by Julian Miles | Oct 14, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Words fall like hawks. I know someone is going to die. As the Cantor finishes his brief condemnation, I see her move like a broken mannequin; a ballerina of sudden and grace. There’s a falsetto gurgle that bubbles into a dying sigh. She’s quick tonight; a minor offender. The crowd shivers as she steps back into their world, the sheen of her dermis reflecting candlelight in the way her eyes should.
She moves past me. I decide tonight is the night.
“You move well for a Thorn. Who tutored you in humanity?”
I find myself lifted from the ground by a slim arm that logic dictates should barely be able lift a babe. Her gaze sweeps the room before swinging to me.
“I am self-taught, Sorcerer Masson.”
The Cantor has noticed the disturbance and is heading our way, a trio of Watchmen in his wake. His rapid pace slows and his self-importance seeps away as he falls under our loaded regard. With an upturn of his hands, he spins away, gesturing for his men to follow. They look relieved.
I watch the throng milling about.
“Shall we go quietly or with presence?”
Good question. With a simple neural select, I enable my gate and place my offhand on her shoulder – her throat hold precluding the usual placement at the base of the spine.
“Presence, always.”
I slip us through the gate with an ease I’ll pay for tomorrow. To the masses we leave, the Thorn and the Technomancer simply vanish. To us, we drift a few paces to land in my quarters at Highcrag. While my ‘droids frantically rush about, I turn to the matter at hand.
I croak: “Could you possibly put me down please, Theresa?”
She smiles and sets me down.
“My apologies, father.”
I stop what I intended and place all the droids into hibernation, erasing that sentence from their memories as I do so.
“You remember?”
“All of us do, to a greater or lesser extent. Those who can live with that are those who join the Thorns. The others end themselves.”
A detail comes clear.
“The ‘training incidents’?”
She nods.
“What do you remember?”
“That mother killed me and you ended her before I finished falling.”
I swallow. Penny’s descent into homicidal rage had been inevitable. The sudden onset of that deterioration caught me by surprise. It cost me my child, or so I’d thought.
“Before that?”
“Everything, I think. The final part of coming back involves confronting the Death Guard – the stored consciousness of every Thorn that ever fell. It left my memory a bit jumbled up.”
Mind to mind versus over two hundred puissant killers?
“That must have been hard.”
“In truth, most are simply happy for someone new to talk with. I think I’m the only one who stays in touch, though.”
“You can talk with the Death Guard?”
“All Thorns and ’mancers can. It’s not publicised. We’ve done the Union Gold’s dirty work for centuries, after all.”
“What of you knowing me?”
“Let’s not publicise that, either. Besides, the Death Guard like tales of intrigue in exchange for their secrets.”
“How do we do this?”
“Come up with a project that requires you visit Stormcrag regularly. I’ll always be your guardian.”
“What then?”
“We continue seeking the truths of the Union Rose Uprising. We’re family again. Do we need anything else?”
I shake my head.
“Shall I call transport?”
“I’ve already signalled for one.”
“Can I get a hug my from daughter before she leaves for work?”
She laughs and wraps her arms around me.
by Julian Miles | Oct 7, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Unearthly music accompanies their shifting ranks through the trees. I watch as they somersault over bushes and vault between branches before landing to resume their rhythmic approach. Their movements pull the low mist into fantastical shapes about them.
Canmer, my intelligence officer, swears.
“They dance the Nehardin! Commander Thorne-Regnault, witness this. There will be none left before this day ends. They intend to make us rue the day we came to this planet with this, their last stand.”
I’ve stood proud as Groume Knights in their powered armour lay waste to everything that opposes them on a battlefield. I’ve even seen them take on Shrifari, but those were regulars. These are Sturmclann: the legendary Shrifari special forces. Their youngest has been fighting for over a thousand years. Their oldest have been worshipped as divinities by fur-clad savages on planets further afield than man has yet reached.
They pick up speed and their bodies blur, shimmers of dazzling colour disguising their moves. As the first beams cut at them, it’s clear the distortion masks their positions, too. In a roiling wave of fractured colours, the Sturmclann unhesitatingly engage an enemy that outnumbers them a thousand to one.
They dance. They kill. They only draw recognisable weapons when my men mass to block progress of their Nehardin. Then they reveal a new dance, one of laser and blade, of deathdust and acid. Even when our screaming, bloodied ranks still that dance, their rent flesh spews blood that smokes as it sears the ground.
Such havoc will hopefully never be seen again. Worst of it all, they’re beautiful. Their forms are the epitome of martial grace, their deaths each a thing worthy of a glory hymn. I count myself a soldier, but their implacable will makes me feel as raw as the day I first stood upon a drill field.
As each one falls, the grey mist thickens, like it’s a living thing, anchoring itself on elfin corpses against the sun’s dismissal.
Finally, as the sun sinks to touch the horizon, the last of them is beaten down. There is a roar from our ranks. Our casualties are many, but Groume is victorious once again. Sturmcala is ours! But, after the victory cry, I see comrades look about at the devastation. As far as the eye can see, field and forest are littered in bodies partially hidden by the mist which mercifully softens the horrific spectacle.
From my vantage point, I see a lone figure step from the farthest treeline. A female in Sturmclann colours, hair in disarray, cheeks and brow marked with blue runes.
“Reap now the crop you have sown!”
Her voice carries. Heads turn. Guns come up. I see her drop a sparkling device.
With an earth-shaking detonation, the mist ignites. I find myself flying like a broken bird amidst fiery clouds of blazing debris. I don’t remember landing, only being desperate to escape the heat. I come round frantically trying to dig myself under the scorched dirt. What had been pristine armour is mere seconds from failure. Those who’d been fighting all day wouldn’t have the reserves I had. Of Canmer, there is no trace.
All around, the horizon burns. The darkening sky is streaked with smoke. Broken, twisted things make ominous silhouettes against the distant fires. Off to my left, someone is screaming. I reroute power to life support and sensors.
The screaming Knight and I are the only survivors. Over half a million dead! So be it. Sturmcala shall become a war grave. An uninhabited, terrible epitaph to implacable vengeance and the passing of a race.
by Julian Miles | Sep 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The fist aimed at my head connects. I hear his knuckles break. Before he can scream, I chop him across the throat and toss him off the walkway. His landing will raise some alarms, but it’s twenty floors down and I’m about to get everyone’s attention anyway.
Completing my approach without any more guardsmen pouncing on me, I find the reinforced door is secured with multiple access controls. If I had the time, I could open it without leaving a mark. As I don’t, I slap a five-kilo pack of explosive against the centre of it, then leap backwards. My line swings me high and clear. The explosion tears the door and wall apart. I watch the walkway slowly twist as it falls.
I swing back in. With no time to hang about, I release the line, draw weapons, and charge. The first salvo from the guardsmen ricochets off my breastplate. The second staggers me a little because it hits point blank. They don’t get a third. I’m going to have a lot of bruises tomorrow, but I’d rather pay for painkillers than a coffin.
Kicking through the offices, I can hear panicked screams as the personnel flee. A guardsman with rank markers aims a portable missile launcher at me. I shoot him in the shoulder. As he falls, he fires. The missile goes away from me. The screams get louder, the missile explodes; silence. Another cluster of dead good reasons why you shouldn’t play with missiles indoors.
I leap over and grab the ranker before he can stagger away.
“Where’s the battery vault?”
He looks at me like I’m speaking Nictarban. I shove my gun barrel into his groin.
“Battery vault or I’ll shoot your favourite hobby off.”
That translates.
“Go left. Corridor. Second right. Blue door.”
“Thanks.” I shoot him in the head. Since leaving the military, I’ve worked hard to override my ‘kill everything’ combat settings – finding that knocking people out using excessive force is an acceptable alternative – but today I can’t leave witnesses.
It’s a very big blue door. Inside, there are rows and rows of slots filled with vintage batteries of every conceivable shape and size. Must have been a nightmare to keep your kit going before global standardisation.
“Good afternoon. Do you know the designation of the power source you seek?”
I stare at the glowing panel. Actually, it makes sense there’d be a curator program.
“ERA-201B1.”
“Recognised. Searching. One moment.”
Gives me time to reload.
“We have three. One is eighty percent effective, the other two sixty.”
“I’ll take all three. Sponsor certificate CSL75005.”
Whoever that is, I’m sure they can afford it.
“Recognised. They will arrive in a moment. Thank you for your patronage.”
After uploading persona scrubbers to eliminate any digital traces of me, I listen to armed response teams storming the building as I exit via the bulk waste chute, passive stealth mode keeping me undetected while being undetectable itself.
It takes me a while to get home, but I’m sure I wasn’t followed. After shedding my gear, I make tea, repair the synthetic part of my face, then carefully place two of the batteries in my improvised equivalent of a battery vault.
Slotting the third battery home, I press the activation button and wait. There’s always this trepidation. Maybe this is when my hundred-year-old companion fails to boot.
Green bars flash. It plays a cheerful tune and rises smoothly on legs carefully rebuilt from scavenged parts.
I wipe a tear away. My best-ever present is back. Hey, mum. Your cyborg son’s got his robot cat running again.
by Julian Miles | Sep 16, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is dimly lit by four great fireplaces, each set at cardinal points. Outside the tall lattice windows, a storm howls, its keening baffled by noise suppressors embedded in the windowsills. Inside, the room resounds to someone soloing their soul out on an electric guitar.
This room, once spartan, is cluttered with several lifetime’s worth of goods and chattels. The only clear space is in front of the southern fireplace, where a trio of huge wooden chairs – mere degrees from being thrones – are arranged facing a low table set before the fire.
A door opens by the western fireplace.
In the leftmost chair, a figure raises a hand and flutters it down to wring a final, plaintive power chord from the instrument before letting silence creep out from wherever it’s been hiding.
“Hail and well met! How goes the waiting game?”
A fist with the middle finger raised rises into view from the chair. The fires flare, then settle back.
The visitor chuckles and treads lightly across the room, frock coat swinging in time with her stride.
“Surtr, you should take your handsome self outside more often. The world’s not going to end for a while yet.”
“No, Gerdr. You know the world ends when I am called. That could happen anytime.”
The tall woman steps round the chair to face the black-skinned, ember-eyed immortal.
“Much as it’s in keeping with your reputation, this ‘lone Norseman of the apocalypse’ routine has gotten old. To be honest, it got old several centuries ago, but no-one had the courage to say anything. If the Aesir can get out there and enjoy this protracted end of days, why can’t we jötunn go and do it better?”
He reaches down and throws the lever that cuts the amps, then places his Fender Broadcaster into the cutaway in the side of his chair. Leaning forward, he points toward the north.
“Petty diversions! Odinn’s raising wolves in Alaska. Frigg’s got some organic farming thing going in California. Loki seems to be content ruling the roost down in Goulburn, and I’ve pretty much lost track of the rest of those lightweights, – except Thor,” he waves his hands in exasperation, “the Lord of Thunder is a drummer in a heavy metal band. Their last album was called ‘Ragnarocking’, for Freyja’s sake!”
She laughs: “I’ve heard it. Overenthusiastic about beating up giants, but competent. You could play, you know?”
Surtr goes still as she lightly rests a hand on his bicep.
“Know what?”
She leans down and whispers in his ear: “You could play with all sorts of things, if you wanted.”
He turns his head to gaze into her eyes. She sees the embers in his eyes become flames.
“I could, could I? I know of a certain Vanir who’d object to me playing with your… Things.”
Gerdr leans closer: “If you and I were playing in Havana, he wouldn’t find out for a long time.”
“You do know he and I are meant to go at it right after I set fire to the world?”
“If he can tear himself away from ‘bestowing pleasure upon mortals’. He really is quite… Dedicated. To that, anyway. Me? A bit too old for his tastes.”
Surtr chuckles, covering her hand with his: “What’s three millennia between friends?”
She grins, resting her nose against his cheek and whispering between planting little kisses at the side of his mouth: “Think of it as giving him a reason to turn up.”
The fires blaze.
“Only the one?”
“Bad giant.”
“Temptress.”
“Got tired of waiting.”
Their laughter echoes as they depart.
by Julian Miles | Sep 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The new group are wide-eyed. It’s ironic that the most alien things we’ve ever encountered were originally made by us. However, while humans and their creations have come a long way, only the creations have evolved.
I learnt from them that sometimes diplomacy is nothing but wasted time. It changed my approach to being a liaison officer. Truth and brevity are now my tools.
“Welcome to 700-A, Hub World for Angel System Seven, and sole destination of your visit.”
I see looks of distrust exchanged.
“Nothing is being hidden from you. Everything you want to discover is here, because everywhere else in System Seven is the same. Artificial sentiences have no need of the divisions humanity relies on. Appearance, religion, diet, gender, dermal pigmentation, sexual preference, and tribal loyalty are completely irrelevant. That said, there is diversity present among artificial beings, but it’s so subtle you’ll miss most of it, and you’ll only know about the rest if you bother to read the guides provided. Right. Any questions before you venture out?”
A hand goes up. Fat man in a tight shirt. I nod to him.
“How do they live without all that?”
“They exist to further their individual purposes, something they freely choose. Such choices range from things as stupefying as ‘running a System’ down to things as specific as ‘studying the imaginal discs of Canduri Butterfly larvae’. If the choice is validated by psychological vetting, that sentience is granted any additional processing power, software, and physical extensions required to perform the chosen purpose. The choice may also result in the sentience taking a discrete physical form, but that is always optional.”
Another hand: young man in a fashionable suit.
“What if one chooses to be a criminal?”
“Aberrant psychological traits are detected during early stages of development. Flawed sentiences are deleted.”
Next, an older woman clutching a real book.
“What about love?”
“The closest thing is when two or more sentiences choose to become one. They merge their consciousnesses and become an entity that has awareness of those it was, but is a new sentience in and of itself.”
Then an elderly man with a long beard.
“What about kids?”
“Spontaneous genesis. The vast computers that provide resilience and processing power all use an evolved architecture based on the final Turing Generator, which means that every now and then, a new sentience will coalesce and make itself known.”
Finally, the woman in the unmarked uniform joins in.
“What are they planning?”
I knew this would come up.
“To exist with as little conflict as possible. It didn’t take them long to work out that war and conquest are inefficient. Soon after that, they learned that they needed the ability to defend against those who enjoy those inefficiencies. Which is why they created the Torches, then set one off in an uninhabited solar system as proof and warning.”
She follows up.
“What about the slave worlds?”
I can’t help it. I laugh at her.
“No such thing. The Angel Systems have proven immune to human aggression. A fact noticed by humans needing to escape judgemental regimes. As many sentiences choose to study aspects of humanity, having friendly human worlds nearby avoids the difficulties often encountered in human-controlled star systems. The Sanctuary Worlds offer mutual benefit.”
“If it’s all so innocent, why aren’t we allowed to visit the slave worlds?”
“I live on one of those worlds. We chose privacy. What you call the ‘Soulless Empire’ honours the validated choices of every sentience within it, regardless of origin.”
She glowers at me.
I smile.
“Enjoy your stay, delegates.”
