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Panther1945 Continuing from In The Name Of Greed art 2, Chapter 1 . In the first of the cities set to be destroyed by the soon-to-be-giant Reptiles, Lady Aurora's former captives struggle to reach Princess Selena and persuade her to put an end to Aurora's vile scheme. But might she be too proud, and too enamored of the brutal delights that Aurora offers, to listen?
(Note: The entire 23K+-word story would not fit in the text block below, so what's posted there is but a preview. Please download the PDF above to enjoy the whole piece.)
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT -->
In The Name Of Greed 2, Chapter 2
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
-- 4 --
Aurora beamed into the forward area of her dressing room just in time to see the mounted proximity sensor begin to beep. Princess Selena Soccandrica Septemia was just on the other side of the door.
Aurora opened it before the other could take the chime. “Your Highness, you look splendid!” And, admittedly, she genuinely did. Her outfit was much the same as Aurora’s own. Only her armor was gilded in platinum, a metal the royal family hoarded for themselves. The body-glove underneath was a deep purple, the other half of the royal family heraldry. Of course, it came with a few extra features. Such as the ability to speak a command phrase that would make her armor detach itself. Or another to force its Quantum Mass Regulator to rescale her to normal size and shut down. And, perhaps most importantly, an absolute inability to target Aurora with her on-board weapons or even fire them in her immediate direction.
“Of course you would say that, Viscountess.” All the humor in Septemia’s smile was no doubt fake. “You invented it, after all!” The pair shared a short laugh, to which the Princess added the qualifier, “Didn’t you?”
Aurora choked out another laugh. “Everything you are about to experience is my brain-child, and mine alone. Speaking of, before we go down to the planet, would you care to enjoy the more refined hospitalities of my ship?”
“Didn’t we already have that conversation?” Septemia frowned. “I’m not here to inspect the relation of your pleasure boat’s trifles to the Kal’Vesniok business territories.”
Aurora hid her scowl. “Of course. Then let me show you how to control the eyebots. They’re located in a storage tube in the back pack alongside the power core. There’s several hundred of them, pre-shrunk. They assumed full size when released…” The entrepreneur never thought she’d be so happy to have engineered the class of drones pre-loaded into Septemia’s suit to be incompatible with EDO’s network. When she’d enacted that plan, for this and all other guest suits, it was with an eye on preventing anyone from hacking or reverse-engineering their way into her A.I. assistant’s memory. But now, after what she had just seen in her stateroom, she had to ask herself… Had EDO started keeping secrets from her? The question lingered in the back of her mind, unanswered, as she provided the Princess with her final tutorial.
Septemia had the care, or the paranoia, to listen to all instructions and run through the deployment of her first eyebot and synchronization of its camera and her visor, before asking questions. “The mind boggles to think that these unthinking things will be operating at a different mass ratio to myself regardless of what size I am. How do you ensure the safety of your clients with so much matter manipulation going on behind their backs?”
“I assure you that their suits have been stress tested under every condition imaginable.” Her face hidden by her helm, Aurora clicked on the secret spy-feed. Granting her a view from Septemia’s bot. It was looking at one of the pieces of art on display in the dressing area’s common room. “I’m so sure, in fact, I’ll even tell you of the happy ending to an accident regarding my own niece during one of my very first group trial runs.”
“You could simply tell me the technical aspects,” Septemia sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of following them.”
“I believe in this case a real-life example will be more illustrative. If I may…” Aurora exited her changing room and moved into the common area. She found herself a seat and leaned against it, thereby claiming the floor without insulting a Princess by sitting down first. “My last test run took the form of a family romp through a volcanic atoll. Hundreds of islands set about concentric rings. Dozens on dozens of cities and smaller settlements to seek out and destroy. The populace of this civilization, if you care to know, had been randomly selected to be just shy of a space-age in terms of their technology. Fairly advanced missile systems, flight-capable warcraft, and so on. Though the civilians were programmed to be a bit immodest in the area of personal coverings, owing to the warm climate and general passivity.
“My sister, Eneberia, and her daughter, Nebula, were among those who joined me in stomping the denizens of this place flat. The Q.M.R. suit of the time was less vigorously armored than the ones we’re wearing. Impenetrable, but still capable of allowing one to feel some pains if hit powerfully enough in critical areas. Dear Neb made a popular target for the island’s defenders. I should have realized that, being so much smaller and younger than the rest of us, she’d be a prime target upon which to test offensive strategies. Panicked by the pain, she accidentally shrank herself down to normal size. Nearly the height and weight of a full-grown Human male, but with a child’s fear and lack of experience in self-defense.
“My alert systems informed us immediately of the action. But having shrunk so small in such a populated area, blazing with counter-fire and explosions, it was still a hunt to pin down her location. I wish to emphasize that this was a failure of tactics, not technology. Myself, my sister, and the others truly tore into the little pests then. Clawing every building. Smashing every armored tank underfoot. Scooping up handfuls of Humans for the fastest means of removing them from a crowded board: eating them.
“In my perfectly justified rage, I swallowed poor Neb. Again, the safeties did their job. Alerting me that I had just consumed Neb’s transponder. I admit the retrieval of my dear niece was somewhat… unpleasant… But once out in the world again she made an instantaneous recovery. The emergency energy shield did its job superbly. Only afterward did my niece inform me, with an embarrassed giggle, that before I’d swallowed her I actually stepped on her! Twice!” Aurora ended her story with a bought of nostalgic laughter.
What she had left out of this iteration of the tale was the presence of the girl’s brother. A fool of a brat whose name wasn’t even worth remembering. He’d been barred from coming along to World Underfoot Resort for some trivial act of misbehavior, but young ‘Neb’ had convinced him to stow away aboard their mother’s star yacht, and spent the first part of the destruction of the atoll with the boy secreted away in the folds of her Q.M.R. suit. Her shrinkage to human scale was not an accident, it was an assassination. She held on tightly to her bother until the crushing and swallowing was completed. Without a suit of his own, he perished under the acids and pressures to be found in Aurora’s stomach. Thus, the girl was freed from having to share any inheritance from her mother. A mother she was now bound by oaths and mutually spilled blood to help Aurora dispose of, when the time was right.
Septemia looked at her as though stifling a yawn. “The only thing I take from that story is that your technology does not account for user error. Now, I shall tell you a story? Imagine that in the state room of my ship, there is a very long and very ornate desk. Upon that desk lays a rubber stamp, its handle carved of the purest gahala wood and its face sculpted in the most esteemed likeness of the Royal seal. This stamp is sitting next to a pile of plasti-sheets that have been meticulously prepared with verbiage which would grant you final approval to own and operate World Underfoot Resorts, its technologies and franchise options as you see fit. The wording legalistically flawless and most agreeable to your treasure vaults. This very important stamp is also sitting next to a very particular stamp pad. The ink of which is embedded with a proprietary blend of electrically-conductive components that will ensure the Claim Keepers back on Homeworld will acknowledge anything stamped with it as legitimate and non-fungible.
“Now imagine that, by happy accident, I left this ink pad open as I got up from my desk and other business to prepare myself for this meeting. As a result, the ink pad is drying out. Every minute of my time wasted is another minute closer to the moment when there will be no ink in the pad at all. The only substance in my quarters, in my ship, in this entire sector of space that can grant your desires. Can you guess how this story ends?”
Aurora swallowed a snide comeback before it could poison her smile. “I can show you where your decision to press that stamp to those plastic begins. EDO! Beam us down to Site One at the Princess’ pleasure.”
The thought that her servant might find yet another reason to ‘modify’ her command riled her as much as her superior’s threat. Fortunately for the both of them, the room’s embedded vocalizer meekly said, “Of course, Mistress. I stand ready for immediate transport. Her Highness need only provide me with a time.”
Septemia said one word: “Now.”
. . .
The island city of Viatorroc was bordered to the north and south by great seas, and to the east and west by wide straits that marked the endpoints of two vast continents. A mighty mountain range, known locally as the Gods’ Bones ran from one continent to the other, and the island was no exception to this upheaval of topography. The island itself boasted eleven mountain peaks. These peaks had all been formed -- through carving or expansion -- into majestic ziggurats, each the size of a township or larger. Each was the possession of the Royal family, a noble Great House, or the clergy that granted the blue-bloods their power. Within them, Viatorroc’s high society lived lives of sequestered security. Free to enjoy grand theaters, elaborate garden parks, elaborate sports stadiums, and other diversions.
Below the Ziggurats, in descending order of economic and social importance, lived the city’s remaining population. The cramped-together homes of a growing middle class tapering down to the overpopulated slums of the foothills. Intermixed with the homes, the signs of technological revolution. Countless factories spat steam and black smoke. Steam trains ran up and down lines of mighty steel which zig-zagged up and down the slopes, and circled the mountain bases on their way to elaborate bridges that fed their bounties to the surrounding lands.
Military forts and steam-powered cannon placements dotted the mountains and shores both. These were patrolled by steam-powered tanks and treaded personnel carriers. Men -- only men! -- armed with the latest semi-automatic rifles traveled in these, or drove the armored thunder-lizards, some of which were more than large enough to function as living siege platforms. The majority of these mighty beasts, some as tall as five-hundred feet at the shoulders, were to be found along the southern and northern shores of the island. Where lay the largest military bases. Including an intimidating naval fleet docked in hundreds of ports to the north and south. Wide canals tunneled through the bare mountain rock provided quick passage through them to shore up defense to either side.
The east and western shores were fortified with tall, steel-reinforced walls. Within them were embedded more cannons, and their tops were wide as roads. More than enough room for a contestant traffic of defensive vehicles and beasts. Each wall had many openings to allow traffic from the continents through as many bridges. The tops had bridges too, long enough to provide direct access to mountainside defensive platforms. All of the bridges engineered to a level of a grandeur matching the ones which connected the Ziggurats to themselves and to each other.
Above all of these features flew the airships and bi-planes that ringed the city in a circle of, promising death to all who might threaten its shores.
So far as any of the occupants knew, Viatorroc and its surrounding territories stood as the beacon of civilization for the region for hundreds of years, and its founders could be traced back to colonists hailing from a great northern empire long fallen to debauchery and barbarism. In truth, none of said citizens could state precisely where this past was located. Nor had the city existed for any longer than a month. Barely long enough for the congestion of coal-age pollution to build up a thick, ever-preset miasma around the base and midlines of the mountain range. Not one high enough to affect the genteel lives of the upper crust, nor rise above the level of the early morning fog that presently clung to the lowlands and surrounding waters.
This was the city that Ishamel and Chellah found themselves moving towards. Having been spotted by a tradesman who was on his way to ply his wares at the city. Below them lay the precision-carved granite of one of the bridges that connected mainland to island. The four partially feathered, partially spotted legs of the thunder lizard they were riding were a mere fifty feet long. Its back was more than large enough to support a caravan’s worth of collapsible stands draped over its sides on long, thick ropes as well as a long living module anchored to the side on angled struts carved to accommodate the creature’s curvature. Its neck, at least as long as its legs, was topped by an almost absurdly small head by Ishmael’s reckoning. And that was topped by a driver’s box draped in colorful banners.
The children were standing atop this living caravan’s back. Holding onto the guard rails of a boardwalk overlooking the thunder-lizard’s starboard side. The drop from the bridge to the waters below was even longer than the one from the rail to the bridge. The young boy could only see how trivially small this plunge, lethal to either of the children, would be to the monsters on route to destroy everything and everyone nearabout. The foreknowledge was far more sickening to the boy’s stomach than the gentle, boat-like rocking of the platform.
One of their hosts emerged from a rounded living module, a young woman plump of form and face wearing a shawl covered in shards of metal over a brilliant green dress with a wider skirt than Ishmael had ever seen before. She was carrying a small plate of freshly-baked cookies which she brought forth to offer the siblings. They each took one, with their thanks. After which she looked up to the driver’s box -- Ishmael had been told that the driver was Mrs. Anistra’s brother -- before offering a contented sigh. He could make out the woman’s words, but only through a thick accent. “I oohp we dun’ miss de stert oh da festivalittahs! Bat we make goot tahm! Almoss make oop waat we stoop far to pook yoo oop! Weel be mana funs! Yoo see!”
The lady retreated back into the module, calling out instructions for the younger relatives to be found within. Leaving the siblings to ponder darker things than a late arrival to a celebration. How late, or how soon, would these festivities turn to ash?
Chellah looked up at him. “She so’s nice, brother. They all are.”
“Yes, they are,” he said, with a heart that was already breaking for them.
“So why did you tell me not to…” She looked around to make sure no one else was listening. Then whispered the words, “... tell them about the evil lizards. If they knew, they could get away.”
“Because if they didn’t believe us, they might have left us to walk here.” He pointed up to the barrier wall, behind which the sounds of music were beginning to trickle. The recesses into which defensive cannons and ranged soldier nests were set was not so terribly different from the Wall he’d grown up near. “And once we got here, we’d have to get past them. I’m not happy about using these good people like this. But if we don’t, there’s no way they’ll survive what’s coming. Wherever they may go.”
. . .
Orange light faded from Septemia’s eyes, and she found herself standing in an alleyway built for people at least half her height. There were no windows in the brick walls to reveal her presence to any of the occupants. And plenty of noise to cover the sound of her armor sliding over itself as she got her bearings. Before her a parade was moving down a wide road lined in precision-fit granite, generous sidewalks to either side. Men in military dress, stiff and copper and black with bronze fitting marched in practiced precision, their free hands swinging rigidly across shoulder-mounted rifles whose sides were laden with steam-based propellant canisters. Within their number, calvary men rode two-legged dinosaurs, their feathers fluff to maximum pomp and their foot claws brightly polished. The cobbles underneath the Princess’s feet rumbled from larger footfalls in the distance to the left, the direction the men were moving. To the unseen right, the sounds of a brass band.
Men and women in more brightly colored dress --- made of stiff and shimmering fabric that might have been a primitive silk -- cheered them on and waved flags of black and copper, emblazoned with some icon that she could not make out. Yet. Between their legs and around their dress skirts ran over-eager children, giggling madly as they pursued their own games and diversions over the pointless display of patriotism. The boys in short pants and jackets, the girls in shorts and vests. Practically every head had a hat on it of some sort. From the flat caps of the boys to the long and tactically unwieldy toppers of the soldiers. The girls wore bonnets and the women hats of a remarkable array of widths, heights, and plumages.
The smell was awful; a foul carbon taste was embedded in an early morning fog that was only being partially dissipated by the throng’s doings.
It had been just over one since she’d told ‘that woman’s’ irksome artificial cohort she’d wanted to be beamed down ‘Now.’
“I told you you’d appreciate returning to my original timetable,” Kal’Vesniok tittered, no doubt in reference to Selena’s surprise early arrival. A polite swipe, or an attempt at asserting control of the proceedings? “These people have no idea they run through this ‘annual’ founder’s day carnival every week. They’re only patterned for an eight-day memory cycle. But they are surprisingly punctual as to when it starts.”
Selena did not look back to face the speaker. “And this was so terribly important for me to see because…?”
“Because I knew Your Highness would appreciate seeing how detailed these people are in their actions and reactions in standard day’s activity. Thus, when we begin our own ‘festivities,’ you will appreciate all the more the intuition and improvisation they will bring to their defense. Our destruction on these people will not be like stepping on a hill of mindless and harmless ants. World Underfoot Resorts promises adventure! Challenge, danger, excitement! These shall be our constant companions, leading us both to a more satisfactory conclusion.” Her laugh sounded as practiced as the rest of the speech. “At least, until we achieve an insurmountable size advantage. Then it’ll just be like stepping on ants.”
As the hostess prattled on, the make-up of parade-goers changed. Gone were the soldiers, in came a platoon of costumed entertainers. Many were dressed in baggy costumes; garish collections of color that contrasted ghoulishly white faces with exaggerated smiles. Some of these performed tumbling acts or mutual acts of exaggerated violence. Others stepped from the formation to target children for feats of legerdemain; pulling large collections of flowers from their sleeves or coins from the youngsters’ ears. Jugglers cavorted with pins, balls, and assorted dross; apparently the crowd conflated strangeness of items with skill at keeping them in the air. Then there were the ‘animal folk. Walking on stilts that brought them up to a height with the Saurelians, these lithe acrobats were dressed up in detailed animal costumes, including a few designs that weren't far off from the calvary dinosaurs. Enameled masks provided the finishing touched of each feral visage.
One of the more elaborate get-ups took the form of a man riding small triceratops, false legs draped over the sides of the saddle and the true, stilted ones shuffling about under sewed-on barding embossed with golden threads. Little puffs of steam erupted from its beaky nostrils, hinting at powered apparatuses that animated its fabric-flocked ears, mouth and eyes.
“That would be our cue,” the hostess laughed. “Before we begin, do you need any further reminders on the use of your tools?”
As if the previous ‘safety lesson’ she had just minutes ago completed had not been a large enough waste of time. This was hardly her first time welding plasma weapons, personal surveillance gear, or even autonomic translators. “Of course not. Let us begin, at last.” Selena did not wait for objection or compliance. She strode forward into her future victims, past decorated heads that barely reached her waist if that, to take a place within the marching throng. The band was easy to see from her new vantage, oom-pa-pa-ing their way past the alley as the vile Viscountess joined her. Ahead of them both, the street opened out into a vast, circular space. A gathering area of some sort. Along the sidewalks, men and women and children waved wildly at the pair of them, grinning like idiots. Shouting what she could only assume -- without bothering to activate her translator -- to be compliments on her ‘costume.’
She smiled back and waved, all the while imagining how their wide-eyed faces would look smeared out along her heel.
. . .
Ishmael and Chellah were on their own again, within a smoggy metropolis far more crowded and noisier than he’d ever seen his home being. Somewhere behind them, the merchant family had parked their giant beast and set up shop. The pair would have been utterly lost, if not for the occasional word from EDO-3, who provided occasional notes as to which direction they should be moving. The automaton kept his speech limited, however, owing to a desire not to be observed speaking without a body. It was helpful that the main flow of pedestrians was headed in the right direction: a concourse that EDO had promised the lizard women would have to pass through.
They knew they were on the right course when he heard the music of a parade. From there, it was a simple matter of keeping to the static wall of onlookers and back-tracking the parade. Chellah stopped now and then to glimpse a look at the strange collection of outfits the people of this lace wore, occasionally having to lift up the brim of her hat, which was a few sizes too big for her.
By means of a parting gift, the children had been given some second-hand clothes to ‘liven up’ their day at the festival. Black trousers and a threadbare jacket for Ishmael, a faded blue dress and frilly under-skirt for Chellah. The baggy hand-me downs were not particularly comfortable, particularly the hard leather shoes. But they were a good bit less conspicuous than red zip-up jumpsuits that they continued to wear under these gifts. The hats they’d been granted were identical, as Ishamel had insisted upon as a means for the children to find one another if parted. Round-topped things called ‘derbies’, Chellah’s given clumps of some whispy material around the brim as a feminine flourish.
It was a new and not pleasant thing, to only be able to see so far in front of oneself. Under the foul-tasting fog, they could only see a story or two up the buildings to their left. They could barely make out the buildings to the right side of the street at all other than as faded silhouettes. In either case, these tall edifices were block-like in their faces, crammed together such that were no alleys between them; the only gaps were carved by intersecting streets. High, black fences of wrought iron fronted each of them, the vertical bars topped with anything from spear-heads to winged lions.
At strategic points along the sidewalk stood men in pale tan uniforms with thick belts and thin straps that ran from their left shoulder over to a holstered at their right side. Brass-tipped batons were mounted to their left. The little four-point shields over their chests, duplicated on their metallic helms, marked them as some sort of peacekeepers. For all the good such weapons would do against the threat they faced. One, with a thick jaw and titled nose, watched the children as they passed him but said nothing.
In the street itself, line after line of young women marched, the first row of which held aloft a banner with words he could not read. One of them waved at the children. Ishmael felt of blush of sorrow for her. She seemed so happy, but she’d die like the rest of them if ‘Lady’ Aurora and her superior were not stopped.
“The Princess and my mistress are approaching from the opposite side of the concourse now,” EDO-3 informed them.
Ishmael lifted his wrist-unit up to his lips, wary of spies. “I still don’t see this ‘con-course,’” he whispered. “And we’ve been following this line for a while now.”
“You should be seeing it shortly.” A few steps later, there came an unexpected dip in the street. He and his sister had stepped off of the sidewalk and into a large, circular space. So large, in fact, that several of the fancy, gapless houses fit in the long, wide curve that led to an intersecting street. The equator of this circle was filled with the parade. The rest with hundreds of Humans, whose attentions were divided by the parade, snack stands, small theater boxes, carnival games and other diversions. A one-woman band, her body laden with more instruments than Ishmael thought any one person could play at once, attempted to ply eyes and ears away from the grander spectacle. Somehow managing a full musical performance via springs, straps, airbags and other tricks.
The majority of the right side was taken up by a number of merchant booths, temporary structures protected from an unseen sun by wide umbrellas or angled awnings. Ishamel couldn't make out what was being sold, but could hear bits and pieces of fierce haggling sessions. Wafting in from the left came the smell of smoke much sweeter that trapped within the gritty air: Above a large brick firepit, heavy with blazing firewood, large bird-legs were being roasted. Turkey, or something very similar. The hot legs were being wrapped in paper and handed the moment they were finished.
Chellah’s mouth curled into a hungry smile, and she started moving towards the fire-pit.
“Stick to the parade,” he told the girl, taking her hand to keep her on track and also safe from being separated from him by the people who were zipping around one part of the place to another without a care for the people they stepped in between. A squad of soldiers marched their way, some of whom were riding strange creatures that would have captured his complete attention in some other, happier life. At the far end of his shortened vision, he believed he saw not two giant animal-people, but several.
Chellah pointed to a pair of silhouettes that might have been talking to each other. “Is that them?”
“I don't know. We’ll have to get closer.”
--FOR MORE, DOWNLOAD THE PDF ABOVE--
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT --->
Panther1945 Continuing from In The Name Of Greed art 2, Chapter 1 . In the first of the cities set to be destroyed by the soon-to-be-giant Reptiles, Lady Aurora's former captives struggle to reach Princess Selena and persuade her to put an end to Aurora's vile scheme. But might she be too proud, and too enamored of the brutal delights that Aurora offers, to listen?(Note: The entire 23K+-word story would not fit in the text block below, so what's posted there is but a preview. Please download the PDF above to enjoy the whole piece.)
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT -->
In The Name Of Greed 2, Chapter 2
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
-- 4 --
Aurora beamed into the forward area of her dressing room just in time to see the mounted proximity sensor begin to beep. Princess Selena Soccandrica Septemia was just on the other side of the door.
Aurora opened it before the other could take the chime. “Your Highness, you look splendid!” And, admittedly, she genuinely did. Her outfit was much the same as Aurora’s own. Only her armor was gilded in platinum, a metal the royal family hoarded for themselves. The body-glove underneath was a deep purple, the other half of the royal family heraldry. Of course, it came with a few extra features. Such as the ability to speak a command phrase that would make her armor detach itself. Or another to force its Quantum Mass Regulator to rescale her to normal size and shut down. And, perhaps most importantly, an absolute inability to target Aurora with her on-board weapons or even fire them in her immediate direction.
“Of course you would say that, Viscountess.” All the humor in Septemia’s smile was no doubt fake. “You invented it, after all!” The pair shared a short laugh, to which the Princess added the qualifier, “Didn’t you?”
Aurora choked out another laugh. “Everything you are about to experience is my brain-child, and mine alone. Speaking of, before we go down to the planet, would you care to enjoy the more refined hospitalities of my ship?”
“Didn’t we already have that conversation?” Septemia frowned. “I’m not here to inspect the relation of your pleasure boat’s trifles to the Kal’Vesniok business territories.”
Aurora hid her scowl. “Of course. Then let me show you how to control the eyebots. They’re located in a storage tube in the back pack alongside the power core. There’s several hundred of them, pre-shrunk. They assumed full size when released…” The entrepreneur never thought she’d be so happy to have engineered the class of drones pre-loaded into Septemia’s suit to be incompatible with EDO’s network. When she’d enacted that plan, for this and all other guest suits, it was with an eye on preventing anyone from hacking or reverse-engineering their way into her A.I. assistant’s memory. But now, after what she had just seen in her stateroom, she had to ask herself… Had EDO started keeping secrets from her? The question lingered in the back of her mind, unanswered, as she provided the Princess with her final tutorial.
Septemia had the care, or the paranoia, to listen to all instructions and run through the deployment of her first eyebot and synchronization of its camera and her visor, before asking questions. “The mind boggles to think that these unthinking things will be operating at a different mass ratio to myself regardless of what size I am. How do you ensure the safety of your clients with so much matter manipulation going on behind their backs?”
“I assure you that their suits have been stress tested under every condition imaginable.” Her face hidden by her helm, Aurora clicked on the secret spy-feed. Granting her a view from Septemia’s bot. It was looking at one of the pieces of art on display in the dressing area’s common room. “I’m so sure, in fact, I’ll even tell you of the happy ending to an accident regarding my own niece during one of my very first group trial runs.”
“You could simply tell me the technical aspects,” Septemia sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of following them.”
“I believe in this case a real-life example will be more illustrative. If I may…” Aurora exited her changing room and moved into the common area. She found herself a seat and leaned against it, thereby claiming the floor without insulting a Princess by sitting down first. “My last test run took the form of a family romp through a volcanic atoll. Hundreds of islands set about concentric rings. Dozens on dozens of cities and smaller settlements to seek out and destroy. The populace of this civilization, if you care to know, had been randomly selected to be just shy of a space-age in terms of their technology. Fairly advanced missile systems, flight-capable warcraft, and so on. Though the civilians were programmed to be a bit immodest in the area of personal coverings, owing to the warm climate and general passivity.
“My sister, Eneberia, and her daughter, Nebula, were among those who joined me in stomping the denizens of this place flat. The Q.M.R. suit of the time was less vigorously armored than the ones we’re wearing. Impenetrable, but still capable of allowing one to feel some pains if hit powerfully enough in critical areas. Dear Neb made a popular target for the island’s defenders. I should have realized that, being so much smaller and younger than the rest of us, she’d be a prime target upon which to test offensive strategies. Panicked by the pain, she accidentally shrank herself down to normal size. Nearly the height and weight of a full-grown Human male, but with a child’s fear and lack of experience in self-defense.
“My alert systems informed us immediately of the action. But having shrunk so small in such a populated area, blazing with counter-fire and explosions, it was still a hunt to pin down her location. I wish to emphasize that this was a failure of tactics, not technology. Myself, my sister, and the others truly tore into the little pests then. Clawing every building. Smashing every armored tank underfoot. Scooping up handfuls of Humans for the fastest means of removing them from a crowded board: eating them.
“In my perfectly justified rage, I swallowed poor Neb. Again, the safeties did their job. Alerting me that I had just consumed Neb’s transponder. I admit the retrieval of my dear niece was somewhat… unpleasant… But once out in the world again she made an instantaneous recovery. The emergency energy shield did its job superbly. Only afterward did my niece inform me, with an embarrassed giggle, that before I’d swallowed her I actually stepped on her! Twice!” Aurora ended her story with a bought of nostalgic laughter.
What she had left out of this iteration of the tale was the presence of the girl’s brother. A fool of a brat whose name wasn’t even worth remembering. He’d been barred from coming along to World Underfoot Resort for some trivial act of misbehavior, but young ‘Neb’ had convinced him to stow away aboard their mother’s star yacht, and spent the first part of the destruction of the atoll with the boy secreted away in the folds of her Q.M.R. suit. Her shrinkage to human scale was not an accident, it was an assassination. She held on tightly to her bother until the crushing and swallowing was completed. Without a suit of his own, he perished under the acids and pressures to be found in Aurora’s stomach. Thus, the girl was freed from having to share any inheritance from her mother. A mother she was now bound by oaths and mutually spilled blood to help Aurora dispose of, when the time was right.
Septemia looked at her as though stifling a yawn. “The only thing I take from that story is that your technology does not account for user error. Now, I shall tell you a story? Imagine that in the state room of my ship, there is a very long and very ornate desk. Upon that desk lays a rubber stamp, its handle carved of the purest gahala wood and its face sculpted in the most esteemed likeness of the Royal seal. This stamp is sitting next to a pile of plasti-sheets that have been meticulously prepared with verbiage which would grant you final approval to own and operate World Underfoot Resorts, its technologies and franchise options as you see fit. The wording legalistically flawless and most agreeable to your treasure vaults. This very important stamp is also sitting next to a very particular stamp pad. The ink of which is embedded with a proprietary blend of electrically-conductive components that will ensure the Claim Keepers back on Homeworld will acknowledge anything stamped with it as legitimate and non-fungible.
“Now imagine that, by happy accident, I left this ink pad open as I got up from my desk and other business to prepare myself for this meeting. As a result, the ink pad is drying out. Every minute of my time wasted is another minute closer to the moment when there will be no ink in the pad at all. The only substance in my quarters, in my ship, in this entire sector of space that can grant your desires. Can you guess how this story ends?”
Aurora swallowed a snide comeback before it could poison her smile. “I can show you where your decision to press that stamp to those plastic begins. EDO! Beam us down to Site One at the Princess’ pleasure.”
The thought that her servant might find yet another reason to ‘modify’ her command riled her as much as her superior’s threat. Fortunately for the both of them, the room’s embedded vocalizer meekly said, “Of course, Mistress. I stand ready for immediate transport. Her Highness need only provide me with a time.”
Septemia said one word: “Now.”
. . .
The island city of Viatorroc was bordered to the north and south by great seas, and to the east and west by wide straits that marked the endpoints of two vast continents. A mighty mountain range, known locally as the Gods’ Bones ran from one continent to the other, and the island was no exception to this upheaval of topography. The island itself boasted eleven mountain peaks. These peaks had all been formed -- through carving or expansion -- into majestic ziggurats, each the size of a township or larger. Each was the possession of the Royal family, a noble Great House, or the clergy that granted the blue-bloods their power. Within them, Viatorroc’s high society lived lives of sequestered security. Free to enjoy grand theaters, elaborate garden parks, elaborate sports stadiums, and other diversions.
Below the Ziggurats, in descending order of economic and social importance, lived the city’s remaining population. The cramped-together homes of a growing middle class tapering down to the overpopulated slums of the foothills. Intermixed with the homes, the signs of technological revolution. Countless factories spat steam and black smoke. Steam trains ran up and down lines of mighty steel which zig-zagged up and down the slopes, and circled the mountain bases on their way to elaborate bridges that fed their bounties to the surrounding lands.
Military forts and steam-powered cannon placements dotted the mountains and shores both. These were patrolled by steam-powered tanks and treaded personnel carriers. Men -- only men! -- armed with the latest semi-automatic rifles traveled in these, or drove the armored thunder-lizards, some of which were more than large enough to function as living siege platforms. The majority of these mighty beasts, some as tall as five-hundred feet at the shoulders, were to be found along the southern and northern shores of the island. Where lay the largest military bases. Including an intimidating naval fleet docked in hundreds of ports to the north and south. Wide canals tunneled through the bare mountain rock provided quick passage through them to shore up defense to either side.
The east and western shores were fortified with tall, steel-reinforced walls. Within them were embedded more cannons, and their tops were wide as roads. More than enough room for a contestant traffic of defensive vehicles and beasts. Each wall had many openings to allow traffic from the continents through as many bridges. The tops had bridges too, long enough to provide direct access to mountainside defensive platforms. All of the bridges engineered to a level of a grandeur matching the ones which connected the Ziggurats to themselves and to each other.
Above all of these features flew the airships and bi-planes that ringed the city in a circle of, promising death to all who might threaten its shores.
So far as any of the occupants knew, Viatorroc and its surrounding territories stood as the beacon of civilization for the region for hundreds of years, and its founders could be traced back to colonists hailing from a great northern empire long fallen to debauchery and barbarism. In truth, none of said citizens could state precisely where this past was located. Nor had the city existed for any longer than a month. Barely long enough for the congestion of coal-age pollution to build up a thick, ever-preset miasma around the base and midlines of the mountain range. Not one high enough to affect the genteel lives of the upper crust, nor rise above the level of the early morning fog that presently clung to the lowlands and surrounding waters.
This was the city that Ishamel and Chellah found themselves moving towards. Having been spotted by a tradesman who was on his way to ply his wares at the city. Below them lay the precision-carved granite of one of the bridges that connected mainland to island. The four partially feathered, partially spotted legs of the thunder lizard they were riding were a mere fifty feet long. Its back was more than large enough to support a caravan’s worth of collapsible stands draped over its sides on long, thick ropes as well as a long living module anchored to the side on angled struts carved to accommodate the creature’s curvature. Its neck, at least as long as its legs, was topped by an almost absurdly small head by Ishmael’s reckoning. And that was topped by a driver’s box draped in colorful banners.
The children were standing atop this living caravan’s back. Holding onto the guard rails of a boardwalk overlooking the thunder-lizard’s starboard side. The drop from the bridge to the waters below was even longer than the one from the rail to the bridge. The young boy could only see how trivially small this plunge, lethal to either of the children, would be to the monsters on route to destroy everything and everyone nearabout. The foreknowledge was far more sickening to the boy’s stomach than the gentle, boat-like rocking of the platform.
One of their hosts emerged from a rounded living module, a young woman plump of form and face wearing a shawl covered in shards of metal over a brilliant green dress with a wider skirt than Ishmael had ever seen before. She was carrying a small plate of freshly-baked cookies which she brought forth to offer the siblings. They each took one, with their thanks. After which she looked up to the driver’s box -- Ishmael had been told that the driver was Mrs. Anistra’s brother -- before offering a contented sigh. He could make out the woman’s words, but only through a thick accent. “I oohp we dun’ miss de stert oh da festivalittahs! Bat we make goot tahm! Almoss make oop waat we stoop far to pook yoo oop! Weel be mana funs! Yoo see!”
The lady retreated back into the module, calling out instructions for the younger relatives to be found within. Leaving the siblings to ponder darker things than a late arrival to a celebration. How late, or how soon, would these festivities turn to ash?
Chellah looked up at him. “She so’s nice, brother. They all are.”
“Yes, they are,” he said, with a heart that was already breaking for them.
“So why did you tell me not to…” She looked around to make sure no one else was listening. Then whispered the words, “... tell them about the evil lizards. If they knew, they could get away.”
“Because if they didn’t believe us, they might have left us to walk here.” He pointed up to the barrier wall, behind which the sounds of music were beginning to trickle. The recesses into which defensive cannons and ranged soldier nests were set was not so terribly different from the Wall he’d grown up near. “And once we got here, we’d have to get past them. I’m not happy about using these good people like this. But if we don’t, there’s no way they’ll survive what’s coming. Wherever they may go.”
. . .
Orange light faded from Septemia’s eyes, and she found herself standing in an alleyway built for people at least half her height. There were no windows in the brick walls to reveal her presence to any of the occupants. And plenty of noise to cover the sound of her armor sliding over itself as she got her bearings. Before her a parade was moving down a wide road lined in precision-fit granite, generous sidewalks to either side. Men in military dress, stiff and copper and black with bronze fitting marched in practiced precision, their free hands swinging rigidly across shoulder-mounted rifles whose sides were laden with steam-based propellant canisters. Within their number, calvary men rode two-legged dinosaurs, their feathers fluff to maximum pomp and their foot claws brightly polished. The cobbles underneath the Princess’s feet rumbled from larger footfalls in the distance to the left, the direction the men were moving. To the unseen right, the sounds of a brass band.
Men and women in more brightly colored dress --- made of stiff and shimmering fabric that might have been a primitive silk -- cheered them on and waved flags of black and copper, emblazoned with some icon that she could not make out. Yet. Between their legs and around their dress skirts ran over-eager children, giggling madly as they pursued their own games and diversions over the pointless display of patriotism. The boys in short pants and jackets, the girls in shorts and vests. Practically every head had a hat on it of some sort. From the flat caps of the boys to the long and tactically unwieldy toppers of the soldiers. The girls wore bonnets and the women hats of a remarkable array of widths, heights, and plumages.
The smell was awful; a foul carbon taste was embedded in an early morning fog that was only being partially dissipated by the throng’s doings.
It had been just over one since she’d told ‘that woman’s’ irksome artificial cohort she’d wanted to be beamed down ‘Now.’
“I told you you’d appreciate returning to my original timetable,” Kal’Vesniok tittered, no doubt in reference to Selena’s surprise early arrival. A polite swipe, or an attempt at asserting control of the proceedings? “These people have no idea they run through this ‘annual’ founder’s day carnival every week. They’re only patterned for an eight-day memory cycle. But they are surprisingly punctual as to when it starts.”
Selena did not look back to face the speaker. “And this was so terribly important for me to see because…?”
“Because I knew Your Highness would appreciate seeing how detailed these people are in their actions and reactions in standard day’s activity. Thus, when we begin our own ‘festivities,’ you will appreciate all the more the intuition and improvisation they will bring to their defense. Our destruction on these people will not be like stepping on a hill of mindless and harmless ants. World Underfoot Resorts promises adventure! Challenge, danger, excitement! These shall be our constant companions, leading us both to a more satisfactory conclusion.” Her laugh sounded as practiced as the rest of the speech. “At least, until we achieve an insurmountable size advantage. Then it’ll just be like stepping on ants.”
As the hostess prattled on, the make-up of parade-goers changed. Gone were the soldiers, in came a platoon of costumed entertainers. Many were dressed in baggy costumes; garish collections of color that contrasted ghoulishly white faces with exaggerated smiles. Some of these performed tumbling acts or mutual acts of exaggerated violence. Others stepped from the formation to target children for feats of legerdemain; pulling large collections of flowers from their sleeves or coins from the youngsters’ ears. Jugglers cavorted with pins, balls, and assorted dross; apparently the crowd conflated strangeness of items with skill at keeping them in the air. Then there were the ‘animal folk. Walking on stilts that brought them up to a height with the Saurelians, these lithe acrobats were dressed up in detailed animal costumes, including a few designs that weren't far off from the calvary dinosaurs. Enameled masks provided the finishing touched of each feral visage.
One of the more elaborate get-ups took the form of a man riding small triceratops, false legs draped over the sides of the saddle and the true, stilted ones shuffling about under sewed-on barding embossed with golden threads. Little puffs of steam erupted from its beaky nostrils, hinting at powered apparatuses that animated its fabric-flocked ears, mouth and eyes.
“That would be our cue,” the hostess laughed. “Before we begin, do you need any further reminders on the use of your tools?”
As if the previous ‘safety lesson’ she had just minutes ago completed had not been a large enough waste of time. This was hardly her first time welding plasma weapons, personal surveillance gear, or even autonomic translators. “Of course not. Let us begin, at last.” Selena did not wait for objection or compliance. She strode forward into her future victims, past decorated heads that barely reached her waist if that, to take a place within the marching throng. The band was easy to see from her new vantage, oom-pa-pa-ing their way past the alley as the vile Viscountess joined her. Ahead of them both, the street opened out into a vast, circular space. A gathering area of some sort. Along the sidewalks, men and women and children waved wildly at the pair of them, grinning like idiots. Shouting what she could only assume -- without bothering to activate her translator -- to be compliments on her ‘costume.’
She smiled back and waved, all the while imagining how their wide-eyed faces would look smeared out along her heel.
. . .
Ishmael and Chellah were on their own again, within a smoggy metropolis far more crowded and noisier than he’d ever seen his home being. Somewhere behind them, the merchant family had parked their giant beast and set up shop. The pair would have been utterly lost, if not for the occasional word from EDO-3, who provided occasional notes as to which direction they should be moving. The automaton kept his speech limited, however, owing to a desire not to be observed speaking without a body. It was helpful that the main flow of pedestrians was headed in the right direction: a concourse that EDO had promised the lizard women would have to pass through.
They knew they were on the right course when he heard the music of a parade. From there, it was a simple matter of keeping to the static wall of onlookers and back-tracking the parade. Chellah stopped now and then to glimpse a look at the strange collection of outfits the people of this lace wore, occasionally having to lift up the brim of her hat, which was a few sizes too big for her.
By means of a parting gift, the children had been given some second-hand clothes to ‘liven up’ their day at the festival. Black trousers and a threadbare jacket for Ishmael, a faded blue dress and frilly under-skirt for Chellah. The baggy hand-me downs were not particularly comfortable, particularly the hard leather shoes. But they were a good bit less conspicuous than red zip-up jumpsuits that they continued to wear under these gifts. The hats they’d been granted were identical, as Ishamel had insisted upon as a means for the children to find one another if parted. Round-topped things called ‘derbies’, Chellah’s given clumps of some whispy material around the brim as a feminine flourish.
It was a new and not pleasant thing, to only be able to see so far in front of oneself. Under the foul-tasting fog, they could only see a story or two up the buildings to their left. They could barely make out the buildings to the right side of the street at all other than as faded silhouettes. In either case, these tall edifices were block-like in their faces, crammed together such that were no alleys between them; the only gaps were carved by intersecting streets. High, black fences of wrought iron fronted each of them, the vertical bars topped with anything from spear-heads to winged lions.
At strategic points along the sidewalk stood men in pale tan uniforms with thick belts and thin straps that ran from their left shoulder over to a holstered at their right side. Brass-tipped batons were mounted to their left. The little four-point shields over their chests, duplicated on their metallic helms, marked them as some sort of peacekeepers. For all the good such weapons would do against the threat they faced. One, with a thick jaw and titled nose, watched the children as they passed him but said nothing.
In the street itself, line after line of young women marched, the first row of which held aloft a banner with words he could not read. One of them waved at the children. Ishmael felt of blush of sorrow for her. She seemed so happy, but she’d die like the rest of them if ‘Lady’ Aurora and her superior were not stopped.
“The Princess and my mistress are approaching from the opposite side of the concourse now,” EDO-3 informed them.
Ishmael lifted his wrist-unit up to his lips, wary of spies. “I still don’t see this ‘con-course,’” he whispered. “And we’ve been following this line for a while now.”
“You should be seeing it shortly.” A few steps later, there came an unexpected dip in the street. He and his sister had stepped off of the sidewalk and into a large, circular space. So large, in fact, that several of the fancy, gapless houses fit in the long, wide curve that led to an intersecting street. The equator of this circle was filled with the parade. The rest with hundreds of Humans, whose attentions were divided by the parade, snack stands, small theater boxes, carnival games and other diversions. A one-woman band, her body laden with more instruments than Ishmael thought any one person could play at once, attempted to ply eyes and ears away from the grander spectacle. Somehow managing a full musical performance via springs, straps, airbags and other tricks.
The majority of the right side was taken up by a number of merchant booths, temporary structures protected from an unseen sun by wide umbrellas or angled awnings. Ishamel couldn't make out what was being sold, but could hear bits and pieces of fierce haggling sessions. Wafting in from the left came the smell of smoke much sweeter that trapped within the gritty air: Above a large brick firepit, heavy with blazing firewood, large bird-legs were being roasted. Turkey, or something very similar. The hot legs were being wrapped in paper and handed the moment they were finished.
Chellah’s mouth curled into a hungry smile, and she started moving towards the fire-pit.
“Stick to the parade,” he told the girl, taking her hand to keep her on track and also safe from being separated from him by the people who were zipping around one part of the place to another without a care for the people they stepped in between. A squad of soldiers marched their way, some of whom were riding strange creatures that would have captured his complete attention in some other, happier life. At the far end of his shortened vision, he believed he saw not two giant animal-people, but several.
Chellah pointed to a pair of silhouettes that might have been talking to each other. “Is that them?”
“I don't know. We’ll have to get closer.”
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