Pique Proves Perennial - SCP Foundation

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »

> GAP TRANSIT SUCCESSFUL // 106.9 x 9560.0 ABSOLUTE

> HEADCOUNT FULL 20 AND JUNIPER SPRIG IN HAND

> SACRIFICES TO SEVENTH SPRING PREPARED

> DECAMP 1830 FOR LOCAL TRANSIT // 5063.3 x 5082.4 ABSOLUTE

> ETA 1930 // OTE 1945 // PULSE ON MAZ-5 WHEN LIVE

It rained harder than ever across Cherinmark as a wet winter culminated in a worse spring. Droplets drenched Mealworm's fortress too, inundating it despite whatever favor the land showed her, satisfying moats, filling cisterns, and washing away smaller vessels outright. With so much construction yet unfinished—and seeming unlikely to be finished in her lifetime—tarps had sprouted across the walls akin to those covering the old carrier's half-stripped hull. Perhaps creatures living inside greater structures always settled for the same approach when pressed by nature.

Maybe fastening knots in the downpour was safer than sitting in her throne room too. So many spots were better fortified against munitions or mages: chambers where a jury-rigged server might hide heat signatures, where architecture could withstand explosions, or where planners simply wouldn't assume she spent her days. There was no convincing the quick-forming, quick-disbanding cliques who took it upon themselves to direct new warbands upward after a lesson on pointless niceties though. They were also the ones who seemed most disappointed when she refused to mount that ridiculous throne with scepter in hand and crown on head. Such expectations only made the steps beneath more appealing a seat.

And there she remained on a day where few riders requested equipment for their raids, where few revolutionaries sought knowledge of cross-border tunnels networked by autonomous diggers. Aides instead worked in an alcove intended for statuary, whispering amongst themselves while paging through maps Mealworm had salvaged years before. Other soldiers who declared themselves her personal guard set to gambling between pillars with both cards and dice. She might have joined them if not for the peculiarity budding from the chamber's entrance that forced her hand toward Dead Moon on Silent Water.

Yes, being unable to lay eyes on the main doorway was too odd a sensation to ignore. Each attempt felt shameful, the sensation of watching a gruesome accident unfold magnified through some vulnerability in thought patterns—regret over natural curiosity, discomfort born of eventuality, and fear from taboos rooted in genetic memory. It expanded over the far end of the chamber as she drew sword from sheath. Possibilities flickered through mental filters as the familiar sensation of guns trained on center mass took hold, sending adrenaline–

A cold hand brushed along her own. Another found the crook between shoulder and neck, steadying what never achieved substance. Such was the ghast that spirit steel extruded, whose damp breaths came despite an absence of lungs, whose monochrome locks drifted above a circlet of three extra eyes burning like stars barely contained.

'Oh, harvester mine,' she mouthed to nothing in particular. Spectral fingers cupped Mealworm's chin, directing her toward the taboo which wormed its way through every sense. And then aloud in English: "Did I finally upset someone important enough to earn a reprimand?"

The sensation of staring into a mass grave slunk away after a few moments, abhorrence abating, disgust dissipating, allowing Mealworm to focus on twenty-some shades who were pointing rifles at all present. Black masks with more lenses than her ghost had eyes. Black armor heavy with the regenerative plates forbidden early in her deployment. Black guns too, which were plenty intimidating even without a sudden burst of shouting in several languages. Aides were lined up against the wall as would-be guards were zip-tied in uncomfortable positions. No deaths yet unless bodies bled below.

Mealworm was thinking too far ahead for shock or awe though, gray matter simmering in the residual stim that her most potent self summoned from the crease between lobes—stewing amidst calculations of who would shoot first along which advance, of who seemed sluggish after an arduous trek through Cherinmark. Then there were chains of command exposed by intonation and combat drugs betrayed by chemical stench. Twitches revealed tension revealed hints at intent that she couldn't finish peeling apart with only the dregs of enhanced reason left in her brainpan.

"Come on, come on, shoot already." She jabbed spirit steel toward the intruder that every inference agreed was in command. "That way nobody will be embarrassed about what they ran away from. I can feel your finger twitching like it's mine. I'm thinking your thoughts before you can! Try it!"

Their only response was to fish within armor for something nestled against dog tags. Between gloved fingers emerged a two-toothed key similar to the one lost on Mt. Perfidy. If indeed the same, it exuded a different aura now, as though cored with crackling substance that hurt to observe for different reasons. They held it out and spoke a word of power that her ears refused just as intently as her eyes had the veil.

A slit carved through empty air eight feet off the ground, leaking pale blue light that overpowered the orange from lamps overhead. It whistled off-tune, then tore downward like wallpaper too hastily removed. Settling pressure's wumpf heralded the entrance of another combatant far more suited to this courtly stage than Mealworm had ever felt. The young man—for he was awfully young, probably ten years behind her thirty-something—towered from the dozen paces separating them, holding himself like a storybook hero from either world's corpus. Pale, proud eyes were the softest feature amidst harder lines bounding jaw and cheeks. He seemed equipped from local armories at first glance; the breastplate wasn't forged in any fashion she recognized though, nor were gauntlets or greaves that looked machined to millimeter accuracy rather than hammered by hands. She could practically feel the metal ripple beneath her fingers and taste the polish that turned each into mirrors.

"Leon Harken stands before you," he boomed in a tone matching his frame, and did so in book-taught common tongue too. "Champion of the Assistant Director for Exotic Resource Allocation, chosen bearer of the triskblade CALLOW ELECT, and master of the Blackbox Technique. Be honored that I was selected to duel you in accordance with this land's traditions!"

"You aren't any of that," said Mealworm, eyes darting to the soldiers who now held their hostages at gunpoint as something throbbed in the back of her neck. "You can't possibly be."

"Such skepticism is warranted, for ours is not an order steeped in swordplay or honorable combat. How refreshing it must be to do battle here instead of skulk through shadows!"

"Is that what they said I've been doing this whole time? Having a fun little adventure without anyone from Earth breathing down my neck, maybe touring from city to city to take in the sights?"

"You jest, but I read how the last attempt to escort you home ended. Threatening instead of empathizing was pathetic indeed. Rest assured that my patron understands your attachment to this place, to the skills you honed here and the life you made with them. This duel will demonstrate his respect as well as mine!"

Tightening, throbbing, the ache in her neck was still nothing compared to what curdled inside it, congealed ire sliding down into a stomach already thick with clots. The hand stroking her spine did nothing to relieve pressure. The microbiome fortified within offered no resilience despite handling water full of every parasite imaginable. Was this how the Foundation saw her? Were her messages—first in words, then in warfare—not clear to analysts who spent every moment sifting through slurry for truths hidden within? Thinking her fond of this world after a decade spent plotting to upend it was the height of folly. These knights, these wizards… that she found examples of each to respect couldn't redeem the rest, nor would an unexpected friendship spare the Coalition its much-deserved thrashing.

The magic sword in hand meant nothing compared to a proper conclusion. The otherworldly edifice beneath their feet meant nothing too. Towering monsters that nickered at her, armies that took her advice seriously, exiles from Cherinmark's shifting who sheltered beneath the wormsign all meant nothing. No extent of stim-fed awareness could change that. Hisses leaked out between clenched teeth, their pressure matching a hand whose knuckles were ready to burst free, but the fool seemed incapable of understanding those either.

"Ha! Nor can I restrain myself any longer! Let us duel to first incapacitation according to the Chaiune Codex, duly witnessed by my escorts and your court, with control over this fortress as the prize."

"It's already my fortress."

"Then for the glory of besting the Foundation's champion! Win or lose, my superior wishes to bring you back within the fold to help secure our other holdings abroad. Any number of past transgressions will be excused after taking this new position, no matter who they were inflicted upon. I give my oath thus."

Welling bile curdled worse than anything swallowed, but there was nothing for it. Hearing that leadership was willing to move on the moment topsoil hit grave only affirmed what she already knew from their eagerness to retreat years before. How convenient for the 'rational' decision to so ably fit cowards' instinct. This pup was too fresh to understand though, and the agents standing watch looked antsy to execute orders he might know nothing about. Mealworm brought up Dead Moon on Silent Water, angling translucent steel toward his face in a way that obscured its length during her slow walk forward. Standing taller only meant she needed to carve off more meat to balance the scales.

"Oh, piteous march!" he boomed, both hands lifting a bleached scabbard overhead for an unnecessarily elaborate draw. Both eyes raised toward CALLOW ELECT too, confident that he could bask in unveiling his enchanted weapon for all to witness. Barely an inch of amber was exposed when her advance became a two-handed thrust that extended ligaments to their fullest. Even throwing her whole body forward couldn't prevent the sword's selfish affirmation though. "Aversion plagues none but the weak!"

He had less time than instinct must insist. Her blade's tip nicked his neck in passage, barely dodged by a quarter turn that allowed Leon to finish his draw. A vast chittering filled Mealworm's ears once the amber sword was fully exposed—modulated by countless carapaces trapped within its mass, by frozen wings and lifeless tymbals, the sound of Cherinmark's marshlands magnified a hundredfold. She recovered just in time to divert his downward chop.

Enough force still transmitted along that angle to send her stumbling back. Those muscles clearly weren't built by exercises repeated to the point of obsession, nor by means as simple as the steroids their cohort snickered about other task forces guzzling. No, his body was an elixir cauldron, a pill furnace, and it burned hot with ingredients siphoned from other world's ecosystems. One breath amidst check and backstep brought forth images of pale stalks stretching toward the horizon, fronds brushing against speaking stones; of gray waterfalls pouring through layers of gravel and reactive mineral until a few droplets fell into cupped palms.

Their blades met thrice more as he pushed forward, each time at complementary angles calculated through the recursive, inevitable logic that both embodied. Knowledge of self through stim. Knowledge of others through the avenues it opened. When mirrored, these truths combined into a tumble down decision trees that saw only downsides for her. Limbs groaned. Gashes bled. Death stalked hungrily along paths not taken, cornering its prey each time. What else could she do? Mealworm's swordplay had been cobbled together from exiles, disgraces, and malcontents of every stripe, not refined by modeling and simulation to overcome extant styles—but if Leon knew as she knew, why assume she enjoyed that submission to fantasy?

Absent saner options, she released her blade at the end of one riposte. It hung mid-air for less than a second, inviting more focus than ever, as capturing its release with plentiful senses did not determine which were most important. Angles of rotation? Odor from its leather hilt? The direction of her eyes instead, or which muscles flexed most, or how any of their audience shifted in reaction? Mealworm's ghost grabbed the blade in that moment of processing; it swung at an angle her elbow wouldn't allow, reversing up toward the nick on Leon's neck that had already stopped bleeding. She palmed her holstered pistol with a flesh-and-blood hand as he deflected that strike in turn.

Insectoid trills heralded the draw. They blocked onlookers' shouts from her ears and suppressed gunshots too, denying the feedback that human minds thrived on. Entire battle lines had crumbled beneath such disorientation when it was still being carried by sacrifices in Alpha-85. Blood spurting from his unarmored thigh was proof enough in this case. Attempts at a higher shot were cut short as his cowter connected with her temple, sending Mealworm skidding back toward the unused throne with ghost in tow.

The view from down there was all too familiar. Rows of polished stone pillars that would someday be engraved by resident artisans stood between herself and the main door (now held slightly ajar, curious). Darkness lingered between the ceiling's arches, only barely touched by lamps which had begun flickering for the first time since installation (pattern unnoticed by soldiers focused on other matters). Mealworm gulped down pooling saliva, then pushed herself upright from those shallow steps, ready to meet the man who limped back toward her.

"A foul," he proclaimed. "Unbecoming of warriors whose honor is at stake."

"Forcing me into a duel at gunpoint isn't honorable in the first place. Stop putting on airs."

"Bah, their only mission was to secure my transit here. Settling matters in this world should be done with its methods, not modern weapons."

"Use your brain for one second instead of regurgitating whatever you picked up in briefings!" Her ghost snarled at Leon with a ferocity she hadn't managed for years, but it was the soldiers and their distant advisors who most needed to listen. "Do you think anybody here respects us for pretending to fight like them? It's a bad imitation, it's insulting, it just shows how you aren't taking their lives seriously! Stop fucking around!"

She emptied the rest of her magazine in full auto, a sweep encompassing more than that would-be champion. Bullets found flesh and flattened against armor as everything came to a head. Mealworm threw herself aside. More gunfire than ever erupted into the room, riddling her cover and much else with honeycomb holes. Flickering lamps burst in succession as Aster's dissipated consciousness forced power through them. A blonde, furry shape burst through the far door, tackling one of many soldiers into a darkness now strobing with muzzle flashes.

Battle's steady pulse cut through the buzz. Mealworm rolled further around the pillar, following Galowyn's example by tackling two legs as her ghost thrust into the torso above them—they managed to fire down at her anyway, one bullet clipping an ear in passage. Grabbing the barrel burned her palm. Forcing it aside cooked flesh worse as another volley erupted. Only after an extra twist of blade between ribs did she manage to wrench the rifle away entirely. Cutting-edge technology felt more alien than ever after all those years; it rejected her in kind, rendered non-functional by some palm lock, helmet link, or gene imprint. Fine. She pawed at their pistol until Leon emerged with sword already mid-swing. Even lead in his leg barely seemed a hindrance.

CALLOW ELECT cleaved halfway through the support behind her. Bellowing loud enough to overcome the trill, he wrenched it free in a follow-up that sent stones flying. Attempting to block once amber vibrations achieved such frequency was nothing short of foolish. On the battlefield, she had seen it cleave through horse and knight, through armored truck, and through plenty of lesser things too. Having it wielded against her made all the difference.

Two mangled bodies hurled between Mealworm and the gap, which remained impassive save for faint ripples that spread from its center. Stones underfoot trembled as Aster exerted control to bring reinforcements upwards. Then again, maybe it was a sign she was transferring to her PACER in case the tower's upper floors needed to be blown clean off. Mealworm hurried farther from her duel in pursuit of a functional firearm and nearly bowled over a corpse leaned upright. Sheer aversion to its state was nauseating, but she pressed close anyway as her ghost swept around to fend off Leon. The stench of bloat, of being left exposed on a sunlit shore for days on end… fumbling through kit for an unlocked weapon might as well be excavating their chest cavity. Dead arms grabbed her in a bear-hug without warning, nearly squeezing out vomit, but she managed to thumb the pin off a grenade anyway.

If it was explosive, she would die painlessly; if incendiary, the suffering would be significant. Suddenly being engulfed in stinging gas was preferable by far, especially as her specter pried at the seal around that walking corpse's mask, causing convulsions that allowed escape just before a two handed swing from Mealworm's foe cleaved his ally in half. It must have destroyed the device that bound that taboo too, for she saw the implicit corpse become an actual one as intestines spilled across trampled carpet.

"This is no way to fight!" called Leon through the wafting haze of tear gas as she bolted again. His sword quieted, no doubt claiming too steep a cost from the chemical furnace within. That only allowed other sounds to take hold: distant sirens, nearer battle chants, teeth sunk in flesh, bullets laid into wood, fighting outside the door and whimpers within. "Don't you wish to display the skills honed in this land? Such furtive scurrying betrays your teachers. Stand firm!"

He still didn't comprehend that Cherinmark wasn't a place pulled from his favorite novella. Why bother striving for glory when it would only be depicted by reports destined to crumble inside three-ring binders? Surviving was the only skill that mattered there, and while she might not have mastered it, the land had been a better teacher than any expert from the Foundation. Any displeasure from it would be more keenly felt too.

Following wet noises, she found a shaggy beast curled into one of many alcoves. A sparking socket illuminated both fallen intruders and executed guards in a scene as gruesome as any found in the red reactor far below. Just another contingent to perish before she did. At least Galowyn was a welcome sight, cursed form aside. He must need every bit of protein to sustain mass—misproportioned though the results were, as though hastily assembled from different predators who shared only a distant ancestor—driving his feast on body and bioplate both.

"Shouldn't have put you in this position," she said, patting his flank despite the blood welling beneath fur. Organs that rumbled like heavy machinery were almost comforting compared to her foe's complex. "Sorry we didn't get the chance to humiliate your family either." Messy eating continued unabated, bones cracked for marrow as her sides ached. "Find the key when you're done, then get Gregor to close the gap before reinforcements come through. You're in charge if I don't make it."

That turned his elongated snout at last, one black, glassy eye reflecting her own grimace. Any more artful goodbyes were unnecessary. Theirs was a discontent that lingered, then commingled, festering alongside what Aster carried and Gregor wrought until the sum could never be satisfied. Besides, Galowyn wouldn't have followed her if he wanted a peaceful life. She patted his flank once more before turning back to the row of pillars separating her from the Foundation's most miserable experiment in human resources.

Leon Harken, Champion of the Assistant Director for Exotic Resource Allocation, seemed fully recovered from the leg wound that would have stymied most warriors even if it failed to rupture an artery. Mealworm hurried to keep pace as he strode down the darkened throne room without a limp, keeping cover between herself and that quieted-but-dangerous blade.

"I aspired to a duel worthier than this," he said while staring at the throne's gentle dip. "There is nothing prideful in the character of war on Earth, where even the bravest can be mowed down without recourse. But I see there are naught but cowards here as well."

"Who raised you?" she asked from a safe distance. At least as safe as anywhere in the room could be. "War has never been about anything but crawling through mud and shit no matter if it's arrows or missiles flying overhead."

"No! The reports speak of legends who choose the most arduous paths here, of heroes who set their power to accomplishing great deeds. Everything must be different in their wake."

"Or else you wasted years choking down pills, I get it. Honest."

"Or else there is no land which understands that conflict should not be managed by machine and separated by miles!"

Sighing in the face of such naivety would be a relief, but Mealworm's grimace merely solidified as blood ran from her mangled ear. "Even if it was like that at some point, we already polluted their possibilities too much. No treaty will ever convince them to forget about heavy artillery or scramjets' screaming for long."

"I'll force them if I must." This time it was Leon's turn to point his blade at her. "Announce yourself, and let us resolve this duel with some sliver of decorum."

Mealworm's ghost urged her to raise her weapon in turn, hand sliding down from shoulder to wrist. "Just another grub wriggling in Cherinmark ever since the Foundation turned tail."

"Announce properly!"

"Didn't anyone warn you that names are an OPSEC hazard? I'm surprised they let you keep one."

Leon clearly had more to say—proving that he indeed belonged in this world of windbags, misguided as other beliefs might be—but Mealworm rushed him rather than surrender the initiative again. Even skilled duelists could be felled due only to differences in mass or reach, and she was no duelist in the first place. Middle blows were deflected despite their urgency. Lower strikes were evaded despite her near-invisible blade. Knowing its length, seeing her grip, he clearly inferred plenty about Mealworm's movements through gap-lit gloom.

Knowing the same about his blade made it no easier to absorb counterattacks. That subtle hum numbed her hands when transmitted through spirit steel, and sheer force left her arms worse off when parrying became blocking by necessity. Let it never be said that the Foundation wasted effort in small measures. His was a precise, practiced swordsmanship that might well prove effective against battle-hardened knights or reclusive bladewives. It certainly worked against hands better suited to a rifle.

One strike of many knocked Dead Moon on Silent Water away in a less intentional shedding than before. The ghost grabbed for it as she lurched away from his follow-up, ethereal fingers barely snagging pommel. A stomp connected nevertheless. Bone snapped inside her leg, accompanied by pain the stim refused to dull in its fulsome collection. She could only hiss through clenched teeth while taking her blade from herself once more; just in time too, as CALLOW ELECT careened down with 'to first incapacitation' forgotten.

There was nothing to do but endure. Mealworm's free hand steadied against steel, joined by two more from her ideal, best-preserved self, a form that surely wouldn't have ended up in this position for how hot the stim burned inside. Withstanding the amber blade's thousand-cicada cry proved impossible though. Spirit steel shattered. Ethereal form dissolved. Flesh and bone cleaved too, forearm splitting apart as she barely diverted the blow from anything more vital—not that her hand hanging from scrap muscle was much better an outcome.

Leon began dragging her by the tunic toward the gap. Whether busy hunting or being hunted, neither Foundation agents nor Galowyn were in sight. None stopped him from throwing her through.

Transit was instant. It would have been painless too, save for the wounds causing so very much. Mealworm came through on her knees, smearing blood across white tiles that matched white walls. All lay beneath the observation balcony encircling a chamber near ballroom scale, where floodlights threatened to obscure the guns, cameras, and fingers all pointed down. Trying to push herself upright mostly splattered blood onto otherwise sterile surfaces. Every jostle of her useless hand hurt worse than the last. Broken bones should count themselves lucky instead of complaining so.

Even hearing so much of her native tongue at once was disorienting; its speakers, diverse in their plainness compared to any gathering in Cherinmark. Vertebrae throbbed again. Her good hand tightened on a blade with little edge left intact. Hunched, dirty, broken, she certainly wasn't being heralded as a lost child returned at last—even worse than being called a traitor, she was now the other. Made unrecognizable by an alien land's embrace, made anomalous by tomes that dictated such matters. Being shot dead would have been preferable to chatter of "containment team on standby" and "follow your engagement parameters."

Leon's own return had a triumphant air about it, as if one fight could secure control of a fortress she barely managed or armies she merely advised. Still, high was his head, puffed was his chest. He barely acknowledged her presence before looking up to where his Director must be standing and raising CALLOW ELECT to acknowledge whoops from a few more impassioned researchers.

Then she stabbed him in the flank.

Armor sheared easier than amber, allowing her weapon's new teeth to bite tender flesh in just as intentional a foul as before. Leaving it embedded there, she grabbed his metal collar and half-spun, half-dragged him down to keep rifles at bay, then headbutted him square in the face. One more. Twice more. Again, until cartilage no longer crunched so loudly. Only the most hands-on training ever prepared anyone for that, though it was still a losing proposition. His return blow sent every sight shifting and separating, and another made half her vision go black. Skull crunched worse than cartilage as it turned out.

She never should have let Kieh Teh Kor Rang fill her brain with nonsense about stilled rivers requiring release. Or maybe sending that assassin away was the blunder despite resenting victory's means. Maybe she simply shouldn't have assumed so much when stoking a conflict without precedent, but maybe she didn't regret any of it either. Leon's gauntlet raised once more as a muzzle stained with gore emerged from within stark blue light, snuffling to and fro in the periphery of her good eye.

"Next time, kill me like you mean it!" she shouted before reaching back for Galowyn's enormous paw, which yanked her through the gap as rifles finally found firing lines. But what were a few more bullet holes? Even if his offer of a new position absent recriminations was genuine, she didn't want it. Not from those careless hands. Each new cadre of aspirants would know less, understand less, ignorant of how many bones were buried on the other side as they chased ever-elusive promotions. No, leadership needed to finish the last war before even thinking about stealing what they used to take for granted.

What transpired over the following years ended up deeply classified in servers buried even deeper underground. Body counts throughout DSU#31 were nulled on spreadsheets. Expenditures to support royal lines in GENEROUS FIG were compartmented at the Secretary General level before being wiped clean. The files containing Mealworm's history and hoarded name burned too, lest "leadership" ever take interest in the debacle. Whether any on the far side cherished her for it was a different question, and one she never sought to answer, for warring under delusions of love is foolish indeed.

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »