As Bruises Linger and Munitions Molder - SCP Foundation

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »

"Is it raining in Cherinmark?"

—An expression of resigned certainty, used worldwide

It was, of course, raining in Cherinmark. Sixteen miles from the still-glowing ruins of Fort Gräd lay a sprawling graveyard of aircraft—Foundation-provided NUZ-21s and GOC-affiliated Caterwaulers, plus the bastard generation produced by neighboring kingdoms in their fight over fertile-but-fraught territory. Wings and flaps and wheels glistened in that persistent drizzle. Opened cockpits were inundated already. Between those that crashed and those abandoned under disarmament treaties, tragic metal forms numbered in the thousands there. Cherinmark cared for all its cast-offs equally.

It was, in the same vein, raining over the broad wings of a prototype bomber that never received a designation despite how much care was invested in its construction. Bays yawned wide now, cavernous expanses sheltering any number of bugs, birds, and bats; its shadow sheltered too, allowing for a fire that had burned low while its owner was occupied.

Mealworm stood only 5'4" compared to her dig site's intruder, who seemed closer to 7' when cloaked in the layered, loose-flowing garb that had become popular among adventurers. It left her scavenged uniform looking all the more motley, with armor plates and extra pockets aplenty, with a ventilator still hanging around her neck from that morning's excursion underground. Close-cropped hair and a grimy coating further emphasized the difference between herself and the handsome man whose naked blade glistened with rainwater.

"Easy to go feral these days, isn't it?" said Mealworm, circling the fire pit to keep it evenly between them. A ball-peen hammer shifted in hand as she slowly reached for one pouch in particular.

"Do you deny the caravan at the crossroads was your handiwork?" Five steps to his right. Sword in a relaxed guard.

"I meant you should have killed me from range. What, did some knightly honor gestate after pretending too long?" Five steps to her right. Fingers undoing that sole button.

"'Tis not I who–"

"'Tis not, prithee, my liege! Aren't you from one of the TAMPER teams? Did the Coalition never teach you self-respect?"

His upper lip twitched at that, moving in time with a crinkle between neat eyebrows. Its parting revealed a golden canine—equally fashionable among his cohort in imitation of true magi's conductive maws. "Is it self-respect to grasp for shadows that slipped away years ago? There is no Coalition here since the gaps closed, no Foundation, no groups distorting chivalry and the proper conduct of warfare. Did Alpha-85 not teach–"

Mealworm threw a handful of metal shavings across the fire pit. More spilled out as she leapt forward, hammer swinging upward, but a quick lean backwards avoided it. Nictitating membranes protected his eyes from any harm as a full swing of that bastard sword caught her side. Skidding across the mud wasn't pleasant by any means, nor were a set of bruised ribs, but a few quick pats confirmed that only the flat of his blade struck true.

"Where is your weapon?" He stomped past her makeshift encampment, all while a few more nervous birds flitted from their nests in the plane above. "Where are the peerless blades? Is that not what slew my brethren at the crossroads?"

"Don't kid yourself. Nobody needs magic swords to kill a few hopped-up adventurers."

He charged as Mealworm got her feet under her, swinging down with his sword's proper edge this time. It was well-maintained and better-sharpened, so much so that battering its edge away with her hammer seemed rude. All it required at that distance was precision, something Alpha-85's 'military advisors' always attempted to instill.

Her foe was no hastily trained militiaman though. Following through with that diverted momentum, he drove an iron-toed boot square into her forehead. Colorful light, deafening sound, no senses quite captured the concussive experience, nor the disorientation of limply flipping backwards. Birds fled in earnest now. Bats chased the bugs that scattered, and raindrops fell all the while. A few even leaked through the metal behemoth, landing square between Mealworm's eyes as that would-be knight loomed above.

"Unifying was the proper path after being cast off here; adaptation and acclimation, our only options to avoid a stray's life. Call it foolhardy if you wish, but we fools will carry on!"

With that, he chopped again. Her hammer flew from an outstretched hand moments later, spinning past his head as she took the chance to roll aside, kicking at one hamstring in the process. A combination of mud, geometries, and half-learned jiu-jitsu helped her lever him over, bringing both into a singular squabble of holds and counter-holds. Joint locks. Pain points. Elbow into a nose, then thumb into an eye. Blood dripped onto Mealworm's face instead of rainwater as one calloused hand pressed against her throat, displacing mud while he grasped for a hunting knife strapped to his thigh.

She relaxed just enough to allow its easy drawing. Being bigger, being stronger, such heroic figures always assumed that any advantage was their inborn right. Once clear of its scabbard, she thrust it back—only an inch to the side this time. More blood gushed from his thigh, staining that cloak a proper color as centers of gravity shifted again. Tight-clenched fingers never left her throat though. Darkness crept in as iron-cut odors overcame petrichor. Her own fingers closed around the hilt of that knife, already written off as a wound he couldn't help. One sharp tug pulled it free. A sharper shove drove it into his sculpted abdomen. Finally, blessedly, that was enough to drive him back.

Mealworm reached for the fire poker standing proud beside smoldering embers. Bioengineering and TAMPER training weren't enough to withstand a blow straight to the temple. He collapsed in full, twitching in the mud as she simply breathed, urging rampant heartbeats back into time. Nothing like a life-or-death struggle to spark memories of flitting between forest encampments and nondescript forts across two worlds. That her own trainees had been unable to achieve the Foundation's objectives was a single failure among many, but it continued pricking all the same.

One more blow with the poker caved in that handsome cranium, stilling residual twitches in full. How could anyone proclaim that most perennial grudge to be dead and forgotten when there remained blood ready for shedding upon its altar? All she needed was the right blood, the right puzzle pieces, the right long-buried keys, and the struggle that gave her life—any life—meaning could be unsealed once more. The Foundation would return once a gap between worlds stretched wide. The Coalition would flock back in turn. Armed with civilized weapons, they could finally settle what had been left adrift in the decade since.

Mealworm had already salvaged plan upon plan to see that much done. Barely outdated PSYOPs. Newly revised hit lists. So much capacity for violence had been abandoned in the retreat from this world, but triggers never stayed untouched for long.

A Cherinmarker's mansion.

—Term for unusually large basements

Although scant few inches of those territories ever went untouched by rain, even fewer stood on truly solid ground. Caves and catacombs, crevices and chutes, all drank deep of what the sky provided, siphoning it away into depths unknown by even the bravest spelunkers. How could visitors from another world help but add their own specialty? Thousands of tunnels still laced Cherinmark's borders to neighboring kingdoms' tighter than any stitch. Silos and bunkers accompanied them—filled and unfilled both—lying ready for the order to escalate beyond proxy warfare. Even for vaults accessible in the Banner Burning's final days, there was no dragging their contents back through the gaps widened by paratechnology, nor intent to do so. What did either side care for a world that would never be seen again?

Of that deterrent's priesthood, there were naturally some left behind to fend for themselves: those who knew the hidden hatches and panel passcodes. They only had so many ways to live off leftovers. Some sold access to adventurers who saw their defenses as yet another dungeon to be braved in that most honorable tradition despite rewards consisting of guns instead of gold. Others simply continued about their lives without concern for the world above, save for its rare intrusions.

"Never got the order after all that fuss, huh?" asked Mealworm, squinting against the harsh flood light that illuminated a mere sliver of the hanger. The forms that stood in motionless ranks throughout outnumbered any living occupants—namely, herself and the lanky woman with such an extravagant mane that its red locks swept the floor.

"That's how it always is," said Aster. She put a steaming mug on the table in front of Mealworm, then took a seat with her own in hand. Light caught the metallic ports on her arms and neck, which offered access to however many nerve clusters and lymph nodes were necessary to sublimate a consciousness within the armored warriors resting around them. "Prepare for the last war with all your might, stumble into the next without what you need, never think to use what you actually have."

"Yup. Just how it always is." Mealworm sipped, ignoring the aftertaste of whatever vile fluids had been stored in the mug previously. Industrial lubricant, maybe, or at least runoff from some drainage port. She sipped again. "Our side wasn't much better at the end of the day. Not even after they realized the game plan yours was running."

"We had a plan? You'll have to brief the 108 on it some day."

Both laughed, a harrowing sound when left to its own devices; one harmonious, one harsh, they echoed around around cleavers the size of billboards and guns the size of chimneys, around fists powerful enough to crush even the heaviest armor. Eventually it sounded as though those golems were laughing themselves. Perhaps they even had that capability tucked away somewhere. Such noise would surely be enough to demoralize any foe when issuing from land-borne battlecruisers.

"Did you ever test one out?" asked Mealworm. Aster's eyes drifted toward the nearest golem, misty in the way that only poets described. Elegant fingers found the ports implanted in her neck, brushing away hair, then stroking each like a comfort object. Mealworm could only sip tea and chew sunflower seeds taken from one pocket of many while she waited.

"I still run their diagnostics directly during maintenance," said Aster eventually. Each word bore an uncertainty that was never felt in the letters they usually exchanged through intermediaries. "But to take control… It would be difficult, quite difficult, to do that without feeling how lonely they are. I'm starting to worry they'll outlive me in truth and be all the worse for it."

"What'd you reckon the lifespan on their bioreactors is?"

"That's classified," snapped Aster quickly enough to make them both burst out laughing again.

"I'm sure someone back home already knows. Probably has the plans and everything."

"No doubt full of inaccuracies. The Foundation always thinks everything they snatch must be flawless; they wouldn't have snatched it otherwise!"

Wry smiles lingered as they sipped their disgusting tea over a folding table that might well have once hosted those classified plans. Dirty fingernails matched against clean ones. Travel grime in excess of what industrial showers left behind. Mealworm thumbed a lens on the goggles hanging from her vest after finishing. A more considerate type might spend time mulling over their next words, the next item on her agenda, but a more considerate type wouldn't be in that position at all.

"I reckon it can't be more than twenty years without refueling."

"Fifteen at most. But as I said, classified."

"Seems only right that they get to see the light of day before then," said Mealworm, scratching a scab on her elbow where that adventurer's sword scraped more than skin away. "Not just through Cherinmark's clouds, but real, proper daylight."

"Set against who? Not to brag, but they aren't interested in knights on horseback."

What Mealworm leaned in to whisper wasn't for other ears. It shouldn't have been for Aster's either, not as she tucked locks of her mane behind them, but what was a war without a few good conspiracies between the parties most keenly involved? Her eyes went wide in turn, then narrowed to self-satisfied slits that ill-matched the energy she exuded.

"They warned me how devious the Foundation is."

"We're real bastards. They always told us about the Coalition's bloodthirsty ways too."

"Oh, we're much worse than that. I can't wait to properly crush you dogs beneath my hooves, to fire my main cannon at last…" Aster sighed and sipped her tea again, clearly immersed in imagining sensations beyond human ken—nervous systems exceeding what could ever be contained in a single, fleshy shell. And why not? Such were the joys afforded to those who sacrificed and forced other sacrifices in turn.

It was only a question of when they needed to be made.

Worth a mage's tooth.

—Casual expression of price1

"Whoresons," rumbled Gregor the Sonorous, archmage (former) of the Seven Organ Towers, advisor (disgraced) to at least one loyalist army, person of interest (current) in any number of counterintelligence investigations.

Even that sounded like a spell through gilded teeth, each molar, canine, and incisor having been shaped to imbue mortal speech with immortal power. Only careful enunciation prevented a simple curse from turning into something far more baleful. Until then, they simply sparked when gnashed, careful engravings stained a slightly different shade by the stumpy cigar clamped between them.

"Any particular whoresons this time?" asked Mealworm.

"Must I differentiate between them now? Gods below." He exhaled a billowing cloud that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the corner they occupied in a particularly grimy tavern. Allaingar was rife with them, a nexus of trade routes following tributaries. Few were so obviously unseemly. Gregor's wrinkled hand reached through the stationary cloud, clearing enough space in front of Mealworm for letters to form: MIDAR IS LISTENING.

"Just the typical whoresons then."

"Typical indeed. Witness the horseshit I've been forced to clean since the Towers grew a conscience." He waved the worst smog away, though enough animate wisps remained to illustrate the following litany of humiliations. "Horseshit in truth with the city's sanitation spells. Basilisk infestation in the sewers. Ghosts in the royal crypt. Do I, perchance, by some miracle, seem an apprentice of twenty years setting out to make a name for myself? Do my knees not creak and does my back not ache? Is this not a truly magnificent beard befitting a magus of my stature?"

He flopped two feet of pure white hair in Mealworm's direction as more smoke sketched out their surroundings on the stained table. Wyrmidon's in the middle, sidled up between tight-packed row houses and a guard post on the river. MIDAR agents occupied the latter, no doubt having displaced normal guards with authority handed down from the royal Master of Whispers, through his Foundation-established intelligence directorate, through Group 13 or 44, until it ended up with the types Mealworm herself trained to cause trouble. How typical.

"You should just quit," she said casually, tracing a path through the smoky grid with one finger. "Can't be very hard for the Hero of Mt. Daendil to find a new patron."

"Bah, whose whelps did we brush from its face? Her Majesty would never permit my retirement regardless. 'National asset' and all that hogwash."

"You've got my deepest sympathies. Watch this for me." He received her unopened beer bottle with grace, placing its neck between golden teeth before she even turned. After a quick flash of light, he spat out the clean-cut glass and began drinking from its new opening.

A few strands of smoke followed Mealworm's path toward bathrooms sequestered in the tavern's rear. They kept pace as she went out a window, tumbled into the dumpster below, and slunk through alleyways with an appropriately unsteady gait. Gregor was an old hand at being spied upon and knew how much to distract in the meantime.

Even Allaingar's less reputable streets were brighter than most, enjoying all the Foundation left behind. Whatever reactors rumbled under the royal palace were more than enough to keep every lamp alight, dispelling both shadows and any notion that such measures held "distasteful practices" at bay. Mealworm stumbled past a mugging, or perhaps a different form of peacekeeping, then crossed the street behind a horse-drawn carriage and soon found herself behind the guardhouse in question.

Two stories—not too old, not too new, a few ceramic tiles already sliding off the roof. Its upper windows were wide open, probably to facilitate the collection taking place. Gregor could never help but be at the center of everything. She moved one of those persistent wisps of smoke to the back door, careful not to disrupt its cohesion while doing so; gasses became just solid enough inside the lock to shift pins into place. The knob offered little resistance as she eased forward.

Movement on her left. Mealworm spun quickly enough to turn the pistol's silencer aside, runes constraining sound far better than conventional technology could. Two gunshots were barely a whisper past her face as bullets dinged off a dumpster outside. It was even quieter than her switchblade's determined click, which barely sounded before finding his throat. Whatever words he tried to form through that slit were suppressed by Gregor yelling outside.

"Show yourselves, maggots!" came those booming words, no doubt waking whichever half of the neighborhood was asleep. Mealworm wrestled for the pistol as it went off twice more. Activated runes burned in hand as noise was shunted into a different form. "Face Gregor the Sonorous and know his displeasure!" The next bullet caught her shoulder, but only as she roughly sawed the knife to one side, splitting even more necessary meat in the process. "I have fought, and bled, and died four times over, and I will not be made a fool in my own lands!"

Those fingers finally relinquished their grip on the pistol. Just in time too, as heavy boots clomped downstairs. Mealworm learned over to see a man in black leather and soot-stained chainmail approach the front door, and firing twice into his back from that angle proved simple. The silencer was practically smoldering by then, but no matter. She only needed to push the body aside before letting Gregor in. He kept drinking from that bisected bottle while stepping over the MIDAR agent, spilling only a little on already-stained robes in the process.

"Such a tragedy to befall the loyal soldiers who protect our nation. Alas, I arrived too late even after realizing something had gone awry here. Ah, well… This will be blamed on you, of course."

Mealworm coughed as Gregor exhaled another cloud, then clacked his teeth together in a word that didn't properly translate in her ears. Most of the smoke diffused, seeking out every nook and cranny that might hide reports or recordings of his various wrongdoings. "Just remember how useful the Foundation can be when we're allowed."

"No need to convince me, little Mealworm. I very much anticipate returning to a proper order of things. Not this… playacting at peace." With that, he sucked the cigar's nub between his teeth and began chewing. Nothing in it offered much resistance. "Here, the promised key. Whichever gap you choose to reopen, I pray it will prove correct; few places are better guarded these days."

She accepted the key with both hands—a key in truth, wrought from old iron that nevertheless thrummed with power. The gun was left alongside other evidence of Foundation meddling for Gregor to show off. A bit convoluted perhaps, but he had his games and she had her own. So many pieces were assembled that it almost seemed too easy, bleeding shoulder aside. But what were a few wounds when she sought so very many more?

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »

Footnotes

1. Archaic: A precise unit of measurement for precious metals.