Leaning back against the railing, she stared contentedly up at the spectacular sky for a time. The sun was huge and red, and there was a planet hanging equally huge across from it, with a scattering of moons between them, casting circular shadows on the planet.
Relishing in the feeling of contentment, the Apostle massaged her aching belly. It was far distended from normal and she could both feel and hear the blood sloshing around inside of her. It was a decidedly odd sensation, and she thought that she might actually burst with a single swallow more. Still, she wanted to drain another human, and another, and another. She didn’t care if she burst open from it. She didn’t care if it killed her. She just wanted to feel that pleasure again; the connection to another life so much more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced. She knew about males now, and she wanted to find a female to drain, so she could learn about them too.
After a very long time she forced herself to get up. Her balance seemed thrown off by the liquid sloshing around in her belly and she could feel a rapidly growing need to urinate. Retrieving her sword, she slid it into its scabbard, and replaced her mask on her face.
Looking to the west, she saw several pointed spires rising toward the sky on the horizon. The central spire was angled toward the sun and there was a barely perceptible beam of light that seemed to connect it to the giant red orb in the sky. Those were the Spires of Infinity, and they appeared to still be functioning. At long last she’d found what she’d been searching for. She’d found a way to travel through time.
She made her mask zoom in on the walls surrounding the Spires. They seemed
well fortified against attack. Robotic guards patrolled the walls and the land around and behind them. Large gun placements and towers surrounded the facility to help fend off attack. She was going to need an army to break into there.
Scanning the terrain between the Quarantine Zone and the Spires of Infinity, the Apostle saw a small town midway between them. Other than that there was nothing but flat red sand in every direction to the horizon, broken only by patches of purple grass.
As she turned around to regard the Quarantine Zone, blood sloshed loudly in her belly at the sudden movement. There were tens of thousands of mutants down there.
Many of them had human parents, but had been twisted so badly by radiation that they could not meld with human society. She’d gleaned from Kevin’s mind that most of them had at least some intelligence, while others were little more than feral beasts. Some had inhuman strength, but others could barely move under their own power.
A plan began to form in her mind. Promises to lead them out of their
imprisonment would rally the mutants to Cain’s banner, and the Apostle would have her army. There was no stronger ally than a religious zealot who would give his life for Cain. She had a great deal of experience inspiring religious zealots.
Sitting back down, the Apostle massaged at her belly, feeling uncomfortably large around the middle. She began to plan exactly how things were to play out as she waited for her body to digest the blood. Soon she would have her revenge on the Council for everything they’d done to her. She would travel back and prevent the Council from ever forcing her to kill, then she would go to Perdition and put an end to Cain’s wretched life.
Cain was suddenly back inside her head with no more pain to chase him away.
He practically bled eagerness, and she had the impression of someone leaning forward in his chair in anticipation. If he were so eager to die, she would not disappoint.
Chapter 26: The Distorted Lands
“Wow,” Sam leaned forward in her saddle. Her black eye was fading rapidly, and her right hand was healing well under the bandages Gabriel had wrapped around it. She scratched idly at the stitches in her cheek as she examined what lay ahead. “Things look pretty busy in town. I wonder what’s going on.”
Following her line of sight, Gabriel saw that the streets of the middling sized town ahead were full of milling people. With all the doom and gloom that Sam spewed about the land out here, he wouldn’t have expected to find a respectable town. In other towns they’d passed there was maybe one NVM for every ten people, but from what he could see of the town ahead, all the people were NVMs.
“Well of course, stupid,” Sam rolled her eyes theatrically when he brought it up.
“New Hope is an NVM town. There’s too much radiation this close to the Quarantine Zone for anyone else to survive for long. Everyone else dies of poisoning, or mutates into something else, so everyone but NVMs avoid this place. It’s kinda where those rich enough to be NVMs gather to act superior to everyone else without being bothered by them.”
“Why don’t you live here?”
Sam snorted, and then laughed at having done so before answering.
“Look at me. Do I look like I’d blend in with the snobby rich? And besides,” she pointed meaningfully to the distant walls in the east. “Who in their right mind would wanna live within sight of the Quarantine Zone? That’s just plain dumb. And you can see the Spires of Infinity over there too. That’s even dumber!”
Glancing at the Quarantine Zone, Gabriel could not even imagine how much time
it had taken to build something like that massive wall in a place so poisoned by radiation.
At first he thought it was a cliff or plateau, but as they drew closer he saw that it was concrete and metal, stretching out of sight to the north and south.
His broken rib jabbed sharply with every breath he took, but the cut over it was healing well, as was his sprained ankle and other hurts. If they ran into any trouble upon reaching the Spires, Gabriel was still in pretty bad shape. He’d feel a lot better about going to a place that filled Sam with so much fear if he had a week or two to finish healing.
“I know you’re going to call me stupid for asking this,” he sighed, wishing he hadn’t with the sharp pain it caused, “but what is the Quarantine Zone anyway?”
Slumping with annoyance, Sam grumbled something under her breath. “Haven’t
I explained that like three times already!”
“The Quarantine Zone is an area where the worst of the radiation is,” Mister
Mittens explained. “Several radiation bombs exploded in a cluster, and the radiation is still thick and deadly, even to NVMs and people who have been immunized. The wall was originally to protect travelers from the radiation, but now it keeps the mutants in.
Mutants too far removed from humanity get tossed in as soon as they’re born if their parents don’t kill them right off.”
After all of the grotesque mutations he’d seen already, Gabriel wondered what the people of Ethos considered too far removed from humanity.
Eyeing the Spires of Infinity on the opposite horizon, Sam shuddered. “Those
things creep me the hell out. Can’t you feel something just wrong when you look at them? They look like really long teeth, waiting for someone stupid enough to get close enough to bite. You’re really gonna drag me over there?”
“I have to go,” Gabriel sighed. “It’s the entire reason I’m here.”
“You never did explain that,” Mister Mittens said with a shrug, something that was just plain weird coming from a cat. “If you remember nothing, and are suffering from severe delusions, how do you know you’re supposed to go there?”
“They’re not delusions,” Gabriel sighed wearily. He was so tired of no one
believing him. Though, he supposed that it came with the territory when you went to law school. Everyone always assumed you were lying, even outside of work.