The Sickening Plunge Part 4

by Jeff C. Carter

When Lancet opened his eyes the morgue was empty.  He was completely alone.  Even his constant companion, his smart sword, was gone.

"Hello, Lancet."

A tall, older man in an archaic gray wool suit appeared.  He was bald, with creases around his eyes and mouth but an upright posture that made his age hard to guess.  He smiled reassuringly, yet Lancet saw something calculating and not quite human behind his eyes.

Lancet felt trapped and defenseless.  He involuntarily groped for his missing weapon.

"Ah, one moment," the old man smiled.

There was a tingling in Lancet’s head and suddenly his sword was back, nuzzled against his body. He could feel every part of it, as if the sword had truly become an extension of him at last.

"Are you Beebe?" Lancet asked the stranger.

The old man put a hand on Lancet's shoulder and gave him a grandfatherly squeeze. "I am.  It is so good to see you, lad."

"Are you... a Dreamer?"

Beebe smiled cryptically. "I've certainly dreamed of this moment.  I've known your family for a very long time.  I've watched you grow, seen you become the kind of man who could change the course of history, as your ancestors once did.  I knew I could trust you to step forward now, to do what must be done."

Lancet had waited his entire life to hear those words.  His heart filled with pride but his stomach clenched in uneasy anticipation.  He could feel that he was no longer in control of his life.  He was rapidly being swept away by the tide of fate.

One by one, Moab, Anansi, and the doctor blinked into visibility, looking shaken and confused.  The wizard Pavlovon appeared in several places at once.  Was this her ‘distributed intelligence’?

"Hello again, everyone.  This is an encrypted simulation space.  We are now in direct mental contact via your new implants.  In case you haven't guessed, I am Beebe.  I am pleased to report that no one was compromised by alien influence, and that each of you has my complete trust and undying gratitude.

"Here is what we know:  the aliens have infiltrated society with their followers, dupes, and parasite infested thralls.  They believe that Eclectia is doomed.  They want to accelerate this apocalypse, and with access to our technology they might very well succeed.

"I did not choose you to root out the infestation or declare a pointless war.  I gathered you for your talent, your leadership and your vision.  You believe, as I do, that humanity is destined for more.  This alien threat has the potential to rock our stagnated society to its foundation.  We are the ones who shall decide which pieces remain and how they fit together,” Beebe said.   

"So we're going to use these Rahab maniacs to light a fire under their butts?" Moab stroked his mustache approvingly.

Beebe gave him a knowing smile. "Never let a crisis go to waste."

The Sickening Plunge Part 3

by Jeff C. Carter

Everyone in the morgue was struck silent by Beebe’s announcement.  Lancet’s heart skipped a beat and he felt a fleeting kinship with the dead body laid out nearby.

“If the angels did cause the riots they must have used those spinal parasites to boost their psychic signals,” Anansi stated confidently, “Is that why you brought us inside Sheba?  Their signals can’t reach here?”

Lancet frowned.  He was irked that Anansi was putting things together faster than he was.

“That is correct,” the wizard finally sparked to life, “Although we have taken other precautions as well.  We cannot assume Sheba is secure, merely furthest from the signals.  We know a good deal about this thanks to the late Mr. Jon Valljon.”

She indicated the body on the slab.  Dr. Kes peeled back the side of Valljon’s head and exposed a cratered brain, filled with tangles of gleaming circuitry and the oily tendrils of a dead parasite. “Luckily for us he had a standard servant control implant in his head long before he was infected.  Not only was the chip ultimately able to override the parasite’s control, but we were able to pull memories of the alien transmissions directly from his brain.”

“Control implants allow me to monitor the hostile aliens in secret.  They will also protect you from coming under their control.  Pavlovon will fit you each with such a device,” Beebe said.

The wizard hefted a sinister gun with a long drill bit and smiled obligingly.

“You can’t be serious?” Councilman Moab gasped.

Lancet thought about the agonized look on Valljon’s face as the implant shut down his brain.  Everyone took a step back from the wizard.  Even Anansi’s smile was replaced by shock.

“I’m sorry, but this is not a request.  Any one of you could already be under alien influence.  Until we know for certain I cannot allow any of you to leave Sheba,” Beebe said.

Lancet knew this was just a step towards Beebe’s master plan.  He knew that they would have to fill this morgue a thousand times over to make it a reality.  If he was going to commit himself to this cause then he must be willing to start with his own body if necessary. “I’ll go first.”

Pavlovon lifted the drill and aimed it at Lancet's right eyeball. The wizard's face was blank again, her thick black goggles staring somewhere else entirely.

As the drill bit veered closer to his eye Lancet saw a cluster of needles jutting out, as thin as the woman's own silvery hair.

"Try not to move,” she mumbled.

The drill plunged forward with a sickening crunch.

The Sickening Plunge Part 2

by Jeff C. Carter

Lancet immediately recognized the body on the slab.  It was his old ‘servant’, Valljon, the man who had tried to kill him.  He didn’t know the skinny man in the rubber smock.  He appeared to be some sort of doctor.  He understood now why they were meeting in the damp gray morgue, but not why they had been made to travel to a morgue on the dark side of Sheba.

“Welcome.”

The soothing voice came from a speaker in the ceiling.  Lancet recognized the voice – it belonged to Beebe, the mysterious man who had been his long-distance mentor for most of his life.  They had never met face to face, and he was beginning to doubt that they ever would.  He was even beginning to doubt if Beebe had a face at all.

“Please allow me to make a few introductions.  Councilman Dresden Moab you surely know.  He is a long serving and distinguished member of the Peace Council,” Beebe said.

Beebe didn’t introduce himself, which indicated that everyone there knew him well enough that they would travel to Sheba without asking why.  It was a small group and introductions didn’t take long.  

Lancet began to understand what role each person was there to play. 

Anansi Tolliver, the stylish dark skinned man with the big smile.  Confidence man.  Smooth operator.  Trickster.

Pavlovon Neumann, the pale woman in the goggles staring off at something no one else could see.  Distributed intelligence engineer.  Lancet knew better than to think he understood what wizards did or what they were capable of.

The one in the smock was Dr. Kes.  Beebe had brought him up from Zirconia because he had made some important discovery.

Dr. Kes asked everyone to come closer to Valljon’s corpse on the gurney. “A short while ago I performed a detailed scan on a smuggler named Almer Croix. There was something unusual with his nervous system that a lot of physicians would have missed.  I was able to refine the image and find a separate life form.  The patient’s immune system was ravaged and failing and this life form was to blame.  It was actually a highly evolved alien parasite that had taken root in the poor man’s spinal cord.  

Lancet couldn’t see what a sick Zirco had to do with the St. Christina’s Riot and the Rahab murders that had precipitated this secret meeting.

“Dr. Kes graciously agreed to perform the autopsies on the inmates of St. Christina’s clinic.  They all shared the same parasitic infestation, which I believe is linked to the recent wave of criminal insanity,” Beebe said.

Dr. Kes proudly held up a pair of tongs and dangled a long, oily ribbon of flesh.

Councilman Moab cleared his throat.  He awkwardly looked at the speaker on the ceiling, unused to addressing someone he could not hold in his glare. “Are you saying that the riots happened without a leader?  There was no agenda?”

“Quite the opposite, Councilman.  I have uncovered patterns of association between individuals on Avenir and Zirconia that suggest a loose organization.  When combined with the parasite cases an unmistakable network emerges.  There has been almost no communication between these individuals, however.  All of which leads me to believe that this network is coordinated through psychic transmissions,” Beebe said.

Lancet’s stomach dropped.  Was there going to be a war with the aliens?  Had it already begun?

Reunion

by Jeff C. Carter -

Lancet leaned over the dragon on his floor and gave it a sharp slap, sending a twang buzzing into the air. He stabbed and pulled at its strings with his thumb, index and middle fingers sending notes flying faster and faster.

Once, this instrument had been made of wood, ivory and tortoise shell. As it was passed down through the generations these materials had become increasingly worn down, rare and forgotten. Now the instrument was reinforced with iridescent bug shells from Eclectia. It was still beautiful, but the gradual decay and loss sickened him.

Lancet flicked the strings and let his frustration vibrate through the body of the instrument. He was playing an ancient song with a sparse, jangling rhythm. He loved this music for the silences between the notes as much as the notes themselves. He often sat for hours at the window of his spacious chambers, playing while he watched Sheba hanging in the sky and Eclectia spinning below.

The koto was sometimes called a ‘dragon’ for its resemblance to a giant beast from distant legend. His mentor Beebe had once said it was an excellent meditation on how to rule. He could command the dragon with just a few fingers at the right time and place, although the occasional slap produced a pleasing sound as well.

A gruff voice barked from a speaker on the ceiling.

“Lancet Palmar the 8th, please tell me you are being fashionably late and not just playing that damned koto again.”

Lancet stopped his plucking and rolled his eyes.

“Good evening, Councilman Moab. Please, do remind me which charity this is.”

“Save Avenir’s Orphans,” Moab replied.

Lancet hunched back over the koto and played a few discordant notes.

“Ah, now I remember why I abstained. I do not want to save Avenir’s orphans. I want them to stop wasting our precious oxygen,” Lancet said.

“Well until that comes to pass you need to suffer through these charity dinners with me. I’ve sent one of my men to escort you. Don’t dawdle.”

There was a chime at the door.

“Enter,” Lancet commanded.

A security guard fell through the doorway in a bloody heap.

A tall old man in a hospital gown strolled into the room and smiled. He held up a bloody hand and waved.

“Hi boss!”

Lancet flew forward and jammed his fingers towards the man’s eyes. Before he could connect, a single blow sent him reeling.

Lancet crashed to the ground, crushing the ancient koto with a painful sound. The lunatic loomed over him, eyes and teeth gleaming with reflected starlight.

There was a sudden pop!

The attacker collapsed, streaming blood from the back of his head. Lancet saw Moab’s escort in the doorway, finger still on the trigger of his Shinpu.

“Who was that?!” the escort said.

Lancet had no idea. He tried to recognize the intruder’s face before it was masked in blood.

The escort holstered his weapon as he entered.

“Are you okay, sir? Should I call--”

The lunatic’s eyes flew open and he jumped up. He grabbed the escort and wrenched the man’s head violently around.

“Surprise!”