You’d think I’d gotten used to it, but having information hammered into my consciousness still smarted. I motioned for Zephyro to get going, cutting off his objections with a quick “I’ll handle it!”, and we resumed hurrying over the rooftops.
Chris! I thought a third time while jumping across a short gap. It was a 10-meter drop to the street below, by my estimate. I didn’t have time to look.
I landed with a grunt in frustration. Chris always did this. Every single fucking time.
They’d sink their teeth into a new problem, and everything else was chopped liver. Didn’t matter that they would usually get distracted by literally everything, once a problem caught their attention, it was a complete communication breakdown. We’d fought over it a lot. More often than was healthy. More often than I probably should have.
Chris, please. I need you to help me with this, I can’t do it myself.
Boop.
You don’t want to help me? I thought, keeping my mental tone as calm as I could. I knew getting angry at them wouldn’t end well for either of us. Plus, I had promised them.
Boop... Boop!
My next jump went a bit farther than I would have liked, and I landed on the adjacent roof with an annoyed grunt.
Start making sense!
Deep breaths, Sam. Deep breaths. You don’t want to be a bitch about this.
…Please.
Instead of an answer, I received another readout.
I winced at the now familiar sensation.
Beep. Beep.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Still lost, I scanned over the list again. Chris wouldn’t have sent it to me if it didn’t have something to do with my problem. I had to go through it twice before my thoughts snagged on the Electronic Warfare Suite.
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Huh. I’d made that myself, hadn’t I? So maybe I could do it again, and even without Chris. But how?
Beep.
I tried to think of how I’d advanced the mace, or Pharus, as it was called now. The fight was still a blur in my mind, and I idly wondered if this had been the memories the spider had taken. It wouldn’t be the worst outcome.
But thinking about the fight with the spider that stole my memories didn’t help me build myself a firewall, which was something I’d never have believed I’d think one day. I tried to think about how I’d upgraded my CPU, but I already had one of those before I started. Chris and I hadn’t even thought about developing firewalls before. Why would we? There had only been a single computer on the planet, as far as we knew.
So the upgrade route was out.
I slowed down to a jog as Zephyro and I reached a pigeon coop at the edge of yet another rooftop. It was bordering a larger street, and we both needed some time to plan our next moves. Sounds of fighting washed over the edge, mixing with the crackling of fire and distant screams. Again I was reminded of Novus Apex and our hurried retreat from the capitol. Just this time, I’m running into the heart of the city, not away from it.
I rested bent forward, breath coming heavy, and rested my palms on my knees.
“Give me a second,” I said to Zephyro as he came to stand next to me. He nodded, then walked a few steps farther and peered down into the street below. He flinched with every clash of metal on metal, every cut-off scream.
I grimaced. I needed to hurry this up, there were lives at stake. If Zephyro said that getting me to the palace in one piece was important to saving these people, then I’d try to get there as quickly as I could. I still didn’t know exactly what I’d do after, but I could figure that out later. First, I’d have to make sure I arrived at the palace in one piece, preferably with my memories intact.
A firewall… Well, if I didn’t have one of those in my computer, perhaps I could simply build one from stuff in the world, like I had done with Pharus? If Logic was my Wish, and the two behaved anything alike, it was all about concepts. My Torch, the one I’d made in the real world, had been a happy accident. I had been holding a stick, thinking about anything that would drive away wolves, for reasons that were pertinent at the time. My Wish had somehow picked up on those two concepts and evolved the concept of Stick into Stick, but on fire! And so, I’d gotten a torch that never stopped burning.
So perhaps it was as easy as grabbing something vaguely shield-like and thinking about fire and walls. There was plenty to be found of both right around me, I thought with a pained grimace.
Gently, I sucked in a breath, steadying my thoughts as much as I could. Trying to apply volatile divine energy that picked up on what you were thinking was difficult at the best of times, and I had learned early that trying to do it without anything but the clearest of minds was a recipe for potential disaster.
Too many mouths spewed prophecies that would always never come true. Eyes that stared at nothing and everything at the same time, piercing my flesh with their gaze, skin deep, relentless and unyielding.
The memories flooded my mind, collapsing my concentration like the burned-out buildings in the street below. I grimaced, shaking my head to clear my mind again. That was a long time ago. You are better now.
Okay, once more, without feeling. I closed my eyes. A deep breath to still my mind. The divine potency within me surged, announcing my presence to the order of things. I opened my eyes again and pressed my hand to the wall of the coop next to me.
Then I exhaled.
“Oh Come on!” I yelled as the divine energy of my Wish faded into nothing.
Zephyro startled, but I just shook my head.
“Still trying to figure out how to build a firewall. I tried using a real wall, but just wasted some Logic in the process.” I grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t want to waste this stuff, but this doesn’t work like I’m used to.”
He still looked at me as if I’d just told him I was about to transmute lead to gold, but when the expression of wonder passed, he said “Perhaps you need to truly own an object to change it with your Blessing, Sultana? Though I confess I am at a loss as well. No one I know of has ever been able to do something like this, let alone made the attempt.”
“Well, what do I own then?” I asked.
“Well, your body, Sulta—“
“No,” I said, expression fierce. “Never living flesh.” I had learned that very early.
The torch lights the endless sky it points the way for them and for you I will do anything and everyone will come…
I shuddered at the memory.
Zephyro nodded slowly, recognizing the nerve he had touched. I broke eye contact, stared out over the burning city.
“Well, and then there is of course your scepter and the robes I made for you, Sultana.”
I touched the sleeves of my robes. “You made these?”
Zephyro nodded, and he… was he getting flustered?
Smirking, I looked at the clothes in earnest.
They were well-made, and their flexibility had served me well so far. Good range of movement, regal enough to make a good impression (or to stand out in a battle.) Even after I had lost many of the ornaments on our trip to the heart of the city, they still looked imposing enough, underlining my authority.
At the same time, they were form-fitting without being needlessly erotic, which was important to me. I understood that just the right amount of neckline and a little padding around the shoulders could do wonders if you wanted people to believe you were in charge (I wouldn’t have pushed my career to the executive level if I hadn’t,) but show too much skin and people started to doubt your abilities in the boardroom and wondered too much about your abilities in the bedroom.
I also knew that on a battlefield, exposed flesh meant a weak spot the enemy could exploit. I’d once killed a man by stabbing him in the codpiece several times and letting him bleed out. But nobody had been around to see that, so it didn’t show up in the chronicles. Better that way. It was bad PR.
My robes, however, seemed to strike a good balance between imposing, feminine, and utilitarian. Clearly, Zephyro had put a lot of thought into fitting them to the body I’d found myself in. While my new, sand-browned skin still caught me by surprise every time I looked at my hands, reminding me they were dangerously exposed, everything else was well-protected as far as I could see. Even my neck was wrapped in the robe equivalent of a high collar. Sturdy cloth, too. I couldn’t find a single rip or tear, despite all the acrobatics we’d had to do so far.
The biggest problem was that none of it was truly armored. This wasn’t my old power armor. A sharp enough blade would slice it open as easily as it would silk, and I was sure that even if the spider hadn’t webbed my exposed hand, it still wouldn’t have had much of an issue piercing the fabric with those arc-welder fangs.
But still, the cloth offered some protection, and that was enough for the purposes of my Wish.
I closed my eyes, cleared my mind. I focused on the concept of feeling protected, of defending myself, of standing against the assault. I drew on my distant memories of weathering hundreds of cyber attacks, all those years ago. Of how we’d celebrated after.
Somehow, it made me think of Chris, and how I’d hugged them for the first time after they’d shown me what they were capable of. It made me think of Stax, standing in front of me in a ballroom, glove in hand. It made me think of Patti, and how protected I’d felt in her embrace. It made me think of Lorelye’s laughter, and how it shielded me from everything wrong in the world.
I smiled.
Then I exhaled.
The sound of my Wish echoed through the streets, the smoke cleared, the stars shone a little brighter, and for a second, everything was quiet.
Part of the green box was taken from Wikipedia! :)
Also:
Beep! (20K words/10 Chapters ahead)
Beep!