Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral Read online

  As always, the surge brought with it a rush of fury. How dare this worthless addict turn on him, just like everyone else. Their leader, General Malachi Jaeger, had sent them out from NorMec without giving the slightest shit about what might happen to them. As far as the grinning, glowing, emaciated monster was concerned, they were disposable. Now they were lost amongst WesMec’s decaying Sages, in search of some elusive Cathedral. His adoptive mother had turned her back on him. Even the woman he —

  Before the thought could finish, he thrust his body upward. With the sensation of sand rubbing against sand, his brother’s virtual molecules sifted through his own. He could feel the Cyleb’s spine pass through his stomach as the particles of his diseased brain slid alongside those in his own throat. The electricity from 7907’s cybernetic nerves prickled his tongue and jaw — and then he was free.

  He brought the gap in his shoulder closer together, returning his personal time back to normal. The two bodies hung a foot in the air for a millisecond, their positions reversed. Then they fell to the ground. 7907’s orange–veined nose smashed against a rock with a crack that echoed across the desert. He let out a gurgling scream.

  God damn it, thought Matthew as he brought the Mirage back to life. His muscles felt like spent, empty rags. The intense high of a separation was always followed by a low. Every breath felt like a struggle, as if a boulder were crushing his ribs. Nevertheless, he clamped his arms around his brother, pinning his limbs to his sides.

  “Ow,” said 7907 as a red fluid streaked with silver and orange flowed from his crushed nose. He began to cry. “You broke id, you freak, you broke id.”

  “Shut up,” Matthew whispered in his ear. “Shut up, or I’ll leave you for the mutants.”

  7907’s sobs dwindled to whimpers. Matthew rolled onto his side. He turned the Cyleb’s head, and inspected the damage. His nasal bones and cartilage had curved into a swollen question mark. “Jesus,” he said.

  “I cand breed. I cand breed.”

  “You can shout, can’t you?”

  “Fug you!”

  Matthew slapped him, though he barely had the strength. Black spots popped in front of his eyes as he strove to keep them open. “What would the general say, if he could see you now?” he asked. “What will he say when I tell him what you’ve become?”

  “No,” 7907 said, his voice a whimper. His jaw trembled. “Dond, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I cand breed. Oh God, I cand breed!”

  Matthew fought against the ebbing tide of rage and exhaustion. How much had this little stunt aged him? He sighed, and rubbed his temples. It was not his brother’s fault. While Matthew’s artificial consciousness was woven from nanomachines mixed with paint, 7907 had a real, if genetically engineered, body. It lay in an immersion tank somewhere within WesMec, its brain jacked into the computers that ran this world. The two of them had never encountered Tangerine before. The Biopures here used it recreationally, and had told them of its unique, though extremely useful, side effect. But what happened in a Sage affected the brain chemistry of its participants, and neither of them could have guessed what it would do to 7907’s real–life cybernetic nervous system. Matthew fished in his pouch for an iatric pen. He programmed it to dispense the maximum amount of local anesthetic, and jammed it into 7907’s shattered face.

  The Cyleb’s sobs became gasps, which faded to dull pants. His chest rose and fell as his clouded eyes stared at the sky. “Cand smell,” he said tonelessly. “Cand breed droo my nose. You have do helb me.”

  “You dumbass,” said Matthew. “I said that I would give it to you soon. I have to, we have no choice, but we need to locate the outer zone first.”

  7907 shook. “I cand stand id. Id’s going to give me a panig attag. Just figs id so I can breed. Please?”

  Matthew closed his eyes, and pushed his anger down to the pit of his stomach. He searched in his pouch until he found an arc knife. He ignited it, the fine line of plasma illuminating both their faces. He took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”

  The Cyleb nodded. Matthew bit the inside of his cheek, and made two cuts in the back of his nostrils. 7907 reached up, and touched the smoking, cauterized holes in the center of his face. The air that he sucked through them made a wet, whistling noise. Matthew forced himself not to retch.

  “Better?” he asked. 7907 nodded. He extinguished the knife, and put it back in his pouch. He looked at the sun. They were wasting time. As they lay in the sand, millions of mutant insects were sieging the shield wall that separated NorMec from WesMec. Of course, that was assuming they had not broken through already. It had been at least a year in real–time since General Jaeger had sent them into the wastelands to find the Cathedral of Saint Dominic of Silos — the Sage that supposedly controlled the swarms of relentless cybernetic insects. Every second counted.

  “We have to keep moving,” he said. “Everyone’s lives are counting on us.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s all that matters.”

  “I said that I know.” 7907 looked at the ground. “Please, don’t tell him. I just… I miss the Song so much. You are my brother, but you can’t know how much it hurts.”

  Matthew put his hand on the Cyleb’s arm. It burned with fever. “We will find the Cathedral,” he said, “I promise you. Whatever happens along the way is just part of the means.”

  7907 gazed at him with dull eyes tinged with orange. The identical third generation Cylebs that had raised him had all been calm, logical, and almost emotionless. The Sage of their Sanctuary linked all of their cybernetic minds subconsciously, forming what they called the Song. He felt another pang of shame. Even before his addiction to Tangerine, his brother must have felt traumatically isolated, separated from the constant connection with his family that he had known all his life. Christ, he thought, I never imagined one of them could even be like this. What a mess.

  He rolled onto his belly, and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He could feel the drain of the Mirage deep within his heart. Had they been detected during the few seconds that it had been off? He listened, but could not hear the mutants’ telltale clockwork chatter. He sighed in relief. It was bad enough that they had turned WesMec into a wasteland, but the discovery that they had somehow infested its Sages as well filled him with dread. Perhaps nowhere was safe, not even this elusive Cathedral.

  “Let’s keep going,” he said.

  They crawled together in silence. 7907 did his best to keep up the pace, but kept slipping behind. Matthew stopped to let him rest every half–kilometer. The sound of the Cyleb’s breath wheezing through his perforated septum made him feel sick. “How many cities have we passed through, since leaving NorMec?”

  “Five.”

  He nodded. Most of his long–term memory had been stored within the Sanctuary’s Sage. When he was away from it, there was little that he could recall. He shrugged off the thought. He would just have to make do until he returned home. He coughed. The air was hot, dry, and filthy. He panted like a…

  Had he ever owned a dog?

  Although he could not answer it, the question brought the sting of tears to his eyes. He may have lost his memories, but their emotional connections lingered within his subconscious. He shoved the observation aside. There was nothing he could do about it.

  He felt the Mirage slip, and stopped crawling. He let his brother catch up, and motioned him to his side. “How much further?” he asked.

  The veins in 7907’s glistening scalp throbbed as his cloudy eyes scanned the desolate horizon. “Three more kilometers.”

  Matthew slung his rucksack off his shoulders, and removed two canteens. “Here,” he said, holding one out. 7907 took it, and sucked at its water. Matthew took small sips, delighting in the sensation of the cool liquid trickling down his throat.

  “Do you think the Cathedral will be in the next city?” 7907 asked.

  Matthew rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “That’s where those dregs in Albuquerque said it migh
t be.”

  Matthew took another sip. “One thing at a time. We have to reach the outer zone first, before we can pinpoint it.”

  “Before I pinpoint it.”

  Matthew finished his canteen, and pressed the stud at its bottom. The bottle dissolved in his hand, seeping into the desert. He wiped the remaining gunk off on the sand. “No,” he said, “I’ll do it. I never should have let you take the stuff. Maybe Tangerine won’t affect me the way it did you. I don’t have a nervous system, I’m just made of paint.”

  7907’s bloodshot eyes grew wide. He clamped his fingers around Matthew’s arm. “You can’t risk that,” he said. “I’m already ruined. You don’t know what it will do to you. It could fry your nanomachines.”

  Matthew stared into his eyes. “This stuff is killing you,” he said. “I can’t let that happen.”

  7907 winced. “Do you think that the general knew about Tangerine? Do you think that he knew what it would do to me?”

  Probably, thought Matthew as a bitter taste filled his mouth. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent you along. He forced a smile to his lips. “You have made great sacrifices for your brothers and sisters,” he said, “and I’m sure that he loves you for it.”

  Whether he bought the lie or not, a gleam of hope came to his brother’s tortured eyes. He sniffed. “There’s no Burning here. Out there, I mean.”

  “No,” said Matthew. The disease ravaging the east half of North America — the one that had killed his original self — had somehow not crossed the shield wall into the West. “That’s why we have to find the Cathedral. Perhaps, if we can stop the mutants, we can build a new Sanctuary here.”

  They resumed crawling. Matthew focused on his surroundings. He heard the crackling hum of energy within his shoulder, felt the jagged, tiny rocks of the desert dig into his palms and knees, tasted the dust in the air upon his tongue, and saw each grain of sand as it passed beneath his eyes. If only they could run, they would cover the distance within minutes, but the drain on the Mirage would be too great. If he let it slip…

  “Why?”

  Matthew sighed. “Why what?”

  “Why only send two of us, why not a whole squad? It makes no sense.”

  Matthew rolled his eyes. He had no answer, and the question had been asked many times. “Just stop that,” he said, “it doesn’t help. Now, how much farther?”

  7907 tilted his head to the side. His inflamed veins throbbed. “This should be it.”

  Matthew reached into his pouch, and pulled out the remaining luminescent petals. He stared at them, and licked his parched lips. “It won’t affect my zhivoi–paint,” he said, “I’m sure of it.”

  Tears ran down 7907’s weathered cheeks. “You can’t know that.”

  Matthew shook his head, causing the desert to swim before his eyes. More than anything, they needed to close, and not open again for a day. The fight and the drain of his Mirage had nearly pushed him beyond his limits. He was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. He tore off a piece, and held it in front of his mouth. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it will be fine. I promise —”

  Pain exploded through his jaw as 7907 drove his fist into his chin, sending him reeling to the sand. He was barely able to keep the Mirage operational. The Cyleb snatched the petals from his hands, and shoved them all into his ruined face. He sucked their golden pollen deep into his lungs. Through blurry eyes, Matthew could see their glow shoot into his brother’s skull like streaks of lightning. The throbbing veins on his cheeks and forehead glistened with a diseased orange sheen. His head jerked from side to side, his bulged eyes rolling in their sockets.

  He leaped to his feet. Matthew felt a sharp pain in his chest as his Mirage tried to compensate. The Cyleb threw his head back, let out a cry that echoed across the dunes, and ran.

  “No!” Matthew shouted. His Mirage tried to span the distance between them, but the strain was too great. He cursed as he pulled it back to himself, leaving 7907 exposed.

  His brother ran with flailing limbs, shouting peals of demented laughter. Matthew scurried on his hands and knees as fast as he could. He was too weak to accelerate his own time again, especially if he had to keep the Mirage up as well. His only other option was to sever his arm and release his id as its own, serpentine entity, but he would only do that as a last resort.

  When he did that, bad things tended to happen.

  Another sound whispered from across the horizon, a clockwork chattering that made his heart feel as if it were full of ice.

  7907 stopped at the top of a dune, almost a hundred meters away. Matthew pushed himself onward, his breath coming in labored gasps. He had to reach his brother in time. He scuttled across the landscape of grit and dust, desperate to outlast the fatigue in his limbs.

  The ticking chorus grew louder. Above it, he could hear the Cyleb’s rapturous howls.

  “Sands,” 7907 cried, his voice thick and hoarse, as he pointed to his feet. “Life Saaaaaaaaaaands!”

  Trembling bubbles appeared in the ground ahead, as if the desert were boiling. One burst less than an inch from Matthew’s nose, and he froze.

  A mutant popped its metallic head out, its features that of a withered, shriveled woman. It pulled itself from the earth with glistening limbs. Matthew held his breath as the thousands of tiny bubbles around him gave birth in the same way. The army of clockwork wasps fluttered their foil–like wings, and closed in.

  He tried to swallow as they converged on 7907, but could not. It felt as if a rock had lodged within his throat. He tried to creep forward, but though the sea of insects did not notice him, they did not part for him either.

  His brother fell to his knees, sobbing. “They’re red,” he said. “They’re poisoned. Why, why, why? Why are they red?”

  He jerked his orange–veined face upward, suddenly aware of the ticking, insectile army that surrounded him. He climbed to his feet, the scarlet grains sifting through his fingers.

  “Why?” he asked them in a hoarse whisper. “Why are they —”

  The creatures dove upon him. Matthew stabbed his fingers into his cleft, and tore his shoulder apart —

  The desert spun and jittered in front of his eyes. He felt like vomiting, but choked it down. A sensation of dread mixed with confusion and dizziness dug its talons into his heart, and twisted. Something was horribly wrong. He pressed his face into the roasting grit and sand until the feeling subsided. He raised his head.

  A swarm of mutants seethed at the top of a dune, only a few hundred feet away. They were devouring… what? What could possibly have made it out this far without anyone else? Maybe it had been some sort of bird, forced to land in the wastes. He shrunk down beneath the refuge of his Mirage. Poor thing, whatever it had been. No one should die alone.

  For the thousandth time, he cursed General Jaeger for sending him out here on his own. He shrugged. Maybe it was for the best. Others would have just slowed him down.

  He glanced at his shoulder. For some reason, his hand lay beneath his camouflaged shirt, his fingers pressed against the sparking gap in his flesh. Why? Had he been planning to unleash the Snake? He shook his head in confusion. That would be a very stupid idea. Since they had both originated in NorMec, his nanomachines and the Cylebs’ Sage shared inherent technology. On the other hand, interfacing his painting with the computers of WesMec required emulation that at times felt ham–fisted. Hacking the cores of this Sage with that much incompatible power could prove catastrophic, to say the least. He pulled his hand away. The Mirage was protecting him, what more did he need?

  The glittering swarm dispersed, burrowing back into the desert. What had attracted them, anyway? They had not left any residue, but then again, they never did. He hid beneath his Mirage until he could no longer hear their clockwork chattering. He gathered his strength, and crawled to the spot where they had been.

  He reached the top of the hill, and collapsed. He could not go any further, not without rest. He sprawle
d out, stretching his arms and legs. A muscle in his calf twitched, threatening to cramp. He massaged it with one hand as he dug into the dune with the other. He grabbed a handful of sand, and held it in front of his eyes.

  The white grains in his palm were peppered with a scattering of hard, thick, red crystals. They looked like crimson road salt. Though the desert around them had been baked in the unrelenting sun, they felt cold, like tiny shards of ice. He rubbed them between his fingers. His eyes and nose began to water, and a sharp prickling, like static electricity, swirled in his throat. He dropped them to the ground, and the sensation passed. He sipped water from a canteen, and followed their ruddy trail.

  After a few minutes, his hair bristled, as if the air were charged. His stomach fluttered with hope. Most likely, it meant that a shield wall was close by. He had reached the outer perimeter of a city. Once on the other side, he could finally turn off his damned Mirage, and let his body heal. He fumbled in his rucksack for the Cipher. With a flick of his thumb, it chirped into life.

  He slipped it over his fingers, and swept it back and forth. It tugged to the southwest. He allowed himself a thin smile, and followed its pull.

  The temperature of the air around him dropped. He crept on his elbows, the hand holding the Cipher extended. He felt resistance, as if he were pushing against an invisible wall of foam rubber. The device vibrated, making his whole arm shake. He squeezed its trigger.

  A ring appeared in the air, about six feet wide. He turned off the Mirage, leaped to his feet, and jumped through.

  The second he was on the other side, he squeezed the Cipher again. The hovering torus swirled shut behind him. He closed the gap in his shoulder, and examined his surroundings.