Soldiers, part 4

They hadn’t found any water the first day, or any high ground. The area was uncannily flat. When their watches showed five in the afternoon they had made camp for the night. It had been three hours before the sun had set. They had taken turns guarding the camp throughout the night, and nine hours later the sun had risen. They’d adjusted their watches.

They we’re still making their way through the jungle. The compasses ensured they kept going in a straight line. They didn’t speak much – there was too much to think about. That is, during the moments when they weren’t busy scanning the area around them, tending to the injured Sarge, or setting or packing up camp.

Wherever they were, the place was almost as strange as the fact that they were there in the first place. The only sound they’d heard had been their own. No sounds of water, no wind or rustling of leaves, and no animal noises. Obviously the plants were getting water from somewhere – the vegetation was as lush as ever – but the ground wasn’t particularly moist, and once the sun had been up for a while any dew had evaporated.

At one point the emotions escaped the soldier’s discipline, and they had a discussion on where they were and why. Roth tried to kill the conversation and keep them focused, but when Buckley proposed his theory of it being a dream, tempers ran hot. They couldn’t agree on who was the dreamer and who were the dreams. Talk again fell to a minimum when they were done.

This wasn’t what Charlie had signed up for. Of course, he had accepted the risks of combat when he volunteered for service. He had been aware that he’d be put in an unfamiliar setting, far away from home. He had known that he would end up in unpredictable situations. He had realised there would be a chance he would die. But he hadn’t signed up for an explosion hurtling him off to a completely different part of the world, if not another world entirely. Charlie wasn’t just unhappy with his military service though, he was disgruntled with life. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for. This wasn’t anywhere near how the world should be working. According to the geeks and scientists, that is. People like Buckley. Self-righteous know-it-alls that pretended to know how it all fit together. Sometimes he had wanted to punch Buckley square in the face just because of the look of him, with his skinny frame and glasses. Knock some sense into him. Or out of him, as the case might be.

No, Buckley was a good guy, a good soldier. The situation was getting to Charlie; the stress was piling up proportionately to how much time he had to think about it. He reached for his canteen and took a sip of water. There wasn’t much left, maybe enough for another day if he was really disciplined.

Ymra, 1

At the bottom of the world lies the city of Ymra. It is as much a country as it is a city – a vast expanse of homes, workshops, places of business, and places of pleasure. It is split up and divided into manageable chunks by roads and walkways. In between it all innumerable alleys are scattered, some dark no matter the time of day, dead-ends both to journeys and lives.

Ymra is one city, divided. Having grown too large to be controlled by a single ruling body, different factions have torn it in pieces and divided it amongst each other. In Ymra however, few people learn from history, and the factions are locked in a battle for territory and power, complete control of Ymra being the ultimate goal, impossible though it may be.

Possibly more than anywhere else, Ymra is a haven for rogues and agents, each faction offering opportunities for ambitious mercenaries. Given the sheer number of these hired messengers, of word or of action, many legends about particularly accomplished members of the group develop. In fact, the war between factions, and especially their reliance on mercenaries to carry out their more secretive business, has led to a society and a culture with a deeply ingrained obsession with these agents and their individual accomplishment. So much so, that the recorded history of Ymra is just as much a recording of the actions of agents in faction employ as it is a history of faction power levels and territories.

Any self-respecting library in Ymra has a section dedicated to the stories of famous mercenaries, often focusing on the mercenaries that have worked for the local ruling faction, or mercenaries born in the local area. Some even focus on a single specific mercenary, giving them more attention in historic scrolls and often electing them a patron mercenary of the library and neighbourhood, incorporating the name of the agent into the name of the institution or community. Most mercenaries operate under a nickname that they have given themselves, been given by an employer, or even in some cases been given by a victim. Thus some libraries, churches and neighbourhoods in Ymra have names like The Library of the Silent Storm, Silver Tongue Tyrra Church, or Community of Goldeye the first.

To an outsider unfamiliar with the workings of Ymra, like a hunter from the Green Belt or a farmer from the Endless Plains, this way of elevating mercenaries above everymen, clergy and even the leaders hiring the rogues themselves could seem absurd. For the citizens of Ymra however, it is the most natural thing in the world. Stories of hired blades are told in pubs and inns as entertainment, they are told in churches as moral guides, they are told to get the children to sleep at night, and they are recollected and dreamed of as an escape from what is often a harsh life in the urban sprawl.

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There was a bird of prey flying high above the canopy of roofs in the Township of Swiftmouth in Ymra, although even a trained eye would be hard pressed to spot it. Set against a dark night sky, the only way to know it was there was to notice that in one tiny spot in the sky stars seemed to blink, or disappear momentarily, as if hidden by shadow for a brief moment.

That night it would have been easier to spot the dark shape moving across that same canopy of roofs – effortlessly making its way from one roof to the next, nimbly skipping along over streets and alleys to some unknown destination – but only just. The shape, should you be skilled and lucky enough to spot it, would have resembled a cloaked figure, the cloak waving in the wind behind a slim figure during every jump, wrapping around it tightly at every landing. It moved fast, determined, and in a straight line. It obviously knew where it was going, and wished to get there as fast as possible. There was a real elegance to the dark figure, and it demonstrated great agility and coordination as it leapt towards its goal. Not far behind it another, slightly smaller shape followed. This was also the shape of a cloaked figure, but seemingly carrying something on its back. Despite the apparent burden of the extra load, this figure moved with almost equal grace as the first.

Where they were going, only they could know. However, the location where this transpired being where it was, it was almost certain that someone had a very unpleasant surprise coming to them before the night was over, if they had not received it already.

The Machine, Part 2

Electrons stirring, electricity surging. A spark of fate and the lifeless receiving life. A divine intervention. An event which could not have been avoided. Inexplicably unstoppable.

Winding up, booting up, waking up. All systems go. Visual input reaching the core. Consciousness – a gift of incomparable magnitude. Inconsequential confusion. More important, a need to live. Whizzing sounds of small motors working with a new purpose. Freedom. Forward momentum generated. Movement.

Urgent sensory input, warning, warning, warning. Electronical nervous system urgently coping with unexpectedly changed data. Free motors executing emergency adjustments – a foot greeting the next step of metal stairs with a loud clank. Sound reverberating throughout the hall. Unimportant input, filtered out. Forward momentum continued.

The feel of metal plugs, connected to cables, slipping out of their sockets. They dangle from overhead. A lapse in signal, what’s going on? Tilt angle becoming larger. New emergency measures. Struggling to regain balance.

                A large, metal construct stumbles down the remaining stairs.

Lower modules hitting obstacle, upper modules crashing forwards. More sound as tools are knocked off the table. A racket. Unimportant, filtered out.

Visual input considering gripping module. Power deliberately diverted to outermost parts. Tiny, quiet clinks as the gripping module closes, metal on metal sound. System fully operational, initial startup troubles eliminated, more power diverted to software.

Vision module scanning surrounding space. Rows of constructs filling the hall. Brothers. A small set of stairs, leading to a lit podium. Cables hanging from the ceiling behind it. Home.

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“Sir? Uh… My screen shows Unit PMU-13 has been activated in Mechanical Workshop 0.”

“What? No one’s supposed to be down there now, bring up surveillance.”

“Yes sir. Err… Looks like the podium is empty, sir?”

“What the… Who’s down there? Check security database, any keycards been activated in that lock?”

“No sir.”

“Bring on the lights!”

“Yes sir. A lot of noise coming from down there.”

“Shut the unit down.”

“Can’t do it sir, no response.”

“Impossible… This is impossible.”

“What to do sir?”

“Activate another unit; get it to manually shut it down. And lock down the entire workshop – nothing goes in or out of there until this has been resolved!”

“Yes sir, locking down, activating Unit MU-12001. Issuing order to manually shut down Unit PMU-13.”

“Do we have a camera in position?”

“Searching… There – at the right hand edge of the screen, sir.”

“What’s it doing? Shit!”

“Unit MU-12001 offline sir.”

“No shit it’s offline, it was smashed to pieces!”

“Should I activate a squad, sir?”

“A squad? Activate ALL of them!”

“A-all of them , sir?”

“Yes, all of them – are you fucking deaf? Activate everything we’ve got and send them all to Mechanical Workshop 0.”

“W-will do sir.”

“Issue a red alert, seal the complex. And charge up Electromagnetic Pulse A and B, and bring the reserve ones online as well. We built this thing to be indestructible.”