industrial strength lye generator. For manufacturing. But he's modified it and wired it to those capacitors. . . " she trailed off, then her eyes shot wide. "Grab it! Quickly! He's overcharging it!"
Pæx charged in and tackled him, arms wide. The Auger tried to spin out of the way, but Pæx powered both of them towards the edge of the rotunda, looking down at the ground floor forty feet below. The Auger clasped the talisman in his arms as they both went over, the onlookers screaming in terror.
Pæx tumbled through the air and landed with a crash in one of the hovering elevator cages ten feet down, making it sway and bob wildly in the air. His whole body ached as he rose and crawled to the edge of the elevator, looking down at the prone form of the Auger. Pæx hit the control talisman, and the lift lowered itself quickly to the floor.
The achy man approached the prone Auger. The fall was at least forty feet onto hard black marble. Blood spread outwards from the Auger's head as he curled around the pink talisman. It was humming and throbbing, and a sharp tang filled the air. Pæx peered down at the body.
"Get back! Get back!" Birew shouted as he approached, then stopped short of the corpse. "Is he dead..?"
"I think that's some of his brain by your foot," Pæx said, gesturing to a marble-sized glob.
"Ah good," Birew said before he got out a pair of wire cutters, reached down and held it to the wire. Pæx took several steps back. "Now, is it the red wire or the blue wire?" he mused.
"Dear god, don't cut it if you're not sure!" Pæx cried out. There were more footsteps as an older woman and a half dozen others walked up to the fallen body.
"Hello, Principal. I was just about to deactivate it." Birew smirked. "And don't be so fearful, Pæx. It's always the red. . . "
The corpse reached up and grabbed Birew's head, yanking him down towards the nightmarish ruin of his face. "Yur firsh!" he cried out, and then he flicked the talisman with the tip of his finger. From the end of the device, a twenty-foot-high plume of aquamarine vapor blasted out. Birew's head disappeared in the spray, and when his spasming body fell back, a dripping stub was all that remained. The jet of vapor started to die, but then a white mote was pulled into a silver ring around the bluegreen vapor. Pæx desperately hammered the elevator control and winced as a little patch of the pad remained behind. The lift jerked up into the air as the cloud spread, billowing in every direction and rising higher and higher. Screams of terror from far too many children and teachers alike began to echo as the vapors thickened and rose. The cloud spread like a rising tide, the Auger whirling this way and that.
I'd been in the cloud before, so the terrible burning sensation felt familiar. Everything inside and out burned horribly as he rose up to the dormitory floor. Vapors were already curling upwards as the lift continued to rise, and he slumped against the bars in a desperate bid to stay upright. "Stop the lift! Stop the lift!" Silverspire screamed, moving a student out of the way as the lift continued upwards toward the observation tower.
Pæx tried to hit the controls to stop the lift, but his body was stuck to the bars of the elevator. He stared down at the sight of his shoulder melting against the vapor coated metal and cried out, then broke into hacks and coughs. With that much pain, I couldn't blame him for not being able to stop the lift. Still, he gave a herculean heave, and fire exploded along his side as he pulled free, leaving a dozen strips of his skin attached to the metal. The movement made the lift lurch, and he slammed against the bars on the opposite side. He screamed, but his scream was one of dozens filling the central shaft.
He watched as the teachers and students fell back from the edge of the balcony as cloud began to curl up over the edge and outwards. The panicked people tramped each other as they fell back from the stinging vapors. The other lift rose, but it was filled with a squirming mass of a half dozen people, and from how they moved, it was hard to tell where one ended and another began. Tiny white flashes could be seen in the depths as the cloud spread more and more. he third lift dropped with two people coming down. Pæx tried to call for them to stop, but all that came out were rasping, gasping coughs. The two disappeared into the swirling vapor without a clue as to how dangerous it was. He heaved once again, his Cloud-softened skin tearing, but this time he adamantly remained standing in the center of the lift.
When it reached the top of the tower, he slowly stepped out, every footstep burning. His whole world was pain. Two more teachers rushed over. "What's going on? What's that screaming?" Along the far wall, large bulky electrical equipment pinged and crackled. "Mister Pæx? Is that you?"
"Dugghh tusshhhhh mehhhh!" he grasped and then started coughing and rasping, bloody drops fanning out from his mouth with every breath. "Pinghh. . . posson. . . "
"Posion?" the woman asked. Both of them stared in horror, and then one said, "Hold still, Gold. I got you." She shot a bolt of magic up at the roof.
"No!" the other shouted. The bolt struck a talisman in the ceiling, and suddenly water began to rain down on Pæx. . . and the equipment. It sizzled, crackled, and finally popped with a great cloud of gray smoke coming out the back. The machine fell silent as the second rushed to it. "No no no. . . the radio. . . "
The pain abated a little. One woman saw to him, casting healing spells that mended his flesh but they did little for his chest. The man fussed over the radio. Out the tower window, far below, a fog bank rolled across the wagons and camps. Augers fled towards the forests, but the school gates barred their path. Some began to scramble up, hooking their hands around the bars and scrambling over with a haste I'd never imagined before. . . but they weren't fast enough. The cloud blasted past them, and their screams reached the tower before being cut short. Most hadn't even made it that far. In the courtyard, more jets exploded here and there. There were still yells and cries for help from the levels below.
"Why? Who did this? How?" the woman asked as tears streaked down her cheek.
"Reeeel. . .treeek. . . " Pæx gasped weakly as he collapsed on his side. "Sta. . . sta. . . " but then he broke off, coughing and hacking.
"An Auger did this?" the man asked, looking up from the equipment. "No. How could they? This is a school! Why?"
I came out of the memory orb, swayed, then straightened. He'd been there. Two centuries ago. . . he'd been there! No wonder, when Pæx had seen him in the Image archives, he'd freaked out. man had been there!
"But why couldn't he tell them after he recovered?" I asked myself as I stared at the screen. Then it hit me, and I quickly typed an answer. >HE WAS A PUPPET. Hoping it wasn't some other word like peon or slave, I hit the button.
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then two lines popped up. >ANSWERS ACCEPTABLE.
>ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, EXECUTIONER.
Wait. What? I stared at the words as field dropped, then tore my eyes away as the door ahead opened. I felt my body shift. I was standing on something, on that firm plasticy smooth nothingness that existed in places like this. A beam of white light illuminated me in the void. "So, you've finally come," Pæx said softly and I turned to see him sitting in another beam of light. He looked as I remembered: middle aged, scarred, and tired. His green eyes locked with mine, and his lips curled up a tiny bit. "Sparks."
"Pæx," I replied as I turned to face him. "It is you, isn't it? No... hologram? Or computer simulation?"
"It is," he said calmly. "I'm glad it's you. I knew that only you or Dredger would have any chance of finding me. And I knew only you would be able to appreciate what I've done."
"What you've done?" I said with a small frown.
"The crimes I've committed," he amended. "You've finally come to judge me for all that I've done."
I rolled my eyes a little. "Yeah... no. Actually, I'm here to ask you some questions, and then I'll be on my way. You can go on experiencing horribleness as long as you want."
Pæx's mouth opened and closed a few times as he seemed to struggle with what I'd just said. "Sparks, you know what I've done. You know who I am better than probably anybody who has ever lived. Between sessions, I've used this machine's connection with the surveillance systems to keep tabs on you. Watched what you've done. How could you not do anything about my crimes?"
Oh brother. I rubbed my face with a hand. "Pæx, I hate to break it to you, but this isn't about you. I agree, you fucked up big time. I have to admit, I'm pretty good at doing that myself, but you beat me hands down. Congratulations." I clapped my hands together weakly. "Now, what I want is for you to tell me about Horizons."
Pæx turned his back on me. "Get out." I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. If you're not here to kill me, then clearly you haven't been paying attention. Good day." He turned and started to walk out of the circle of light.
"Right. So you're just going to wait another two hundred years for somebody to come down here with the answers to your little riddles so they can give you an appropriately horrible death? I don't think so," I said as scornfully as possible, making him pause. "You going to go back into memories and spying on the Wasteland, leaving it to rot? Fine. Maybe I can give the king a really good beating to get him to let me go. I'll do what I have to do. But you know things, Pæx. You could help me, if you just pulled your head out of your masochistic, egotistical, self-loathing ass long enough to!"
My words seemed to have broken through. He turned and regarded me coolly. "I deserve to die. I deserve to be punished."
"Oh for the love of..." I muttered. "Yes. You did bad things. Really bad things. So have I. In some ways, worse things than you. Nobody's perfect. The difference is, I haven't shoved myself into a computer waiting for somebody else to come along and put me down." And construct ridiculously elaborate death traps to test their worthiness to execute me. I pointed a hand off to the side. "I'm out there, trying to do better."
     "Better," he muttered. "Sparks, have you ever thought that maybe you should have given up? That by trying to help, you've caused nearly as much pain and misery as there would have been if you'd done nothing at all?" He walked slowly towards me, the shaft of light moving with him. "I saw you at Yellow River. I saw what you did to that squad."
     I stared at him for several long seconds. "You plugged me into RRMP," I said.
He gave a small nod. "I directed this system to access the robotic orderlies and put you into a therapeutic mindscape, yes. I rather didn't expect you to come out of it. Quite surprising, actually," he rasped softly. "After that, I occasionally peeked in on you from time to time, like Watcher. You were... interesting."
     "I get that a lot," I said as I stared at him. "That wasn't the first time, though, was it?" He smiled a little, looking a touch impressed. became aware of a great glow behind me and glanced back at around two dozen windows of shame. Some computer was being cocky. I returned my attention on to Pæx. "Do I deserve to be punished for my screw ups? Abso-friggin- lutely! And I'm pretty sure that half the shit in my life is punishment for those screw ups. But do I let them stop me? No! Because the second I did, I'd be you. Maybe not plugged into a machine, but being curled up on a mattress somewhere, positive that I deserved to die, is just as bad! And what good would that do? None." I spat the word with as much contempt as I possibly could.
Pæx didn't answer. He just stared at me as if I were a painting or some piece of performance art. "You can't begin to compare... the consequences of my actions were..." he finally muttered.
I jumped on him, smacking him upside the head with ahand. "It! Is! Not! About! You!" I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "What about Jag's fuckups? What about Gol Nokaad? What about Gun and his friends'? Do you seriously believe you were to blame for them and their fuckups? That if you'd never existed, the war wouldn't have happened? Everybody's got blood on their hands!"
     "But without my actio–" he started to stammer, but I slapped him silent.
"Maybe it would have been different. Maybe it would have been better. Or maybe it would have even been worse. That's the problem with 'what if's and regrets. There's nothing you can do about them, and you'll never know for sure. Even with all this." I waved my hand at the countless floating windows. "None of it will change what has happened. And neither will killing you."
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