A painter holding a pike charges at James. Drawing on him in half a second, the Taciturn blows the man’s head off, sending a gout of brain matter and data into the surging mass of bodies behind him. James advances into the chaos, following Matilda.
The Scry presses forward, scything down the decreasing numbers of Bill’s retreating court, slicing her way through the increasing brawl. A woman comes howling at her with a butcher’s hook, and Matilda stabs her in the chest. Deflecting a clumsy sword-thrust from her left, she sweeps the legs out from under a would-be knight in improvised armor, who clatters noisily to the ground, losing his helmet. Matilda pounces on him and slits the man’s throat.
As the melee escalates, James finds it harder to track Matilda’s position. He ducks and weaves through the slaughter, avoiding attackers when he can, ending them at point-blank range when he cannot. A hammer-wielding circus clown smashes a gambler’s head. One of the dancing girls jumps on the back of a security guard, jamming her pins into his neck again and again as his blood jets into the skirmishing crowd.
James whirls on a blur of peripheral motion and finds himself face to face with the juggler encountered earlier. He has traded his five ripe oranges for a bloody mace. Seeing the Taciturn, he charges with it, snarling. James puts three rounds into the man’s chest, steps over the body, and frantically scans the anarchy for Matilda. James spots the Scry fighting her way up the nearby stairs, mowing down the dwindling remnant of Bill’s court.
James moves past a dancer strangling a bell-capped DJ with the cords of his own headphones. Sensing motion to his left and instinctively ducking, James hears and feels a throwing-axe whicker through the air just over his head. Even with his training and augmentation-mods, tracking this much combat- data is an overload waiting to happen.
James finally spots Matilda tearing through the last of Bill the Magnificent’s guards.
Cursing, James jams his pistol into its holster and pulls out a CQB SMG from his bag’s digital inventory. Keeping the stairs in sight, the Taciturn advances in a crouch, cutting through the crowd with short, controlled bursts. He drops a man dressed like a chess pawn and a gambler wielding a makeshift flail. While the weapon’s sound makes his presence known, the sheer stopping-power quickly mows a swath through the crowd, clearing his path.
Reaching the stairs, the Taciturn pauses, releases the spent magazine, slaps a fresh one in, and races up the stairs two at a time. At the top, James finds the trail of the Scry’s carnage. He has only taken two steps when a clown’s hand grabs at his ankle and swings a knife for his knees. Jumping back, James puts a burst of rounds into the assailant’s face, leaving only paint-smeared gore and a shredded, smoking wig.
Now fearing the worst, James rushes after Matilda, following the trail of blood and guts. Weapon raised, he rounds the corner and stops in his tracks.
Matilda has cornered Bill the Magnificent and the single remaining member of his cohort – a woman in a tattered pink dress.
“Protect your Duke!” Bill yells as he shoves the woman towards Matilda. Matilda drives her blade into the woman’s heart, killing her instantly. She lets the woman’s body fall and advances, focused on her target to the exclusion of all else.
“Please, no! Look, you can be next in line – I can help you with your popularity!”
Bill stumbles backwards, hands extended, but trips over his feet and lands on his back.
James calls out, but it’s already too late. Matilda lunges at Bill.
“You think you run this place, Hank? You think you can just sit back and watch people do this to each other?”
Confusion mixes with the terror on Bill’s face.
“What? What are you talking about? I’m not—”
Matilda buries her knife in his chest and slowly pulls the blade out. Bill sputters and wheezes.
“All those kids living in filth are supposed to join in on this madness?”
The blade enters and exits.
“You think people like carving things about themselves into trees?”
A second blade joins the first, enters the ritualistic piercing of flesh.
“You think it’s funny, watching people kill themselves to get to the top? What’s the matter, Hank, why aren’t you laughing? This should be hilarious.”
Both blades come out, both blades go back in.
“You think can just buy us off with your little magic housing-tract? You want to take him away from me?”
Tears start running down Matilda’s cheeks. She leaves the knives in and begins to punch Bill’s face.
Smack
“People aren’t products.”
Smack. Smack.
“People aren’t playthings.”
Smack.
By the time James reaches Matilda, Bill’s face is unrecognizable pulp. The body still twitches. The Scry’s blades, buried to the hilt, jut from the fatal stab wounds. Matilda pounds at the corpse’s chest, exhausted, further bloodying her fists.
No words come to the Taciturn. He has failed to see the anger and frustration mounting on their journey until this moment. Proof of everything he might need to know about her hatred and loathing for this place, for everything it represents, lies at his feet – battered, mutilated, leaking.
All he can do is place a hand on her shoulder as she slumps, her breath hitching, weary and shattered.
Inside the Castle atop the Spire, a king prepares for the coming of his long-awaited visitors.
Chapter 16: “A Game of Chess”
Firmly gripping his SMG, Taciturn makes his way through the dark halls of Hank’s palace. He supports the Scry with his free arm. The labyrinthine sprawl of the palace’s opulent halls allows them some measure of stealth and evasion. They successfully sneak past a patrol of guards, and then another. The bloody pandemonium outside the castle walls has drawn most of the patrols to the perimeter defenses, to look on with what can only be called a kind of horrified excitement.
As they ascend a sweeping staircase arrayed with statues, Taciturn weighs the lavish decor of the palace against the squalid slums at the base of the Spire. All of the System’s benefits hoarded by one man with regal delusions – and that man spurring his desperate subjects on by tempting them with the faintest taste of such palatial opulence. Covered in blood and uncommunicative, Matilda leans on James as they clamber up the stairs. He can sense the anger still seething within her.
He continues to tell himself there’s still a chance to save Hank – if he’s not too far gone.
The staircase finally ends in a small antechamber with high ceilings and a marble fountain exactingly crafted in the image of the Spire. Water runs down from the miniature castle at the top, but the fountain’s features continually shift and distort as the water flows over them – a scaled-down reflection of the ever-changing layout of the Spire itself.
Beyond the fountain, in what can only be considered a throne room, sits Hank Brown on an ornate ivory chair. The golden crown on his head doesn’t conceal the thin, grey hairs it rests on. Red, flowing robes billow over his sumptuous emerald tunic. Hank’s grin only accentuates his already well-defined facial features. At first, James takes comfort in the smile. Then he finally registers the piercing intensity behind the ruler’s eyes.
“James Reynolds. It’s been some time, hasn’t it?”
James remains silent, holding Hank’s gaze, searching for a sign of the person he once knew. Hank’s demeanor isn’t threatening, but his eyes do not blink, staying locked on James and Matilda.
Trying to contain his alarm and concern, James slowly crouches, places his weapon on the ground and stands straight again, hands raised. Beside him, Matilda stays motionless, silent. James does not know if this is good or bad.