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Part 2: A War of Willful Puppets
The lights were dim in Beech’s apartment. His computer flickered with a light blue program, slowly searching everything. Searching in vain. It wouldn’t find them.
Sylvester had tried to keep the pangolin-man company, but Beech couldn’t suffer his bluntness. It wasn’t like Four’s naivety- Sy was just an idiot. Instead, Beech kept his apartment locked, surviving on frozen pizzas and too much sleep. He flicked through his phone every once and a while, sending brief updates to the few surviving members of the pack that remained in the city. Just Wolf and Sy.
The month since the fight at the Mohn estate had dragged on endlessly. Lucretia had mobilized her forces, while Silvio rallied sympathy from Mundane prison gangs who felt oppressed by the overwhelming strength of the Vigils and Rooted gangs. Sy was busy defending the pack’s turf- the Trellis, Understar, Pipes, and Generator neighborhoods. It was why Wolf had always kept four members of the pack in the city, to divide the defense of their neighborhoods. Now, with Four and Nekera dead, Beech useless, and the other pack members stuck in their own missions off-city, Sylvester was forced to pick up the rest of the slack.
I really should help. Beech nuzzled his face into the bean-bag. I can’t fight… but I can at least help organize.
He shuffled himself forward lethargically. Wolf hadn’t asked him to help, and that felt worse than letting him down. The boss knew he was useless. Beech desperately wanted to prove him wrong.
His fingers rapped across the keyboard, closing out the search program. It hadn’t come out to anything useful.
He fed some news articles into his analysis programs, hoping to filter out the Vigil propaganda cluttering the truth. It ran for a few moments, spitting out summaries of what truly happened, cross-referenced with hacked camera footage and internal documents.
Vigilants Apocrypha and Dlar are searching Lowharf with a small team. As expected. The Mohn and the mushroom controller’s attacks on the Vigil are clear signs that something wants them dead. They’re probably searching for hidden Mohn enclaves or wherever the fallen Cage’s controlled bodies skulked off to.
Rosa Sanchez and Lane remain in captivity with the Canine Sub-Vigil. As they had been for weeks. The Sub-Vigil had captured them in the aftermath of the Mohn battle- Sy hadn’t taken it well. He hadn’t liked letting them run around with Four and Nekera to begin with. I should have trusted my intuition.
Beech’s guess was that the sidekicks were trying to ransom them off to their families in Metro Norleans. He was considering a rescue mission- he could hire some mercenaries- when another summary caught his eye.
Novice Vigilant Jack ad-Illum investigates a smoke monster appearing around the Underdocks. Aided by a mercenary [unidentifiable].
Beech leaned back. A smoke monster? Not anything he knew about, but probably a magical construct or False Root. But at Underdock… That was part of the Graydock area of the Sky City. Nekera had been negotiating smuggling routes there before she died. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
A few more clicks of his keyboard revealed some more info on Jack ad-Illum- pretty standard Mundane, savari suit fighter. Some history in radical pacifism with Mixal traditionalists, and raised by an Albera veteran. Nothing too special- especially compared to the extraordinary backgrounds that usually forge Vigilants.
Yet, it felt important. Beech saved the summary, flicked off his computer, and hoisted himself off his cushion. He grabbed a large, brown cloak to wrap around himself, and stuffed his phone into one of the pouches that dangled from it by his arms. Ad-Illum wasn’t a threat, even to someone as unskilled as Beech.
He’d investigate this on his own.
Rosa sat in a dingy, empty bar. Neon lights and backlit posters of old movies lined the walls, along with a loud fridge and tarnished beer tap. A man wearing a garland of arcane charms and dried flowers sat beside her, pushing aside his black hair. “Can’t sleep?” The monk asked.
Her eyes flicked over to the man. “Sorry, Leyati.” It took a second to remember the man’s name. “I know you have to keep an eye on me.”
He shrugged. Leyati’s tank top showed his barrel-like arms, and the unhealing bruises splotched across them from years of monastic training. “I don’t sleep too much, anyhow.” He raised an eyebrow at Rosa’s white-knuckled fist on the table. “Let me get you something to drink.”
He vaulted the bar and landed far too lightly, expertly flicking open the sliding doors to the fridges below it. “Which one is worrying you?” He asked as he pulled something unlabeled from the bottom shelf.
“Both.” Neither Lane nor Four had awoken since they started hiding here, in the Canine’s little headquarters. “But, Four, more than Lane.” She admitted. While Lane was slowly recovering from Nekera’s poison, Four couldn’t even breathe on her own. Not without those plants growing out of her neck.
Leyati nodded, pouring the nearly crimson alcohol into a shot glass and sliding it over to the mage. He thought for a moment. “You know Canticle? Our enhancer?”
“Only a bit.” Rosa had only met the older, Rooted man in passing- they took shifts using their enhancement on Lane to speed up her recovery. “Why?”
“He has some strange beliefs- on account of growing up off-planet. On Luna.” He explained. “To the Lunarians, breath is the same as the soul. That thing breathing for her, it is the soul in that body, for now.”
“That’s… not exactly comforting, Leyati.” Rosa took a sip of her drink, and immediately regretted it. She didn’t have the guts to spit it out in front of the monk, though.
Leyati poured himself a shot. “Maybe.” He said. “But, we’ll get her breathing on her own soon enough. Get her soul back in her- and that Mycelium freak out.” He sipped his drink, coughing out the burn. “And, if the old bastard’s right, maybe she’ll have some stories to tell us. About whatever is beyond.”
Rosa raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Why not?” He gestured to his charms strewn across his body. “I’ve seen much weirder while gathering my powers. Things neither magic nor science could explain.”
“Maybe.” Rosa stared down into her drink. Maybe there was something beyond. Somewhere where Four wasn’t struggling to breathe, stuck between a constant state of life and death while Cordelia Reese fiddled with her brain like an old computer.
She didn’t think so.
The rain beat down loudly as Beech abruptly turned from the carved cobbles of the Sky City onto the repurposed, hollow ship hulls of Graydock. The somber paint that gave the harbor its name was worn away on the most convenient bike path through the ramshackle district, creating a de facto, rusty bike trail. Workers in black raincoats unloaded massive shipping containers to the barnacle-like warehouses that clung to the top of the district, and other people took elevators down into the magically maintained bubble of air, metal railings, and upside-down buildings that made up Underdock. Beech made a beeline for one such lift.
His motorized tricycle grumbled at him with hoarse puffs of smog, and died a few dozen yards before the tiny cube of a list. “Piece of crap.” Beech sighed through his long gray raincoat and customized bike helmet. As long as he was riding, he could disguise his pangolin body, but walking was always an inconvenience. He drew more than a few curious stares as he walked the worn tricycle up to the elevator, hunched forward. His wide tail poked out from under his raincoat.
A raisin of a human operated the elevator, smoking what was undoubtedly their second pack of the hour. Their sunken eyes flicked to the small wall of bike racks behind the elevator, and Beech stepped over. He sighed. The lower cabinets had all been taken. With his hunched body and weak general frame, hoisting the tricycle up onto the upper rack was a frustrating process. He dropped it several times, once on his tail. The rain didn’t help.
He eventually just tied it to the very edge of the bike rack. It wasn’t secure, but if anyone actually wanted that junk, they were free to take it. The attendant took the usual two dollar fare and opened up the elevator. A small, one-person elevator.
As soon as the doors shut, the pangolin-man flipped open a large phone, with a case he’d designed to create a small, but physical keyboard. With a few pressed keys, his code began to run. By the time the elevator finally opened up into Underdock, it had found Jack ad-Illum’s last location through a security camera. Carver’s Storage. A warehouse for small shipping batches.
Underdock was a disorienting mess, as always. Metal walkways wove an insane spider web between elevator shafts and the domed buildings clinging to the ramshackle ceiling. Just below the walkways, the magic creating the air pocket around Underdock ended, shifting abruptly into the dark ocean. At the base of where Underdock connected to the actual island of Alloton, unlit pathways connected to holes that delved into Lowharf.
The walkways were busier than normal. A group of Nightfolk and other aquatic aliens that Beech couldn’t identify were swimming off of a lower one, while fishermen and workers on break were sitting with their feet dangling off the edge to get out of the rain.
Despite having to weave through so many people, Beech drew little attention down here- or, if he did, the famously quiet denizens of Underdock didn’t bother to make it known.
Carver’s Storage was a complex of small warehouses clutching the ceiling of the Underdock, surrounded by a dangling wall of intercrossed, metal wire. The singular walkway leading up to it was clearly guarded by cameras and- not so obviously- by the sensors Beech clocked hidden between floor lights. He stopped before the first sensor, looking up and around. The cameras were covered in a thick cloud of smoke- jamming cigarettes, a common Vigilant tool. But the sensors were untouched- Jack ad-Illum must have not noticed them. Clumsy, but expected for a novice hero.
Beech knelt down, fumbling with something in his coat while his long tail wrapped around the railing. He leaned off of the edge and pressed a small gadget to the bottom of the walkway- a tiny robot with all the appearance of a steel horseshoe crab. As soon as it latched onto the underside of the walkway, it got to work, scrambling down below and drilling ports into each electronic there, inputting a tiny stick. The code the robot injected would force its host to not recognize any triggers- such as Beech striding as quickly as he could into the complex. The robot quickly caught up to his slow steps.
Forklifts and scattered, plastic boxes littered the grid of walkways inside the complex, and Beech’s animal snout picked up on stale coffee and old blood in the guard room beside the entryway. Nothing rotting. The body had been moved.
Beech tapped a few commands on his phone, and ducked behind some crates.
The black box rang a few times before a familiar, confident voice rang through. “Beech?” Arbiter Wolf sounded surprised. “You’ve never called.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Beech’s voice trembled, and he didn’t know why. It took a moment to recover. “I’ve tracked a Vigilant to Carver’s Storage, in Underdock.” He quickly explained. “There’s evidence of body disappearance.”
The thrum of foot and bike traffic placed the Wolf somewhere in the Dim City. He slowly blew out- a cigar, Beech assumed. “This could be the Cage attacker. Investigate, but don’t die. I don’t have the resources to send backup.”
“Understood.” Beech only realized he’d agreed when the call clicked off. He swore quietly. The boss had that way with people, and Beech couldn’t well disappoint him now.
The first two warehouses were full of crates of increasing size- first boxes a couple of feet to a side, then long, two-yard duffle bags and metal crates. The third- where three-yard long crates would be stored, was in scattered disarray. Dried blood splattered the inside of an abandoned forklift, and several crates had been shattered from the inside. Explosives? Beech took a few tentative steps inside. The air tasted dusty. An old scene.
He knelt, noticing a few markings on the crates that had burst. The inside was gunmetal and smelled like saltwater, and a thin layer of white-yellow powder stuck to the sides. Spores.
A shadow moved past the crate he was looking at, and Beech looked up. His hand went to a stun gun on his side, but he saw nothing other than the reflective side of one of the crates. Then, he saw movement again- not in front of him, a reflection. Behind.
A sledgehammer of a fist crashed into Beech’s tough hide, and he felt his scales crack just before he was in the air. The reinforced plastic wall crumpled under the pangolin-man’s weight, but he didn’t puncture through. He used his tail to roll himself forward as another punch struck the side of the wall- cleanly piercing a head-sized hole where Beech’s head was a moment ago. He pulled the stun gun, plunging it up and into the stomach of his assailant.
He could feel the machine whir to life as it electrocuted a stout woman’s body. The electricity sparked through her, setting aflame the lines of white lichen and fungi covering the entirety of her body. Even so, she didn’t flinch, spinning instead into a kick. Beech felt his wrist shatter, and he bit his tongue to stop from yelling in pain. He stumbled away.
The flaming woman’s limbs snapped with the uncanny, sharp jerks of a marionette. Beech wasn’t far before she was over him, slamming into his back and knocking him forward and out of the door. Lights flashed in front of Beech’s eyes, and his brain throbbed. He looked back, spitting blood onto the ground.
The flaming monster jerked forward, her fist ready to slam down on the pangolin-man’s lowered head. Then, something flashed on her body- a deep blue spread of arcane symbols inscribed on her chest- a Monk’s overloaded charm. The magic that she had borrowed for her empowered punches flowed back into her, extinguishing the fire around her arms, then snapping them away violently. Her bones fractured, then pierced her skin as magical feedback rushed up her arms in waves. She thrashed her arms, the invisible force yanking her in uncontrolled directions.
Beech ran. Stumbling, he pushed towards the largest warehouse- a slate-gray slab of metal with a rusty iron door. The burning monster of a monk howled behind him as her recoil slowed down- a guttural, inhuman chord. It didn’t come from her throat, but from the burning lichen on her body straining against itself. It smelled like burning hair.
The door was open. He rushed in. A discarded crowbar was in his hand as soon as he entered the dark room, and he jammed it through the empty rungs to bar it. The controlled monk’s fist slammed against the door- the crowbar bent. Another slam- weaker. The third was more of a knock than a punch. The body collapsed before it could punch again, the fire finally crumbling its bodily structure. The heavy, white-gray smoke of the burning lichen rumbled through the gaps in the door, sinking to swirl around the warehouse’s dirty floor. He’d survived.
He didn’t have time to think, or even reach for his phone. He felt something cold press against the back of his neck- a slender, sharp piece of steel. Beech raised his hands. “Easy there.” He said.
“You’re not one of them?” The steel pulled away. “Thank God. I need all the help I can get.”
Beech turned. A man- short and wide shouldered, made even more square by the bulky, red and black hunk of metal he called a Savari Suit- held a rapier down by his side. His helmet was stern and flat, carved to resemble a black jellyfish bell, with cords of red tendrils stretching out of his chest piece to act as a neck guard. His suit was dented, and a shoulderguard was torn clean off.
Jack ad-Illum. The Mundane Vigilant. Beech tensed, his hand creeping towards his phone. Then, he saw behind the Vigilant- the crates were displaced and pressed against the walls of the warehouse. In their place, a massive stem of white, mushroom flesh and bone twisted into the ceiling- and through it, burrowing up into the shared ceiling and ground of the Docks. Reflective fragments of metal glinted within the massive stalk. “What the hell?”
“Fucked, isn’t it?” Jack turned to it. “I think it's an elevator. Something these mushroom monsters are using to hide their base. I intend to get inside.” He turned his metallic helmet to Beech. “That mercenary you fought, she led me here. Tried to kill me, but I ran. Good on you for taking her out.”
The pangolin-man edged towards the door, quietly sliding the bent crowbar out- only to find that it wouldn’t open. His eyes flicked up, seeing reflective, mushroom gills grown over the top quarter of the door, locking it in place. “Shit.” He pulled his phone.
“That won’t be any use, either.” Jack sighed. “The Cage attacker is putting the Savari tech he stole to good use, blocking communications.”
‘He’? Have they already ID'd the attacker? Beech backed away from the door. True enough, the phone wouldn’t connect to anything. “Fine. How do we get through?”
“Give me a moment. And keep an eye on the door.” Turning back to the strange column of fungal flesh, a small, blowtorch attachment flicked out of the wrist of Jack’s Suit. By the singed semicircle around the center of it, he’d already made some progress.
Beech stuffed his phone in his pocket, and clutched the crowbar tight. Looking at the shattered crates that lined the room, he felt a deep unease in his chest. The crates- they were like the ones in the other warehouse. Shattered from the inside, with white powder lining the insides.
The Vigilant was right- the whole situation was fucked. But, with the door blocked and more monsters potentially out there, Beech had little to do but follow Jack’s lead, cradle his broken wrist, and wait for his chance. Whatever that might be.