Sanctuary, Silence, Storm

The night had grown dark before he found the courage to walk up the steps to the large doors. He thought of knocking first, then chided himself for coming up with such a foolish notion. After taking in one final steadying breath of the cool night air, arranging his backpack filled with whatever he needed to start a new life, heavier than anything he’d carried for some time, he pushed the doors open, and entered the church.

Jaques had never been inside the building, and the long shadows cast by the thousands upon thousands of dead-wax candles made him feel more nervous than safe. The asymmetrical beatific faces of the multitude of saints and holy men stared in judgement of his presence in their eternal golden repose. The cloying incense, unfamiliar to the cloistered teller, was a horrid scent in an otherwise sterile desert.

Warily he walked to the end of the nave to the gigantic altar, where he worked a dry mouth for some time before finally gaining enough courage to speak.

“Father Robert,” he began, half a whisper, “I’ve come to seek sanctuary. I…” he stopped himself, and considered if it was a good idea to share his fears with the venerable AI; he steeled himself, and went on, “I’ve come in fear of losing my life… the branch manager, Tom, is in dealings with the Conclave, and I know the See has a protection program for people…”

He was cut off as the altar rumbled to life, and raised itself to full height, swiveling to face him with a speed that belied its massive form. Incense burners rattled and clacked against the gilded etched plating of the priest, spewing noxious holy fumes, while the veil covering the cupola of the cockpit fluttered madly at the sudden movement, revealing in flashes the entombed saint.

“If what you say is true, I’ll need every scrap of knowledge you hold, now!” rumbled Father Robert.

Jaques noticed that he was sitting on the hard floor, unable to recall when he had fallen, propped up by one arm, holding the other before him, instinctually expecting violence. He stammered a reply, “o-only i-if you promise s-s-sanctuary.”

“It is done,” the priest said, “now tell me everything. More lives than just your own are at stake.”

---

Buddy lay under the weeping willow; his poncho folded under his head as a pillow. Hound was sprawled on his side a meter from the antsy bounty hunter, tails slapping up and down against the soft grassy ground. Every now and again, he would pull in a long draught of air through his chromed snout, sampling on the mulchy aroma, then let it out, content and relaxed.

The central light had dimmed to match the lumens of the moon in the night sky, the artificial silver light dancing like diamonds across the rippling waters of a stream. Buddy was too nervous to appreciate the fact that this was the first time, outside of ancient vid-chronicles, that he saw actual running water; too uptight to marvel at the low hanging branches of the willow, whispering touches off the surface of the stream. His mind was on the Conclave, and their dark dealings.

All but a cartel, the Conclave held sway in many regions of Earth, under guises of banks and mines, farms and hydro-plants. They controlled most of the flow of money and clean water in the world, and because of that, had the resources to invest in all sorts of scavenged pre-cataclysm war-tech. Their experiments had produced such horrors as the long-range, aptly named, thunder-launcher, which sent a beam of pure plasma up to a distance of ten miles, capable of reducing concrete habitation buildings to nothing but dust. Then there were the kill-bots, employed in the war against the Growers, perfected and tweaked ever since, though not seen for over a century. 

Buddy shuddered at the thought. A plethora of other horrors, some obscure like the Compactors, some lost like the Neptunes, filled a list that was stained with the blood of millions; Buddy’s atomizer was once such horror, one such killer, though its origin remained a mystery.

He missed the heavy thing usually weighing on his hip, just as much as he was relieved that the volatile weapon was somewhere else. That was the thing about the tech the Conclave developed; you loved, firing, reloading, disassembling and cleaning them. They were marvelous things to have. The atomizer on the other hand, was different. Whenever you killed something with it, it felt as though a piece of your humanity wasn’t just lost but erased completely. The atomizer more than lived up to its name, to the point that whenever Buddy had had to end someone or something, as soon as the shot would connect, he’d avert his eyes and mute his ears. The horrifying effect it had on both tech and organics, made Buddy hesitant to employ its strength.

Still, knowing that they would have to escort this man, completely unaugmented, across the desert back to the church with some thing from the Conclave after him, made the cyborg bounty hunter yearn to at least have the reassurance of a countermeasure at his side.

He sighed, vents creaking as they adjusted. “Hey, Hound,” he whispered, eyes wandering up and down the branches of the willow, “you hibernating?”

Hound raised his head, pale silicone ears flapping as they responded to some itch caused by the grass. “I wish I could, it is so calm and nice here. Truly a marvel.”

“So, I ain’t the only one,” Buddy grumbled, working his gleaming copper jaw, “something’s wrong; can you feel it, or am I just going insane?”

“I share your concern. For the lack of a better expression, something feels off. I just don’t know what,” Hound said, his voice a low, ominous whisper.

“Yeah… think it might be this environment?”  Buddy asked, lacing his fingers behind his pillow. He almost pulled them out when the grass tickled the tactile sensoria at the backs of his hands.

“It might be. Both of us, though native to this world, are unaccustomed to actual greenery, actual vegetation. I think some genomes still left within both of us are responding in a way that is difficult to define,” Hound said.

Buddy turned and looked at the dog but then decided against mentioning the obvious. Hound was a corpse-chassis drone, with no trace of original organic material left, unless the skin was real, and therefore the statement was either a lie, a joke, or an expression of honest ignorance. Whatever the case may be, the tall bounty hunter saw it as rude to go correcting the poor thing. It didn’t even know if it was AI.

“Be it that or something else, I don’t like it. I don’t like not hibernating. Rarely do I not get good rest, so whenever a spell comes when it is in the contrary, I get far too antsy for mine, or someone else’s good,” Buddy stated, recrossing his long metal legs.

Hound was about to respond, when all of a sudden the lanky cyborg shot up, and held out a seven digit hand, the other pressed to his ear, listening. Hound’s tails raised in response, and his ears snapped to face the cable-haired man. “What is it?” he asked.

Buddy strained to hear through the sudden burst of static, internally re-tuning and working his integrated simplex radio-system. He heard what he thought was Father Bob intermittently cut through the static, then disappear.

“If only I’d know,” Buddy answered at length, “we’re too far down under too much concrete and radioactive sand that it’s a miracle the signal is coming through in the first place. But, I think it’s the priest.”

“What could be so important that he wants to contact us at this time of night?” Hound asked.

“I don’t know. But seeing as he called me on a secure channel the first time, this one open, I think he must either be in trouble, or something important regarding the case has come up. Either way, I need to climb back up to get a proper signal.”

Both rose to their feet, Buddy draped his poncho over his shoulders, Hound spoke, “I’ll come with.”

“No,” said Buddy, “someone’s got to stay with the Grower. You can find him faster wherever he is. I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on.”

They split, Hound trotting, snout to ground, toward Jean, while Buddy jogged the distance to the single portal that led to the stairs, then up and up until he was at the corridor leading to the vestibule. He took long, dreary steps toward the watertight door, keeping a hand to his ear as he searched for a signal, annoyed at the lack of rest, and this additional factor of the priest’s sudden contact. The closer he came to the entrance, the more unbroken static came through.

When he was two steps from the watertight door, very close to finding the perfect spot and locking down the signal, a bang shuddered through the iron and lead of his surroundings. It was barely noticeable, but his sensors were enough to pick it up. Then another, stronger, reverberation followed, and another, another, another, each one growing louder, more eager, almost. What the hell was that?

Without thinking, his hand went to his hip, and upon realizing the void within the holster, he lunged into the vestibule pod and retrieved the atomizer, a charge winding up almost on its own as soon as the lacquered grip was firmly between his too many fingers.

He looked overhead, trying to parse where the bangs emanated from, radio-contact with the priest completely forgotten. Then the vestibule dented, bulging inward, straining, the metal groaned under the torture placed upon it by the sands, and whatever it was that was trying to break in.

He hopped back and slammed the door shut, breaking the lever and the locking mechanisms to trap whatever was trying to enter within the cramped vestibule, trusting the Grower had some other means of exit from his laboratory. He remained by the porthole and watched as something sharp pierced the dented metal, the sands pushing their way through in a steady little stream.

The banging became almost frantic; the sands began to gush in with each bang that in turn widened the fresh breach. Buddy readied the atomizer, smirking his metal smile. Whatever that thing was, he had a clear shot at it through the porthole as soon as it fell in. The weapon in his grip whined in excitement, the vibrations it gave off tingled Buddy’s silicone nervous system.

But then something happened, or rather, nothing of consequence did. The banging stopped. The sand kept coming through the rent, now the size of Buddy’s fist, but the violent strikes against the pod itself had ceased, almost instantly. Had the thing given up? Then it dawned on him, and he turned, and ran back down.

---

Sand. Nothing but sand, and more sand. It rubbed against its sides, the granular tide trying to enter every orifice, every vent, but all were locked and latched, sealed and tight. This wasn’t the first time it had burrowed. It was the first time it had had to operate purely on instruments, without proper audio or visual feeds to aid it. The meagre sonar it was equipped with helped it to orientate under the crushing darkness. Nothing else was needed.

Flooding the pod had been simple and had worked as a reference point. Now it climbed down the outer exterior of the bunker, trying to ascertain where the best spot to bore inside could be. Concrete was easy enough to break through, but it ran the risk of flooding the entire inside of the shelter if the wrong spot was chosen. It couldn’t have the target dead; at least, not yet. Not until the masters had what they wanted.

It stopped when another slab of concrete blocked its path. Ah, so the thing it had climbed down was some sort of elevator or stairway shaft. That would be the best place to enter.

Like a swimmer in molasses, it thrashed its too many limbs and righted itself, placing one serrated palm on the coarse surface of the shaft. It latched on, then with the other two arms it had left, it began to claw with one, and drill with the other, the sand eagerly trying to fill the newfound voids in the wall. Sparks flew and were dimmed in microseconds under the crushing weight of the desert, and the sounds were muffled to the point of nonexistent.

At least, out there.

---

Descending the stairs Buddy had heard the thing crawl its way down, matching his pace, until near the end of the stair shaft, it had stopped. The sounds of a massive rodent scratching in the walls became the bang, drill and scrape of industrial machinery, echoing off the brutal piped walls.

He hurried down the remaining flight, then slammed shut, and sealed the entrance to the garden, then, remembering that he wasn’t working alone, he called Hound on a short direct link.

“What is it?” Hound’s voice came staticky through the line.

“It’s here, the Conclave assassin! It’s here!”

“How can you be sure?”

“It flooded the entry-pod and is breaking through the shaft walls. Where are you two?” Buddy said, jogging toward the place they’d sat at during the day.

Hound didn’t reply. Doubtless he was informing Jean, who would by this point most likely be soiling himself.

“Hound!” Buddy snapped.

“Southeastern sector, there is a shack here.”

“Gotcha, coming your way now!” Buddy said, and in a second his lazy, directionless jog became a purposeful sprint. Damn did it feel good to run on soil, he thought.

Once there, finding the two outside, he ran straight up to the green robed man, now equipped with a large rucksack filled with Moon knows what, and shook him by his collar. “Is there any other exit than what we came through, if not, were trapped, and quite possibly dead if that thing really is Conclave.”

Jean was pale, sweating profusely, and unable to form words.

“Come on man speak up!” Buddy growled and shook again, “is there any other way out?” he asked, stressing each word.

“Th-the tertiary ventilation duct, i-it’s a mile long and is cu-cut in to a rock. W-we can escape through there,” the Grower managed.

“Good! Where?” Buddy asked, letting go.

“North sector, beyond the birch grove.”

“Shit… then we have to be fast, the thing is probably inside the shaft by now, if not in here with us. Come on, we have to run,” Buddy said, and took the heavy sack from the man.

The three fled through brush, fern, grove, and across a bridge built over the stream that led to the willow, then past a pond that stood south of the grove of birch, into which they dove, following the sweat soaked Grower. His panting made Buddy uneasy; they hadn’t even run that far, or fast.

Then a loud crash echoed through the foliage, and it seemed as though the trees themselves stopped swaying in the artificial breeze. The thing had breached; it was here. Jean yelped when a horrifying metallic screech, the challenge of a beast, echoed through the lab.

“Focus, man!” Buddy snapped as Jean fumbled with the vent hatch.

“Buddy, if this thing found us down here, it’ll find us in the vent, and then in the desert, where we’ll be out in the open. And that’s not considering the potential of it having long range weaponry,” Hound said.

“I don’t like what you’re implying…” Buddy groaned, unholstering the atomizer and allowing it to grow an appetite.

“We have to face it,” Hound pronounced, his verdict as heavy as any.

Metal clanged as the hatch fell off, Jean crawled in soon after, “come on,” he said, pulling his pack in. The vent was spacious enough to let him stand in a crouch, which meant Buddy would have to crawl.

“You go ahead, us two will buy you some time. If one of us is not out in twenty minutes you head for the town. Am I clear?” he said, against all his instincts to run away himself.

“B-but,” Jean managed, before the hatch was back on.

“Go, damn it! We’ll handle this better if you’re not in the way,” Buddy snapped.

The Grower stared at his two rescuers, mulling over what to say, then without a word he nodded, turned, and began scuttling up the vent.

The thing’s howl came again, this time closer. Buddy turned to Hound, who was already looking up at him. “It’s a bit late to ask but have you been in combat before?” the bounty hunter asked.

“Once or twice,” Hound replied, “never with a team mate though.”

“Alright, just have my back,” Buddy said, and began to walk toward the pond, atomizer ready, “come on,” he said, all grit and iron. Hound followed, ears down, metal fangs bared in a snarl.

Ten meters or so from the pond, by the tree line, they first saw the thing as it rampaged across the lab, ripping up brush and tree with equal ease. When it saw the two standing calm and ready, it let out another nails-on-chalkboard scream and barreled toward them. It leaped across the pond like a mad simian of ancient days, and landed by the water’s edge, then it rose to its full height.

It was a kill-bot alright, but far more horrifying. It had been upgraded, refitted, and honed from the original two-meter tall, bipedal, two armed walking razorblade and machine-gun, to something far worse.

Phosphor-white eyes burned in a pitch-black skull that was wrapped in tight translucent silicone pseudo-musculature. A powerful set of sharp teeth glittered without lips under the silver glow of the artificial moon. It stood almost three meters tall on digitigrade legs that cut down in the middle below the knee to give it the appearance of having four. On each of the four feet, hooked claws like those of ancient birds of prey dug into the ground. The entire form was, like the skull, wrapped in cloudy ribbons of fake muscle, the largest deposits being on its shoulders and arms, which were almost as thick as the birch trees behind the two. It had had four arms, evident by the cauterized stump of one on the right, but now only three remained. They too, terminated in various sets of sharp killing tools, drills, knives, razors, spikes, and things Buddy couldn’t name.

“You looking for the Grower?” he asked, making sure his hat was properly secured on his back, feigning to look away, though never truly removing his eyes from the thing.

“Yes/correct… where is it?” the thing growled in more than one voice.

Hound growled and lowered himself close to the ground, then began circling the thing slowly.

“Well, he ain’t here. Sad to say. Might I know who’s asking should he come back?” Buddy asked, trying to keep his cool under the murderous gaze of the assassin.

“The Conclave,” the thing said, in a voice that sounded like a moan overlapped with a screech overlapped with a roar.

Buddy scratched his forehead with the muzzle of the atomizer. “I know that much, but who’re you? Surely you got a name don’t you? Don’t like calling things by what they are you know.”

The thing’s head raised a fraction, the set of killing teeth clacking shut, the motion betraying its confusion. It hadn’t expected to be conversed with. “You are not scared/terrified? Why don’t you run/flee?”

“Well, I ain’t much for running, but I gotta say you are giving me the creeps,” Buddy said, seeing Hound nearing a spot where he would be outside the killer’s field of view, “and if I’m correct, which I am most of the time, you are that thing that killed all them priests, and the Cardinal.”

The atomizer was vibrating violently now.

“Yes…” it hissed, the muscles of its face tightening. Doubtless it was smiling, though without lips, it was hard to tell.

“And you’re name?” Buddy asked one more time.

“Unit Five-One…” it snarled.

“Well, Unit Five-One, that’s all I need.” 

Atomizer dinged, and the bounty hunter’s arm snapped forward, the crude gun glowing with pent up rage and a will to kill, the monster tensed in response, its eyes seeming to recognize the weapon, but before it could react, a marble of iridescent energy shot out of the tubular barrel, lingered still in the air for a nanosecond, then became a vector of pure death, screaming through the air with a discordant high pitch note.

Somehow, either by bad aim or some unknowable technology, the shot missed. The monster had pivoted its torso just enough to let the beam travel under its right armpit and dissipate a hundred meters in the air behind it. The wake of the released energy, however, followed a half-second later.

An invisible line of displaced air sucked back in, while simultaneously, with a clap of thunder, a cone of exhaust-pressure shot out of the atomizer and collided with the assassin. The forces pulling and pushing in two separate vectors caused the monster to twist inward, and blow outward from the shot’s original trajectory, causing it to snap, flip and flail, then land on all seven of its limbs with a force that shook the ground.

Buddy was already prepared to fire another shot, but the atomizer didn’t comply; either it was shocked at the realization that it had missed or offended that such a notion was even possible. Either way, he was screwed, and he had to use his secondary weapon.

His ulna unlocked and snapped out and up replacing his hand which closed around the remaining limb. His left hand now a sword sizzling with energy capable of cutting stone, he braced to buy time for the atomizer to stop sulking.

The monster screeched and dove at the bounty hunter, and the two locked into a series of mad swipes from claws and clamping teeth ringing off quick swipes and thrusts from the blade. In the same instant Hound leapt and tore into the flank of the beast, rending the artificial flesh with claws and gleaming fangs similar to those of ancient big cats.

One of the killing arms came down, grabbed Hound by the scruff, and threw the yelping dog several meters away. The motion opened the assassin to a counter thrust from Buddy, which cut clean through the abdomen. The monster howled and brought its upper left limb down with the force of an industrial hammer striking hot metal.

Buddy pivoted, thinking he’d avoided the danger, but instead he had narrowed his footing, which made his stance weak and unable to properly brace against the other attack coming immediately after.

The single right arm that had thrown Hound away came arcing towards him, driving into his side with razorblade fingers. The strike was so powerful, that instead of embedding into the bounty hunter’s side, which would have killed him, it sent him flying. Buddy collided against one of the birch trees, snapping it in half.

Hound began to bark madly, with a volume that made even Buddy’s artificial ears ache. It had a similar effect on the monster, causing it to halt in its advance and clasp its skull. Buddy recognized the tech. It was meant to scramble artificial neurons, something rarely seen seeing as most of the population of Earth were either AI, or had some rework done on their wetware. He was glad his brain remained untampered.

Seizing the opportunity, he motivated the atomizer with a curse, shaking it out of its stupor to begin another charge, and got up and leapt toward the kill-bot, slicing at one of the arms that flailed under the onslaught of the sonic attack. The blade cut through cloudy muscle and obsidian bone, sending gushes of unknown fluids to sprout from the severed stump of its elbow.

The beast howled and swung its remaining left arm at Buddy, who dodged with ease, but instead of going for him, the thing launched itself toward the source of its torment, Hound.

Buddy watched as the thing arced across the air, powerful jaws open in a roar of madness and hurt, landing down on where Hound had been seconds ago. The wily dog had managed to slip from under the attack just in time, and had begun a mad sprint toward Buddy, ears back and tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Released from the scrambling frequencies, Unit Five-One regained its bestial composure and charged at the two. It had failed to hear the atomizer ding.

Now between Buddy’s legs, ears back and snarling, Hound waited for the command. Once the beast was upon them, Buddy retracted his sword and shouted, “Now!”

Hound bayed with a ferocity that reverberated in Buddy’s metallic bones, and it had the desired effect. The beast stumbled and averted its gaze. Buddy squeezed the trigger.

Two meters from the muzzle of the gun, unable to react, the assassin had no chance of dodging this time. The marble of energy shot forth, then became a screaming ray of light that pierced one of the beast’s palms, going through to its chest. The contracting air crumpled its entire hand and ripped a hole where it had pierced its chest, then the following shock wave sent it flying toward the pond beyond.

Now silent with phosphor eyes dimming, it fell into the waters. Before it disappeared into the murky depths, the pair saw it begin to disintegrate from the two points the atomizer had hit. The severed arm fell off as the hole in its chest widened, and the hungry energy that had destroyed its hand crept up toward the elbow, and from there to the shoulder, destroying anything in its path.

They didn’t see the rest of the damage, as the thing splashed into the water, then sunk down under its own massive weight.

They watched the waters bubble, then calm. Buddy held a hand to his side, the ache caused by the damage suffered from the assassin’s blow began to radiate through him as combat-stim effects began to subside.

“Ah, shit…” Buddy groaned, “my receiver is wrecked, and I think one of my mineral stores suffered a rupture.”

“Will you live?” Hound asked, tails still stiff.

“I’ll manage,” Buddy said, waiving away the worry in the dog’s eyes, “come on, we’ve got to find the Grower before our time’s up and he goes off wandering on his own.”

Hound nodded, and the two went to the vent, and began their long climb out to the desert.

---

Jaques watched the priest who had been as inert and still as the statues littering the alcoves of the church since he had told him of his unfortunate involvement with the Conclave. He sat by the wall of the sanctum now, atop his sack of belongings, arms crossed over his knees.

He was thankful for his high-grade artificial ocular prosthesis, for the long shadows and myriad faces of dead holy men, both carved and painted, looked grim through his ruined biological eye. Even the priest seemed a monster of gold and smoke when he watched him through the cataract orb of flawed jelly.

Then there was motion. “No response…” the priest whispered as he became animated again, “I’ve tried for hours, but there has been no response from Beaufort and his companion.”

A list of worst possible outcomes began to flow across the teller’s mind. Were they dead? Captured? Or worse… what could be worse than those two outcomes? Jaques covered his face. “What can we do?” he asked no one in particular, “they can’t come here…”

“No, they cannot…” the priest mumbled, “but, if we’re lucky, they will return with the information unseen, or better yet, they’re already using that information to find what the See seeks.”

Jaques’ lips tightened to a thin line, and his fingers curled into the folds of his robe. “What if they do come here, and the branch manager calls the Conclave in in force? Oh my… oh my… what if…?”

The priest was beside him, kneeling. The most miraculous thing, apart from how silently the mech had moved, was that one large iron paw was around Jaques’ frail shoulder, a paw capable of crushing a man if the Father so wished, and the touch was gentle. Barely did the flat gunmetal fingers touch him; genuine compassion flowed through them, and Jaques couldn’t help but look up at the veiled cupola, where one would expect a face to be.

“Fret not, good teller, the man I hired is an expert, and a good friend. I doubt he would do anything so foolish as risk the Grower’s life; I can see the two of you are friends,” the priest soothed.

“I…” Jaques stopped himself. In truth, he’d been thinking of his own safety and livelihood, not Jean’s, but now that it was said, he supposed the priest was right. Could the ancient AI read minds? No, that was foolish. “It’s not just Jean. It’s the whole town,” he went on, “the branch manager told the Conclave everything I had told him, and there was something else on the line that he ordered to eliminate any obstacles…”

“Yes, you’ve told me,” the priest said, applying a fraction more pressure to the shoulder, “but the only thing we can do now is pray it hasn’t found them, and that Beaufort contacts me when he is able, so that we may warn him and his companion of the dangers.”

“But what if did already find them?” Jaques asked.

“Again, let us pray that it is not so.”