Saints of the Void: Atypical (4 page)

“Well, sir…” Saan said, crossing her arms. “That was
rude
of him, yes, but not worth upsetting the council
further.”

“It wasn’t Tryst’s actions that made me leave, it was
instinct, reflex. Something about the way he was acting combined
with the meeting. I just felt like I had to leave, go somewhere
protected. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea.”

Nes laughed. “You say that like we’re not used to you
doing weird stuff with little explanation.”

Dastou sneered at him, but what Nes said was true.
Lately, the Saint had become secretive. He was having fits,
near-seizures like the one that drove him back to Silverline Sharp.
He also had a tendency lately to disappear, go somewhere in the
Academy or Caravan and come back in two or three hours, having no
clue as to what he did with the time. He kept it to himself, not
wanting to reveal all of it without knowing more, even if that was
irresponsible of him.

“Speaking of explanations,” said Saan, “should I
assume you’ll want to contact a science team to come here and
research the seismic activity after we leave?”

The science team would be standard operating
procedure, but this was a strange occurrence considering the
history of the lands on which Stone-State was built. He shook his
head at Saan-Hu’s question.

“No, we’ll use the Caravan and stay with them. I want
to be here in case the volcano has become active again.”

Nes and Saan looked at each other, apparently
confirming that neither of them had missed a step in this
conversation.

“Hey, uh... you did that thing you do sometimes,” Nes
told Dastou.

“What?” replied the Saint.

“You mentioned something that you think we know.
Something about a
goddamn volcano
.”

Ah, yes. Of course they wouldn’t know about it. Not
unexpected considering where the information was recorded and where
it came from.

“Right. Sorry. Let me show you what I’m talking
about.”

Dastou moved towards a shelf in the middle of the
wall to his right. It took a moment to find the book he wanted,
Anchor River of the West, Geological,
just below eye level,
and he slid it out. Leather with dark green dye and yellow leafing
revealed who the author was before Dastou even read the name: Saint
Avrazi Keymeign, from three generations back. She and another
Saint, her husband Breddis Gosch, decided to explore one of the
“future build” locations on this continent, the largest landmass on
the western hemisphere.

Future build locality types were where a Saint
figured a major Social Cypher construction project would soon begin
due to population expansion. The climate in this area is
comfortably warm for most of the year, so the couple was basically
on celebratory holiday for their twentieth anniversary, scouting
only after they had their rest and relaxation. Keymeign did the
work of creating maps in as much detail as she could, and Gosch
studied the flora and fauna for a companion volume.

Dastou walked back to the desk while flipping pages
to find what he needed. Saan moved the wheeled guest chair out of
the way and the book was laid down on the desk, opposite the
Saint’s usual seat. He turned a few more pages, and nodded when he
found what he was looking for. The manuscript was opened to show an
immaculate, hand-drawn map of the river bed and surrounding area.
Stone-State was built on those lands starting in 397 VE, forty-two
years ago. Saan and Nes looked over Dastou’s shoulder, almost
certainly focusing on the clearly important words “dormant
volcano,” which were scribbled neatly and dead center of a border
drawn in dots of ink.

“It’s been dormant for ten-thousand years or so.
Don’t ask me how I know that, it’s in the Null Bank,” said
Dastou.

The Null Bank is the name the Sainthood gave to a
mass repository of knowledge all of his kind could access at will
upon their awakenings. To put it simply: it was an encyclopedia of
immeasurable depth in each Saint’s brain. They must learn to limit
access to it early on or lose their minds to an overabundance of
data. That level of on-hand information and a Saint’s typically
excellent skill at thinking quickly is how Avrazi Keimeign explored
an essentially wild, forested area so well that she could consider
it a vacation
before
creating the maps. Saint Breddis Gosch
was able to keep from poisoning himself too badly while collecting
and examining samples of the local plant life. He did describe, in
great detail, the color and viscosity of his vomit after finding a
root that smelled like well-done enta-bull beef, but tasted like a
spicy tea additive he found on another continent. It was also
mildly toxic. He never did find a good use for that root.

“If the Null Bank is mistaken and this volcano is a
danger, we need to know. And be here in case evacuation is
necessary.”

The three of them stayed silent, knowing exactly why
they’d have to stay and help. Five years ago, a city was hit by a
hurricane, and the citizens in its direct path of destruction
perished. There are no Social Cypher triggers for natural
disasters, so floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and so on are all
ignored by the state of emergency infrastructure. Yes, the damage
afterward is repaired by mass-hypnotism, but that’s all. Thousands
of lives could be saved every year with proper evacuation
practices.

“I also don’t want these politicians kicking out the
researchers,” elaborated Dastou, adding to the unspoken agreement
that they would all join this mission. “They might not think of a
small tremor as a matter of importance, so some unarmed researchers
would be easy targets for exportation to teach us some kind of
lesson about respecting borders. Either way I expect to have to
deal with Jandal Tryst again soon enough – he won’t be happy when
we return, even if he now knows why.”

“Fantastic. I always said I can never get enough
vaguely hostile bureaucracy.”

“Hmph,” muttered Saan, agreeing with the
corporal.

“We’ll pack light for when we come back and sleep in
the barracks with the security contingent if it ends up being an
overnighter,” continued Dastou. “If possible...”

He froze in place again, but this time everyone knew
why. The Saint’s words were cut off by an explosion at the
window.

The sound of the blast was not very loud, but it was
sudden and unexpected. The Saint made sure to appear unruffled, but
Nes had drawn his sword and was in front of the unarmed Saan-Hu
before he must have realized how pointless his actions were. She
was as well-trained as he was, maybe more so, and would probably be
offended by his brotherly protective instinct. Plus, the window was
actually made of a twenty-centimeter-thick substance Dastou and his
mentor invented that only
looked
like glass. The material’s
properties were kept from the public, and it was far too resilient
to be damaged by anything that wasn’t also developed by a
Saint.

“A rocket,” said Dastou, hiding most of his outright
surprise. “If this was one of the other windows in the building
we’d all be dead or severely injured,”

“Who in the hell would do that!?” asked Nes, putting
his sword away with a hand that he almost completely kept from
shaking.

Dastou walked around the desk toward the window and
Nes went around the other side of the furniture to get to the
viewpoint as well, even if thick black smoke made it impossible to
see anything for the moment. On the way the Saint looked at Saan as
she pressed her thumb against a hidden finger-print scanner on the
desk, masked to perfectly match the dark-brown wood. A short
beep
could be heard before a thin monitor began to unfold
from the flat wood of the desk in such a way that Dastou, normally
seated on the other side, would be able to use it; the Saint had an
affinity for hiding things in plain sight.

The monitor featured a full ball-joint swivel and
Saan turned the screen to face her. A bright-green holographic
keyboard was projected on the desk in front of her from a tiny
projector on the bottom edge of the monitor, part of it on top of
Keymeign’s guide. She grunted in annoyance and shoved
Anchor
River of the West, Geological
aside. Saan did all this in the
three steps the Saint took to get closer to the window, but now he
put his attention to the view again now that he was closer to
it.

Dastou and Nes arrived at the window simultaneously,
and by this time the thick smoke outside had been mostly cleared by
a light wind. Residue of whatever explosive was in the rocket was
smeared over a lot of the not-quite-glass, but there were plenty of
cleaner spots to look out from and see the results of the brazen
daytime attack.

A few dozen panicking citizens on the sidewalks of
the downtown road were the first thing Dastou noticed. Many of
those people, particularly those close to the embassy, were holding
their ears. The sound of the blast, muffled by the protective
material of the window, must have been deafening to those poor
folks. The only people not panicking were two blocks away, in the
middle of the wide two-way street and right on top of the trolley
tracks that split the road. There were three of them, all men, and
they were busy.

One of them was putting down a single-use rocket
launcher, having already unleashed it’s payload, next to a big
duffle bag at his feet. Another was in front of an identical bag,
picking up an identical weapon, this one armed and ready to fire.
The third man, between the other two, only had binoculars. Clearly
the spotter or scout of the group, he was looking right at the
Caravan office window. He was probably hoping to see the extent of
the damage in order to call the shot for the next rocket or the
lack of need for it. Instead he saw some soot on a pane that could
not quite hide an outwardly calm Saint Cosamian Dastou and an
all-around pissed off DSF corporal.

The Saint made absolutely sure that his appearance
was that of pure, calculating serenity. Sometimes it was the image
of someone who was always in control and prepared for anything that
helped him achieve a goal, so he kept his composure. It was an
incredible feat thanks to a hatred that grew stronger by the second
for these criminals.

“Them. It’s them,” said Nes, stating the obvious
because there was little else to say.

The scout waved at his comrades and said something,
but never stopped looking towards the embassy. Distance and soot
kept Dastou from being able to decipher their words. It was easy to
tell, though, that the scout told the second rocket-carrier not to
fire at their previous target. He spoke again, and the response was
a stunned look from the other two. The scout, his actions showing
him to be the leader of the small group, stopped spying through the
binoculars and took a long look at each of his comrades, speaking
to them once more. The others nodded. The one who fired the first
rocket put his used and recyclable launcher in the duffle bag, then
picked it up.

The attacker with the still-armed weapon shouldered
his armament and took aim. Dastou looked in the general direction
of where the ordnance was pointed, and for the first time in a long
time, his mind went absolutely blank with horror.

*****

The rocket was aimed at a pipe running up the side of
an apartment building, the closest edifice to the Stone-State
Embassy on the Saint’s left. That wrist-thick pipe carried siopane,
a liquid fuel that is used throughout modernized cities.
Unfortunately it was an invention of the Sainthood, a collaborative
effort from all living members of the organization a couple of
decades ago, meant to take advantage of untapped natural resources.
As such, the Social Cypher hypnotism that creates and maintains
infrastructure made no room for it, so piping was designed for the
outside of buildings, with smaller tubes leading to a single valve
on each floor that citizens could use to refill pressure-sealed
containers. When the rocket hit the fuel pipe, which ran from under
the building all the way to the roof, it created a cascade of
violence that was too fast, too intense for even Dastou’s unique
mind to completely follow.

The rocket hit the pipe and exploded, sure, but the
siopane fuel that was ignited created a massive follow-up
detonation. The blue-green light of the burning fuel made the road
immediately in front of the embassy look like a monochrome midnight
carnival. During that fraction-of-a-second light show, most of the
street-facing side of the apartment building the pipe was attached
to blew apart. Rubble shooting away from it was like cannon fire,
and the shockwave from the explosion was far worse than the
earthquake a few minutes prior. The sonic blast shattered every
piece of real glass within view, creating a deadly rainfall.

The blown away debris hit people, cars, and the
buildings on the other side the street. Most people hit with a
piece larger than a fist died instantly; the rest were knocked
unconscious, severely injured, or both. Cars, all parked thanks to
a halt in traffic due to Dastou’s arrival in town, were battered or
toppled. The sounds of metal crumpling, crunching, and screeching
were so loud, so abrasive they could be heard through the thick
window. The structures closest to the targeted building, including
the embassy, were pelted with some of the high-speed rubble
projectiles, but the stone construction of those places stood
strong despite the bombardment.

The intensity of the incident was over in what barely
counted as a long moment, and Dastou and his cohorts were already
surveying the horrific results down below. A fog made of pulverized
concrete was in the air, making it hard to see, but the culprits
were still visible if one focused – and Dastou was focusing
very
hard. The three criminals ran westward, through an
alley on the same side of the street as the building they targeted,
and out of sight.