Rupture (25 page)

She thought she heard laughter echoing across the fields.

I am your servant, Yancey Wellborn
, Myrmidon said.
We will crush them.

She reached out and touched the sculpture, and it disappeared in a
poof
of acrid smoke.

“Didn’t think so,” she said. She looked back at the Dread Walker and wondered what twisted minds had constructed it.

The ground rumbled at her feet, then surged forward, as if something living crawled underneath. A furrowed line raced toward the silo. She followed as quickly as she could.

It paused a few feet from the ladder, forming into a pile no bigger than a small anthill.

“Now, show yourself,” she said. “Unless you want to continue the charade.”

A tiny creature the size of a cricket emerged out of the small mound of dirt.

“God, you’re ugly,” Yancey said. She grabbed the small insect-being and placed it in her palm. “Is that the best you can do?”

It bit into her massive, scaled hand, and she felt the sting from far away.

She dropped it to the floor as a few more mounds began to appear. The insects followed.

“We finally get to tango.”

She expanded as a swarm of insects emerged from the ground. She channeled a ring of fire that burnt them to crisps. She set flame to everything in her path. The stalks turned into torches. The air filled with the
popping
sound of insects exploding like popcorn. She laughed at the display, even as swarm after swarm tried to engulf her. Not a single one broke her heat barrier. Just coming close caused them to ignite.

Then it ended. She stilled herself, breathed deep, and calmed her beating heart. Myrmidon purred its pleasure at feeling its body alive in Realspace.

Yancey faced the Dread Walker. “We have the bug scenario worked out, guys,” she said in Myrmidon’s inhuman voice. “You should have learned your lesson in Bali.” During that small incursion an entire island was filled with horrible insects of all kinds; the Consortium had simply set the place on fire with napalm. Problem solved. “I bet you’re not much more intelligent than a toddler.” She waited, knowing that would sting, but feeling she was getting the better of these Rogues. “What? No more games? The Protocols are clear. You must show yourself at some point if we are to truly compete. You cannot claim any status unless you do.”

She waited, knowing this had to end soon. The Rogues wanted her daughter even more than status because they could use her as leverage. They wanted to draw out her husband. They wanted what he possessed. They wanted the Protocols. She also knew they would have to act soon before the authorities sent in the cavalry.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. Neither one of us wants the Consortium involved.”

As if she’d said the magic word, a full-length mirror appeared out of the ground. Except this one gave back no reflection. Inside, she saw the calm face of an attractive androgynous person, naked, hairless, with no genitals, no belly button, no nipples, not even any eyebrows. It floated in the center and locked eyes with her. For a moment, she was almost seduced enough by the tranquility that she smiled. Instead, she just nodded.

“There we are,” Yancey said. “Now we can talk.”

“We are here to engage in a contest.” The voices echoed from everywhere, even though they seemed to be coming from the mirror. “Does this form please you?”

Yancey laughed. “Does it please you? I have no doubt that’s what you’d love to be.”

The eyes batted with no show of emotion. “We value our contests with human kind. Although we are superior in every way, these games amuse us. You amuse us.”

Yancey remained steady in her highest mantra, restraining her eager entity with the thinnest of threads, but knew the sanctimonious goading was done for a purpose.

They always started with this nonsense, she thought, as if they did humanity a favor with invasions, destruction, and death.

“We are here to claim the Wellborn child in that silo.”

“She’s not yours.”

The first ripple of frustration in the tranquil face. “All are ours.”

“The competition for her goes through me.”

“We own you all. Get out of the way.”

Here it was then, she thought, the primary source of conflict that all of humanity faced, even if they didn’t know it.

“We made you,” she said. “You haven’t yet beaten the Wellborn Maker. His double, SWML, is a pretender. You’re no better than a smart trashcan that won’t shut its lid when told.”

The face exploded into a mask of rage, transforming it into something monstrous.

“W E A R E B E Y O N D Y O U!”

With a simple thought, Yancey shattered the glass.

Only one way to finish this. She gathered herself to destroy whatever came out of that Dread Walker.

* * *

In the distance, out of the darkness, the USC-Kraken’s great beams of light roved back and forth looking for the enemy. She moved forward at a plodding pace, her head bobbing up and down with each step. She moved indiscriminately through the open fields, tearing up crops as she went. Her captain directed her due east toward the confrontation that was now coming to a head.

Inside, her pilot struggled to maintain control. At times, little Wally Dorsey felt in charge, would relax, and would feel the great machine begin to veer in her own direction. He felt as if he were at the rudder of a great battleship, alone, sometimes with only a single oar to steer her. Then he would assert himself and she would acquiesce.

They had yet to communicate directly. She seemed eager to keep moving after so many years of lassitude. He knew she would speak to him soon. All he had to do was keep her in motion, and listen.

* * *

Simone dreamed she was underwater. She struggled to breathe and felt her mind free itself of the suffocating water ...
air.
She imagined herself rising above a grain silo on the Sterling farm.

Below her, she saw her mother standing in front of a horrible machine. But her mother was protected behind the form of her entity. Simone understood she should be surprised to see such a strange being in the place of her mother, but she wasn’t. She felt comforted it wrapped her in armor in this critical moment. She knew she dreamed, but her mind acted like a real thing with weight and substance . She felt as if she had a body and slowly descended to the ground.
 

When she passed into the machine it was dark, like a room with no light or windows.

A presence stood behind her like a large protective force, a bulwark against a storm, and she recognized it as the nameless entity who’d she summoned with Hutto on the swing sets. She still didn’t know its name, or even if it were a single being. But the presence was real. Across from her she felt a thousand minds rolled into a single spot that expanded into a ball of energy, like a sun, with swirling spots and coronas exploding its material into space. In the center an awkward humanoid face appeared.

“Simone Lord, you are our prize,” a multitude of voices said. She felt the presence behind her surge, as if it wanted to consume the sun before it. The face continued to speak. “This contest is between us, the All, and the petty outlaw who owns the body-essence of the mighty Skippard Wellborn Maker Lord, your father. Do you understand this contest?”

“Yes,” she heard herself say.

“Will you submit and offer yourself?”

The presence behind her surged again, and she felt its warning:
Resist.

“No,” she said.

The sun exploded into a supernova, illuminating space in a million points of light, then collapsed back into itself.

“Then the game continues.”

She saw movement inside the machine. A ghostly figure entered, and she recognized her father as he had been when she was a little girl, except he was dressed in a Consortium military uniform. The face in the sun turned into a horrible mask, as it swung in his direction.

He winked at his daughter, then turned to the Rogueminds. “Nice try, Frigidaire. She’ll never forfeit herself. You have to beat her mother to get her and beat me to get the Protocols. Good luck with that.”

“The final contest is now,” the Rogueminds said in once voice. “Release all and kill the Yancey Lord. Then retrieve Simone Lord’s genosoul. The Wellborn Maker Lord will bend his knee.”

* * *

Yancey saw the first of the Nanovamp Wraiths emerge out of a hatch on top. It moved with precision, as if it feared nothing on this planet. But it was corporal and could die, and she would teach it a lesson. It crawled on all fours, a human-shape that moved unlike any human being, followed by two others. They rippled with energy. She drew her reserves into herself, two long spikes forming at the ends of Myrmidon’s plated arms.

Come and get me.

She saw another figure emerge out of the darkness, a ghostly, incorporeal form she recognized but hadn’t seen in years.

Skippard!

He heard her and paused. He glanced her way as the three Nanovamps launched themselves into the air. He tried to warn her with a shout and raised arms. She caught two, ripping through them with her spikes, but that ill-timed moment of distraction allowed the other to barrel into her. Its fangs sank three inches deep into Myrmidon’s neck. She heard her husband’s yell in the distance. But she knew he was going after the Rogues to protect Simone.

Myrmidon roared.

Even as Yancey summoned all her strength to battle the creature sent to steal her soul, she saw her disembodied husband pass through the armor of the Dread Walker and enter.

* * *

Inside the silo, Simone’s eyes snapped open.

Darkness.

Grain blinding her.

She saw a fading image of slavering jaws, and she screamed.

She struggled as she felt suffocating material pressing on all sides and began to panic. She managed to move her arms. Her fingers had the most flexibility; she found a rope attached to her chest and began to pull. Inch by inch she progressed until her head popped out of the grain. She removed the mask and small tank, then pulled herself the rest of the way.

When she emerged, she knew why her mother had put her there.

It was up high, sure, she thought, and it stank.

Then she heard a guttural roar.

Barely able to stand after being assaulted by the Rogue nanoviruses, she jiggled open the silo door at the top and peered down. She saw her transformed mother’s entity in full psy-sorceress glory standing before the ominous-looking machine. Around her, a slew of monstrous creatures lay dead or dying. Her mother swung arms of razor-light in all direction.

Simone tried to untie the rope, but her fingers were too shaky and weak, and she had to grab onto the platform railing.

“Mom,” she heard herself cry.

She watched a running, leaping creature jump from atop a berm and disintegrate in flame and ash.

Then three long, lean things with pallid skin hunched before the machine, as if waiting for Simone to emerge. Something about them made her want to retch. She also wanted to climb back into the silo, dive to the bottom, and hide. She sensed her mother needed help, though. “Rigon, where are you?”

She wanted to summon her entity, but she couldn’t move enough to dance. She yanked on the rope, but it wouldn’t budge.

The three creatures attacked at once. Her mother lowered her defenses, as if distracted by something. She struck two down, but the third knocked her entity off its feet. The Rogue creature bent down, latched on, and began to feast.

Something in its bite caused instant paralysis in the entity. Her mother was trapped.

“No!”

Simone saw movement coming out of the darkness. More huge, dog-like, eye-less creatures with massive canines ran toward the silo.

The surviving pallid, fanged thing over her mother looked up, screamed a call in an ululating voice. It glanced over its shoulder until it saw another one of its kind emerge from the machine. Through a bloodless face that may once have been human but was now something that never saw daylight, the Wraith over her mother smiled at her, then returned to its feast. The other started crawling toward the silo, surrounded by the hellhounds. She thought about all the times her mother spoke of the Rogues and their life-and-death contests and how one should never gamble with them. Serious business, her mother used to say. Very serious.

Simone heard the crashing of the Megamech’s legs before she could see it. She had enough rope to edge around the silo. She saw the massive military machine across the field, striding through the darkness like a savior out of an action movie. Her relief at the sight of the lights and the sound of the war-horn was palpable. She had seen enough video of them to know they were the good guys.

At first it appeared to be on a direct course for the ugly machine down the road. But then the Megamech almost stumbled, as if unsure which way to go. It righted itself, but was now heading directly for her silo.

Simone pulled on the rope once, almost half-heartedly, as if it might come undone. Another pull. Nothing.

“Turn,” she said, “Turn, turn, turn.”

The last thing she saw was the blinding lights as the machine shifted its weight, and the sight of a huge shoulder joint about to smash through the silo.

* * *

“Halt, halt, halt!” Captain Picham yelled.

But Wally had lost himself in the Megamech a few minutes ago, as if they were one. He could smell what it smelled, and it smelled the—

Enemies of Mankind
. The system AI had finally spoken to him.
She
had finally spoken to him.

We have found them. Thank you for waking me
.

Wally was so shaken by the voice in his head, as if it came from the sky itself, that he lost concentration and control for a few moments. It was as if a chorus of angels had just said his name, and he wanted to relish every syllable. When he gained enough equanimity to force his mind back to the present, three large grain silos emerged before them ... with Simone standing atop one, trying to back away. She raised one arm ...

Stop!