The Beauty of Destruction (66 page)

The bombardment of her senses, the need to keep moving, was good. It meant she didn’t have to think about Beth.

Talia was aware of the thing from the lake before she saw it. The strange inhabitants of the city fled before it. A flickering, ghostly figure in a robe was standing on a needlessly complicated corner, watching its approach. The tech, in her body, in the armour, told Talia that the ghost was feeding sensory information to huge, barely functioning servers in various parts of this world. The servers contained the corrupted ruins of some kind of VR environment, an immersion as Vic called them. Then the thing surged around the corners of the city into view like a wave of turgid oil. A pseudopod of the viscous material flicked out, and the robed ghost ceased to exist. Chemicals and technology suppressed primal fear, but Talia knew this thing was beyond wrong even as those it touched dissolved, as it pulled them into its body. Talia looked around for a way out of the labyrinth, and then remembered she could fly. Pseudopods reached out for her as she rapidly accelerated, bouncing off the unexpected protrusions of the city’s strange masonry. It was like trying to fly through a very solid optical illusion.

Her eyes widened as another, more extensive orbital bombardment lit up the city, destroying the centre around the stones, badly wounding one of the minds, judging by the filtered signals she was receiving. The thing from the lake surged through the streets beneath her. She saw another monster moving between broken, smoking, twisted spires. It took her a moment to come to terms with what her new senses were telling her, that this unfolded hole in reality was Patron. It was hard to look at him. She was aware of one of the oily, viscous, anti-life thing’s pseudopods reaching up for her. She moved away from it. The orbital bombardment had stopped. Now the sky was lit up like the northern lights. She saw shooting stars. She looked between the two monsters.

‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ she muttered in her narcotic- and technologically-aided calmness. She flew back towards the centre of the city, towards the destruction. She was aware of wrestling figures tumbling from the sky, through buildings, to impact with the ground. Scab was a blur, fighting with the Innocent. Vic was a blur, fighting with the scorpion-like Elite. They were wrestling, stabbing, slashing, punching, kicking, the Elite’s armour extruding blades in all sorts of places. It might have been happening in a bewildering blur that she could only really understand because of her augmented perception, but it looked little different from a brawl on the dance floor of a Bradford nightclub. With a thought she ran through her own weapon options and found what she was looking for.

‘Stop!’ she screamed.

43

The City

‘Stop!’ It was a sonic weapon, it broadcast throughout the sound spectrum from infrasound to ultrasound wavelengths. Talia wanted them to take notice. Ancient masonry crumbled, towers fell, any of the city’s inhabitants within range of her weaponised voice went deaf, blood exploding from ears, noses and eyes. It was enough to get their attention, just for a moment. She knew that Vic would listen because she was asking. Warily he paused in his attack. She gave thanks that the scorpion Elite was reasonable enough to do the same. Patron stopped, she assumed out of curiosity.

Scab continued fighting, of course. He was intent on driving a black blade through the Innocent’s armour. ‘Scab!’

He ignored her, too intent on the kill. ‘Vic?’ she asked. Vic held up all four of his limbs to show the scorpion Elite that he meant no harm, his weapon absorbed by the armour. The scorpion Elite nodded.

Talia glanced behind her. She could see the first of the pseudopods of the black, viscous thing. Vic flew across to where Scab was trying to kill the Innocent. Scab didn’t even glance his way. He probably hadn’t expected Vic to kick him into a massive block of basalt. Scab came out of the crater in the side of the wall. His armour appeared to be reacting to his mood. More than ever he looked ready to kill; he looked like a weapon.

‘Scab, please!’ Talia begged. ‘We can kill each other later, but please, just for a few moments.’ The screams caused by the oil-like creature’s attacks on the city’s strange inhabitants sounded less than human. ‘Can we make that thing go away?’ she asked.

‘Leave it to do its work,’ the woman in the raven-headed armour said as she climbed to her feet. All around them was a smoking ruin. The creature surged closer.

‘Okay, okay, look, please, we can all go back to this massive fight in a moment, I just want some time to talk first. Seriously, I’ll even join in on your side.’

The helmet unfolded away from the woman’s head. Talia took a step back at the woman’s appearance. She wasn’t sure why, after all she had seen. The woman was bald, her head unnaturally swollen, eyes like mercury, tears of quicksilver and blood on her cheeks. Talia could see the pain etched into her features. She could also see the resemblance. It was faint but there was enough for Talia to recognise some of Britha in her own features.

‘No,’ the woman said. ‘You do not know his crimes. He must die.’

Talia sighed. Patron was a distended shadow folding itself down into a mostly human shape that existed, at least partly, in their space.

‘Everyone’s such a fucking hard-arse,’ Talia muttered, sagging. She wished her sister was here, though she wasn’t sure if Beth would be part of the solution or the problem. She felt tears in her eyes as she tried to suppress the memory of her sister on the end of a spear, the serpent’s ‘eggs’ already growing inside her.

‘Look, this is ridiculous …’ She glanced behind her at the viscous thing’s seeping progress, though she constantly felt its presence. ‘This … I don’t know, your fighting’s kind of become abstract. Do you honestly think it means anything in the face of
that
?’ She used her thumb to point at the thing. Everyone was staring at her and she started to feel self-conscious.

‘I think this is beyond your understanding, girl,’ the woman with the swollen head said, though Talia thought there was something in the way the silver eyes regarded her, perhaps recognition. She glanced behind her again. The thing from the lake was much closer. She knew that she could create a weapon-like focus for the offensive powers of her armour. She intended to use it on the anti-life thing, but she was struggling with what it should look like. She could only think of amorphous blobs of shifting matter for some reason.

‘We need to get back to it now. We have other things to do,’ Scab told her over a private secure link.

Talia was aware that neither Patron nor the two Consortium Elite were making any move. Patron’s strange shadow form seemed to be looking at her. He had to know that the thing from the black lake would be making straight for him.

‘Oh yeah, more killing,’ Talia said out loud. She pointed at the anti-life thing. ‘That’s better at it than you. Can’t you feel it?’

‘Maybe she’s got a point,’ Vic said. Talia felt a surge of gratitude, but it was mixed with the expectation that he probably wouldn’t be of much help. ‘Maybe if we could all just talk a bit, yeah?’ She had been right. Even Patron looked a little embarrassed for the ’sect as he resumed a more human form, and turned back to the swollen-headed woman.

Something burst out of a shadowed angle high above them. For a moment it looked like a moving piece of inky darkness, drifting away like smoke at the edges of its form, as if it didn’t completely belong. Then she was able to make out a vague, faceless, humanoid form, gliding on bat-like wings, trailing a smoky, whip-like tail behind it. There was someone on its back, clinging on, riding it: a tall, thin, pale man with long platinum hair trailing behind him. He was dressed in armour, and had a sword strapped to his back. The sensors in Talia’s armour were letting her know that the man in question had significant biological augmentations, and that both his armour and sword were of a tech level equivalent to the sort of weapons that Vic, Scab and her sister had carried. It was all information that she just suddenly knew. She was also aware that the man’s base form had been extensively sculpted, but he was, in fact, another Scab clone.

‘We are blessed,’ Talia muttered to herself. ‘This should calm things right down.’

Patron started to laugh as the inky, bat-like, humanoid thing circled down through the red air to land.

‘Bress?’ the swollen-headed woman called.

‘Why am I tall and attractive?’ Scab demanded as the figure clambered down from the humanoid’s back. The creature’s face reminded Talia of a caul. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a mouth underneath it trying to scream. It bolted for a corner the moment ‘Bress’s’ boots touched the ground.

‘Britha,’ he said. ‘What have you done?’

Talia turned around and looked at pseudopods creeping towards them, burning the smoking ground with their touch. She backed away. Vic and Scab both took to the air. The two remaining Elite did likewise. With a thought Talia made the helmet of her armour fold away. She seemed to remember that sometimes it was important to let people see your eyes.

‘Okay, seriously—’ she started.

‘Britha, can you stop it?’ Bress asked.

‘If I do he’s won,’ the woman, apparently called Britha, said, very quietly.

‘I will kill you and be gone before it catches me anyway,’ Patron said. ‘I may even have your lover do it.’ There was something about the way he made the threat, as if it was a reflex, as if his heart wasn’t in it. Bress glanced at Patron, but turned back to Britha.

‘Please, the girl is right. We need to stop fighting. She is a descendant of Fachtna and yours. She can save us.’ Britha glanced over at her. Talia tried to fly, to move away from the crawling thing, but bumped into protruding masonry.

‘Ow!’

‘Are you still his slave?’ Britha asked him. Bress kissed her.

‘Priorities!’ Talia shouted. Scab was muttering to himself. Talia was quite surprised that Patron hadn’t just killed them all.

‘Please,’ Bress whispered as he pulled away from Britha. She nodded, mercury tears in her eyes.

‘I … I … if this is a trick …’ Britha started.

‘It is not a trick,’ Bress promised her. Patron was staring at the tall, thin man.

‘I will speak with the city,’ Britha said and closed her eyes.

‘This changes nothing,’ Patron said. ‘She killed Siska.’ Bress turned around to look at the tall, obsidian-skinned figure. Patron was becoming easier to look at, his lines more defined.

‘And how long was she your slave?’ Bress asked.

‘She was not—’ Patron started, but Bress was shaking his head. The unsure expression on Patron’s face looked out of place. Talia found that she was hovering in the air now. She turned to look at the anti-life thing. It had become sluggish, slower, and finally had seemed to come to a bubbling stop, seething and roiling in place as though something had caged it. Britha opened her eyes.

‘For now,’ she told them. Talia touched gently down and walked towards Patron, Bress and Britha. Vic floated over to join them as well. Scab was looking between the remaining Elite.

‘Look, we can resort to violence any time we want. Let’s just try and have a bit of a conversation first, agreed?’ Talia suggested.

Patron’s laugh was without humour. ‘As far as it goes.’

‘Scab, do you want to join us?’ Talia called. He did not answer and remained hanging in the air until, with a final glance between the two Elite, he floated over to join them, his helmet peeling back away from his face. Vic had also lowered his helmet.

‘Do you want to bring the other two over?’ Talia asked Patron, meaning the two Elite.

‘There’s no need,’ Patron said, glancing at Bress as he spoke.

‘How did you get here?’ Britha asked Bress. She had hold of one of his arms, but it was tentative, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was there. ‘I thought you were dead. Nobody could withstand that, surely?’

‘I was trapped under stone, mostly crushed, for … for so long. Most of the time the magics in my body made me sleep, to try and heal with what little resources I had, to preserve what they could of my mind. It didn’t help. I was mad for millennia. I’ve lived entirely delusional and hallucinatory lifetimes. Shifting tectonic plates, erosion and entropy freed me. Then it took me further millennia to reassemble my shattered mind, but somehow I could still remember you.’ There were more quicksilver tears in Britha’s eyes.

‘Aw,’ Talia said as her cynicism was overwhelmed by her sense of romance. Scab was staring at her in disgust, but Talia couldn’t help but think that there was something else there. Jealousy?

‘Well, that’s very nice,’ Patron said. ‘But your presence here is irrelevant. We kill you and then get on with our day. If you want to spend some time together, then by all means leave the city …’

‘Why leave the city?’ Bress asked.

‘Because he knows that if we stay in the city we can use it to contact the Destruction,’ Talia said. Scab glared at her. Patron turned to look at the young human woman.

‘That will not go well for you. Look around. Do you know where you are?’ he asked. Vic and Scab were looking at him blankly.

‘Our land,’ Britha said. Patron looked impressed despite himself. ‘You took our world to Cythrawl,’ Britha said.

‘This isn’t Hell,’ Scab said. ‘It’s just Red Space.’

‘And if we’re no threat, why do you want us to leave?’ Bress asked. Patron narrowed his eyes.

‘You’ve broken your programming,’ Patron said.

‘I think you underestimate just how much time I’ve had,’ Bress said.

‘So can we start killing each other again?’ Scab asked impatiently. Patron started to nod.

‘Wait!’ Talia shouted. ‘What exactly do you want?’

Patron was starting to look exasperated now. It was clear that curiosity had been the reason he had stayed his hand, but he had not heard anything he considered interesting or persuasive. ‘It is irrelevant,’ Patron said.

‘No it’s not,’ Bress said. ‘If it was you wouldn’t be here. Look at this place. You know there’s not enough energy to send you back. It’s not as bad as it is in our universe, but we’re all stuck here now. You’ve sacrificed yourself. You wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t decisive.’

Talia felt her stomach lurch. She had known she was stuck here but hadn’t heard it spelled out like that.

‘My actions might be decisive, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this is a fight. This is an execution. You cannot stand against me. I only came here because I knew I would not fail. Though I have to admit I was surprised you got this far.’

‘Tell that to the dead snake,’ Scab said. Vic was nodding.

‘And you did not expect to see me,’ Britha said.

Patron sighed. ‘There is no you. There is just a crystalline lattice comprised of individual five-dimensional parasites which vaguely remember you.’

Talia saw Bress try and hide his stricken expression. He almost managed it.

‘Then what difference does it make if you tell her?’ Bress demanded. ‘Or is it just, even now, even after all the pain, you know how ridiculous “I want to destroy everything” will sound?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Patron started.

‘It fucking is if you’re one of the poor fuckers about to not exist,’ Vic said. ‘I mean seriously, man, grow up.’ Patron turned to look at him. Talia wasn’t sure she had ever seen a look that more supremely defined cold anger. Vic took a step back. Talia found herself doing the same.

‘Vic,’ Talia said, putting her hand on his arm. His armour was still warm. ‘If it’s more complicated …’ she started.

‘I … we … just want the pain to end,’ Patron snapped. Then Talia saw it. It was etched all over his face.

‘We can end the suffering,’ Scab said.

Patron was shaking his head. ‘It’s not enough. Memory.’

‘We need to compromise now,’ Talia said, and found Scab’s dead eyes staring at her. ‘That way everyone’s equally unhappy,’ she said weakly.

‘I do its bidding—’ Patron started.

‘But neither you nor it are thinking straight,’ Bress said. ‘This is a pain response. You’re aeons old, the only thing holding you together is ill-will, unintentional masochism, and an instinctive understanding of how to manipulate fundamental forces. You want the pain to end, then end it.’

‘It would never allow me—’ Patron started. There was desperation in his voice, but something else as well. Hope. Talia’s eyes felt wet.

‘It’s a wounded animal, lashing out,’ Bress pleaded. Talia couldn’t help but glance at Scab. ‘Even if it had control of you in the past, here? Now? It’s so cold back in our universe that the simplest of its thought processes could take millions of years. You’re trapped in a cycle of your own pain and madness, but everyone around you is either afraid of you, or under your control, and nobody dares tell you this. You can end it with a thought.’