The water fell down into oblivion, but Joy had seen it before, and she wasn't the type to be scared of heights. She was more wary of the fact that she was alone.
She'd expected to be met at the per-arranged spot, that had been the plan when the mechanical golem had dropped by a month or so ago, but she'd arrived two hours before and been alone ever since. When the air had cracked open like it had before, she'd been even more surprised when no one came out of it except a waterfall of otherworld sea water. And there was no one inside it either.
Joy had never been a hesitant sort. You couldn't just ACCIDENTALLY break open a dimensional furrow, well, at least in a specific place at a specific rough time with said gateway being stable. So, she'd re-clinched her numerous supply packs onto Riotous and headed through. Like the first time, there and back, it was a bridge of water over a crimson void and under a seething black mass of a sky, but as long as she stayed on the path she'd be fine. And as much as Joy loved a challenge and a good scrap, she had enough sense of her skin to not go diving off into the unknown at a whim.
But when she arrived on the other end and found just a long expanse of sea water under some night stars, she started getting really confused. No ship. No undersea base. Not even a buoy or something. She was completely alone.
She didn't much care for it. But after establishing she wasn't being set up for an ambush, and consulting an Intricacy that confirmed that yes, she was at the correct location and time, she finally decided enough was enough; she'd made her own way for years and she wasn't about to stop now. So, running on the waves as easily as he would run upon the sandy beaches she headed for, Joy headed for where she was FAIRLY sure the bar was.
She was right...to an extent. There was no one there. In the sense of 'no one she recognized'. The bartender wasn't Keahi, but some stranger. And when asked if she'd arrived too early...
"What do you mean the Kobbers have moved on and aren't here any more?"
----
-The Teapot, Some Time Ago-
"Oh bugger."
A crescendo of alarms echoed through the base, along with the sound of slamming doors.
"Oh bugger oh bugger oh bugger..." Dawn recited as she tried to get the unexpected error under control.
She failed. In the less important sense, anyway.
-A Little Less Time Ago-
"How long are you going to be in there, mommy?" Veronica said.
"I'm working on a solution, Ronnie. But until we can get Utsuho to swing by here, there's far too much radiation for myself to do much else." That was an understatement. Dawn's accident had unleashed so much radiation that if she hadn't immediately activated her sealing mechanisms with the super-dense metal tralphium cores she'd had a great deal of difficulty attaining, she might have permanently irradiated half the Pacific Ocean. Well, if the Teapot was still down there. But she'd sealed the chamber and herself off, and she thankfully wasn't as prone to 'sickening and dying' under the gaze of the invisible doom as an organic being. No, she was just now putting out so much radiation that she'd probably give anything in a mile radius of her cancer. For the next eight thousand or so years.
Thank the gods for Utsuho, but she wasn't at Dawn's beck and call. And the Kobbers were due to arrive at the new bar very very soon, and she knew her children were chomping at the bit to be there. But she wasn't helpless, oh no...
She was working on a solution.
It almost made her forget that she had to pick up Merilee Marsello. And she was in no position to actually 'pick her up'.
Bad time for a mistake, but she could fix this, she could fix it all...
----
-The Edge of the Undercity-
Some people would protest that some parts of the Undercity really weren't that bad, that its reputation as the latest version of the Wild-West-of-fiction was exaggerated. They weren't wholly wrong. There were places in the Undercity where if you minded your own business and kept good locks on your doors and to yourself, the dark side wouldn't much touch you. There were more than a few buildings and sub-spaces where you could open a scuffed door and find a perfectly nice and warmly lit apartment that wouldn't be out of place in a catalogue. Unfortunately, not everyone who lived in the Undercity could make such a claim.
And if you lived on Decade Mile, well...it was a whole different kettle of fish.
The Curse' tendrils pierced the deepest into the Undercity, but it wasn't the only crime and corruption that lurked there. And then there was Decade Mile. There was virtually no crime there. No criminals to threaten more normal folks who just wanted to live their life and weren't in a good position for one reason or another to do so elsewhere. Any of the sort of types who made life harder for such other types rapidly left Decade Mile, usually in a body bag. Decade Mile was the Silvers' turf. They had zero tolerance and almost as much mercy.
But the downside to that area, edging up on the unlivable-by-anything-remotely-normal Green Hell zone, was that Decade Mile had more...unconventional problems. Lesser in number, but often greater in danger. It was a coin flip of a choice: no one was disallowed from the Mile as long as they didn't cause trouble, and everyone was defended and looked after. But the Silvers couldn't be everywhere at once, and the things that walked there, stalked there, lurked in the dark cracks and sometimes reached out...
There are worse things than crime.
It said a lot that the latest Malfested could be said to be a 'very good one'. In the sense it was a ten foot tall humanoid alligator beast that could generate electricity between its front incisors and had only killed one person before the Geruvians, or the Silvers, depending on who you asked, had chased it from Decade Mile. It had proven to be good at running, and they'd had to chase it much further than most of the Malfested. But it had finally reached some territory that had confused it and slowed it down a bit.
As far as Lyall Curr was concerned though, it had gone too far about five or so 'fars' back, and as soon as it stopped to sniff the air he threw caution to the wind and charged in, leaping onto its back and ramming the dagger blade into its thick, resilient hide as hard as he could. He was strong, and practiced in such motions. It still barely penetrated, the Malfested howling, electrical energy crackling from its jaw and zapping out, lighting up the tunnel even as more electricity coursed through its body, electrifying Lyall before he could drive in another dagger and throwing him clear. The Malfested turned to him as he slapped at his wrist, and the dagger's length suddenly turned cold, than freezing, then impossibility frigid. There weren't any Therians here, with a need to hunt through materials until you found their 'silver', so Lyall had adapted his dagger array as needed. Mutant akin to a cold blooded reptile, so magically enchanted ice dagger, to put it simply. At the very least, it hurt, and the Malfested howled its rage and pain...
Its inner mouth was more vulnerable. Lacking eyes, Maeve Curr put her arrows there, the hardened stone tips impaling deep. As soon as the Malfested snapped its jaw shut the third figure flashed by, Malachi Dalca leaping up and smashing a knee across the beast's extended maw, the electrical power not bothering him at all. Unable to focus, the Malfested fell prey to the fourth attack, as claws that were fiercer than its head lashed out and ripped across its back and side, finally drawing blood...
And the blood was yanked out of the beast, dark blue-green liquid becoming gummy ropes that anchored themselves to the ground, pinning the beast down as it roared again, only for another blood-rope to spiral out of its mouth to serve as another anchor. Lyall was back up by then, drawing a new dagger...
And then the Malfested was lit up. Not by bullets, as the saying went, but by traditional light. The creature's roars had covered up the incoming metal sound until the subway car had rounded the corner.
Too far. It had gone too far. It had gotten all the way up into Olympia's subway tunnels.
But that worked for Lyall, as he signaled, and Malachi ran in and smashed the Malfested with a powerful punch, knocking the beast into the path of the train. It was tough, but hundreds of tons of metal going at thirty miles an hour was tougher.
What the impact didn't accomplish, the wheels did, the Malfested splattering like a bug and spraying the front of the subway with foul greenish ichor, bits of what had been something once and was now something else entirely, sparks erupting from the wheels as the driver immediately hit the brakes, the cars slowly shrieking to a stop.
The nerves of the passengers probably weren't helped when Chariton Swift forced one of the doors open.
"Be quiet. QUIET!" Charlie roared. "I'm checking for injured? Anyone injured? Yes? No?" Yeah, when it came to bedside manner, Charlie made a good vampire monster hunter. Which was probably why he was yanked out of the door frame by the shoulder and replaced with Pipa.
"You hit a bad thing. It's dead. We just want to make sure no one got hurt."
A very quick once over just showed a few bumps and bruises and a lot of frayed nerves. The Silvers didn't really have anything in their kit that could help the wounded anyway, but it seemed...rude to just run off into the darkness after using these normal people's normal trip back and forth to deal with the Malfested. Once more lights started showing up, waving like flashlights did, the five withdrew, back into the dark and the depths.
The subway car's front was dented up and thoroughly slimed with mess, but otherwise undamaged. Still, it was likely somebody, or more than one somebody, was going to pitch a fit.
---
-The Old King of Beasts-
And speaking of pitching a fit, Joy felt the urge to. She was at the right place and right time, except she wasn't. The bartender-who-was-not-Keahi had asked her to take some paper off the bulletin board that had been left there months ago, but it had nothing to do with the Kobbers, in fact it seemed it was inviting the Kobbers to something. It didn't help her get where she needed to go.
At least Not-Keahi had some information. And Joy had herself a telescope-esque Intricacy she was using, peering up into the night sky.
Dawn didn't, or couldn't, bring her directly to this new place, this Olympia?
Fine by her.
She'd go to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment