Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #58 – Eye of the Beholder

A thunderous roar shook the sky, sending debris and rubble up in the air. The flak turret shot in a symphony of lead, through dark clouds and fires, aiming at the evasive armored suits floating up above. The Seraphs emerged from the smoke, dancing in a circle around the bunker once again. Three red maverick, four blue herons. A tight formation, sporting equipment for every occurrence. Still, the guns protecting that mountain peak were giving them a harder time than expected. Captain Slaugh Hasegawa lifted off, leading his six underlings behind him, moving in a scattered formation to avoid the cover fire. What was left of the Neodutch army was annoying, to say the least. Despite the unconditional surrender, despite the order to let it go, to let Eastcol and Pangea handle what they couldn’t, they were still resisting. They should have realized sooner how stupid it was. By not surrendering, they chose death. Simple. Easy. Still, whatever possessed them, whatever gave them the strength to fight, was making it harder to advance in the Southern Fringe of what once were territories of New Netherlands. That small bunker on the way to Panopticon was proof of that. Five rapid-fire flak turrets, with an effective range of eight kilometers for hitting flying targets. Heat shields and flares to deflect missiles. Even an impractical heavy railgun, of all things, one that almost ripped an arm off Ensign Kizman’s heron. If that shot found its mark, it would have forced them to retreat to one of the Hikari supply points. If that happened, it would have delayed the final assault on the last military target his country wanted to seize, making his superior officers very angry. Yeah, that wasn’t negotiable – he had to seize the Panopticon Control Center, failure was literally not an option. Panopticon was the brain of a system so entrenched in New Netherlands that whoever controlled it had the power to shut down or remotely operate any device that had a comnet interface and a suitable backdoor. Weapon systems. Trains. Automatic gates. Airports. Banks. Government buildings. Panopticon could see everything. Panopticon could act everywhere. Now, though, with most of the critical infrastructure lost to the swarm, what remained was just a husk of its greatness. Nevertheless, his government wanted access to that husk, no matter the cost. Slaugh didn’t know why, he didn’t even ask. He just needed to fix his field record, after the humiliating defeat at the hands of that plant – the very same plant that was pardoned and given Eastcol citizenship not even one day before. Slaugh found it hard to accept. The source of his woes was not only recognized as a human being, much like that traitor Shao wanted, but also appointed to lead some of their troops on a seedship raid? That was stretching his patience.

Much like that insignificant bunker down there, shooting at the Seraphs with whatever was left of their anti-air machinery. Defiant to the end. Slaugh rolled his eyes in the cabin of his mech. People like those down there made him feel sick. A bunch of dogs that yapped and yapped not to admit defeat, soldiers who would sacrifice their lives for a country that didn’t even exist anymore. Even in the massive mess that the Neodutch army was – full of conscripts and former prisoners sentenced to serve on the frontlines for life – there were still die-hard idealists, like those who were spectacularly failing at hitting his squadron. He glanced at his HUD, at the embedded clock. Almost late. Playtime was over.

“Mad Hounds, here’s Captain Hasegawa. We’ve already wasted enough time. I’m deploying Meteor, cover for me till it’s ready.”

The Seraph’s hands reached for its back storage space, pulling out two halves of an oversized rifle, covering at least three full meters of length. Slaugh stuck them together, secured them, weighed the weapon in his mech’s hands. Lights blinked all around the case, a sight emerged from the red metal. Slaugh clicked on the side of the massive weapon, disabled the safety, trained the barrel on the bunker.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

A sudden roar, the recoil pushed his Seraph back by meters. A cloud of smoke exploded from the back of the rifle, right as a piercing sound shook the air. Something looking like a rocket burst forward at high speed, raining down on the bunker. Suddenly, it was three. Five. Seven. The missile was keeping on dividing into smaller units. The fastest, smallest darts avoided the suppression shots, crashed on the target, drilled holes through it, everywhere on the surface. The slowest, instead, started spreading a transparent fluid, in a drizzle that covered the bunker, the concrete roof, the flak turrets completely, flowing down the holes.

Before igniting in a blaze of destruction.

A tremendous fire, one that enveloped the building, seeped through the cracks, ate the metal, spread like a plague, scorching everything in its path. It entered from the cracks, from the small windows, from the hinges, from the sealed trapdoors. And burned everything it touched, torching it, eating through it without mercy. Clouds of black smoke ascended to the sky, as alarm sirens blared in the morning, as the flak fire died out. As everything fell silent, in an inferno of heat and flames. Slaugh gleed at the sight of that devastation, devastation worth of being immortalized in an epic poem written in his honor. Meteor, the ultimate area denial weapon. One that unfortunately proved useless against the swarm, but was still good enough to hunt down the vermin that festered a land that didn’t belong to them anymore. As the plumes of fire reached the sky, he disassembled the rifle again, bolted it back to the magnetic supports. Witnessing the charred, smoldering remains of the bunker improved his mood. He wished he could have used the same weapon on the plants. If only he was given access to it during his assault on the compound, he would have never suffered defeat against that monster. Slaugh shouted in his communication device, roared into it with glee.

“Target annihilated. Let’s head to Panopticon. ETA T plus six hundred. We’ll rendezvous with the black dog support squadron of Sergeant Zaido there.”

One last glance at what once was an outpost manned by human beings, now just a stretch of cinders and blackened concrete. Everyone had surely died of asphyxiation. Those who didn’t were the unlucky ones. Slaugh shook his head inside the cockpit. Truly a shame that his bosses wanted Panopticon in one piece. He would have loved to unleash hell on it too.

With that last thought gone, he pushed a couple buttons on the control panel, turned on the thrusters. A red streak painted the sky, blasting off full speed ahead, followed by six other tracks shortly after. The Mad Hounds were on the move.

Slaugh grinned under his helmet.

This time, Panopticon was going to fall – no matter the means.

That would have netted him a significant influence on the higher ranks.

Influence he would have used to punish that plant that humiliated him

Even if that were the last thing he did.

**

Primula clamped the armrests of her seat, tried to keep her stomach under control. Their ATV was zooming around a bunch of poorly maintained gravel roads at unfathomable speed, its wheels leaving the ground more often than not. During one specific turn they almost keeled over, with just two tires biting the sand at the same time. Still, the driver didn’t seem fazed at all. His red eye was focused on the way ahead, while the car media station was playing cheerful pop songs, songs the giant kept on a portable drive and that he obtained via questionable means. That included the current album, one that wasn’t supposed to be released till the following month. However, his passengers weren’t in the mood for asking him how he got a copy of it – they had other problems at hand. On the seat to the driver’s right, Mal was trying his best not to throw up, keeping the visor of his helmet open, breathing whatever air was left outside. All while the iron giant, the man known as Dobrio, acted on that steering wheel with the same delicateness as a scrapyard operator. His neck was jacked into the machine, not unlike Chris’s was connected to the computer back on Atropos. Birds of a feather, those two. Mal glanced back a the other three passengers. Primula was still barely resisting, keeping on a brave face as the commander-in-charge of the operation. Felce’s face was green, her breath ragged. Several paper bags were placed at her feet, some of which already full of her gastric juices. Agave, instead, was squeeing like a little kid, enjoying the ride to a level that felt inappropriate, compared to the woes of her sisters.

“Can you go faster, metal man? Please, please, take the next turn on one wheel!”

Felce growled, put her hand in front of her mouth once again.

“Oi, if he does, I’m throwing up on you, idiot!”

Agave peeked out of the side window, gleamed of something akin to joy.

“Woooooo! Is this how jet fighters feel? Is this how piloting Zaiken is? P… please, go faster! Fasteeeeeeer!”

“Sh… shut up! If you really loved speed, you should have released your lymph sooner and let me deal with meatloaf longer, yesterday! You like speed only when I suffer the consequences?!”

“Come on, we both had our fix of his water, right? Stop complaining and enjoy the ride! Haaaa! This is so, so, so Zaiken-cool!”

Dobrio saw Agave in the rear mirror, whistled in approval. Then, he turned his steering wheel a bit too passionately, causing the four other occupants of the modified ATV to bounce all around the chassis. He goosed the throttle, made the combustion engine roar, sing a song he didn’t hear in a while. Driving cars was something he enjoyed thoroughly and was sad he couldn’t do more often. Unfortunately, his taxi had become food for nanos, but that ATV wasn’t half bad, despite being relatively old.

Dobrio used his neural connections to access the map, look at the distance. The Panopticon Control Center was close enough, not even three minutes away. With a bit of luck, they could have arrived before the Eastcol troops. Yet, since he knew his luck was abysmal, he wasn’t counting on that at all. Instead, he checked again the status of the extra piece of luggage that was resting on the legs of the three rhizomes. All parameters good, perfectly fine. It would have been a shame to keep it in the trunk, so knowing that it wasn’t damaged (at least for the moment) was already reason for jubilation. He couldn’t wait to get that gadget out of its case, to finally hold it in his big hands. Mal raised his finger, groaned, turned towards him, catching his attention.

“Say, Dobrio… how are you so… huh, healthy?”

“Huh?”

Mal’s voice turned into a whisper, to try to avoid being intercepted by the three plants on the backseats.

“I’ve heard that those two harpies back there sucker sucked you, yesterday.”

“Nah, they asked gently first.”

“Gently? Felce?”

“Shocking, I get it. It was’t that weird either: water for lymph – the usual deal, twice the fun. They hit good ol’ me with a nice tag team combo. I call it the ‘plant sandwich’, with the beef in the middle and the ‘zomes as the bread. Didn’t see that coming. But, hey, I won a bet against Mimi – she’s never done it with two plants at the same time – aaaand I got twice my share of lymph. My muscles were aching a bit this morning – and my little willy too, Lagash heal it – but it was truly an experience. Good stuff, you should try it out.”

Mal’s brain went back to the previous night, to the green, sticky sludge that sullied his and Prim’s skin. He shivered, let out a low bellow.

“Thanks, but no thanks. One was enough.”

“Your loss. More lymph for me.”

“Seriously, though, how did you even start drinking that… that stuff? It’s gross!”

“Oh, it was just before I sold my head for money. I was hired to smuggle a bunch of lymph cans to the harbor, but, you know how it goes – curiosity, the cat and all that jazz? Eh, I decided to try it once. Just a sip form one can, who would have ever noticed it? And I, huh, went a little too far. Drank half the cans ‘fore I realized it. So, the mob starts hunting poor old me and everything goes to hell, till I find an idiot on the BM that is desperate for a new identity – any identity – before the loan sharks catch him.”

“…so you sold him your face.”

“And my name.”

“…and your name.”

“Huh-uh.”

“Did you… tell him that the mob was on you and wanted your balls, before you went through it?”

Dobrio massaged his chin, snapped his fingers.

“Oh, I knew I was forgetting something! Whoopsie-daisy, how clumsy of me!”

He shrugged, put both hands on the steering wheel again.

“Well, too late.”

“…where is that guy, now?”

“Now? I dunno, I’ve never looked for his remains at the graveyard.”

“Graveyard…?”

“They found him drowned in the bay of New Babylon two months after the transplant, with a fashionable pair of cement shoes. A one out of ten way to die, if you ask me. Too much water.”

Mal fell silent, his appetite for questions quenched to nothingness. That guy was seriously deranged. No wonder Chris and he got along so well – they ticked the exact same way. As the ATV took another sharp turn, Mal felt his stomach leaving his body and performing an air loop, before landing back somewhere inside his abdomen. He kept the act together, trying to control his instinct to throw up. With how much success, though, was debatable. Suddenly, he sensed Dobrio’s hand on his shoulder.

“Huh… you know how to drive a car, I hope.”

“I… do. Not this fast, but I do. Why?”

The vehicle slowed down, while a slit opened up on the car’s dashboard. The steering wheel slid to Mal’s side. Pedals emerged from the floor, right under his feet. Dobrio kept the jacks connected to his neck, while yielding control of the ATV to the guy on his right.

“This baby’s all yours, now. Just follow the arrow on the navigator and we’ll be fine.”

“What?”

Dobrio didn’t answer, he just turned around and snapped his fingers again.

“Deery-dearest? Gavvy-dearest? Can you hand me my bag, pretty-please?”

“Now?”

“Huh-uh!”

Felce groaned, joined forces with Agave’s tendrils to move the gigantic piece of luggage over the seat, all while Mal was slowly taking a hold of the vehicle, driving it at a slower pace (much to Agave’s dismay). Dobrio pulled a lever on his side of the dashboard. A window on top of the armored ATV opened up, letting the sky get a peek at them. Dobrio disconnected his jacks, plugged the cords into the dashboard again, revealing a small display.

“Deery, I need you to look at this screen and tell me when the first beep-beep dot enters the closest circle.”

“Why me?”

“Because Mal’s driving and you are sitting in the middle, so you can look at the radar better than him or any of your sisters. Gavvy was my first choice, but she’s too stashed on the side and can’t see it that clearly.”

“Geez, what’s my gain?”

“I’ll let you drink my water again tonight. Full course, from entrees to dessert.”

Felce licked her lips, a smug grin opened on her face.

“You know what, deal.”

Dobrio nodded, unfastened his safety belt, stood up on his seat. He reached for the top window, went through it, got a breath of fresh air through his filters. Then, he unzipped the bag, grabbed its content by the handle. And, finally, pulled it out with a giggle.

An impressive, foldable, brand-new New-Netherlands-manufactured needle gatling gun, with its long rolling magazine falling down inside the ATV’s body. Dobrio caressed the barrels, put his finger on the trigger, weighed the weapon. A Pangean model would have been way more elegant, but it would have broken the illusion that they were operating as a Neodutch amok commando. Still, it was sturdy, reliable, heavy enough to handle the recoil and, much to his delight, destructive enough to squash a couple mosquitos. Bullgelder. That was the name he settled on, after debating on how a worthy successor to his beloved cowmower could be christened. A weapon to surpass them all, one able to emasculate stallions by the sheer power of its presence. Now, bullgelder was not a custom piece and missed many of the aesthetic adjustments he personally made to his dear cowmower, but, it was close enough.

“Time for the baby’s first bath.”

Dobrio adjusted his bearing, pointed his new toy to the sky, all while Mal was still driving the ATV up the mountain road. He glanced upwards, in the direction of a dozen black dots. They were moving in the distance, slowly hovering around thirty, maybe fifty meters above ground.

“Deery?”

“Still far.”

The rhizome’s voice sounded muffled to his sensors, but was clear enough that he could recognize it. He kept his eye trained on the shapes, now slightly bigger. Four. Eight. Twelve. Fifteen. They were fifteen. All black.

“Deeryyy?”

“Not yet!”

Arms. Legs. Wings. They were Seraphs, Seraphs of the ‘dog’ variety. Dobrio squinted his eye, stared at their formation, watched them look at something. He turned in that direction, glanced on his right. There, the mountain range went down, allowing him to catch a glimpse of a fortress, a compound of cracked concrete dotted with several flak cannons, some of which destroyed or heavily damaged. The Panopticon Control Center. The ultimate destination of that trip.

“Now, meatloaf!”

Felce’s voice thundered from inside the ATV. Dobrio raised the gatling gun again, trained it on the closest Seraph, a Seraph that didn’t even notice their rapid approach.

“Say cheeeese!”

The pilot of the black ‘dog’ had just a couple of instants to recognize that something was wrong. Instants that made it impossible for him to react, to see it coming. A rain of supersonic needles blasted from the rotating barrel, hissing through the air, piercing through the metal, skewering him alive, breaking through the core. The thrusters lost their power, the aimless mech boosted against another teammate, one last death reflex that made the corpse push the wrong lever.

Causing both of them to plummet to the ground, yielding to the tyranny of gravity. And break down with a massive bang, in a sound of thrashed metal.

Before the thirteen remaining Seraph realized what happened, another one fell to the needles. Then a second. A third. Raining down like flies. The needles broke away wings, severed arms, cut legs. In that moment, Sergeant Zaido, the unit leader, saw the small ATV, charging at them with a gatling gun on its roof. He frantically pushed the radio comm button, while revving up to get out of range.

“Captain Hasegawa! We’re being…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

His throat was carved out by a needle in the middle of it.

The rest of his body followed soon after.