Trauma – A Strange Life

48. See Each Other Plain

In the literal guts of the worm Nakarand, the group are torn by what to do next? With Uentaru in tow, do the group try destroying the worm from where they are now or continue and see how far the hole leads?

***********************************************************************

“Guys, do what you can on the outside if you like,” Tobias stopped struggling against Algernon’s telekinesis and turned to his companions, “Best to get rid of that part of Nakarand in Ruk anyway. But isn’t it obvious that there’s more to Nakarand than a slimy fat worm? Look where we are.”

He gestured to the space around the now twenty metres wide and increasing in size, many times larger than the worm on Floor 199. The soft blue glow emanated from the walls themselves, so everything was lit by the dull blue light. The bubbles of pale blue liquid were starting to increase in numbers, and they were becoming increasingly more difficult to dodge. Now Tobias has stopped trying to pull away, Algernon used his telekinesis to push bubbles away.

“Thank you, Algernon. Nakarand is an intelligence and a place, and that’s where I want to go.”

“I think we’re there,” Algernon replied as a bubble he moved crashed into another and burst over Bruce’s arm. The armour silently steamed.

“This is Nakarand!” Bruce protested, pointing to the pockmarks. He glided over to the slowly pulsating walls and mimed the wall sucking him in, “Look, it’s eating me.”

Behind him, the wall secreted more blue liquid. As he shimmied unawares, the bubble burst, splashing him with more of the liquid. He yelped as exposed skin at his neck started burning and turned to see something metallic leave the wall. A warm bronzy coloured cylinder only about as wide as his hand slithered out to hang in space in front of him. Looking at it carefully, he recognised the item as a cypher and pocketed the very useful electrical null field.

“Can we please finish playing with this creature’s digestive tract and find out what’s at the other end?” Tobias complained, before Bruce pulled one of his Glocks, “Nothing personal, Bruce!”

“I just want to try something,” Bruce replied and levelled the gun at the oozing wall in front of him.

Blam. Blam. The sound of the gunfire was oddly muffled. A small chunk of the wall broke away, exposing raw tissue with more secreted white fluid now dribbling out.

“Algernon, stick a bubble in the hole,” Bruce pointed with his gun, and Algernon shrugged and did as he was asked. The bubble broke and splattered on the surface. The hole started closing up and healing before their eyes.

“Are you quite finished making stomach ulcers?” Tobias complained petulantly. He brushed blue dust off his clothes and hair, only to have half a dozen other bubbles make more burning patches somewhere else.

“We can burn away at this thing!” Bruce crowed his short-lived triumph at the creature.

“Yes, you could kill it…really slowly. In the meantime, you’re digested.”

As Bruce and Tobias bickered, the wall started producing more bubbles of fluid in response to the contact. Another cypher tough enough to survive inside the walls of Nakarand slithered out, and once more, Bruce grabbed it. A purple blob of nutrition gel, three days worth of food for an average person. Knowing where it had come from, it was unlikely anyone present would want to use that particular cypher.

Algernon pulled Bruce away from the wall as bubbles popped against bubbles sending a shower of blue fluid in their direction.

“It’s making more bubbles,” Bruce noted quizzically, fascinated with the natural process going on in front of them.

“Yes, they have food in their stomach. Let’s not stick around to become tomorrow’s waste!” Tobias complained, annoyed by the situation and Bruce’s preoccupation with the basic biology of the place.

Bruce pulled out his crowbar. He was desperate for an obvious enemy to smack. When it was clear none were going to appear and that the wall was virtually impervious to what mere mortals could do to it, he floated away and started following Tobias and the others down the worm tunnel.

The walls were starting to close in on the group with no sight of any ‘place’ or ‘being’. Tobias searched for signs of other individuals passing that way. They knew hundreds of Venom workers and troopers had been sent into Nakarand from Ruk alone. But, it seemed floating bodies made little impression on the systems of a giant worm, and he found nothing.

“People aren’t passing through Nakarand,” Bruce quipped, pleased to see the cocky Tobias struggle, “ Nakarand is passing them.”
“Hey, however it works, man,” Grumbled Tobias and continued.

The walls continued to contract until they were no more than twelve metres apart. Around a corner, a new landscape opened up, a field of what looked like yellow ferns. The fronds stretched out into the tunnel from all walls, floor and ceiling, filling the passage and making it unpassable without touching.

“What do you think it is, some sort of trap?” Algernon took out a piece of random equipment and pushed it into one of the ferns. The fronds recoiled and withdrew into a node on the wall. “Maybe it’s like a Venus flytrap. You have to touch a few times for it to spring.”

Bruce now pulled out his crowbar and started tapping fronds. They all shied away, hiding in the walls of the tunnel.

“I wonder if the metal is what they don’t like,” Tobias pulled out one of his silk scarves and wafted it towards a frond. Where it touched, the frond moved away, avoiding contact.

“Ha! Whack a mole,” Bruce laughed and started bopping fronds to make a path through the tunnel for the group.

“I wonder,” Peggy said out loud and allowed her metal body to glance off one of the ferns. As expected, the frond recoiled, but not before giving Peggy a boost, a jolt of vitality that sent shivers down her frame, “Oh! What a buzz!” She tried again to get a sample, this time, she did not feel the jolt, and the frond sample, once taken, withered and browned in her test vial.

“Hey, be careful,” Bruce said. When he saw her response, he stretched out a finger to touch the nearest frond. Algernon and Tobias themselves stooding clear of the reaching fronds , but did not try to stop him.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Bruce asked, sure that someone should.

“Hey man, you do you,” Tobias replied, surrendering Bruce to his fate.

“Bruce, what if they control your mind,” Algernon added as the frond made contact with Bruce’s finger. He shivered as the jolt course through him.

“That was gooood!” He said and tried again with another finger. This time, as with Peggy, the jolt did not come. He looked disappointedly at his fingers, wondering what he’d done differently.

“Would you like me to chop your finger off for examination at a later date?” Peggy asked, her scalpel ready.

“Not really. I’m very attached to it.”

“Shame,” The scalpel retracted.

Tobias, too did his experimentation as the group drifted along the tunnel . He had thought them out in The Strange unconnected to any recursion except possible that of Nakarand themselves. If that was true, why were they still in the same forms they took in Ruk? Was the worm an inapposite gate? He reached out and could hear the Allsong, a constant hubbub of information in the back of his mind. That meant they were still technically in Ruk. He tried to discover the undoing of Nakarand from the inside, using what he saw around him as a reference to his query. All he got back was a cryptic answer, more at home in one of Peggy’s questions to the Strange, Nothing more than me. A world within.

Yes, He thought to himself, the physical world of Nakarand. I’m thoroughly sick of it. Can we continue to the recursion of Nakarand?

They continued down the ever constricting passage . The ferns started to thin and eventually gave way completely. As it narrowed, the group became aware of a current as the bubbles were being pulled along. It wasn’t strong, and they could hold their position against it with ease, though it meant suffered the wrath of bubbles coming up from behind. Up ahead, the tunnel pinched in tight, and the bubbles formed a roiled spinning vortex down some unseen plughole ahead. Down the centre a clear passage of air, the eye of the storm. Bruce went to hold his crowbar against the flow, hoping to disturb the spin enough for everyone to pass. Before he could, Tobias lept passed, spinning effortlessly through the centre to the far side, without touching a bubble.

Seeing Tobias graceful attempt, he followed, not quite as gracefully, but in a workman-like fashion. Peggy had pulled a rope in an attempt to tie one end to Bruce so he could pull her through. Having lost her chance she offered the rope end to Algernon.

“That doesn’t look easy,” She said, the rope unmentioned between them.

“Allow me to help,” He replied, and with his telekinesis, threw her through the Vortex. Rope trailing behind and completely out of control, she plowed into the wall of bubbles. She made it through to Tobias and Bruce more pitted than when she started, but mostly whole. Algernon jumped through next, relying on his levitate and his balancing skills in flight. Unfortunately, it all did him no good as he slipped sideways into the vortex was churned around like a rag in a washing machine. Spat out the other end, Algernon steamed from chemical burns, and his head spinning from the battering against the walls of the tunnel. To add insult to injury, Peggy zapped him with her spark from her probe.

“Youch! I’m not feeling so well,” He said as Peggy took the opportunity of a stationary Algernon to take a few tissue samples. She then tried to scrape a few off her own metal shell, tearing a hole in one side where the metal had grown thin. A small piece of duck tape was applied to the hole, and Peggy was ready to move on.

“I think,” Tobias said quietly to Algernon as Peggy patch herself up, “the scariest thing in all the recursions is Peggy.”

And to that, Algernon had to agree.

The last to ride the vortex was Uentaru. She aimed and flung herself through the tunnel with impressive grace. Bruce rolled his eyes, mumbling something about showing off. Tobias sighed in admiration.

From the vortex, the tunnel started widening again appreciably. Within metres, it had expanded from three to fifty metres wide and was still expanding. Suddenly, after what felt like hours in the confining tunnels, the passage opened up into a massive vault stretching away for kilometres in all directions. Seemingly below them, a small blue and white mottled planetoid approximately 2 kilometres in diameter sat comfortably in the space. From a wall over their left shoulders, a long umbilical cord sinuously stretched out into the void. Where the cord touched the planetoid, a blocky metal building sat, looking oddly out of place amongst all the organic skin and organs.

Tobias basked in his own cleverness. This, or something like it, was what he’d been looking for. The centre of the being the reason for everything, and he couldn’t wait to see what was down on the surface. Popping out his wings for the first time that trip, he soared around the open space taking it all in. Bruce stood just inside chasm, gawping, his crowbar slack in his hands. The faint gravity, merely a suggestion of weight, tugged innocently at the group, and Bruce scrambled back for the entrance.

“I can’t fly! How am I going to get down.” He said, staring dumbfounded at the small world below.

“What do you mean you can’t fly? You’ve been doing it for hours,” Algernon protested, zooming past the entrance.

“Not for much longer, though, when that thing starts pulling me down!”

“You could climb down the umbilical if you want,” Algernon suggested, pointing out the twenty-metre wide rope attached to both the wall and planet.

“That makes sense,” Bruce agreed and floated over, without hindrance from gravity.

It was what you expect from a planet-sized umbilical cord. Thick sinew and other tissues made up the body of the cord. Translucent villi carried creamy blue bubbles not towards but away from the planet. It seemed Nakarand was feeding off whatever was down on that planetoid. Peggy was sure this massive structure was natural to the creature that was Nakarand, though the shiny metal building certainly was out of place in the organic surroundings.

“If we break the umbilical cord away from the planet, can we starve Nakarand to death, do you think?” Algernon surmised after Peggy had shared her findings.

“Probably, but too slowly for our purposes,” She replied, turning to their quiet companion, “Uentaru, what do you think?”

What Uentaru thought was never heard as their view of the surface became clearer. Besides the small metal building, every piece of the planetoid was covered in bodies. Around the planet, like veins, pipes pumped the creamy blue fluid around and between the bodies. Sometimes the bodies floated in the liquid. Sometimes they were mottled, the natural skin colour disappearing as the fluid replaced it. Some bodies were blue statues of solid minerals. Venom workers moved through the bodies, pulling out the solid blue, leaving any mottled bodies behind. Like the bodies, the workers were also mottled blue, also being digested by Nakarand.

“It’s people. Spiral Dust is people,” Peggy whispered, shocked at the magnitude of what she was witnessing.

Considering the size of the planetoid and the average surface area of a person, she and Algernon guesstimated that there could be as many as thirteen million people on the planetoid, and that was if the bodies were only one layer deep.

Almost none of this got through to Tobias, who had ceased flying and hung petrified above the surface. He didn’t see the planetoid, the umbilical cord and the warehouse building as memories of another time flooded back in a nauseous wave of sensation.

Choking white dust covered a pit of bodies, mottling their skins, turning them slowly into white statues. All around him, a broiling river of bodies silently waited. He tried to swim towards land, but arms, heads and torsos engulfed him. It turned him around until he didn’t know which was up or down. The bodies slithered against each other, threatening to crush him. Everywhere he moved his head, there were faces, armpits, legs and torsos. And it was getting hard to breathe. He grasped limbs slick with blood, sweat, and worse and pulled himself back up to the surface. Breaking through, he took a breath of clean air before slipping and falling back again into the darkness surrounded by death.

A shout from the shore, “Hier! Ik zag iets bewegen. Kijken!”

“O mijn God! Er leeft nog iemand daarbinnen!” Another voice, closer, “Help me daar beneden!”

“Je gaat toch niet naar binnen?”

“Heb je een ander idee?”

The river moved. Ripples left the shore. It made the bodies slither and settle against each other. A body rolled over, pinning him in place. Stuck fast, he couldn’t reach the surface again.

“Zwaai met je hand! Maak een beweging zodat ik je kan vinden!”

He didn’t understand the words, but they sounded compelling, urgent. Standing on the back of someone below, he stretched as tall as he could and drove his hand through the river to the surface.

“O mijn God! O mijn God! Zie je het?”

Now he could hear as well as feel the movement. A grunting, spitting retching as someone swam out to him, riding the wave of bodies towards him.

“Geef mij je hand…Geef mij je hand…” A voice, choking and panting said over and over again.

A rough, heavy hand took his and pulled him forward.

“Je hebt ons hier gebracht. Je gaat!”

“Give me your hand, Rain,” Said another voice, tinny and metallic but full of calm compassion.

“You hear me, Rain! You brought us here. You’re going!”

“Don’t, Bruce…he’s…we’ll be along…”

“Oh no. This is what he wanted. Here it is!”

Tobias clasped his fingers around the metal claw, the fingers turning white with the pressure.

“Hier ben ik…” He whispered under his breath.

“I said leave it, Bruce! He just needs a moment.”

Tobias blinked…and blinked again. Peggy and Bruce were beside him, Peggy’s gentle metal claw holding his left hand, Bruce pulling at his right. When the planetoid came back into focus he instinctually, pulled away from both before realising finally what had to be done.

“Just…find a place…to land…” He gasped, exhaling and inhaled greedy gulps of air. Closing his eyes, he let the giddy relief suffuse him. He relaxed, and between Bruce and Peggy, they guided Tobias down to the warehouse.

Inside, a dozen venom workers filtered in and out, stacking up bodies like planks of wood at one end of the warehouse. Others were processing the stiff blue statues, breaking them into smaller lumps and shovelling them into piles. If there had been any doubt over the origins of Spiral Dust, the proof was collected in large piles all around the warehouse. Venting pent up anger at what he was seeing, Bruce swung away on one of the statues nearby, and it smashed into dust and chunks before his eyes.

“Is this why you brought us here?” He rounded on Tobias, who had sunk to his knees trying to breathe, “Do you want more of this stuff?”

“No,” He sobbed. Melissa Romero and all the other people lost to Spiral Dust. No, this was far from what he’d wanted.

From off the left, behind piles of blue rock, a movement caught Bruce, Peggy and Algernon’s attention. Slinking around, trying not to be seen, a woman covered in blue dust hid from the venom workers. In one sudden movement, Bruce was on her, his crowbar held high. He threatened the woman who could do nothing but cower.

“Who are you?!” He demanded before noticing the red ring on her hand. The missing Whole Body Grafts scientist, Dram-Shara, in whose footsteps they’d been following. Peggy projected the hologram she’d made of Dram-Shara off the security footage from Dram-Shara’s apartment. Apart from the layer of blue dust, she was the same woman.

“You know what’s happening here? Your company was part of all this. What’s going on?”

“Please, believe me, very few of us knew what was going on in the Nakarand project,” The woman put up her hands in surrender.

“What did you think was going on?” Peggy asked, floating beside Bruce.

“Ur-Dust paid the company well, no questions asked. But the tissue samples, so radically different from anything we’d seen. I had to know.”

“How long has the company been studying the creature?”

“I think only Bel-Tamar knew about the creature. I didn’t until I went and looked for myself. As for how long, I couldn’t say…years.” There was a resignation to her gestures, “And now I’m stuck down here with no way back.”

“You could translate out,” Algernon suggested, and she shook her head.

“I’ve tried. I even brought a cypher down here to create a portal back to Ruk. The only thing is I think we’re still in Ruk..somehow.”

“Do you want to stop it?” Bruce asked, getting back on task.

“If it means getting out of here, count me in!” Dram-Shara replied adamantly.

“So, how do they get people out of here?”

“Ur-Dust comes every once in a while and translates out with broken up bodies and dust.”
“And you’re okay with that?”

“No, but what am I supposed to do?”
“What about the cannon?” Peggy suggested, gesturing to a wall almost two kilometres away.

“Great toy, but a one-shot. Let’s face it. It won’t kill this thing.”

Just as Bruce lamented the flaws in the Stranger Killer, he noticed Uentaru stiffen and draw her weapon. She turned, sweeping a wide arch until she stopped at a darker shadow, a purple haze that shifted as the group drew their attention to it.

“Uentaru, have you brought these intruders to my stomach for us to destroy together?” Whispered a voice in all their minds. Without hesitation, Uentaru shot at the shadow, but it merely moved on unharmed.

“We weren’t forced to come. We came to learn and understand,” Peggy called out to the shadow, but the voice ignored her, focusing it on Uen-Taru.

“We have worked together a while, have we not, Uentaru? In all that time I watched your plans and schemes. You searched The Strange for a thousand-year until you finally found the progenitor, Earth and the Aleph component buried deep in its crust. I admit, for much of that time, I had no idea what you were up to. If I had known, I would have stopped you sooner…”
“Liar!” Uentaru shouted, firing her gun a second time. The dust just moved away as before.

Algernon, forgotten in the background of the drama swirling through the warehouse, tried to read the surface thoughts of Uentaru. Instead of the jumble of thoughts and impressions, Uentaru was blank. Either there were no thoughts to read, or she was better at covering them up than most.

“The Aleph component,” The voice seemed to direct its attention to the group now, “Is what makes Earth special. It is part of the machine that first created the Strange billions of years ago. When it crashed into your barely formed proto world, it formed the moon, all the quickened and all the recursions. So you can see it is not such a small thing.”

“Show yourself, Dust, so I can finally rid the universe of you and your murderous plots,” Uentaru yelled out into the warehouse. Turning to Peggy, Bruce and Algernon, she argued her defence, “ Nakarand is the vile worm of a thing that eats humans. It would do anything to keep control over that resource.”

“Now, now Uentaru. Have you not told them about your tragic past? The loss of your Mycaeum to a planetvoir? She knows that if she can power the component, she can create a recursion in the likeness of that world, isn’t that right?” The voice of the Dustman insinuated, “I finally realised why you wanted to help me so badly, my dust, spread all over the Earth, awakening the minds of millions.”

“But why?” Tobias croaked, shakily standing to address the voice or maybe Uentaru, “Why go to all the trouble with the dust? Why save us in the graveyard?” His thoughts came out a jumble of ideas that made little sense that confused his friends.

“That’s how it eats, Rain. The dust translates them here,” Peggy explained quietly.

Tobias shook his head and looked up at Uentaru for the first time since entering this cavern. He saw worry, that was to be expected, but he saw surprise and…betrayal. She was surprised that Nakarand had worked it out. He rethought her words, her actions since the shadow of the Dustman appeared and realised she’d been vamping, scrambling to recover what she saw as a betrayal by Nakarand. She’d done a marvellous job of convincing them…him, of her sincerity. Did he ever question her motive? One healing cypher in the middle of a battle, and he’d been blinded.

Looking up, Tobias signed to Algernon to read his mind. Misinterpreting, Algernon signed back he’d tried but couldn’t get through. Tobias shook his head sadly and repeated, Mind link, me. This Algernon nodded, and as simply as he could, Tobias laid out his deductions. Algernon nodded and confronted Uentaru.

“Uentaru, what I don’t understand is why the network? Why did Nakarand have the spiral dust sellers spread out all over the world in a pattern?”
“What network? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Uentaru replied, but by that time, it was hard to believe anything she was saying. Tobias walked over to Peggy and touched her metal box, sharing with her what he’d discovered.

Of course, Nakarand had the answer, “Yes, Uentaru, that confused me for a long while too. But the dust does more than feed me, drawing users to me. All those minds alive and connected to the Strange all over the Earth. They would also power the Aleph component, wouldn’t they Uentaru.”

With his back to Uentaru, Tobias faced Bruce and quietly told him what he’d worked out.

“Yeah, I figured,” Bruce replied, not taking his eyes offUentaru.

“Will you shoot her with the cannon?” Tobias asked resignedly.

Bruce shook his head, “We made a promise to use it on the Dustman.”

Three metres away, the shadow settled and started to thicken, coalescing into a shape. Once more, the voice of Nakarand appealed to the group. Peggy withdrew the battery rod they’d recovered from Gwendyn Wurtz’ home. Bruce palmed the electrical null field, and Algernon did the same with a small force field projector.

“I suggest a new proposal, humans. The Aleph component is already waking. I don’t know if it will give Uentaru the power over reality to resurrect her world. But I know one thing. When it is triggered to do her bidding, the Earth and its recursions will shatter. Of course, these are my hunting grounds, I don’t want to see Earth and the recursion destroyed. If you or someone in your organisation can reach the Aleph component buried beneath the Earth’s mantle, I have something that might shut it down. Though, of course, it may already be past the point of no return.”

The body of the Dustman formed and shaped before them. Bruce stepped up, watching as Uentaru levelled her gun. As the arc of time-space energy left the muzzle, Bruce shot the Dustman with the Stranger Killer and ran in, Crowbar held high. The Dustman recoiled, his form wavering from the impact. From deep in his form, a purple light glowed. The light intensified as the Dustman held out his hands, and an object, the size and shape of a football, appeared. He held out the object to Bruce. Uentaru sent out another shot hitting the Dustman, his essence scattered. The purple ball dropped into Bruce’s outstretched arms.

The Dustman seemingly gone, Algernon’s armour bristles with ice crystals ready for the fight. Instead, he saw the determined look Uentaru’s face as she raised her gun again, this time on Bruce. Algernon threw the cypher in his hand between Uentaru and Bruce. Uentaru jumped in surprise as the light shield formed itself in front of Bruce and the object.

“Drop it! You don’t know what it is!” She yelled, looking down her gun at Bruce. So intent on Bruce, she did not sense Peggy floating up behind her. Down plunged the battery rod like a dagger in Uentaru’s back. Uentaru yelled, her arms thrust wide in surprise and shock. Bruce ran around the shield, passed off the item to Algernon before swinging at Uentaru. Even with the battery draining her energy, Uentaru was still faster than Bruce and dodged away from his attack.

She stepped back from Bruce’s swing, brought up her gun to shoot him at point-blank range. But the unwieldiness of her long rifle made it hard to bring to bear, and Bruce dodged the shot. Peggy stabbed again, siphoning off even more energy.

Behind them all, Tobias pulled out a cypher he’d kept for just this moment. Drawing the power of The Strange trapped in the device, he focused his thoughts on one word. In that word, he weaved the power of The Strange, and reached out to touch the mind of Uentaru.

“Help,” He said as the cypher disintegrated to dust and blew away, “Help me.”

All the external fight went out of Uentaru as she fought an internal battle to control her mind.

“Help me save my world. Help me create your world, but not at the expense of all the lives on Earth and in the shoals, please, Uentaru.”

Taking his chance, Bruce swung up to hit Uentaru. Tobias smoothly stepped between them and looked up at Bruce. Bruce’s swing went wide as he tried to miss Tobias, and the crowbar failed to connect.

“She has to pay! She would have, still could, destroy the world. She can’t kill billions because of her sorrow, Rain!” Bruce yelled in frustration, but Tobias stood his ground, ready to take the next blow. It never came. Bruce lowered his Crowbar, still fuming and snatched Uentaru’s gun from her hands.

“We can’t live in the past, Uentaru,” Tobias said over his shoulder as Uentaru finally succumbed to the word of command, “I appreciate you wanting to rebuild your world, but not at the expense of other’s futures.”

“Why are we talking to her! Humanity is not a plaything for these people!” Bruce continued his rant at Tobias, who said nothing but accepted his friend’s anger.

“You can save your world,” Uentaru said through gritted teeth, gesturing to Algernon and the device, “That’s an Entropic seed, a computational singularity that can splinter the rules of a recursion. If used on a prime world like Earth, it will splinter reality on all its linked recursions as well.”

“But it could be used to remove your…thing from the Earth,” Bruce asked.

“Possibly…yes.” Uentaru agreed grudgingly, and all that remained was a deep sorrow as all her dreams and plans crumbled like the dust at her feet.

A few strides away behind the force field, Algernon examined the purple glowing object. He’d heard of such things, almost legendary devices that could bend reality to a user’s will. It seemed Nakarand had spoken the truth, they had a device that could save the Earth. Or it could destroy the Earth and all the recursions with it.

“How can we save the Earth?” Peggy said, realising the enormity of the task, “Even if we have a magical wish device, how are we going to get to this Aleph component in the Earth’s mantle? What sort of transport could go through solid rock?”

The image of Hertzfeld and his phasing invention appeared in everyone’s mind at the same time.

“Didn’t Hertzfeld say he only needed an energy source for his contraption?” Tobias asked, pointing at the battery in Peggy’s hands.

“Oh yes!” She exclaimed, “I can charge this thing up on the umbilical cord!”

Now that the umbilical cord had been drawn to their attention, Bruce discovered a new recipient for his righteous anger. As soon as Peggy had filled the battery, he started hacking away at the cord with his crowbar.

“Hey, little help here,” He called, and Algernon turned to Uentaru.

“Can you help us break this connection?”

Uentaru picked up her forgotten rifle with a silent nod and started blasting a line through the cord.

He watched the duo slice and hack through the umbilical cord as the blue -white liquid continued to find other channels to Nakarand. Regardless what they did here, Nakarand would find a way of fixing the damage and contine on as usual. His biochemical training led Algernon down a well trodden path to poison.

Poison…No, I don’t know what would be poisonous to a giant space worm. Acid…better… delivered directly into the digestive system. He looked around the planetoid and his mind boggled at the enormity of the task.

“I think I can help too,” Algernon contemplated a moment, “I can change the laws of this place and replace the white fluid with acid.”

“You can do that? ” Tobias asked incredulous, “A whole inter-spacial parasite?”

“I was thinking of starting smaller; with a planetoid,” Algernon replied more casually than he felt.

He had an idea what the chemical structure of the blue fluid was, he’d seen Peggy’s tests on Sprial Dust and knew it affects while fresh. In his mind he saw the chemical structures, the molecules and their base elements. He pulled a few a part like Lego pieces and put them back together forming a new chemical, a highly reactive and crossive acid.

In his mind, he dropped his first molecule back into the streams and rivers of digestive fluid that flowed all over the planetoid. From far behind him, a hole into Strange space appeared. Engery flowed from fractal space , through him and into the the molecule of acid. Like a nuclear chain reaction, all the other molecules around it exploded, setting off still others. The atoms reformed into the acid and slowly started replacing the digestive liquid.

Outside the reaction, veins on the surface of the planetoid turned from creamy blue to a sickly yellow-green. The colour change was soon picked up by the umbilical cord and sent up into Nakarand itself. Along with the colour change, there was a deep rumble from the planetoid as the ground began to buckle and crack. Where the acid rose through the umbilical cord, it shrivelled and twisted.

Good, now just to turn off the power, He thought to himself as he focused his efforts on closing the passage to the Strange. Creating the chemical to destroy Nakarand had been a simple mind exercise in comparrison to fighting the force of the Strange. Like flood gates, the Strange poured through him, washing away his resolve and drowning his sense of self. With a mental push that would have sent Bruce flying into the nearest wall a kilometre away, he slamed the shut the doors on reality.

“Anyone for getting out of here?” He heard Peggy say as the ground beneath them shuddered. Algernon couldn’t tell if it was the ground or him that was shaking. He wanted to run and hide and rest somewhere safe.

“We can’t go now. We’re having an effect!” Bruce swung at the umbilical cord. It was cutting, though slowly. A fissure opened up under Bruce’s feet. He stepped away quickly, avoid the fall and doubled his efforts on the umbilical.

“I have a grenade?” Algernon offered groggily, reaching into his backpack without thought.

“Algernon, do you still have your dynamite?” Tobias asked.

“Oh yeah!” He replied with genuine surprise and returned to his backpack, pulling out the stack of six sticks.

As everyone pulled back from the planetoid’s surface, Bruce hacked holes, and Algernon laid his dynamite. Those waiting could see the walls of the chamber were shrinking in on the planetoid. Brown mottled patches showed where the acid had reached the body of Nakarand. Algernon was last to leave the planetoid, and for a moment, he floated and watched with the others as the whole surface withered under the influence of his power.

“With great power comes great responsibility, “ Tobias whispered to Algernon, awed at the destruction his friend had wrought.

“Spiderman, right? I remember those documentaries.” Algernon replied.

“And you.”

“And me, “ He acknowledged, as he realised he was the scary one. He threw the grenade and with the last of his will, guided it to where the explosives lay. A pop was quickly followed by a larger bang! A cloud of blue dust and the umbilical cord whipped away from the surface out into the cavern. A roar of triumph rose from Bruce. Forgetting gravity for the moment, he spun in the air, elated with the defeat of the worm. Meanwhile, the cavern was still shrinking. Convulsions rippled through the walls setting everything, even the air, to shiver.

“Time to go,” Tobias touched Peggy and sent the last of The Strange flowing through her. The group, including Dram-Shara and Uen-Taru, formed a circle, and Peggy led the translation. As the others waited for Peggy to make the connection, the other watched the walls collapse in. They pressed around the planetoid, crushing it like a rotten walnut and driving them closer to the same oblivion. As the walls reached them, the translation took hold, and they were all swept away, the walls falling in on the space they had occupied.

They returned to Peggy’s lab, where Hertzfeld was pacing, seemingly waiting for them.

“Thank goodness you’re back. Something is coming out of the Earth crust!” Then he saw Dram-Shara and Uen-Taru, the latter having her rifled once more confiscated by Bruce. “Who have you brought back this time?”

“Hello Hertzfeld, yes we know. Can you get some security down here?” She pointed to Uen-Taru, “This one needs to be searched and restrained. She’s trying to destroy the world. The other needs an escort back to Ruk.”

Hertzfeld did a double-take but quickly called for security. As the guards restrained and took Uentaru away, Bruce thought to look at her through his glasses.

Name: Uentaru

Origin: Mycaeum (lost to plantvoir)

Occupation: Chaos Templar (founder). A group of survivors from shattered prime worlds. In response, pledge themselves to the killing of planetvoirs.

“Peggy, what is going on?” Hertzfeld asked as the guard’s left with Uentaru.

“There’s a device in the mantle of the planet. With it, she intended to reseed her own lost world. The only thing is, it would have destroyed the Earth and any connected recursion with it. It still may if we don’t do something about it.”

“I’ve been working on my transport. It still needs an energy source and a time to plan…”

“Energy source we have, time we don’t. Show me your lab.” Peggy displayed the fully charged battery rod and followed Hertzfeld out of her lab.

Tobias hadn’t moved from where he’d watched the guard take Uentaru away. Bruce now saw this as his opportunity.

“What were you thinking! I don’t care who she is. Grief is no excuse for evil, and what she planned was evil of the worst degree.”

Coated in blue dust, streaked where sweat and tears had washed it away, Tobias looked tiredly up at his noble friend, ”I’m glad you can take the high moral ground.”

“What? Don’t say you empathise with her? You’ve had more than your reason to hurt people with your grief, but you haven’t.”

“Haven’t I? I guess not since meeting you. I don’t know Bruce,” He wiped his face, and the exhaustion was drawn through the lines on his face, “ I can’t shake the feeling that if I’d known part of what she did…had the opportunity she did… I just can’t see everything as black and white as you.”

“Hey, I’ve got a lot of ‘grey’ for those who were just caught up with the wrong circumstance. They just need options and a nudge. We all need nudges and reminders to keep us working towards betterment. Where it’s not intrinsic to the being’s very purpose and existence, well… judge the sin not the sinner.”

Algernon, too hadn’t moved. He still held the Entropic seed in his arms like a precious newborn. And precious it was. With it, they hoped to save a planet or doomed it, the recursions and themselves to oblivion.

No pressure.

44. Deals with Devils

With all five eggs in hand, the group return to Crow Hollow with the expectation of learning a little more about the Spiral Dust network from Dona Ilsa.

**************************************************************************

“Maybe we should sell them to the highest bidder,” Algernon mused as the group settled themselves back into their Cro forms after translation from Ardeyn. Behind him, Bruce gave the young man a scowl that would have made him take back his thought, if he’d seen it.

“I thought money was a transitory power, not worth your time?” Tobias asked as he threw the chain of the necklace around his overside bird head and hid the soul gem amongst the white feathers on his chest. The heavy stone nestled above his heart, cool and present.

“Let’s just get to Dona Ilsa and find out what she knows,” Peggy yawned, exhausted from their ordeals in the Vaults.

They hadn’t bothered to rest, leaving Ardeyn as soon as they cleared the Mouth of Swords and the entrance to the Vault. Though now in new bodies that hadn’t endured the security and traps of The Vaults, some of the group were exhausted. But, the end was in sight, and they went without tending to injuries to see the eggs safely delivered.

Once they climbed through the canopy of the great tree to the Conaro mansion, they were ushered straight into the great woman’s presence, a sitting room, genteel and refined. Few words were wasted. Tobias let Bruce lead with the box as he stood aside to watch as Dona Ilsa was reunited with her lost eggs.

A relaxation of the shoulders and posture was all there was to see as Dona Ilsa opened the box and the five eggs were presented to her. She picked them up, one by one, examining them in detail before moving to the next. With each egg, a feeling of genuine happiness and relief suffused the lady, transforming her before their eyes, from the hard edge businesswoman and leader of a family dynasty to a mother.

“Thank you for returning my eggs to me,” She said simply, putting the box to one side, a protective hand on them at all times.

Tobias had to drag his attention away, deeply moved by the sight of a mother’s love. Clearing his throat, he opened the conversation.

“Lady, we have proven ourselves true to our word. We have an agreement. Tell us what you know of the Spiral Dust trade.”

“Yes,” Instantly, the image of a doting mother was gone, the businesswoman returned, “He calls himself The Dustman though what he is…I can’t say. His supplies originally came through Ruk, from a business called Whole Body Grafts.”

“Algernon, do you know anything about that place,” Tobias asked, giving up a little push of The Strange to help the memory.

“It’s one of many body modification stores. Nothing exciting,” He replied, remembering their advertisements on the Allsong.

“So you met with the Dustman? “ Returning to the Dona.

“From time to time. He doesn’t come anymore, just sends the stock.”

Tobias looked at Algernon, who had his hand on his backpack. Both knew inside was a picture of the Dustman drawn by the golem of The Vault, Rimush. There was no particular benefit in showing her the image of the being who had stolen her eggs. She’d confirmed they were after the same person already, so Tobias said nothing and eventually, Algernon dropped his hand.

“Dustman? Wasn’t he one who took the eggs to The Vault?” Bruce said, oblivious of the non-verbal interaction between the other two.

“What? I should have known!” The Dona pounded her fist on the arm of the lounge chair she was sitting in.

“Yes,” Tobias sighed. He admired the Dona, and he hated being the bearer of bad news,” So our contacts in Ardeyn told us. I’m sorry, you were played.”

“What a fool I am!” She fumed, “When he came to me with the proposal, all I thought of was the chance to make a little extra money to find my eggs. It never occurred to me he had arranged the whole damn thing!”

“I have had reason recently to see how far a parent will go for their children. It can make you blind, I think.” Tobias said quietly, and the Lady turned to face him, all mask of authority gone.

She nodded, accepting his words, but the fire was lit. She fumed silently where she sat.

“Dona, what would you like us to do?” He asked, hoping to soothe her, give her a moment to stop and think.

“End him,” She said, her voice and posture full of venom.

“Which end?” Bruce replied.

“The very end. I want him and everything he is destroyed.”

That was certainly clear. Tobias changed the subject.

“Dona, do you know anything about the Drood side of the Spiral Dust trade?”

“Only that their arrangement was made at about the same time as mine.”

“Would you be able to provide an introduction to Don Wyclif?” Bruce asked.

She laughed humourlessly, “Only to getting shot. We exchange nothing but gunfire these days.”

“Possibly we could go in as mediators between your two houses?”

“Only for your own executions, I’m afraid.”

“Dona, what does he like?” Algernon asked

“The Don likes power, power and fear over others.” Was all she would say, and in the end group were floundering for more questions to ask. Algernon had at least one that was important to him.

“Dona, do you have an inapposite gate?”

“No, I do not.”
“Do you know the location of one?”
“I’ve heard the Drood might have one,” She said with a sigh. It was clear it was all they were going to get from the Lady, for now, so Tobias made their farewells, and they left.

“Could we demolish his house, do you think?” Algernon was musing as they walked back into the crowds of the branches of the tree.

“Oh yes, we need to see about getting that dynamite for you,” Tobias replied, only half attentive to the conversation.

“No, we do not,” Bruce interjected, “Are you sure that blowing up the Drood mansion isn’t more for your enjoyment?”
“I can’t help if I enjoy my work!” Retorted Algernon, “Say, what if I turned the metal wires holding the house to plastic?”

“We’re in a market,” Tobias was still bumbling along on his thoughts, “I wonder if there’s anything like the rumour markets here? We could do with more information about the Droods and their organisation.”

“I could watch the Droods, maybe that back entrance, you know who comes in and out,” Algernon suggested.

“We have a disguise cypher. One of us could go in and scope out the place,” Bruce added as Tobias yawned, swaying on his feet as he nodded agreement to Bruce’s idea.

“You’re still hurt. Let me heal you up a little, at least before we go on with our plans,” Bruce offered, and Tobias stopped him with a wave.

“It takes effort for you even to try and heal us. I need your good right arm strong, don’t short yourself trying to patch me up,” Tobias looked around the buildings and businesses nearby, “Maybe I should just find us a place to rest.”

They continued to move down the tree. Tobias did find an inn and arranged accommodation for the night. While waiting, Bruce and Algernon spotted two Cro talking at a market stall. They stood out as one had a shock of bright red feathers sticking out the top of his head. The second was a large Cro, with a sledgehammer strapped across his back. His grey feathers seemed groomed to stick out each side of his beaky face.

“Say, doesn’t that one look like Muttonchops from Dreamland?” Algernon asked, subtly pointing the two out to Tobias walking back, now lighter of all his Crow coins.

“Toby Walsham…well, and that must be Old Firetop himself, Rodney Dodd. Now, what do you suppose they’re doing here?”

“Moriarty wanted in on the Spiral Dust trade,” Bruce reminded him,” Seems he still does.”

Without seeing the group’s attention on them, Rodney and Toby moved further into the market. Algernon gestured he would follow and, with a push from Tobias, started moving through the crowd. Grabbing hold of Bruce’s armoured arm, Tobias focused on his phylactery, and they started following at a distance.

Firetop and Muttonchops visited several stalls, all asking their questions and moving through the crowd as if native to it. It wasn’t until Rodney turned to glance through the crowd that he saw Algernon watching. Their eyes locked, and Algernon knew he’d been made. Rodney said something to Toby, who started pushing through the crowd towards Algernon. A whistle from Rodney also brought another Cro, looking at rifles at an adjoining stall, and all three started circling Algernon.

“He’s in trouble. Dodd’s seen him,” Tobias whispered to Bruce, who moved them through the crowd.

Algernon stiffened, and like a deer, sprung away from the encroaching thugs. He knew the others were behind him. Even as a Cro, Bruce was very identifiably Bruce, and these men had fought him twice before. With this thought in mind, he started moving away from their direction.

From within the crowd, Bruce noted Algernon wasn’t moving through the crowd as smoothly as he had. People seemed to be getting in his way , slowing him down and then finally, he fell as Mutton Chops reached him.

“He’s caught!” Tobias cried, almost fighting against the bulk of Bruce in front of him.

“Yeah, I think the kid meant to be. Let’s just hang back and watch a bit.”

“Well, what ‘ave we got ‘ere?” Said Toby of the Muttonchops, lifting Algernon off his feet to face Rodney.

“Thank you, sir,” He bluffed, nervously smiling at Muttonchops.

“What for?”

“For helping me up.” Large black bird eyes looked innocently from Toby to Rodney and back as if an evil thought had never entered their head.
“What are you up to?” Rodney said, his red feathers swaying like flames as he moved.

“Oh! Lovely red feathers, sir. I was just shopping, sir.”

“Thanks,” Rodney eyed Algernon suspicious as Toby put him down. If he could just show them he could be clever…Algernon shot a hand out to pickpocket Rodney, but the thug was ready for that game.

“Oi!”

“Sorry, sir!”

“What are you playin’ at?”

“I work for you now, sir. Now.”
“Now? Who before?”

“No one, in particular, sir,” Algernon looked downcast, as if life had been very unfair up to that point, “But I can be useful.”

Toby growled and pushed Algernon close to Rodney, “Talk to the boss.”

“So, you want employment?” Rodney finally said, looking down on the small non-descript Cro.

“Yes, sir. I can be very useful.”

“Doing what?
Algernon thought a moment, “Pickpocketing occasionally, I’m pretty stealthy…blowing things up…”

Rodney did a doubletake, his red feathers swinging back and forwards like a wildfire.

“Tell you what. A friend of ours has things we would like…back.”

“Recovery mission. Where would you like me to go?”

“His place, we’ll show you. ”
“And pay, sir? For this job?”

Rodney smirked, “Very little, and on completion.”

“How…little would that be?” Algernon asked timidly.

‘Oh, I think five crow coins would be little enough.”

“Bringing something back is surely worth…ten?”

At this, Rodney laughed out loud, “You come back, I’ll make it ten.”

“What do you want me to recover?

“Hmmm, our friend is not willing to share. We need something that will…encourage him to share.”
“Something to inspire sharing.”

The thugs gave him the directions to the second-largest house in the whole Great tree. Algernon guessed correctly that this was the home of the Droods and Don Wyclif.

“And where can I find you afterwards, sir?”

Rodney named an inn further down the tree, “Ask for Clovis Miller.”

“I’m on my way!” Algernon almost saluted and ran off in the direction of the house.

Bruce stood to one side and watched the murder of thugs. They followed the kid with their eyes, bemused expressions on their faces. They chatted for a moment or two. The third guy went back to the stall of rifles.

“Algernon’s just said we should probably regroup,” Tobias said, tugging on Bruce’s feathers.

“Yeah, just what I was thinking.” And, leading Tobias, moved back towards the inn they had booked for the night.

In the small but comfortable room, the group met and prepared to rest. Not taking no for an answer, Bruce prepared to do what healing he could for the two most injured in the party, Tobias and Algernon. His first aid worked well on Tobias, who relaxed a little easier into a chair. For Algernon, he failed to make an impact.

“Is there a psychological reason you don’t heal me?” Algernon asked the frustrated Bruce, who made him sit down again. This time, the healing took, and he was able to rest well.

The next morning, Peggy, Bruce and Algernon were all up before Tobias, who was still looking poorly and not moving with his usual speed. It couldn’t be helped. At least the day held nothing more strenuous than talking. They breakfasted and headed out into the market to each of their assigned tasks for the day. Algernon found a good vantage spot to watch the back door of the Drood mansion and noted those coming in and out, how they were received and what was required for entry. Two thugs were on guard at all time, and they seemed to expect a password from fellow security and generic house staff alike. Unfortunately, his hiding position was too far away from the guard to pick up a stray password from their minds.

Bruce was further away again, perched on a branch that overlooked Algernon’s hideout and the entrance. Too far away to hear or see anything at the door, he was still within distance if Algernon got into trouble. Peggy moved through the stalls keeping close contact with Tobias, who was gathering information. Tobias was out talking to stallholders, especially those the Moriarty gang members had spoken to the day before. He started by trying to sell the dragon marionette he had carefully brought back from Ardeyn. He felt lousy and knew he looked it as he failed to gain the interest for the marionette he expected.

“It’s nice. I’ll give you twenty-five crow coin for it,” The Stallholder said. Tobias almost kept it at that price, having grown fond of the thing, but he needed the information more.

“Tell you what. I’ll sell it for ten if you tell me what the gentlemen yesterday wanted.”

The Storeholder looked around the crowd for anyone listening as he exchanged coins for the marionette, ”They wanted to know about the Droods.”
“And what did you tell them?”

“Wyclif has been busy focusing his attention on a special trade. He’s fuming about the loss of his favourite lieutenant into the hands of an enemy.”

“So if the Don lost this second, whose taken up that role at the moment?”
“The younger brother, Terilis Lightfeather.”

“What sort of character is he?”

“He’s a mean one. Real vicious. He brings out the worst in the boss. He used to sit in his big brother’s shadow, but no more. I’ve heard some wish for the good old days of Elvin Lightfeather. He was tough, but you knew where you stood with him. His brother is wild and can go off at nothing…”

The shopkeeper went quiet and looking past Tobias. Tobias could feel a presence behind him, and something like a static shock ran through his body. He knew this situation of old. Stepping aside, he looked at the new arrivals through his feathers. Five big Cro had walked through the markets and now stood in front of the market stall. One was a little taller than the others and seemed to be their leader. Feathers matted down each side of his beak make this Cro look scruffy, not that anyone would have told him that to his face. On each hand, he carried a large metal claw that flashed in the morning light.

“I hear people have been asking about me?” The Cro asked the stallholder. Tobias could feel the stallholder’s eyes on him already. Focussing on a calm like the one Dona had presented to them, he squared his shoulders and faced the goons.

“Ah, yes. That would be me. Not just me, of course.” He said, with seeming ease, all the while thoughts were churning.

“You?” The Cro said, turning to take in the small, dapper Cro in front of him, “What about this red-feathered guy…?”

“That’s the one. Goes by the name Rodney Dodd and works for…hmm, have you heard of the Professor?”

The Cro cracked his neck menacingly and, without warning, punched the tree branch they were all standing on with this metal clawed fist. The violence of the action set Tobias’ heart racing as he realised the quality of the Cro in front of him. He’d suspected this was the infamous Terilis Lightfeather and now knew that the stories were true. Suddenly he was back in New York once more working for the organised crime syndicate run by Louis Astra. It was a life that he had run from, fleeing blindly to New Orleans in the hope of something better. It seemed a cruel irony that having come so far, he was right back where he started.

“Moriarty?” Peggy added, honestly inserting herself into the conversation, “What a jerk!”

“Yes, that’s the one. He has your brother,” Tobias confessed, knowing that right now, the difference between life and death may hinge on Terilis’ interest in his brother’s welfare.

“Go on,” The Cro said, brushing his long oily feathers out of his eyes.

“I wanted to talk to you. That’s why I was asking around. I can be useful. Can we talk?” Tobias was aware he sounded like Algernon. His words came out at the speed his heart was racing.

“I’m listening,”

Tobias looked around the market place as the stallowner had, checking for others listening and took a moment to centre himself. Didn’t they want inside the house?

“Here? In the markets?”

Terilis nodded, “Take him.” Suddenly the other four surrounded Tobias, and the panic in his chest spiked.

It’s okay. Peggy will tell the others. You’re not alone anymore, remember. You don’t have to do this alone. He said to himself as the group started moving away.

“Excuse me, where do you think you are going with him?” Came Peggy’s voice from behind, and Tobias almost wept.

“And what’s it to you?” He heard Terilis say.

“I look after him. Where he goes, I go.” Peggy pushed through the group and stood beside Tobias. He could feel her solid presence, the warmth of her beside him and felt that everything would be fine if she would just stay close.

At the same time, he knew the others had no idea where they were or what was happening. She needed to let them know. With a wrench, he touched Peggy’s arm.

You have to tell Bruce and Algernon what happened, He said within the mind link. Outside so all could hear, he turned and smiled indulgently at her, “Get out of here. We have business to discuss.” He looked to Terilis and ruffled his own feather to cover his discomfit, “She doesn’t need to be involved.”

“Scram, don’t you hear you’re not wanted,” Terilis added gruffly, and Tobias had to stop himself from contradicting him.

Why? You need me. She replied telepathically, though externally it was almost the same message. “No, I won’t.”

Please, go. He pleaded in her mind as he said out loud, “Go on, go find your brother.”

Why?

Because they don’t know where we are, He was going to add the truth, that she was right. He couldn’t do this without them but was sure that would keep her from leaving. In the end, Peggy agreed grudgingly.

“Fine, fine!” She complained and pushing her way through the goons, and stormed off. The Cro thugs laughed at the sight of her climbing higher through the tree. Tobias watched her receding back until she was lost in the crowds. He closed his eyes and could still feel the link between them. Her quietly fuming as she found new words for idiot.

No, these weren’t the bad old days at all.

A slight shove in the small of his back told him it was time to move.

It had been a very dull morning. Algernon had thought that spy work would be more of the infiltration, stealth missions and secret codes. All he’d done since coming to Crow Hollow was follow and watch. Now he was watching. He was in a good enough spot between stalls to get a good view of the door, the guards and those who came in and out but not close enough to hear what they were saying. High above, within gliding distance, he could just make out Bruce’s bulky shadow. He wished he had some way of talking to the others, or at least Bruce at this moment. It would have helped fill the time.

Suddenly a rustle of feather and a harrumph, Peggy was beside him, taking up all the space in his tiny hidey-hole and making a scene.

“Budge over. I don’t fit.”

“No, you don’t. Why aren’t you with Rain?”

“Rain got himself caught. He sent me to let you know.”

“O-kay,” Algernon looked up to Bruce’s nest. He was no longer there.

“What’s going on? Our canary’s being marched up the tree surrounded by heavies,” Bruce’s deep bass came up behind both Peggy and Algernon.

“Terilis Lightfeather, Elvin’s little brother, is now Don Wyclif’s right hand. He caught Rain asking stallholders questions. Rain sent me to tell you, and I’ve done that now,” Peggy replied and pushed past Bruce and was soon lost in the crowd of market-goers.

It wasn’t until the marching group of goons were within sight of the back door that Tobias realised they might see Peggy talking to Algernon and suspect something. In a panic, he looked around for a distraction, something to stall the group so Peggy and Algernon would have time to clear the door. He saw the market stall Algernon had been interested in before the trip to Ardeyn.

“Oh, my good man!” He exclaimed, pointing to the bundle of dynamite on the stall and aiming his suggestion square for the stallholder, “Can I suggest to you that dynamite is weeping nitro-glycerine and is highly volatile!”

The Cro grabbed the dynamite and, in a blind panic, threw it out of the tree. It sailed away into the crowds of shoppers and stalls far below and was lost from sight. The whole transaction took less than a few seconds and didn’t even slow the marching group down. Tobias chided himself, remembering Peggy’s link.

You’ll have to get out of the way. We’re following you.

Why? Came the same stubborn insistence for facts.

The goons want to use their back door.

Doesn’t everyone? He could almost hear her roll her eyes.

Exactly! And I’d rather they don’t see you lurking around.

Oh, they’ll see me, She said through the link.

He almost groaned. What could that mean? Tobias glanced around the crowds. With a determined look on her face, Peggy marched in from the right. She barged her way through the knot of thugs and stood beside him.

“I’m coming with you,”

Thank god! He said via the link, Thank you. He took her hand in his cold, shaking one.

Peggy blinked, surprised. Not so much for the physical contact, but from the force of his need.

Idiot, She responded automatically, unsure how to react to the intense emotion, We’re a group. We look after each other, don’t we?

It’s not a concept I will ever tire, I assure you.

Besides, I’m not leaving you alone with the bully brother of Lightfeather. The image of Elvin Lightfeather throwing his murderously accurate dagger in a narrow alley of Bollons, Railsea, was shared.

Tobias’ grip on Peggy’s hand tightened. Together then?

No other option.

“What? You again?” Terilis growled, oblivious to all that had been said in the moment she’d pushed through. Peggy paid Terilis no attention.

“You’re an idiot, and I’m coming,”

Tobias turned to Terilis, “Little sisters, they think they own you.”

Without another word, they was pushed through the door. They were bundled quickly down a narrow hallway, a door was opened, and they all entered the small private space.

“Okay, so talk,” Terilis barked, taking a seat behind a simple wooden table. There were no other chairs, and the other four goons loomed over Peggy and Tobias. Never letting go of Peggy’s hand, Tobias slipped into a new persona, one he hadn’t needed for a long time. Dropping his head to define the change, his usual polite transatlantic accent was gone. When he next spoke, replaced with a broader cockney.

“Right, I’ll come clean wi’d you gents. Moriarty is a thorn in me side. Dat’s my patch, that London, and ‘e don’t seem ta think there’s room to share. So, when I found out ‘bout your brotha, I figured we ‘ad a mutual enemy.”

You sound like an idiot, Peggy said via the link, I’m glad you don’t go around sounding like that.

Terilis nodded, this was something he could understand,” And what do you want from me?”

“He’s all gun-ho ‘bout dis Spiral Dust trade. I want in before ‘e does. I want ta cut ‘im out, know what I mean?”

Algernon and Bruce moved into the crowd and watched silently as Tobias and Peggy were marched up to the door by five Cro. The guards snapped to attention, and though no password was given, they were let in. Algernon skimmed the mind of the nearest guard and found the password.

“Usually, the guards give the password,” Algernon murmured to Bruce as they finalised their plans to follow, “I can probably pass myself off as staff…”

“And I’ll use the disguise cypher,” Added Bruce, who had made a note of a Cro about his size leaving for down the tree earlier. Algernon handed over his crossbow to Bruce and made himself look neat, presentable and unnoteworthy. Bruce used the Cypher and seemingly didn’t change much, remaining a larger than average Cro, now with a crossbow on his back. Together they walked up to the door, and Bruce gave the password. The Cro on guard said nothing, and they were let in without a question. Now, to find the other two.

A long hallway lined with doors faced them. At the far end, a set of stairs led seemingly up to the main house. Nearby a set of stairs led down into darkness. Algernon went to work looking for a trail, a blood smear path, anything that would give them a clue as to where Peggy and Tobias had been taken. He didn’t find anything, as there was nothing to see. Bruce stopped and listened. Faintly he could hear a conversation being held behind one of the doors. Drawing Algernon’s attention to it, they crept down the hallway, listening to doors until they could discern a higher voice in London accent amongst the deeper vocalisations from behind one of them. Bruce rolled his eyes, they’d found their room all right. Getting down on one knee, Bruce looked through the keyhole.

“So, you want into the Spiral Dust trade for your London in exchange for…what, my brother?” Terilis summarised, looking through his shaggy mess of feathers at Tobias across the table.

I wonder what makes his feathers all straggly like that? Peggy thought via the link, Do you think it’s intentional or some sort of scalp condition…

“Sum fink like dat. ‘Cept I was thinking a little bigger. This universe is big, a lot bigger if ya get my meanin’. D’ere no need ta step on each other’s toes,” Tobias paused, seeming for effect, but mostly to give himself time to figure out what he wanted from this conversation. What information do they have on the Dustman? What were the Dustman’s intentions? “If we go into for a partnership I want a bigger slice. Say, I run my London and…Earth?”

I wonder if Cro’s suffer male pattern baldness? I’ll have to ask someone when we get out of this stuffy room. Haven’t they heard of ventilation?

Terilis scoffed and gestured to one of his goons. With a look and a sign, the goon crossed the room and opened the door.

Bruce peered through the keyhole. At one moment, he was looking into a room filled with Cro, Tobias’ yellow suit clearly visible amongst the black. The next moment, the scene was blocked by a body, and the door opened. Instinctually, he grabbed the Cro by the throat with one hand and yanked him out of the doorway, throwing him across the hall. That the Cro did not hit the wall was Algernon snapping him out of the air. Controlled for the moment, Bruce quietly closed the door. Peggy, wide-eyed, the only witness.

With a single gesture, Algernon threw the Cro down the hall towards the stair heading down. The Cro tumbled out of sight as both Bruce and Algernon moved quietly as possible down the hallway. The Cro was stunned, sprawled on a landing half way down. Levitating his crossbow off Bruce’s back, Algernon shot him almost point-blank as soon as the goon was in sight. Bruce closed the stairwell door, but no amount of wood was going to muffle the sound of gunfire as the goon pulled out his gun and shot. It missed Bruce by inches. Pulling out his crowbar, Bruce lept from down the flight of stairs, landing full weight on the Cro. There was a crunch and Bruce felt the body of the Cro give way beneath him. Standing, the Cro slumped down to the bottom of the stair, very much dead.

The gunshot was clear from inside the room, and Tobias instinctually flinched. He stopped his sales pitch to Terilis as all Cro heads turned to the door.

“Go see what’s happening out there,” Terilis ordered, and another of the four opened the door.

Just Bruce and Algernon as usual. Do you think they’ve ever heard of subtle?

“Everything okay?” The goon called down the hallway. There was a sound of a door opening.

“Yeah, boss,” Came a voice, distinctly Bruce’s for those who knew it.

Yeah, playing with guns again.
“We heard a gunshot.”
“Yeah, sorry accidental discharge.”

Terilis slammed his metal claw into the table, the blades slinking through the wood, the fist leaving an impression on the surface.

“Don’t let it happen again,” Said the goon, translating his bosses body language and closed the door.

“Where did we find these idiots!” Terilis bellowed.

“They’re all over, gov,” Tobias sympathised, and Terilis focused his attention back on him.

“Here’s my idea, “Terilis said, straightening up and retracting his clawed fist from the tabletop,” You get my brother and one more thing. I want the head of a traitor that left our organisation and joined Moriarty.”

A flash of Caw Ek Carve directing crossbow fire from on top of a warehouse room sprung to Tobias’ mind.

“Oh yeah, new bloke. Sharp, but officious,” He mimed Caw Ek Carves wireframe spectacles, and Terilis nodded.

“That’s a lot of work, close to Moriarty. Not saying it can’t be done, but that’s tipping my ‘and,” Tobias looked up as if collecting his thoughts. “ I was thinking more of a trap. Moriarty’s safe in London, within his network like a spider, in ‘is web. I can get information to Moriarty about your Spiral Dust contact’s location. It would have to be legit, Moriarty’s smart. He’d see through any porky pies. We lay an ambush the other end and nab him outside of London and all his protections. Later, I can sweep in collect your brotha, find this traitor of yours and make London me own.”

Terilis seemed to warm to this plan for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and watched Tobias, who fixed all his thoughts on just keeping up the mask and not crumbling into a shuddering wreck. After a moment or two, Terlis shook his head.

“No good, the Dustman doesn’t tell us where it comes from.”
“Could we contact this Dustman, arrange somfin’? It’s in his best interests that someone like Moriarty is not involved in his business.”

Again, the head shook, sending the dangling feathers drifting back and forward, “He stays out of things. He won’t get involved.”

If Terilis knew more than Dona Ilsa about the Spiral Dust, he was doing an excellent job of keeping it close. Frustrated now, Tobias realised it was time to leave. The hard part was getting Terilis to think so too.

“Hmm, so your brotha and this traitor and what, I become a junior partner is dis Spiral dust?”

“That’s how I see it?”

“Yeah, right, I’ll be in touch,” He gestured to the door, and the goons looked to Terilis.

“See them out, boys.”

With a shove from one of the two goons behind them, Peggy and Tobias were marched out the room and back through the rear door.

Bruce dragged the body of the Cro down the stair and along another corridor as Algernon went ahead checking rooms. So far, they seemed to be storerooms or currently unused workrooms. Algernon had grabbed six grenades out of an armoury.

“I could probably bring down half the tree if I could find its weak points,” Algernon said as he tucked the grenades under his wing.

“I’m sure you could, but right now, I’d like if you could find a spot to put this one before someone finds us,” Complained Bruce. Algernon closed the armoury and opened another door. It was a large workroom set up with two stations. One for processing Spiral Dust and the other Bywandine. There were even separate tools to avoid cross-contamination. Algernon took a few samples of each and handed them to Bruce before closing that door too.

“We need somewhere they’re not likely to go for a while.”

The next-door offered them a better solution. It was a general storeroom, complete with mops, cleaning products standard, handyman tools. With a little luck, the unlucky Cro goon wouldn’t be found until the cleaners arrived the next morning. Propping him up in a corner, they close the door and started back down the hallway. Now, which way should they go out? The rear exit was closest, but as they’d just come through there, it could look suspicious, and they wouldn’t get to see any more of the house.

They climbed the stairs from the storeroom, through the door at the top to the first corridor. At the other end, the second staircase beckoned. They were almost there when Terilis Lightfeather walked out of the room flanked by one of his bodyguards.

“You! Are you the new guys setting off guns in the house?” He fixed both Bruce, hidden in his disguise and Algernon with a gaze that seemed to look right through them.

“Ah, yeah. Sorry boss,” Bruce replied as Algernon silently tried his best not to be there.

The clawed fist slammed into the wall beside Bruce’s head, and snow of gyprock landed on his shoulder.

“Don’t do it again. I don’t need more idiots, but all we seem to do is lose good hands and find idiots,” He said more to himself than to Bruce or Algernon, “Well, hasn’t Salvin got a job for you? Get going!”

“Yes, sir,” Bruce replied smartly, and both he and Algernon walked on and opened a random door.

It was a kitchen. The staff looked like they were preparing for a midday meal and had little time for security staff not where they should be.

“Ur…sorry, do you know where Salvin is?” Asked Algernon of one of the junior staff, peeling vegetables.

“Wouldn’t he be down in the market somewhere?” Replied the kitchen hand who thought he’d found someone lower ranking than himself and wasn’t afraid to show their disdain. It was utterly wasted on Algernon. He knew the vegetable peeling Cro was beneath him and was content to let him fall with the house when he got around the destroying it.

They waited thirty seconds to let the hallway clear before heading out again. Climbing the stairs to the main house, they got a feel for the layout and where Don Wyclif would be further up in the building. By now, they had pushed their luck as far as they were willing to go. They made their exit through the open front door and left the Drood residence for the genteel part of town.

To be continued….

Musings 15: Ghosts

It may surprise you to know I do believe in ghosts.

But believing and knowing what they are are two different things. Belief does not mean I understand what ghosts are, the motivations and desires. It’s like saying you believe in God. How many of us can say the really understand them?

What are they? Are they really the spirits of the dead somehow trapped, unable to move on? Are they manifestations of our own minds, parts of ourselves that break away under trauma or stress? Or maybe something else, something as unknowable as a distant god.

Regardless of who they came to be, one this is clear. They are the image of a person at the time of their death, an interactive piece of mourning. Never changing, forever fixed at that one moment in time. In this we have the advantage.

Whatever traumas, whatever hardships, we live on. We move past that moment and find that bad times do not last. We find endurance and resilience in our struggles making us stronger. We can….”boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces one, and one does not disappoint us…” Romans 5:3-5

I say this because I wonder if the dead can? Fixed at the moment of death with no way of ‘living though’ the trauma, how can they get to that moment of acceptance and reflection?

Is this why they haunt the living? They need us to help them through? To finish the unfinished business? To find justice, retribution, revenge?

If that is true, shouldn’t our response be, not fear and loathing for their state, but empathy and acceptance? Like learning first aid, should we all learn afterlife counselling?

My problem is…once we’ve worked out why they are still with us and what they need to move on…do I want them to? Do I want to live without their presence?

I believe in ghosts all right. I just don’t know what to do about it.