Present History

Streams of black smoke coiled up into the arid desert sky forming dark clouds that promised no rain. The sun had long since set, but the fires within the walled outpost lit the blackness with a hellish glow. The streets were littered with corpses; the feeble old, the innocent young, the stationed soldiers, all dead, ripped apart, scavenged, partially eaten. No screams pierced the silence. No wails mourned the dead. All was silent but for the crackling and popping of flame, and the occasional roar as a building collapsed.

The architect of this mayhem, a tall pale monster, stood at the lip of a landing pad looking down, admiring its work, (if it even had the capacity to feel admiration), from afar. Its left side of its upper body was a conglomerate of stolen parts, while its right side yet bore its originals. Beaten iron, rusted plates, against smooth white synth muscle. One scavenged arm was a piece of art, meant for a gladiator, the one below was regular military-grade. Well-muscled legs terminating in taloned split-legs below the knee held aloft the mighty form. One of the serrated claws held a gurgling man in a killing embrace, his head hanging over the edge.

“Watch as your town burns…” an overlapping voice, the monster’s voice, hissed. It turned its head to leer at the observer. The assassin’s eyes were the same magnesium white, its sharp teeth the same black metal. But its face was different. A nose had been affixed to it, and so too had ears to the sides of its glistening bald head. It looked more human now, but somehow more terrifying.

The observer felt fear spike through him, but when the monster spoke next, he realized that it wasn’t looking at him. “Meridia… is the flyer ready?”

Another voice spoke from behind the observer. He turned and saw a beautiful woman, eyes a brilliant turquoise, hop out from the cockpit of a shuttle. “We’re ready. You going to scavenge something from that thing or are you just playing around?” the woman, Meridia, asked.

The monster’s lipless mouth stretched tight, revealing black gums. With a twitch of synth-muscles the talons closed around the man, silencing his gurgles. “I require nothing more.”

It let the body fall off the edge down into the fires as it lurched to the crew compartment of the shuttle, the door closing behind it. The woman hopped inside the cockpit and soon the engines hummed to life, roaring as they pushed the craft off the pad. A wash of pressure slammed into the observer and suddenly he was somewhere else.

---

Jaques awoke with a soundless gasp; his entire body, silicone and remnant organic nerves, on fire as though someone had connected him to a gauss loom. His muscles were like rock, his replacement limbs wouldn’t move, but in seconds after opening his eyes, the horrifying sensations disappeared. For a second his machine eye still showed the fiery sights as blurry images, until they too faded. He looked inward, breathing steadily, and ran a quick systems diagnostic. Nothing was wrong.

He sighed. “What a horrifying dream,” he said to the ceiling. Then he shot up, startled once again. “A dream…! A dream?” The word felt wrong in his mouth. He’d never spoken it in that context before. Maybe vision was more apt given that no one dreamed anymore.

He wiped the perspiration from his brow. Should he tell someone? Would the others think him insane? He’d had similar, but not so vivid, visions while aboard the Melchizedek too. He hadn’t told anyone of them either. But this… this felt real somehow. Like that time in the shelter, when he’d seen the assassin breach the doors before it did.

The door opened and in walked Jean and Hound. They’d come through the compartment prior, one of six in the long equine driven wagon; the parlor, it was called. Mr. Limbo slept there, as a makeshift guard, while Jean and Hound shared the rearmost suite with Jaques. Rousseau and Lucia had the middle suite on the other side of the parlor.

The bounty hunter had used the words, “miniature train,” to describe the long cart, going on about cowboys and railroads he’d seen in vid-chronicles, whatever those meant. The wagon was a wooden building on eight wooden wheels, one long corridor separated into six distinct rooms, cargo and control, sanctuary, dining hall, suite, parlor, suite, in that order from forward to back, with a plasti-canvas harmonica midsection to allow it to bend in the middle, to be more precise. It was pulled by four cyber equines, monotasked to do just that, inputted with route plans and contingency plans if something untoward were to happen.

It was a luxury vehicle with all the amenities, with beautiful gothic décor, flamboyant furniture, and function hidden by fashion in every corner. Phthalo greens, deep umbers and more gold filigree and fresco than a devotee of the See could wish for. Reserved primarily for dignitaries, delegates, diplomats etc. the heads of Roma Prima hadn’t quite understood what clandestine meant and thus had requisitioned what basically was an antique at this point, given that it was made with real wood, to be used as the vehicle for the party’s travels to the frontier outpost in the Alps. The buggy, of course, had come with, and was presently strapped to the roof.

Not that Jaques complained about traveling in style after the cramped and stinky interiors of the Melchizedek. That, and the Gothic Peninsula was, presently, the safest place in the world, and none would likely bar their journey. At least that was what he hoped. The fiery visions, however, now faded into indistinctness as wakefulness came upon him in full and thanks to the distraction of his traveling companions, lingered as a dim threat at the back of his mind.

“Ah, you’re up.” Jean made to clap his hands, but his other arm yet remained infantile.

Jaques rubbed his cloudy organic eye. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Past midday,” the polite Hound replied, “we were thinking of going over the plan one more time in the parlor. Will you join us?”

“Yes, of course,” Jaques said and got up.

The parlor was a cozy place with two springy couches and two armchairs, all draped with a deep umber cloth, placed around the walls with lacquered tables between them. In one corner was a bar, behind which was a shelf with a myriad bottles with faded labels. Mr. Limbo stood there, leaning on the counter with a clear bottle that had the word Gin written on it. Lucia and Rousseau entered from the door directly opposite the one Jaques did, and soon all were sitting. The parlor was curious as it was the only room in the lengthy wagon without windows. Instead, the room was lit by a chandelier with corpse-wax candles and some dim electric lighting on the walls.

“Alright, everyone’s here,” Mr. Limbo said, then nodded to Jean, who produced a crinkled map of the region with a distinct red line drawn over the roads that lead to the mountainous outpost.

“Roma Prima is behind us,” he went on, “much to everyone’s delight, I assume,” he grinned, noble metal teeth glinting in the wan light. “We’re stocked up and looks like smooth sailing from here until we get to the Alps, and once there, we re-stock and head out through the wastes to the Anglaic Peninsula, to Primus in Caelo, from which we fly directly to the pathogen. Questions?”

Lucia raised her hand. “I don’t think anyone has forgotten our plan, rather, I think we should be expecting and preparing for some obstacle.”

“How so, dearie,” Rousseau asked from beside the young squire-mechanic.

“Well, we were expecting to have trouble in Roma Prima, hence the message, but don’t you think everything went a little, well… too easy?”

Jaques recalled how, just hours ago now, they had left the magnificent city that had stood for eons. Chalked full of color and chrome, Roma Prima was a thriving metropolis of augmented, semi-augmented, and full-machine humans. Soldiers stood sentry beneath marble statues and gilded columns, and dignitaries from small settlements, and Atlantis of course, mingled in the babbling crowd.

They’d received a miniature escort of Helvetian Guards, glaringly orange and striped, led by non-other than Cardinal Radcliffe, a towering red behemoth of a walker, first to the great Basilica of St. Peter, from which they received blessings from a Papal emissary, then to the See’s militant branch base, from which they left, quite promptly, on the wagon toward the Alps.

The party had scarcely had the time to take in the magnificence of it all before they were already exiting the city’s outer limits as the white sun slowly dipped below the horizon. No military escort, no pomp or ceremony, just as Lucia had requested, and everyone in some ways had wanted.

Jean piped up. “What did you expect?” he asked in answer to her question. “We’re on a mission form the See, and I don’t think they want to draw any undue attention to their base of operations. The Conclave monster has already killed some Priests, even a Cardinal, and even though that place is a fortress, I don’t think they want a kill-bot rampaging through the streets.”

“It’s not that,” Lucia said and giggled, “just that the outpost, the ship, there is always something in our way. I don’t know, I guess I just expected us to have trouble in Roma too.”

“Well,” the bounty hunter chuckled from behind the counter, “we still got about forty-odd-hours until we reach the outpost, so don’t go counting your clockwork poultry yet.”

Jaques was silent.

“Quite pessimistic,” Hound commented.

“Not pessimistic, realistic,” Mr. Limbo corrected. “Look, the Conclave ain’t dumb; if it was me calling the shots, I’d not try and grab him in the city,” he nodded his head toward Jean, cabling hair whipping back and forth in its topknot, “I’d stage it just. Like. This.” he tapped the counter with one long metal finger in emphasis. “Wait till the escort is secluded on a dark road in bumfuck nowhere, then, BAM.” He slammed the counter with a seven-fingered hand. “Gotcha.” He took a swig of the gin; some of it dribbled down his copper jaw-plate.

“I hate to agree with ye,” Rousseau sighed. “This wagon, though opulent and quite comfortable, has nary a weapon on it. “Clandestine and unassuming,” my supple arse.”

Lucia giggled. Buddy went on, “pre-cisely,” he said, “that hangar had all kinds of military vehicles, but they give us this. I thought about it all night, and I’m starting to think we didn’t get off so lucky as little Lucia here seems to imagine.”

“What are you saying?” Hound asked.

“I’m saying that I think we’ve been had. I don’t know, but I’ve a feeling some Conclave spy intercepted and switched around orders and requisitions and got us this.”

“That’d mean that the very heart of the See, the highest echelons, have been infiltrated. I shan’t believe it!” Rousseau gasped indignantly.

“Oh, please,” Mr. Limbo rolled his eyes, “the See’s been compromised since the bombs fell. Ever since the schism, ever since ever. Hell, if it weren’t for Atlantis that place would be rubble.”

“Sacrilege!” Rousseau bellowed and shot up. Her flaming hair flew over her shoulders, and for a moment her rage made it seem that the wig was indeed one large fire.

“Oh, pipe down. Don’t act all high and mighty with me, lady,” Buddy jabbed an accusing finger toward the brassy doctor, “I don’t care what your magisters and fathers and all the other titles say about your history. Half the fucking world knows it but doesn’t talk about it because your inquisitors, which you claim don’t exist, miraculously make those people disappear.”

Rousseau’s halogen eyes flared into high-beams. “If ye be such a heretic,” she hissed the words, “then why in the Laird’s name are you doing the See’s work?”

Mr. Limbo spread his arms and looked incredulously at the doctor, “Money! Do I really need to spell it out? Em, Oh, En, E, Why: Money! Hell, the only reason why I took the job in the first place was because I was told it was just a fetch and secure, not a fucking prolonged treasure hunt.”

“You scoundrel! I bet ye’ve had the Conclave lining yer pockets too!” Rousseau accused.

“I HAVE!”

The room went silent. The only sounds Jaques could hear was the steady rumble of wooden wheels on stone, and the jingling of the chandelier above. Everyone was looking at the bounty hunter, Beaufort Limbo.

“Excuse me?” Rousseau hissed.

Once again, the tall cyborg rolled his eyes, “I am a bounty and relic hunter. I work, for money,” he intoned the words very clearly, his signature drawl gone. “And yes, I’ve done work for the Conclave in the past. Granted, each time they tried to backstab me, or if not them, then the other mercenaries they hired. I quit that decades ago, but not before I learned some interesting facts about the organization’s origins.”

“Shut up,” Rousseau commanded, her brassy mask, though lifeless, set in a grimace.

“No,” Mr. Limbo crossed his arms. “You know what, I think everyone should hear about the Conclave’s origins. It would give some context on why the See oppose them so much.”

Rousseau was about to speak, but Lucia beat her to it, “What do you mean? Isn’t the Conclave just a conglomerate of enormous corporate interests that buy up or invade lands to further their agenda? You know, enslaving and oppressing,” she asked.

“I don’t doubt that one bit!” the hunter said, “but isn’t the word Conclave a little familiar? Why Conclave? Why buy Neo-Ur? Why such a high interest in ancient monuments?”

“This line of reasoning is heretical, Mr. Limbo,” Rousseau warned, “it has no basis in reality!”

“Well then, if it ain’t got no basis, then surely it won’t hurt to share, huh?”

“Please do,” Jean said. He was leaning languidly over the armrest of one of the chairs.

“What’s the schism?” Lucia asked.

“Well,” the bounty hunter began, “I’m going to start by saying that the See’s done much good, and it’s a far better life for ordinary folk under their rule than the Conclave’s. We all agree on that,” he nodded to Rousseau to sit down, “but it wasn’t always like that. See, far back, even farther back before the Conclave-Grower war, there weren’t such a thing called the Conclave, or even the See.”

Rousseau scoffed.

Mr. Limbo ignored her and went on, “there was just the union of The Catholic Church of Jesus Christ Restored. CCR for short. Now, the histories say—”

“Legends!”

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, the histories say that See’s priesthood at that time, cardinals and bishops and so on, were mostly made up of inheritors of swathes of industry and soldiery from before the cataclysm. They also happened to be heads of states in small provinces, and, as men do, they desired the advancement of their own agendas. The CCR was the most convenient political state at the time, hell, maybe the only one in the world, so of course they flocked to it.

“They argued also for a church governed by a senate of sorts, claiming that no single man or machine could stand as the Vicar of Christ. Those same radical reformists were also opposed to the addition of venerable intelligences, then known only as artificial intelligences, into the priesthood. Why? Well, an AI could spot corruption a mile away, and a half-augmented or close-to-organic man can’t really stand up to one of them. Especially when Atlantean replacements weren’t a thing yet.

“So, of course, they staged a coup.”

“I take it that was the schism, then?” Jean asked, his indifference transformed into a mild interest.

“Bingo,” the bounty hunter said, “and if not for the Atlanteans, who’d sent a delegation to Roma with offerings of weapons and replacements, the reformists would have succeeded. Replacements back then were crude. The only thing humanity had made that worked, in some way, are the emotive enhancers and crude binary prostheses. No synth-muscle, no silicone nerves. Nothing like this,” he presented his hand and wiggled his seven fingers, then for emphasis folded his sword arm out and back in.

“The reformists were beaten back, and thanks to the help of the new priestly walkers and Atlantean replacements, all the eeeevil insurrectionists were exiled from the Gothic Peninsula, their lands confiscated, and names wiped from the records. Thing is, each exiled and scorned now ex-priest or cardinal, having their own interests, their own burgeoning industries or settlement projects, came together. They former their first Conclave to set terms and agreements on how they would conduct themselves. They moved east, becoming a bridge between the far Orient and the remnant Occident.

“Now, here’s where legends and myths come in,” Mr. Limbo said, making a show of looking at Rousseau. “They say the first Conclave never ended, that the meeting became so mired in technicalities and recesses, superstitions and suspicions, that none of the originals dared exit the room, lest the others make a move. In time, as their influence in trade grew, they got their hands on Atlantean tech, and some far older stuff as well, and instead of letting their progeny succeed them, they prolonged their lives. They built cocoons over their bodies to sustain them, for in their first meetings they’d decided that no artificial mind would ever sit in their ranks, that one must be a human mind, through and through.

“No one has ever seen the head of a singular corporation; only spoken to representatives. They say that Neo-Ur was purchased for the ziggurat, so that the Conclave, a massive mobile conference hall, could be stationed atop it so that it’d have a stable seat of power.”

Everyone sat silently in the parlor as Buddy finished his tale. Jaques tried imagining what an eternal meeting of bureaucrats and businessmen might look like, but the idea of it was so preposterous that he gave up. It seemed Jean too had qualms regarding the tale.

“Makes no sense,” the Grower blurted. “What about all the big names in the Conclave-Grower war? They’re synonymous with Conclave leadership. Who’re they, then?”

“The hell should I know?” Mr. Limbo said, taking a swig of the gin. “Say a Cardinal’s name, like Radcliffe, is famous. Does that make him the pope?”

Jean shrugged. “Eh, good point.”

“Tall tales with no proof say I,” Rousseau said.

“I disagree,” said Hound, “I distinctly remember the Grand Ziggurat. There was a dome… or rather something like a domed saucer atop it. It looked like a modern addition. Everyone knows it’s the Conclave’s headquarters, so maybe Buddy’s story has some truth to it.”

“Truth or no, the Conclave has been at odds with the See since its birth. It has it’s claws deep, so with my experience it pays to be cautious and assume that wherever there is See, so too is the Conclave. Jaques is a good example,” Mr. Limbo said.

Jaques went white as he felt everyone’s attention switch to him. He looked nervously at his hands. “Mr. Limbo has a point,” he said, “until Jean’s retrieval I had no idea Tom was a Conclave agent. Then there was the attack on the land-crawler which came out of nowhere. Justinia… I mean the Wraith; none of us suspected her to be one too.”

“I did,” Lucia chimed in.

“Aye, lass, but you too were too late in figuring it out,” Rousseau said reluctantly.

“So,” Mr. Limbo clapped his hands, “we’re at an agreement. We don’t let our guard down, even here. The Conclave could be anywhere. Hell, one of the equines could be Conclave for all we know.”

The comment was answered by another long spell of silence. Everyone looked toward the door leading to the front of the wagon. The question what if danced in all their minds.

 

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