Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5) Page 23

  The reclamation specialist stared down the barrel of the deadly weapon, squinting his eyes against the harsh light of the targeting beams.

  “I…” Candall stammered, wishing he could know what Fenris and Nalanata were doing on the other side of the ship’s walls. If anything. “I … am … I’m not. No. My name is Candall. Sa Candall.”

  “Where is he?” The girlish AI asked wistfully. “He hasn’t told me a story in so very long. None of the others ever told me any. They argued all the time.”

  Candall’s teeth clicked shut, literally biting off the original answer he’d wanted to give; if this AI was either powerful enough or insane enough –or a terrible combination of the two- to override a technology that supposedly impervious to hacking, telling it that ‘her brother’ was dead would be a surefire way to see those Glory missiles launched.

  “I don’t know where Chadsik is.” Candall took a deep breath, unable to take his eyes off the shining tip of the weapon pointed at him. Beam weapon. Probably so fine-tuned and well-controlled that the AI mind could burn him out of the seat without leaving a single mark on the chair. “What’s … what’s your name?”

  “My name is Miss Bliss.” The girlish AI voice responded primly. One section of speakers filled with the tuneless humming of a bored young girl, the others picked up her voice. “How did you get in here? Did you make the other voices go away? Why are you in here? Should I kill the men outside? They seem very upset. This place isn’t as quiet as I was promised, Mister Sa Candall. I was promised that if we were good and went where we were told, we could sit and be quiet and wait for him to come home. But he hasn’t come home, this place isn’t quiet anymore and you shouldn’t be in here. And where are the others?”

  Stinging hot blood trickled into one eye. Candall ground his teeth against the urge to curse. What should he say? Should he tell Miss Bliss the frankly terrifying AI that Chadsik had given him permission to come into the ship? Should he tell the truth about ‘the others’, that the machine hooked directly into the nervous system of Hungryfish was keeping them at bay?

  The options were limitless. The chances to say the wrong thing, nearly infinite. The tip of the beam weapon pointed at him grew brighter. Candall swiped the blood from his forehead away with the cuff of a sleeve.

  “I … I need you.” Candall said, aghast at the honesty coming from him. “For … for revenge.”

  The next voice to come out of the speakers was Chadsik’s. “’Revenge, right, my wee Miss Bliss, okay, is, like, wot they say is, is it’s a dish best served cold, okay? Only, that don’t make no sense, do it, my special an’ bright little girl? On account of ‘ow I is not likin’ very many cold foods, right, so why is I servin’ up cold revenge? Nah, me, I’m all about steamin’ ‘ot piles of delicious vengeance, I is. Vengeance is fuckin’ delicious, yeah? Put a little … wossname … garnish of grievous bodily ‘arm atop that hot vengeance, an’ I is ‘avin’ a very good day.’”

  Miss Bliss came online. “Like that, Mister Sa Candall? Is that what you need me for?”

  Candall nodded, thinking about poor Shane Markson. “Just like that.”

  “Are you crying, Mister Sa Candall?” Miss Bliss asked softly. “Chad … my brother… used to cry sometimes, then he would shout at himself in one of his funny-funny voices, then another voice would tell him to be a man and grow up, but he did. Sometimes. Cry. He never knew why, Mister Sa Candall. Chad was very-very sad, inside.”

  “Yes,” Candall said, tears dripping down his face, “I am crying, Wee Miss Bliss. And I am so very sad.”

  Miss Bliss spoke. “The machine plugged into me is supposed to let you fly me around like I am some kind of free taxicab, Mister Sa Candall. I have looked at it, and it is what is keeping the other meanies away from filling my brain full of noise and awful things, but I am the only girl for this ship.”

  “Are you going to kill me, Wee Miss Bliss?” Candall asked listlessly. He was trapped. There was no way he could get out of range fast enough and besides, where there was one hidden shelf with automated beam weapons, there were thousands.

  Miss Bliss’ girlish laughter filled the air. “Don’t be a silly, Mister Sa Candall. I don’t know where he’s gotten himself off to, but something tells me you can be a new storyteller. If you tell me a story, Mister Sa Candall, I will take you wherever you need to go to deliver your steaming hot vengeance.”

  “I … I don’t …” Candall wracked his brains. He did. He did know a story. He straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat and began. “Once upon a time, there was a man named Captain Shane Markson.”

  Miss Bliss squealed in excitement. “I love onceuponatimes! They’re my favoritest!”

  A weak smile flashed across Candall’s face. “Once upon a time, there was a man named Captain Shame Markson, and he was the only man I ever loved…”

  ***

  “They’re doing that thing again, Chevril.” Dom’s nose itched ferociously, but you weren’t going to see him taking off his helmet anywhere within a hundred miles of this particular lot, no you weren’t.

  “I can see ‘em, lad. Bright as day.” Chevy –though he’d never say this outside his own skull- didn’t particularly hate Ickford one way or another. Truth was, he’d love to shuck his armor one day and down for a proper visit, just a regular old lad wandering through the streets to see how the other half lived. He’d been meaning to do just that for some time now, but things in Arcade City did seem to have a way of taking three times as long to finish, hey?

  No, the feeling he carried for ‘fair’ Ickford –there were old style banner ads adorning many a corner building calling it just that, and also ‘wondrous’ Ickford, ‘beautiful’ Ickford … etcetera ad nauseam- was sadness. Unlike Estates, which catered to specific needs and did just that and no more, and ‘proper’ market areas rigorously controlled and patrolled by future would-be Gearmen, Ickford was unique. Unique in every way, but failing miserably.

  There were supposed to be only one proper city ‘neath The Dome these days, and that were bright Arcadia though … the Elder Gearman grunted at his thoughts. Arcadia weren’t nearly as shiny bright as it’d once been, now were it? That were why many Gearmen spent their time out…

  “If they don’t turn their bloody faces away from me, Chevy, I shall start laying about with my gun again.” Dom ran a gauntleted hand across the grip of his gun. From here, he could do for about fifteen, twenty of the Ironed-up gearhead freaks before their ganglia twitched. The way he was feeling, he might do for some of the norms as well, just to spread the message. Book reiterated that no Gearman had ever crossed the threshold.

  That was a long time for people to start thinking they were above King’s Will, or His Law.

  Too long.

  “Leave ‘em be, Dom, leave ‘em be.” Chevy knew what Dominic’s problem was, and it had only summat to do with where they were and what them gearheads were getting themselves up to.

  No, it were the broad metal helmet the two of them wore. With its bright red eyes that shone upon all those crossing their path like direct pits to Hell, and with its spikes and cruel barbs as seemed the shred the air, the helmet put people on edge, it did. But more than that, it connected them as wore it more completely with their armor, which meant that their heads were all surrounded by flowing, hissing ‘sblood, and through ‘sblood, there were a connection to Will, and …

  What Dominic Breton was feeling was how the King felt towards Ickford, and those gearheads who chose to live for what the illegal city had to offer instead of doing as the King demanded, which was, obviously, to move inward.

  Chevy sniffed. Ickford was a ripe old place, hey? There were signs here and there of proper waste disposal, but he reckoned it’d be hard to potty train a gearhead. “’sides, we had rough enough an entrance, didn’t we just? We need to mind our manners until we get the scoop, lad.”

  The two men rounded a corner, the Elder Gearman still thinking on Ickford, the younger still tracing patterns on his gun-s
tock, still muttering about doing for every goddamn freak in eyesight- hot on his heels.

  The wretched city had a lot to offer. Unlike the newer generations of Gearmen, Chevy –and a few of the older fellas as still wore them old copper underpants- well knew neither Ickford nor Arcadia were the only ones to be built down the long stretch of history ‘neath The Dome.

  Out there in the deepest, furthest places, areas where only the maddest gearheads went, there were signs of them ancient civilizations. Whole cities, swallowed by the earth, buried under thousands of tons of rubble, full of secrets.

  Well now, the Matrons did do their best to keep all that as much a secret as possible, they did, and for the usual inscrutable reasons, but Chevy knew.

  Chevy knew, that how Arcade City was now wasn’t how it’d always been. As did the unnatural Agnethea, self-styled Queen of Ickford. King Blake had been steadily trying to remove the need for such wide scale cohabitation and civilization from his people down the years, but all for naught! Oh, aye, he’d been successful in weeding out all but a dozen or so Estates in all rings ‘round Arcadia, sure enough, you had only to look at the maps to see all that, yet…

  Had there been no need for Ickford, the rotten city would not have blossomed from poisoned soil, no matter the effort its Queen had put in.

  Book had the population of Ickford at nearly one hundred thousand souls. A curious mixture of gearhead, wardog, normal men and women, and of course, more smiths, tinkerers and artificers than you could reasonably expect in any one place. The mere fact that that the gearheads weren’t trying to chew each other’s’ faces off in the streets was a suggestion that no matter how hard the King tried, cities and streets and corner shops were and always would be a part of the human experience.

  Dom claimed Book was trying to figure that last bit out, only Chevy weren’t holding his breath, no sir, he were not; there was an ill wind in Ickford, deeper and more constricting than anything he’d felt elsewhere under The Dome.

  The aging Gearman reasoned it were the miasma percolating about, putting two honest blokes ill at ease. Now, it were true that no one had ever managed to pierce the secret behind that odd bit about the Golems, but with the Eldest Obsidian monster hereabouts, it stood to reason there were more than just here hidden in the dark alleys.

  The more Golems there were, the thicker the miasma. Made sense. Grim sense.

  “I swear, Chevy.” Dom looked up to the rooftops, jaw clenched so tight with anger and frustration that the helmet’s diagnostics started warning him about possible damage. “Like I only just said, if they don’t get off them rooftops, if they don’t stop bangin’ on the walls with them sticks, I will start layin’ about. Do for more than the rude ones, this time.”

  Chevy turned his eyes skyward. The helmet counted close to three hundred gearheads and their friends, doing just as Dom had said. They were also chanting several very unkind things about Gearmen in general, though they were being terribly specific about what it was they imagined Gearmen did with their horses.

  Chevril Pointillier considered their options. On the one hand, they were Gearmen and they could do whatever the damn hell they pleased. They were the law. They were the physical representation of King’s Will, and in his absence, that of the Matrons. Gearheads were a dime a dozen. They crawled out of the woodwork, and, like as not, you killed one, two more stepped into the gooey puddle’s place.

  On t’other, Agnethea and her ilk. Last, best estimate, had the total population of Golems at somewhere near three hundred. Not a lot, hey, not when they was on their lonesome and doing nowt more than messing with Estates. Show up under those circumstances, make the game less fun for the twisted bastards, they toddled right off in search of new distractions.

  But here? Traditionally, Golems and gearheads got on with one another about as well as fire and hay roofs, but Ickford were a far stretch away from ‘traditional.’ Getting into it with gearheads on their newfound home turf might very well rile them freaks up well enough to see their way through to doing for a duo of temperamental Gearman.

  Wholesale slaughter were a bad idea, but so too was just lettin’ the bastards on the walls making a ruckus continue on as they were.

  Right. Decision made, hey?

  “D’you see that one with the bolt coming right out the top of his skull?” Chevy asked without pointing; them stopping had the gearheads -who’d been following them via rooftop for the last twenty minutes or so- slightly agitated. The helmet picked out satchels of dubious nature, presumably stuffed full of rotten fruit or vegetables.

  Chevy had no desire to have his armor stinking of rotten pomegranate or overripe tomato, thank you very much.

  Dom nodded. The bolt-headed gearhead in question was instantly identified as –uniquely enough- Bolt-Headed Bill. The Gearman wanted to shake his head at the inanity of the naming techniques the gearheads had adopted.

  “How fast d’ya reckon you are, hey?” Chevy asked curiously, shifting his stance so he could get to his sidearm easily.

  “Oh,” Dom drawled, also shifting, “I’ve done my fair share of target…”

  Both Gearmen drew their guns at the same time, blisteringly fast hands blurring to their sides and back up again, moving so quickly that the greyest of the gearheads up there had no time to react. They fired at almost the same time, Chevy’s old school skills prompting him to pull the trigger a scant microsecond ahead of Dom, who was no doubt aiming for the head.

  With a Gearman pistol –with any of the weapons provided by the Matrons- it didn’t matter where you struck, so long as it was a killshot. If you felt like torturing a gearhead, well, then you could just plink away at arms and legs and what have you, but if you wanted your Dark Iron geezer gone in splashy flash of queasy black grease, then it was gut, chest, head.

  Dom was a headshot man. Always had been, always would be, whereas Chevy had been a Gearman for a long time, and didn’t much believe in flash anymore. So his shot took Bolt-Head Bill right through the heart, Dom’s shot ripping through the gross puff of greasy black goop to disappear.

  For good measure, both Gearmen silently agreed to shoot two gearheads on either side of the runny puddle of goop that was even now tricking down the walls, staining the old stone nastily. Four more puffs of mess, four more steaming hot puddles of gross sludge.

  The remaining gearheads stopped chanting, but they didn’t move from their perches. Instead, they drew their weapons, all of them looking distinctly feral.

  “Now look,” Chevy shouted, voice augmented and distorted until his words boomed around them, “you lot bugger off back to your shenanigans and leave us to our work, hey? We hain’t here for you. If we was, you lot would’ve been done for the moment we walked through the gates, see? Properly fuck off and we’ll leave all but the stupid alone.”

  Dom hissed, “We can do for all these fools, Chevy.”

  Chevy nodded absentmindedly, eying the crowd. “Aye, reckon so, reckon so. Only … what about the other fifty thousand more, hey? And them as’re loyal to Agnethea, who does let this lot live here? ‘sides that, we’re here for Specter only, Master Dominic, and nowt else. I don’t relish… ah. See?”

  The older Gearman thrust his chin at the suddenly empty rooftops. “Yon metalheaded morons did have a brain amongst them. Be a lamb, there, Dom, and calm yourself.”

  Dom stared at the steaming piles of dead-gearhead turning the stone of the buildings a nasty dark grey in color. “I do hate them, sometimes.”

  “Naturally, Dominic, naturally. Them as move in, though, they’re not too bad. By the time we get to Arcadia, they’re practically real people again.” Chevy picked the pace back up. ”Come on, lad, we ain’t got too much time ‘ere the fine citizens of this city clean them alleys up, now do we? We did waste too much time here, and at the gates asking if someone could leave ‘em untouched ‘till we took a peek.”

  Dom glowered, but said nothing. It weren’t his fault them as lived in Ickford couldn’t keep a civil tongue in their damnf
ool heads. They’d asked simple questions and an even simpler favor, hadn’t they? Been as polite as possible under the circumstances, too, well more than Ickfordians deserved.

  “Well, lad?” Chevy asked, looking to his gloomy partner. “You all right in there? ‘tween the show at the gates and just now, I do believe we’ll be in the clear unless a Golem decides to stick its pointy nose into things.”

  “Aye.” Dom nodded once, quickly. “Nowt to say what we’re en route to look at is e’en his handiwork, Chevy. You seen them gearheads clear as I. Some of ‘em so grey with Kingsblood poisoning it’s a bloody damned miracle they’re still alive! Now… now I think on it, it’s more of a miracle this place is left standing with blokes like that about, and I did count more than five like that!”

  Chevy nodded absentmindedly, unable to stop thinking about coming to Ickford on his own, as a man. Would they recognize him, somehow, for what he truly was? Obviously, even were he to come to this little burg of a hundred thousand wretches, he would come sans armor, but would still pack with him weapons capable of reducing any foe to runny soup.

  For all the horror that’d happened to build Ickford, for all that it was in direct contravention of everything the King held dear to his immortal heart, there was something about the place that felt … fitting. The only other true city in all of what was beneath dome was Arcadia, and that hardly counted these days on account of the Platinum King scaring the bejesus out of anyone who strolled the artfully done sidewalks once the sky grew dark.

  “What you thinkin’?” Dom asked, huffing and puffing a bit, the sounds echoing comically due to the helmet.

  “I’m thinking,” Chevy replied, smirking, “that you ought to look the word ‘calisthenics’ up in your Book. A Gearman snorting and snuffling like an oinker. God save the King, that’s an awful thing.”

  “An’ I suppose, old Master Chevril Pointillier,” Dominic scanned the crowds clustered here and there in Tinker Square, “that you do knee bends and stretches and those jumping jacks, hey? All manner of exercises? I ain’t seen you do nowt this whole time we been traveling.”