illusory heaven space and outside

  It was all for Judecca's sake. All for her. Tabitha repeated these words, a refrain, ad nauseam 'til Nina thought she'd vomit up more ichor because Tabitha was so sickly lovely for her, lovey-dovey and hateful and head over heels and singularly focused, clawing back across the empty fields where Judecca's scrying had guided them beforehand.

  Didn't she know? This wasn't standard reality. Tabitha could retrace whatever path she wanted. It'd be different, even if it looked the same.

  There had been an idyll before the storm Tabitha had incited, hateful, so hateful, so filled with hatred towards humanity's enemies. Now there was no idyll.

  As soon as they got over the first fence the spray-scattering of bullet fire choked them. Sophie's magic shielded them but the bullets bit at it; her shield t-t-ticked away Lyme-liminally, slowly, surely, so slowly so surely as slowly and as surely as Kaninchen's magic made conditions more adverse for them, raised the difficulty.

  So exciting! Route 13's existence was black magic blighted by a bullseye, a targeting reticle, so many enemies aimed at, honed on them, so many missiles locked and loaded and ready to home towards them, the pressure bubbling, swelling within them, the thread of fate under their skin worm-wriggling and more jealous than everything else ever that it could not yet blossom and burst out, an expanding red rash, all for the sake of the Agnes' Project! Their existence all for its sake.

  Better than the alternative!

  "Tabitha?" Maxine asked. "You are scrying, right?"

  "Yes."

  Tabitha did not create any guidelines for the rest of them to follow. She went forth, forwards, forwards to slay the vile enemy! It was invisible and intangible and needed to be processed and parted and would consume and destroy fickle girls who weren't so good with magic who tried to process and part it but whatever! Tabitha could do it!

  Since Tabitha was scrying Nina didn't. She kept her perception honed. The image of the katzbalger pierced through her. She gouged herself on it.

  Nina was ready for anything.

  Was this a lull? Peace? Reduced fire? Sophia sent laser fire through a fence before Tabitha could cut it down.

  What awaited them? This strange space had been naive to them. Now, it was not.

  The Eye of Avalon took a good look at them. The fibre optic tangle of drones revved out, Lernaean.

  "Gumacheon," Marzena said. Their teacher turned around. She handed him a second VIS 150. When did she make that? While they all were arguing? Wasn't she on her phone? Could she copy items? That seemed unlikely. But she was a copy herself, wasn't she? Marzi was an imperfect copy of the original and ideal Marzena, unblemished by the Babylon War and its relics.

  "Um, thanks," Young-hoon said. "And thanks for still having faith in me, despite everything."

  "Who said—I had faith in you?"

  Young-hoon did not respond to that. He pointed his new gun to the sky.

  He realised he could not do whatever Marzena did to aim. Maxine said something under her breath; Young-hoon's bullets gained a potency.

  What of Kaninchen? For the three minutes they'd all spent walking, Nina had thought Kaninchen would continue to be completely and utterly useless. Then Tabitha halted, held a position, told Sarai to set up her sniper rifle and tripod. Kaninchen stood next to her. Some curse crept out of her body. Something twisted, turned, to a single point. Molten metal cascaded, dripped in inverse up.

  Kaninchen held a single screw. It was oversized, to be clear, around the length of her arm. She aimed it upwards. Distance was cancelled. Some drone in the medium-range ensemble snaking towards them was impaled. It fell, still tethered. When Nina blinked it had sunk into the warped space or otherwise disappeared.

  That was all K, wasn't it? No Haze House legacy had been present here.

  It was all K—

  "So rude," RNGOD said.

  Nina didn't have time for this. She readied her artillery fire again.

  "But I'm back. You figured it out, didn't you? The first mystery, of so many more to come. What is the up with Kaninchen?"

  'The up'? Nina gritted her teeth. Some curse blazed about her. More familiar with the contours of the space, the drones in the air denser, she hit two.

  "But many more mysteries are to come. If you acceded to one of my wonderful wonderful deals, chose one of three random perks per level, you'd be so advantaged. The world would be, too. My knights will be the force that shatters the Nobility. They're so accursed. You should curse them. If you can face my knights, you can face down the Nobility! You can make a better world, Nina, me and you and Kornelia and Society's Therapists and the Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands."

  'The up'? Shut the fuck up?

  "You're so indecisive, right? So many are offering themselves to you, but you're having trouble being a nice loyal girl who only chooses one."

  Leuce had already drawn a magic circle.

  "Short range or sky?" Leuce asked Tabitha.

  "Sky," Tabitha said.

  Streams of fire spread about them. Leuce bombed one with her formless magic, anti-ballistic. Leuce then drew a glaive from nowhere. She cut the air; with each cut, a missile detonated early, until the last. Some anomalous barrier had been spun around that missile, like a lipid bilayer, and Leuce became stuck on it, fell back—Maxine caught her.

  Emi, with the little magic Nina had inflicted on that axe, charged forward. Haio followed her, although Haio wasn't combat capable.

  Nina was ready again. Her artillery fire burst into the air again. The world felt sicker and sicker around her again. Two drones cracked and broke again.

  Sophia aimed at the air. A laser cut through the missile Leuce had failed to destroy.

  The instant she did so a dozen and then a dozen dozen loitering munitions appeared in the sky around them. Nina drew the katzbalger in her head. Suicide drones should kill themselves, kill themselves, kill themselves, over and over again deserving nothing of life. She impaled herself over and over again deserving not even to breathe but they all blew up far away from Nina, so it was okay. It was okay.

  "Nina, Nina, Nina, it's not that I don't want to make a deal with you, but I'm a very busy guy. I might not be able to contact you again for a while. My attention might be drawn away by some very important things, some very difficult operations. I'll be back every week 'til you listen to me but it'd be nice if we could get this done as soon as we could. We have so much to offer you..."

  Tabitha was by Sarai. Sarai was aimed and all-set up but her hand shook on the trigger. Maxine whispered things to help her but it wasn't cohering. Tabitha quaked, impatient. Did she chide Sarai? That was leadership, wasn't it, keeping order? (Aine hadn't ordered her to do anything. Nina acted all on her own and she was so lost.)

  Tabitha ran off in the same direction as Emi. The regulated and standardised sword magic summoned a pixel sword into her hands and she behind her went into the maelstrom of fibre optic cables and surveilling and killing drones hectic, Heracles. She threw herself forward so ardent to destroy the enemy, Heraclitean fire, infecting, infesting her, leading her into adversity.

  "If you have so many brilliant brilliant choices, and you can't decide, then how about you freeze one of three perks until the next round? If so many girls are offering and surrendering themselves to you, how about you freeze one?"

  A short ranged missile fell upon Tabitha. If she breached it with her magic it'd burst, burn through the shielding, maybe kill her. Emi hit it with the blunt edge of the axe with distant cancel and it died out. Tabitha breathed in, moaned and merped out a thank you.

  "One of three frozen."

  Nina stood away from everyone, and fired again at the drones. Young-hoon and Marzena and Sarai were together with real guns, pistol, pistol, rifle. The girls shot well, Young-hoon as though it was his second time shooting clay pigeons at some country resort, so lazy, as if in each case there weren't more than enough real anomalies and enemies about them! He'd never faced adversity in his life! Never struggled in his life...

  "The Nobility is totally evil, Nins. Their plans for you, totes evil! This has been ordained, and that's been ordained, and it's been ordained that there are six, and that there are thirteen, and that she suffers and struggles at the bottom of hell."

  Leuce fired on time on the off-beat, alternating with Nina. Sophia scattered ball lightning into the air, missile defense.

  Nina was doing her part to save Judecca. What more did RNGOD want? Could he not be a proper enemy, and openly wish for her failure? What was all of this chatter about abstractions like 'perks,' and all of the ridiculous talk about therapy and helping and helping? Why did he not use his great power over the curses to reach out through the black pixel screen and crush her? He was selfish, he coveted Nina—"yes, Nina, so many covet you!"—and so mysterious and not blatant enough.

  She and Leuce alternated. Malediction. Formless bombardment. Malediction. Formless bombardment. Malediction. Loiterers in the air were dispersed by Sophia's ball lightning; the missiles too. Soon they would grow resistant. Kaninchen and Sarai were less frequent with their screws and sniper fire and the luminance of Sophia's shielding wavered and grew fainter.

  Was this progress? Not yet. It wasn't defeat. She supposed that the other girls were doing better now that they didn't have a choice. Judecca's life and integrity was on the line. How long until the space processed her? How long before it stole away her humanity, and lurched into reality through her mind?

  Names that had not been said: Aine attended to Aria, who remained out of sorts. When Nina looked at Aine, she began to fidget, as if Nina was going to tell her to just leave Aria to suffer.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She looked like she'd actually do it. If Nina told her "leave her", Aine would do it. Why? Shouldn't it be the other way around? April had told Nina to leave the other four whenever they couldn't keep up so many times, endless, repeating. The other four preferred that it was April who helped them, anyway. Nina, anomalies, Scylla, Charybdis, always losing, no way to win. What was worthwhile about listening to Nina?

  Nina gave Aine a thumbs up and faked a smile although her body moved out of concert with itself (like Haio's had), half her efforts preparing round after round of artillery, the other half holding the katzbalger, impaling Nina 'til she drew her last breath, witch on trial, and tribulation, and—

  Aine kept attending to Aria, which was good. Nina couldn't hear what they were saying. Her extrasensory perception was directed at the sky, again. Sophia's ball lightning had faded out; the warped space knew it. The Perceval drones in the sky each fired and forgot a missile. Let each missile go and kill; it was out of the warped space's purview now. Just kill! Just kill to connect to reality…

  Each missile packed with spinning blades and shrapnel. Humans had fashioned them to kill the denizens of rooms without killing the room. It was humanitarian! It allowed for the killing of high-value ultraterrorist targets without the toppling of tower blocks.

  They were not in a room. They were in some torus of motorway and open field between London and Luton.

  Nina drew the katzbalger.

  "I mean, if I had nothing to offer you, you wouldn't be using it, right?"

  She cancelled distance.

  "You wouldn't be using blades for brawling from our brilliant brilliant blacksmiths in Welter and Waste."

  Her enmity and the curse within the sword reacted with the enmity of the space. The missiles activated as she touched them. Shrapnel and spinning blades scattered in the distant sky. A missile was a missile, though. It came closer so quickly.

  Leuce was on the off-beat. Not cursed her glaive cut through the missiles and did nothing else. Sophia too with her lasers. Kaninchen and her screws were a different story. If Kaninchen counterattacked and a missile lay too close then it'd explode and it'd nail bomb burst and then—

  Unneeded hypothetical. They were barely in time.

  Aria seemed agitated, now. Aine glared at her.

  "I'm trying to help!" RNGOD said.

  The swarm of drones in the distant sky remained dense, but it ached, slowed, stilled. With the data they had given it planned a new attack. The path to where Tabitha thought the centre of space was (ill logic but whatever) was blocked on the ground by the medium-rangers.

  A little lost Nina raised her hand. The enchantment within the axe Emi held strengthened. She prayed that she or enmity did not swallow Emi.

  "Aine," Sophia said.

  "Huh?" Aine said.

  Sophia handed Aine a ball.

  "The shielding magic is going to deplete for them," Sophia said. She pointed at Emi and Tabitha in battle. "It's a relay, carry it to them."

  But what about Aria?

  Aine ran. Aria remained sullen.

  "Your magic," Sophia said to Aria.

  "It's not mine," Aria said.

  "Ah?"

  Whatever Aria was feeling, nobody but Aine had time to talk to her about it.

  "Today's cold is just the start. Perhaps you aren't familiar, since you aren't from the surface of the Earth, but their summers are illusory, and ill. Illwinters, they've taken to calling them, or deep winters? Cold so thick in the middle of summers the warmth of your boundless and simply affectionate bonds does not reach them."

  He stressed this theme or mystical assonance. What was Judecca's ice magic to RNGOD?

  "What's a sword to Reiphontes Nyalius, General Order Destructor? Kyeheh. There are many fascinating things in this world, Nina McNamara. March Kauzaki."

  Some green cutting thing missing all texture and rigidity flittered about in the sky around the drones. It broadcast to them. Sophia began to shield them all and then made contact with the warped space and in a get it out get it out fading frenzy immobilised. She didn't puke, though. Only Nina was that gross.

  Nina shielded herself since her shield would corrupt others. Leuce shielded herself on the off-beat. It headed towards Young-hoon and Maxine and Sarai.

  As it emerged Kaninchen tapped it with the point of her oversized screw. It faded out.

  "But you're right. Ice is thematic. Knights are thematic. You're in a script. You're all in a script. Heading to so many dungeons, devices in so many crypts..."

  "If I negate—" Kaninchen said.

  "Don't you fucking dare," Sarai said. "Don't delete her. Return her to us whole. I don't want her stained or sullied even if that's your fucking intent, Kaninchen."

  "Okay. Fine, be that way," Kaninchen said. "The space is using its aspect against you all, though! Didn't you want me to be one of you? This little old lady, another one of the girls?"

  "We're almost the same age," Maxine said.

  "I'm not sure that's true. I think you just want that to be true because Young-hoon is my age."

  Did they have time for this?

  "That's not objectionable."

  "Oh, yeah, it's a four year age gap, right? That's totally fine."

  Nina hadn't heard that term before, except she had? August and May had spoken about it, once.

  "I mean, my father is 113, and my mother is 44, so, I'm not judging you two," Kaninchen said.

  "Do we have time for this?" Sarai said.

  "Can we double back on that?" Young-hoon said.

  "You're employed by Haze House and that's shocking to you?" Sarai said.

  "Was I supposed to—"

  "Herzog Haze looks very young! He's very handsome. He was born in 1954, and if you're top of your year graduating any of the Five maybe he'll love you and see potential in you and take you as one of his darling brides. Not you, cause you're a guy, but you know what I mean," Sarai said. "Now shut up, shut up and shut up and shut the fuck up and let me snipe."

  Her gun no longer faced the sky; Sarai aimed it at the mid-range ensemble.

  Some drone snaked with the thin fibre-optic towards Tabitha. Sarai obliterated it.

  "And she had said she didn't need anyone's help," Sarai said. "She had said all~ of that."

  Nina knew that Sarai did not want to look at the aspect of the warped space. Nina could endure that, though. Nina had sickened herself with so many strange aspects! She remained Nina. Devalued, so deplorable, she could not be made worse, or less human, evil magic in an empty shell.

  Young-hoon and Marzena and Maxine followed Sarai and switched their efforts to shooting down the medium-rangers at medium range, covering fire for Emi and Tabitha and Haio and now Aine handling the ordeal at close range.

  Aria was inert. Nina, Leuce, Sophia and Kaninchen were left to deal with the enemy in the air and its illicit concept illegal aspect.

  "If I look back at the Eye of Avalon attachment..." Nina said to nobody.

  "So many are looking at you! This green battlefield is a red room being broadcast LIVE ON THE BLACK WEB! The first of many to come! So many to come! The crowd goes wild! Nina does insane conceptual shit that'll fry their normie brains!"

  Nina's extrasensory perception in the air expanded. She didn't know whatever specifics Haio did, but she'd listened to so many lectures on the latest military technology from Reiko. She had an insider view.

  "They're content to view it through their screen. Better her than them! And they're confused? Why doesn't she take RNGOD's wonderful wonderful deal? Why does she want to face down Society's Therapists instead of that icky and awful Haze House? Might she want to do both in the end?"

  She might.

  "What! That's mad! That's not good for your health, Nina."

  There were no insider secrets to what Nina was doing, however. Preternatural surveillance and channeling units were designed to boost the power of bloodbound human allies and to completely deny the enemy.

  "Love's good for your health, right? Deny the enemy, love love. Love love love...."

  It would be difficult to hijack it. Curses were something everyone tried their hardest to keep out. Even if she used the image of an arrowhead or a katzbalger or some n-th dimensional construct to wedge it open, she'd be at a severe disadvantage.

  Ah, but Nina, wasn't the warped space filled with enmity and hatred for humanity? Tabitha theory declared it so.

  That was just one interface! It had others. It needed some other interface to get its aspect and illegal concepts into the preternatural technology. Military companies tried very hard to prevent anomalies from harnessing their work. They always failed, though, and why? Who knew.

  "I won't take your deal," Nina said to RNGOD, through the threads of the black web. "I'll take your advice, though."

  "Wow, really?" Reiphontes said.

  "Yes," Nina said.

  Nina was so used to curses impaling her, but what of a blessing? What of the most blessed thing, perfection? The magic or psychic power or sheer niceness of a certain girl?

  Nina felt up her own beating heart.

  Many covet you. Many covet you. Many covet you.

  "I love you," Reiko had said. So many times! And to show her love she had—

  A lance of golden light emerged from Nina's body. Whatever was ill ceased to be, beneath it. Nina ceased to be herself.

  Aria sickened. She locked eyes with Nina.

  Yes! It was the same burden. She is perfect, and you are not!

  She aimed it, a wedge, at each Eye of Avalon.

  What damage did Nina incur using it? It was negative damage, hurtful healing. This broken thing became less of anything the more she conceded to Reiko.

  It flew. Nothing resisted it.

  The preternatural technology within the Eyes of Avalon fell under not Nina's influence.

  "Push it away," Nina rasped out. Sophia nodded. She looked at it. She understood it. Since Nina was not in Sophia's head, she couldn't describe it as anything. The illicit concept was pushed away.

  Nina let go of the lance of light. She put it to the back of her mind. One day the nicest of all nice girls was going to overtake her; and wouldn't everything be better for it? Why seek a third path, with this quest for the Red Eyes and Incarnadine Hands? Why not just give up, like Reiphontes kept telling her to? Give in to Reiko...

  She wouldn't give up. Aching she readied another round of artillery fire. The swarm seemed less dense. Leuce followed her lead on the off-beat.

  "You don't have to hurt yourself," who had said that?

  Emi with the axe and Nina's magic rushed about neck-cutter. Her ardour turning into the symbol of a standard fire spell Tabitha burnt the tangle of fibre optics. If Haio and Aine had managed anything but allowing Sophia's magic to protect them from the constant crackling of machine gun shots and the bomb-bursts of loiterers then Nina had missed the chance to perceive it.

  "Ah, I have to go now!"

  Nina should thank her God for that. (Reiko.)

  "So mean. Ah, but you don't know who or what's coming for you. I tried to warn you. You barely even replied. So many want you! So many stalkers."

  Hearing that Nina saw Judecca, then. Her body on the dewy grass by Tabitha, Emi and Aine away.

  "Trials and tribulations and murder mysteries galore, some written by my wonderful colleagues, some not! Are you scared?"

  Through extrasensory perception Nina saw…

  "You should be SCARED."

  Judecca's lips were so frosty. Her own magic rendered her ice incoherent, snow-white, niveated her. Her skin was not pallid, but burnt sienna lost its red and turned raw.

  Then—the connection was cut. RNGOD to Nina. The feeling of warmth that all humans should have.

  Tabitha's plan had worked. It truly had. She had decided this was the centre of the warped space, and it really had become the centre of the warped space, and Judecca had been abducted here and not somewhere they could not find her. How serendipitious.

  Nina drew closer.

  "Are you okay," Tabitha repeated. Judecca's eyes were closed—

  "I saw everything."

  "You did?" Tabitha said.

  "Everybody's stupid flirting. All of its pinhole eyes... I saw through it all, it showed me," Judecca said.

  Tabitha halted. Sarai closed the distance, burst to their side.

  "And," Judecca said.

  "You shouldn't. Illicit. Illegal. Just because your fucking talent comes from that place it doesn't mean..."

  "I won't let you out," Judecca said. It was a whisper but it was broadcast.

  Tabitha's sword flashed. Sarai grabbed her. "What do you mean," Tabitha said.

  "Hearing everything, I can't! I cannot. I can't allow it. I can't allow you to be—"

  Judecca rose, suddenly. She looked back at Nina.

  "I mean," Judecca said.

  Nina never did pay attention to her, before.

  "What do you mean?" Tabitha said.

  "This is stupid. Pathetic. From both of you. Let's just go," Sarai said.

  "Go where," Judecca said. She stared into the empty air, or at Nina? That couldn't be right.

  "Out. Forward. Luton. Milton Keynes? Come on. Judy."

  "But we'll—we'll lose. Assuredly. If. I can't even say it, haha. No. Wait. It's watching.."

  The warped space?

  "It's watching right now. Its attention, all focused on us."

  Sword, neck, Tabitha shouted: "I'll kill you!"

  Aria and Haio again, but weren't they friends? Nina felt…

  Judecca, of course, shouted back, "You can't!"

  Her neck was on offer. Judecca was so unnecessary. Did Nina know that? That knowledge appeared in Nina's head, then, so connected. Judecca had run the numbers. Route 13 contained four members capable of covering all of the bases of preternatural combat: Nina Inoue, Leuce Muricide, Sophia Ethelsbury, Judecca Victoria-Vanagloria. Telepathic communication, interfacing, close ranged combat, long ranged combat, self-restoration, shielding... everyone else had at least one defect. Three out of thirteen remaining was probably fine, right?

  Judecca had been paying attention, didn't Nina understand? Real close attention. She had planned and planned and planned and had realised, the moment she slipped and fell, that everything, all of this, would lead to—

  "It has to be her," Judecca said. "March Inoue. Kill me..."

  Something swapped her away from Judecca. She appeared on the ground beneath Nina and the image of the katzbalger, which was immaterial, so how could she be beneath it? Sternocleidomastoid and shoulder blades showing, everything above the neckline of her silver dress offered up to Nina, she said, "I love you," as Reiko had.

  She said, "I love you in a straightforward way, as Emiliya Senklerova and Aine Hunlun do. So it has to be you. Do it. Take that blade..."

  "I—"

  "It has to be you. I won't let them out."