Airith- the Kentilan War Read online

  “I will kill them all! I will wipe you’re signature from the face of Indio! I will take it all for myself!”

  *

  Those screams travelled the desolate lands in waves, echoing into the nearest districts, invading each and every home in the Creator’s city with a fear. It hung like dense fog for days as the Creator retreated to his laboratory with Mother’s prized possession. A line had been drawn between two elephants and the Homecity citizens were just grass caught in the middle.

  *

  Gifts no longer piled up on the steps of Mother’s chambers and the remains of what had been gifts were scavenged by travelling landers, signifying Mother’s desertion. The Creator stationed elite guards at the end of the winding flight of fifteen hundred steps, keeping everyone from trying to see her.

  Deep below the tall towers of her chambers, in the depths of the recesses below the foundations of the mystical structure, a different being from what her children knew sat. A Mother that would never be the same. Her tortuous limbs ran the length of her walls, pulsating with the despair that oozed from her. She could move upright on her new prosthetics, but still chose to hang upside down. Old habits did die hard. She crawled along the ceiling as she tinkered away at modeling, reshaping, and creating the perfect being. One that would surpass the daughter that had been stolen from her.

  “He will be perfect.” She spoke to herself, but the underlying doubt sat heavy in her heart. She had held her daughter in the space between her arms. She had been so perfect, Mother thought to herself. Was she enough to create one even close to perfection when all her previous spawn had been no more than mindless shells, groveling and drooling at her feet, incapable to any drive of their own?

  “No, he will be perfect,” she told herself.

  The chimneys of her chambers smoked and the atmosphere above it rippled with by-products of the energy waves that escaped to the surface. Everyone in the nearest sectors could see that Mother was creating again; the news carried into the distant sectors and to the Creator. It worried him; perhaps the mechanical monster had meant her words after all.

  “Live!” Mother cried, as the human embryo in the secluded pod slowly began to grow, infused with not just Cymaga but a version of herself as well, the Sadness. Slowly, she watched life pulsate through his small horseshoe form, and paid close attention over the next three months as his excited cells replicated, duplicated, and specialized to form a grown man. He was complete.

  “Breathe, my son,” she whispered as the drains at the bottom of the pod drained the vitreous fluid and the glass parted for Mother. She reached in and let her artificial index finger trail along his forehead to his temple. He purred to life, drawing his first breath. Mother held her own breath, taking a tentative step back. His eyes flicked open and his black pupils met her disappointment. She had infused a lot of energy, could he not harness it?

  “Welcome, my son. Come forth,” her voices urged.

  His eyes widened as he saw her, but at the same time, she pulsed with a bio-signal she knew he could also feel. The relationship registered in his eyes and he moved to take his first step.

  “Mother!” he cried.

  “Rapha,” she responded, naming him her own version of Phara.

  Rapha reached out to her… and fell, his leg caving in as soon as his feet touched the cold floor, a sickening crunch cracking the air before he slammed hard into the floor.

  Mother gazed down at him. His leg was bent at a horrific angle, snapped clean just below the knee. She cocked her head slightly as her eyes throbbed, her brain trying to conjure an explanation. She ran a biological scan over him. His bones were brittle like cheese, unable to carry his weight, and unable to serve her.

  Her despair knew no bounds and her screams reigned the nights for days one end. She wallowed in her grief as the guard robots she had built dragged her second child away. His cries for pity met deaf ears and were soon squelched by the slam of the chamber doors.

  Mother tried again. This time, her brittle-boned and genetically defective products were fitted with mechanical parts to suppress their flaws. They were hulking humanoids that were in no way close to the perfection she sought. The first monster she created was named Vidmantas, conjoined to two other twins, flawed by a defect. She separated them and called them Remic and Martus, and later took the tongue of Martus because his cries filled her days and lengthened her despair. After the Three, she stopped trying to make the perfect child. She had an epiphany that she could not accomplish this feat on her own; she needed the Creator or his skill or at least his head. She could preserve it long enough to steal his ingenuity. And with that, she would also take her first born, Phara.

  But Mother knew that even with the power of the Sadness, she couldn’t defeat the Creator. He already knew she would be coming, and had a head start of months to amass an army. She needed to build an army, too. She began building an elite class of riflemen she called the Valdova liege, and set her third born, Vidmantas as their superior and commandant.

  THE SPRINGS

  “T hat was Stars by Hum. You know, I saw those guys one time in a small bar in Boston. It was me and a fat kid I grew up with. We named him Tony Wrinkles; dude’s neck was so hefty, his wrinkles folder over his shoulders. Just blaaagh! I remember we would hide cigarettes in his neck fat so we could smuggle them into school, and then during lunch, after we let the sweat dry off, we’d smoke them. No joke. Forgot where I was going with this, but you’re listening to Mix...100.5 with Bradley Ryan in the morning.”

  “Now that’s a story!” Rapha blared over the comms. The rusty old speakers cracked and squeaked.

  “Arg! Shut up.” Airith winced out the window to the Penelope. Rapha was grinning back at her, and Phara’s hooded stare offered no expression. Something panged in Airith’s heart, seeing Rapha seated in an enclosed space with a better version of her.

  The sun had set, and its sleepy glow in the distance had begun to fade, ushering the dark of night. In this sector, the only light that could be seen for miles out in the desolate lands was the rainbow-colored fumes that flashed in minute spurts from hot-air vents running the length of two massive structures; two right-angled triangles, annexed, with their hypotenuses facing each other, and with connecting ducts and a main bridge running from each triangle to the other, allowing passage to fleets of transporting vehicles.

  These buildings were collectively called the Springs and housed a mega-marketing network that allowed all citizens from every faction of Homecity to gather and trade. They even allowed trade with the Kentilan people and races from neighboring planets. Millions of people travelled into Sector Three, across the desolate lands, to the Springs. Like stars they lit a silky path straight to and from the Springs. Airith still couldn’t believe the megalomaniac that ran the Springs was a friend of Rapha.

  “We’re here!” Rapha interrupted her thoughts again as they hovered toward the gaping neon mouth that served as the entrance on the adjacent side of one of the structures.

  “Welcome to the Springs!” he crooned loudly over the comms as they descended from the still night air into a temporary transit that blinded their eyes with bright blue.

  Airith shielded her eyes with a hand and stepped down on the gas, the Katalina lurching forward.

  Next to her, Isabel Rae crashed against the dashboard. “Ow!” Floop howled.

  The bright lights suddenly dimmed and Airith had to blink several times to readjust to the sudden change. Her breath paused every time she saw it, and now was no different. A sea of bright lights flooded the space below them as stalks of architecture wound around and past the brightly lit express that led down to the city.

  “Wow!” Floop beamed, and Airith found Isabel Rae face-first against the window, ogling out at the sight. The city’s buildings snaked along the walls of the housing structure, reaching high above them, along with transport routes plied by buyers in small hovercrafts. There was absolutely no space to waste.

  Airith and Rapha guided th
eir crafts down to join the crowded express way. The display interface on the dashboard came alive with a small window.

  Unrecognized authority is asking to access controls under the alias TODDBOY.

  “Approved,” Airith sighed. It was protocol here in the Springs to hand over vehicle controls to the city’s integrated artificial intelligence, named after its own creator. The AI put in automated pilot controls and kept every vehicle on the express under the speed limit, reducing accidents criminality rates.

  The express was an elevated magnetic field over the city that diverted into smaller routes that led down to the city and up to the other levels of the city or the main bridges that connected to the transport ducts that connected to two triangles. Looking at it all, it was hard to believe that this place had started out as a nature park, hence its name. Today, there was no nature in sight. The air inside the Springs was conducted through steam vents that pushed any toxic gases outside in short eruptions of heated blasts. A beautiful sight you could see for miles.

  “I knew I smelled something funny. It just had to be your stank asses, Rapha and the weird little one!” a slippery voice said over the comms. It was Toddboy, the one and only.

  Airith leaned back and let the AI take them off the express at the nearest junction, on a route that no one else knew—a separate route that led down to the city but just above the tips of its towers, until it wound its way from the city’s buzzing center to the dimly lit alley ways of a backroad. Airith knew the place well; one of Toddboy’s many hideouts. The route came to a dead-end in the backyard of a raving night club. The walls parted as the hover crafts approached, revealing a retro chop-shop, whose walls gleamed with fluorescent graffiti. Robots whirred and wheeled about the place, paying meticulous attention to skeletons of old model crafts—junk from extinct worlds that Toddboy loved to buy and later salvage.

  Their ships came to halt over mechanical work pads in the center of what looked to be a warehouse. Isabel Rae was the first one out. She stretched her scrawny limbs, carrying something rather odd in one hand as Floop sighed. Rapha and Phara followed, with Rapha ogling the place like he had never seen it before. The grating of screeching metal scratched Airith’s ears and she was the last one out, eyeing the place apprehensively.

  “There they are and uglier than ever!” Toddboy announced as he presented himself.

  The whole room went silent; the working bots came to a halt and all tinkering stopped. Everyone else stood at attention. Airith looked around and scoffed under her breath before dragging her gaze up to the hanging balcony. It was at least ten feet above their heads and only accessible by a ladder.

  “Hell, what kind of shit storm did you guys fall into? And why is the little one holding a Valdovan hand?”

  Everyone looked at Isabel Rae and Airith pinched the bridge of her nose. So that was what the child had been holding all this while. The child waved the bloody part over her head and if she hadn’t had that mask on, Airith was sure she would be smiling.

  “A little Valdovan souvenir. Nothing we couldn’t handle.” Rapha waved it off.

  Toddboy was just as portrayed on those flashy billboards: a tall, wiry man always wearing a singlet and some trousers, with a mechanical arm and a mohawk haircut. He was flanked by two women, one more cyborg than the other. Airith knew them well, and everyone else in Sector Three did too. Toddboy’s vixens and elite guards, Luna and Sage.

  Luna looked like she was ex-military and Airith zoned in on the thoracic armor she had on. She almost couldn’t believe it. Luna’s upper body was fitted with a high tier aerinite exoskeleton, the type that had to be chiseled on and locked to her spine, giving her physical parameters an absurd boost and manpower heavy enough to carry a canon blaster wherever she went. She had a weapon locked to her right elbow as well, and like a whip, she could snap it into action when she needed.

  Sage was a feminine contrast to Luna. Her transparent, billowing cape clung elusively to her body and her vast mane of tangled blonde hair poured over her shoulders, mimicking her cape. Her eyes were soul-searching and deep, like the trinkets that garnished her wild locks. She was quiet one, but her eyes said a lot.

  Luna’s eyes narrowed as she locked gazes with Airith. They were pure blue orbs, shaded by stray strands of her white bangs falling across her face. Airith snorted a colorful remark about the haircut. Why shave almost everything off and leave just enough to get in your face? But she sensed that Luna’s undivided attention was drawn from her unique past; a past that was well known. Airith was Mother’s superior creation and spy assassin. Back in her prime, she was sought after by every mercenary faction in Homecity, and she could see this recognition in Luna’s eyes. Airith would take her on any day and any time.

  “Shall I disarm them?” Luna’s tone was curt and cold, her eyes never leaving Airith’s, and her lids twitched. Her subtle aggression was met by Airith’s pursed smile, and their gaze only broke when Toddboy responded.

  “No worries, darling. They’re not that stupid. I hope.” He smirked wildly as a puff of smoke billowed from his beard, where tubes ran from suction incisions in his neck. That led Airith to retrieve old info she had almost discarded: rumors that Toddboy preserved his real lungs in a cryo-tube and replaced them with artificial lungs, just because he liked to smoke but didn’t like the idea of charred dying lungs.

  “Rapha. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Toddboy smirked.

  “Yeah, well your face never looked dumber than it does now,” Rapha taunted.

  “And you wouldn’t look so stupid if you didn’t have your face,” Toddboy snapped back. He was about to add something else but stopped himself. “Where are my manners? Welcome, everyone!” he announced, adjusting the dark shades he was wearing and scanning the others.

  Airith searched the recesses of her memories but couldn’t recall ever seeing his eyes. She paused when she realized he was looking straight at her, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could see the lines of curiosity straining across his forehead.

  “Wait a minute! Is that you in flesh and blood?” He mimicked the oh-my-goodness look, with bent knees and hands clasped to the sides of his face. “I’ve seen you on TV, ages ago. Weren’t you that hot spy kid and popstar? I quote hot, ‘cause you gave me wet dreams as a teenager! Why don’t you ever bring her around?” He shot Rapha a dirty look.

  “I know right?” Rapha leaned against his buddy and they both winked.

  “Ew, estupido!” Her nostrils flared, signaling to Rapha and Phara that she was about to go full crazy mode. “Información personal que no quiero saber,” she hissed, the Spanish coming off her tongue like honey as she turned away from both of them. She didn’t need to see the expressions on their faces; Rapha had been clear, countless times, about how her Spanish made him feel.

  “It’s like verbal pheromones, I can’t get enough,” he whispered in her ear.

  “My God, what was that?” Toddboy gasped.

  “Spanish, a language from one of the gone worlds. She learned it by listing to Earth radio. Hot, isn’t it?” Rapha slurred.

  She just wanted Isabel Rae out of harm’s way so she could get back to the only task that mattered: killing Mother. In the corner of the room, Isabel Rae sat on a gizmo with her two Fellas hovering above her, watching mindlessly. Phara was grim to the bone, arms folded across her chest and an unflattering expression on her face.

  “What is a wet dream?” Floop asked on Isabel Rae’s behalf.

  “It’s when hormone-crazed morons wet the bed at night with a disgusting excuse for it, in the morning,” Phara sighed.

  “I still don’t understand,” Floop said, and Isabel Rae shrugged.

  “You’re pure as ice.” Phara patted her head.

  “You owe me favor, Todd, you remember?” Rapha scratched his head. “Well, I need you to take care of the child for a while. He face wounds are bleeding pretty bad, so she’ll need to use one of those rejuvenation pods you’ve got.”

  “Well, I hear you. W
hat else?” Toddboy leaned against the railing, sensing something unsaid. “There’s more, isn’t there, and I think I know what it is. Think I’m stupid? How long were you planning to keep your Skyfire secret from me?” With a sudden swing, he vaulted over the railing and landed solid on two feet before them.

  “What? Want to steal it off us now?” Rapha cocked his head with a smile, but Airith could see the fear in his eyes.

  “Want to. But can’t. Takes meticulous work and delicate requirements to extract DNA-bound Skyfire. That’s a whole lot of manpower and resources I don’t have. You’re lucky, yet again, Rapha.” Toddboy grinned, arms akimbo.

  “What do you mean, lucky?” Rapha’s face flushed, because everyone except the robots had understood Toddboy’s coded message. “I won those races square!”

  “But not fair.” Toddboy grinned. “And now, after a year of being banned from the Death races, you crawl back, conjuring up a favor that’s long gone.” He split the distance between them with a sharp jab. Rapha dodged. “I lost good money on your head last time, Rapha. You don’t get any favors!” He followed up with a sharp knee hook, but Rapha stooped to block with his elbows. Another well-paced kick bludgeoned the side of his face and he dropped on his side.