Cultwick: The Wretched Dead Page 15

  Erynn, meanwhile, took in a couple of deep breaths through the respirator, and then said to him, “You look weird.”

  “I have not been without those instruments in years,” he replied. “I feel odd.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I think this’ll work, but what about Germ?”

  At that point, the rat himself entered the back room, gave them both a funny look, and said, “We’ve got that covered too, ma’am. I’ll be in one of the crates. Madam Nightingale says they only inspect one per shipment, so we’ll put Tern inside one and me in the other.”

  Taking another unnecessarily large and loud breath, Erynn said, “Sounds like a plan. With the new head I gave him, he doesn’t look anything like the old pictures.”

  Erynn and Olivia worked together to get the still offline Tern into a large crate, while Rowland helped Germ into another. Before stepping inside, Germ swung on a large overcoat with a hood that would help disguise him once they were in the city. After Germ was inside, Rowland picked up some of his medical supplies, along with the rat test subjects and sat them inside the crate as well. Germ adjusted into a comfortable position and motioned for Rowland to seal the crate. Rowland nodded and picked up the wooden top, placing it on the crate.

  “Wait!” he exclaimed. “What happens if they look in my crate?”

  “Do not worry, my old friend,” Rowland replied. “It will be fine. Tern’s crate will be on top, so the only thing you need to worry about is him crushing you.”

  Germ rolled his eyes and took a deep breath, while Rowland covered and loudly hammered in the top of the crate.

  “Ow!” Germ cried out. “Could you do that a bit quieter, sir? I’ve still got quite the headache, and that’s not helping.”

  “Almost done,” Rowland replied, continuing to hammer the nails into the wood.

  Using a dolly, Rowland lifted Germ’s crate and wheeled it to the edge of the skyship, sitting it on a hydraulic lift. Exiting the skyship, he pressed the button that lowered the crate down to the ground level. Outside the Halcyon, the skyport was completely covered in concrete and surrounded by a tall wall. The only way to leave the landing strip was to pass through a long corridor that entered into Cultwick. Erynn and Olivia followed behind Rowland, moving Tern’s crate out and on top of Germ’s. Positioning the dolly under the stacked crates, Rowland leaned it backward and followed Olivia and Erynn to the first checkpoint just inside the corridor.

  Three guards were stationed there, and one with a clipboard asked, “Vessel name?”

  “The Halcyon,” Olivia replied.

  The corpsman wrote down her answer and further inquired, “Captain?”

  “Olivia Nightingale,” she said.

  Eyeing the two crates, he asked, “Cargo?”

  “Two automatons,” she answered.

  “We’ll need to inspect them,” he said.

  The other two guards moved to them, one of which was holding a crowbar. Olivia nodded and allowed them by. The guard pried open the top of the crate and looked down at Tern. He shifted the automaton to the side, attempting to check for any hidden cargo, but found nothing additional inside.

  “Looks fine,” he said. “Want to check the other crate?”

  Lifting his watch from his pocket and inspecting the time, the corpsman with the clipboard replied, “No. It’s almost noon. Let’s hurry this along, so we can get lunch.” He motioned them through his checkpoint, and added, “Move forward and give your gene sample at the next station. Next!”

  Olivia ushered them through the long corridor that left them temporarily out of sight from either checkpoint’s guards. “Inject yourselves now,” she instructed.

  Rowland nodded and pressed the needle into his arm, injecting the substance into himself. After administering his own, he assisted Erynn with her batch as well. They continued down the hall, where they were met with two more guards and a small gene sampling station

  One of the corpsmen nodded and said, “Place your hand over the device and don’t move.”

  Olivia was the first to comply, and when she placed her hand into the device, it pricked her and blood fell into a glass vial where it was examined. On a screen displayed for the guards, it output the results:

  Offender: Negative

  Infection: Negative

  “Infection?” Olivia asked. “Since when are you checking for that?”

  “Since the carrier plague spread through the city,” he answered. “You next,” he said to Rowland.

  The professor acquiesced with the guard’s request and placed his hand in the device as well. It returned with the same results as Olivia, and the guard nodded to Erynn to go next. She moved forward holding her hand inside, and they all watched as the blood trickled into the examination machine. Rowland had never known Erynn to be very lucky, and he was almost certain something would go wrong for her yet again. Luckily, he found himself proven wrong when both her ‘Offender’ and ‘Infection’ results were negative.

  The guards ushered them forward, and Olivia led them out of the skyport and into an unattended alleyway. The walls of the buildings were littered with posters, but not with the wanted posters of them that they had heard about. Instead, posters from the Chromework Confederacy littered the buildings, attempting to advertise the truth about the sweeper bot plague and the empire’s hand in the lack of a cure. They eventually came to a stop, and Erynn reached into Tern’s crate and turned his power on, though he took a moment to fully power up.

  “It’ll just be a minute,” she said to Germ through the side of the crate. “Once Tern is on, I’ll have him move off you and we can get you out.”

  “Roger that, ma’am,” he replied with a timid voice.

  “Operational,” Tern said from his top crate.

  “Stand up and get out of there, Tern,” she instructed.

  “Affirmative, debugger,” he replied.

  The automaton stood and leapt from the crate, allowing Olivia and Rowland to push the crate to the side, knocking it onto the cobbled ground. They then pried off the lid, and Germ sat upright. Rowland gave him his gauntlet hand, helping Germ out of the box.

  “How do you expect to find her, Ryn?” he asked.

  When Rowland turned around to face Erynn, she had vanished.

  “Where did she go?” he asked the others, but he was only met with shrugs.

  “I’m sure she knows what she is doing, sir,” Germ replied.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Well, you two know what you need to do. I, meanwhile, need to return home.”

  “The mansion?” Germ asked. “Whatever for, sir?”

  “I… uh… will need some supplies there,” he answered.

  “Could you not find what you need somewhere in town?” Germ inquired. “The mansion could surely be guarded or watched.”

  “It has to be there,” Rowland explained. “When you have retrieved the sample, return it to me there. Good luck.”

  Chapter 17. Crowley and the Clairvoyant

  Following the attack on the empress and her subsequent treatment, Viola was granted temporary power over the empire. To that end, she asked Crowley to meet with her to discuss the state of the imperium. The two of them stood alone in the empress’ parlor of the Sovereign Tower’s upper levels, as the regent empress sipped at a cup of hot tea. Viola had her back to him, as she looked out the window at the snow falling to the city beneath them.

  Councilor Crowley had never truly taken stock of what kind of woman Viola Arkmast was, but after the events of the previous day, he realized he would need to begin to make certain decisions about her and their future. She, in no way, reminded the councilor of her mother. Mary Elizabeth Arkmast and her late husband had been heavily involved in the church, while Viola had strayed from that path years before.

  Viola had spent a great deal of time with one of her handmaidens, Kyra Etee, a slave from the southern island nation of Targeaux. For generations, Cultwick had been drawing on their people as a source of slave labor, but few in
the empire understood their people, their traditions, or their mysteries. Crowley knew enough to know that their people were dangerous, and he didn’t like that Viola had gotten so close to them. Even if the empress did recover from her wounds, eventually Viola would take her place and ascend the throne.

  After a length of silence, Viola turned back to Crowley, and directly asked, “What was it my mother said to you just before she fell into the coma?”

  Reluctant to give her more information and therefore power than he felt she needed, Crowley replied, “I’m afraid she wasn’t entirely coherent at the end, Regent-Empress”

  Viola studied him for a moment before asking, “Are you familiar with the practice of Vaseevoo, Councilor Crowley?”

  Narrowing his eyes, he confirmed, “The religion of Targeaux?”

  “That’s correct,” she replied. Viola raised the tea to her face, as a spiraling pillar of steam rose from the cup. She took a large drink and then lowered the cup, staring into it. “Some of the herbs that grow there have natural effects that the Vaseevists have learned to use in their rituals.”

  Furrowing his brow, Crowley replied, “Science is the one true power in this world, not that witchcraft they practice on the southern islands.”

  Smiling, she looked up from her cup and asked, “What is SC-1?”

  Taken aback, he asked, “SC-1?”

  Viola nodded knowingly and answered, “That’s correct, Councilor. What can you tell me about it? Something to do with a young boy acquired from the lottery, I think.”

  “That’s… right. How did you know that?” he asked.

  Her lip curled, but she said nothing and simply stared back at him with still eyes waiting for his explanation.

  Eventually he felt compelled beyond his control and said, “SC-1 was an experiment I conducted during my time at the C.E.R.”

  “And what was the purpose of the experiment?” she asked.

  “We were studying the effect of the herb, foroshish,” Crowley explained, still confused by his sudden willingness to answer her questions.

  “The herb that grows in the Ankalaran desert?” she confirmed.

  “Yes,” he replied. “The gypsy fortune tellers are known to imbibe the weed regularly, so we wanted to know what possible effects they might derive from it.”

  A strange flowery aroma seemed to fill the room, and the councilor’s head was throbbing. He felt like he might topple over at any moment, so he reached over to the back of a chair to steady himself. He began to wonder if there truly was something to her talk of Vaseevoo, for he continued to struggle against each word of explanation. Regardless, Crowley continued to answer Viola’s every question.

  “And? What did you discern?” Viola asked.

  “The herb does indeed have a strange effect on human capabilities,” he explained. “The boy began to see events both close and far into the future.”

  “So he is able to predict anything?” she asked.

  “Yes and no,” Crowley answered. “The more we injected the boy with, the more difficult he became to work with. His mind wandered through time, and we believe he is now unable to separate the present from his visions of the future.”

  “Then, you’re suggesting his talents have not been taken advantage of?” Viola inquired.

  “Your assessment is accurate,” the councilor replied.

  “Why, then, would my mother, with what could have been her last breath, name the experiment?” she asked.

  Crowley paused for a moment, considering the prophecy that SC-1 had predicted many years past. “After we failed to produce any useful results from the boy, the empress decided to visit him for herself. While she was there, he had half of a conversation--”

  Viola interrupted the councilor and asked, “Half a conversation? What do you mean?”

  “The boy would regularly talk to someone that wasn’t there,” he explained, blood beginning to drip from his nose. “We don’t know whether he was simply deluded into thinking he was at that point in time or if there was something separate at work. Regardless, he indicated that a woman named Amelia would be responsible for the Empress’ death.”

  Viola turned away from Crowley and said, “The woman that attacked my mother said her name was Amelia… Was anyone else ever injected with the serum you concocted?” Viola asked.

  “There was only one that survived as far as I am aware,” Crowley answered, struggling to remain standing.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Fiona Newton,” he replied.

  “Are you suggesting that the woman who now terrorizes Cultwick can see the future?” Viola asked.

  “We have no reason to believe that,” Crowley said. “She has only ever behaved erratically, and no other test subject ever reproduced the results that we saw during the SC-1 trials.”

  “But it’s possible?” she inquired.

  “It is,” he answered. “But like I said, we have--”

  “In the event that my mother does not recover from her injuries, I would like to begin work on my own reign,” she interrupted. “Fiona Newton is by far the greatest threat facing our empire. I want you to refocus the full efforts of the C.E.R. on finding a means to stop Fiona.”

  Crowley nodded and replied, “My people are already working on two separate theories that should--”

  “Just get it done,” she instructed.

  “Very well, and what of the threat of the rebellion?” he asked. “It seems they would be--”

  “I already know how to deal with the Chromework Confederacy,” she answered. “Fiona is the focus. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Regent-Empress,” he replied with a certain amount of disdain.

  It was then that the handmaiden, Kyra, entered the room, approached Viola, and whispered something into her ear. Being from Targeaux, Kyra had dark black skin like all of her people. She had curly black hair that defied gravity in a messy spherical mound over her head. The attendant wore a thick black coat with large brass buttons from her neck to her waist. She even wore black pants and boots, and Crowley had always thought that when she moved through the Sovereign Temple, it was like a living shadow roaming the halls.

  “Thank you, Kyra,” Viola eventually said, as the handmaiden left the way she had come in. “It seems, Councilor, that I have much to do. We will have to finish this later.”

  He bowed, as was expected of him, as she took her leave of him and the throne room. As soon as she was out of the room, he felt as though he was released from some outside control. He gasped for air and took to a knee to recuperate. Crowley, for the first time in many years, felt a twinge of fear for his future in Cultwick. It was clear that Viola had plans that were vastly different from that of her mother or father, and that could easily mean he would lose his place of prominence when Viola officially became the empress.

  If he would have to prove himself yet again, he would do it the same way he had done for years - through the science of his biosynthesis experiments. He believed that the SC-1 subject might be able to expand on the attack on the empress, so he wiped the blood from his nose and set out to go to the Center for Empirical Research. As he had mentioned to Viola, the scientists there had indeed been working on a way to deal with Fiona as well. He was aware of one such method, but it would need a willing and capable test subject.

  Crowley thought about Silas Skinner, and how he had already fought off the infected twice. Perhaps he would be willing to submit himself to the needle in an effort to cleanse Cultwick of Fiona and her abominations. The councilor left the throne room and descended down to where the empress was being treated. He found Silas standing guard at her bedside. His wound had been reopened by the attack on Mary Elizabeth, and blood stained the sling that held his injured arm.

  “That’s twice you’ve had to fight off the infected, Sergeant,” Crowley said.

  “Yes, sir, but I’ve lost people both times,” Silas replied, admonishing himself.

  “Perhaps you just need an edge to take Fiona down
for good,” the councilor suggested.

  One of the corpsman’s eyebrows rose, as he asked, “With my injury, I’m not sure I’m in any condition. Did you have something specific in mind, sir?”

  “I’ve had a team reverse engineering some of the injections Fiona received during her time at the C.E.R.,” Crowley explained. “They’ve come up with something special, but I need someone with a military mind to receive this great gift.”

  Crowley stared on, as Silas mulled over what he had heard, and the soldier eventually said, “I’d like to volunteer to accept that injection, sir.”

  “Very good, sergeant,” Crowley said. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “But what about my injury?” Silas asked. “I won’t be much good to anyone like this.”

  “I expect following the injection, you will make a full and rapid recovery,” Crowley explained. “The serum is intended to have restorative properties. Come. We must go to the C.E.R. so they can prepare your regimen.”

  Together, Crowley and Silas descended the Sovereign Tower’s elevator system and made their way to the street level of Cultwick. Since word of Fiona’s attacks and the carrier plague that had spread throughout the city, the people had reacted in a panic. The streets were emptier than they usually were for the time of day it was, and many of the citizens wore gas masks over their face. Trash was piled up on the sides of the street, corpsmen were stationed at nearly every crossroad, and the plague doctors went door to door investigating citizens. The response to this new ailment was already more extreme than it had been for the sweeper bot plague despite the much lower infection percentage. People, Crowley had long since realized, were sheep and prone to panic. His role was to serve as their shepherd, and it was a role he desired greatly.

  Silas and Crowley arrived at the Center for Empirical Research just before dusk set in over the city. The research center was a short, sprawling complex consisting of laboratories, private medical centers, and cells that contained subjects - both human and otherwise. The snow outside had died down and was turning gray from the smog and soot of the city grime, when they entered the building. Crowley led the soldier through the winding halls of the center, until they reached an out of the way room behind a series of locks. The councilor had to give a gene sample to a machine and enter a combination into a mechanical number pad.