<u>25</u>
They were meant to stay together because Epona… first and greatest of the Blessed Isles… was a very dangerous place. According to Andorin, the island was quick to rob purpose and will from any who journeyed there. But somehow, once off the gangway from Seahorse, Lerendar found himself wandering the streets of a nebulous city, holding the hand of a goblin girl. ‘Pretty One,’ he thought, clinging fast to the only real thing in this cauldron of shifting illusion.
He’d come here with others. Just… not sure who they were or where they’d all gone, or how long ago. That he had a wife-to-be and a child, kept pushing its way through the mist in his head, only to vanish again.
Then something cold, heavy and sharp scratched the flesh at the base of his throat. Something important. With his free hand, Lerendar groped up to take hold of the small, spiky thing, clenching it hard. Doing so brought pin-picks of gem-bright blood. Caused a faint, burning pain that helped clear his head.
Looking around, he saw a cobblestone street made of floating rocks like chunks of ice in a silver canal. Rows of buildings lined either side of the road. They were shuttered and grey for the most part; places he sensed he was not meant to enter. One, up ahead, blazed with color and light and music-box tinkles, playing a famous bit of the Dawn Hymn.
Lerendar squeezed the young goblin’s hand. Both of them would have to go into that shop, he realized. Only… the girl-child was crying. Talking, too, in short, broken gasps.
“M’ sorry… din’t meant no harm. Please… ‘Ee told me ter wish. I tried! Please… I tried.”
And somehow, that was important. Lerendar managed to focus his drifting attention. Gripping tight to the girl and his small, jagged amulet, he demanded,
“Who? Who told you to wish?”
The girl-child lifted her face, looking around as though seeking a harbor. Other than her frantic grip on his hand, the elf sensed that she saw and felt nothing but darkness.
“The Bright One. The Sky Lord them worships, above. ‘Ee told me ter wish… but it all come out wr- wrong!” He wasn’t sure what the girl was on about, or why it mattered so very much, but…
“Around your neck,” he said. “Feel up around your neck for something heavy and sharp. Almost there… more to the kata-right… there. Now, hold tight.”
She did so, causing some of that lost and blind drift to clear from her gaze. Pretty One looked at him, confused and miserable. Whispered,
“Why did it ‘ave ter be me, Y’r Lordship? I were scared… almost got kilt… din’t know where m’ sibs were or nuthin’!”
It was all very dream-like, with the bright shop receding no matter how far they walked on that magically shifting road. Said Lerendar,
“The goblin kitts were with me and… some others. We got out of the cave to a seashore. Found a shipwreck haven, I think.” There’d been screaming. Darkness. Splintering wood. Failing spells… and then nothing at all.
“We died,” he continued. “We hadn’t much magic and there were too many to fight.” Like the girl, though, he’d tried. Her small, wet face pinched up in misery, but she nodded.
“Chaos got everyone, din’t it?”
Remembering, he said,
“Yes. Until your wish and… whatever my brother was doing… put us all on another path, triggered the Peace of Oberyn.” And maybe that was the point. Lerendar stopped walking to squat down and look at the girl, eye-level. Said,
“Wishes are awful and powerful things, Pretty. You can never put in enough detail to block Chaos entirely… and there’s always a price. Remember the Epic of Princess Alina? How badly that wish went wrong? Even Lord Oberyn didn’t dare try, and he is a god.” With god-level cost for failure.
He found himself hugging the child and patting her back, although somehow, some-once they had been enemies. On top of all that, his leg itched like ten wicked fiends were at it with pollen and knives. ‘Dead’ had been only a part of his troubles, it seemed.
Now the shop was before them, playing its tinny and haunting short tune. Lerendar rose to his feet once again. Gave the girl’s hand another brief press, saying,
“We’re meant to enter the shop.”
She looked up at the golden-haired elf-lord, her scarlet eyes clouded with tears.
“I’m scared ter go in there, M’ Lord,” the girl whispered. Lerendar nodded.
“Me, too,” he confided. “But there’s no going back or around, and I won’t let go of your hand.”
“Promise?” she asked, tugging his arm. “Promise you’ll not lemme go?”
By way of answer, Lerendar scooped the child up to plunk her down on his hip as he often did with his own little daughter, whose name and appearance stayed lost to him. Couldn’t remember her mother, either, no matter how hard he struggled to bring them both back.
“I hate this place,” muttered the elf-lord, as the girl first buried her face in his neck, then turned resolutely to stare at the shop. With one hand, she clutched Lerendar’s shirt, but the other now flickered with silvery magical force.
“I’m ready,” she said. “If I gets in trouble fer wishin’ wrong, well, I’m jus’ a goblin an’ nobody cares… but I’ll tell ‘em weren’t nuthin’ ter do with you, M’ Lord.”
His sword-arm was free, just in case, and there were more weapons… a sling, knife and bow… in his nearest faerie pocket. More than that, he’d fought at the side of this girl, this sorceress, before. They’d forged a connection that bonded them here in the dreaming-mist of the Isles.
“You kept your promise, and I’ll keep mine,” he assured her. “They’ll have to go through me to get to you. I’m a Tarandahl. We’re bred with more courage than brains.”
That made her smile.
“I’m glad we ain’t fightin’ no more, Y’r Lordship, an’ glad everyone’s back alive… but I don’t wanna wish no more wishes, never again.”
“Don’t blame you,” he agreed, stepping off of a bobbing cobblestone and onto the shop’s wooden porch. Then, “War face,” he ordered. “Half the battle’s in looking so fierce that no one durst cross you.”
Pretty One scowled, looking ferocious, indeed. Lerendar went full, mighty elf-lord, glowing with manna and pride. Then, heads high, he and Pretty swept into the Shop of True Need.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
‘Go in, or not?’ had been the question. Only… the burden he carried left V47 Pilot spam-all for choice. He had to return to the Orbital Station, report in to Flight Command, but the data packet he carried was deadly; knowledge its authors would kill to protect. Bringing it with him might doom not just his own base and ship, but the miners on Glimmr, as well.
The pilot had kept his communications brief. Had barely accessed Bide-a-While station’s traffic AI, asking aloud for permission to land. They’d received the go-ahead to put in at the freight dock, where a message from one of the shops had caught their immediate, wary attention. Now, telling his battle-mech,
“Stand by and be ready to launch at my signal, V,” the pilot jetted back down to the asteroid’s surface. There was an atmosphere, sun-shield and comfortable gravity, along with pulsing neon and flocks of distracting, bright adverts. Most of them featured the “Behuggler”, Bide-a-While station’s cute purple mascot.
The ads he could do something about, setting his electronic address to shift randomly, with only V47 possessing the other half of the key. Instantly, the pop-ups and music dimmed by 87.65%, clearing his field of view. Only the Shop of True Need advert still hung there, refusing to move aside or be blocked. Strange.
As he touched down, the asteroid grew from moon-like rock to horizon-spanning environment. It had been partly flattened on top; the shiny, metallic surface cross-hatched with grooves for better traction. The Mark-30 Industrial Gate hung overhead like a storm cloud, sparking faintly.
There were three solar-class freighters docked at the service pier, their crews wandering Bide-a-While station in scruffy and talkative knots. Cyborg dwarves and half-elves, 78.92% of them, the rest a mixed bag of races and types. They stared at V47, gaping up at the towering red-and-gold mech. For the pilot, V47 was home; the other half of himself. For the freighter crews, that griffin-class mech was a very rare sight. For that matter, so was he.
Had he not been fighting to conceal, isolate and prevent a dangerous download from opening, the pilot might have accepted their offers of drink and a meal at the “diner”. But he had to hold his mind and focus his systems just so. Could not relax vigilance for ready-mass food and bad-tasting, barely potable depressant fluids. At least, not yet.
“I have business within,” he told Gofir-1, captain of Gofir. “But once I have managed my data-transfer, I will be free for… thirty-five ticks.” An eternity, in over-clocked cyber time. An age in which to slam fluids, exchange handshakes and comm.
The dwarf grinned at him, splitting a beard that was 82% dark, braided hair and 18% fiber-optics.
“Aye that, Mech-Jockey,” he laughed.
The dwarf captain and his crew had personalities, expressions and behavior to go with their programming, the pilot noticed. Things he wondered at. “Stubborn” seemed to be his one lonesome trait, but then, he’d spent very little time conscious.
Now, he projected hologram clothing to roughly match the crew’s green flight suits. Accessed local cameras to watch his own stance and expression as he tried on a smile. Gofir-1 roared with laughter, clapping his back through illusory leather and cloth.
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“Aye again,” said the dwarf, meat-eye twinkling almost as bright as his pale cyborg lens. “I know you official types don’t get out much… Fact, never seen one, before… but it’s better ter ‘cover yer glory’, Officer.”
‘Laugh’ seemed appropriate and enjoyable. Fortunately, though he wasn’t experienced, there were the show-vids, and V47 had a tutorial pulled up and ready. The pilot… laughed. First time, ever. And it felt very good, like calming-drug, only better. Actually did something to bury that dangerous packet still deeper. Icebox (Mikale) had a boast for such moments, the pilot recalled. With a smile and cocked eyebrow, he said,
“You’re right, Captain. The worlds aren’t ready for this.”
The joke was well received, especially as the dwarves had watched different show-vids, geared toward freighter crews and their long, boring flights. For them, it was a new, funny statement.
Gofirs 1 – 6 accompanied V47 Pilot along the main thoroughfare, which was lined with establishments offering drink, food, games and companionship. Their floating signs were very enlightening, and their data “hooks” (like malware, designed to seize a sapient’s main drive) strove to take over and walk him inside.
…if he’d been drunk or stim-vidding, possibly, but not when fully alert, with V47 on watch mode. Not when he had a probable trap to spring.
They halted at an odd conundrum. The pilot saw an actual shop front, complete with flashing arrows and peppy music. Dome shaped, formed of stone-plastic composite, its door was dilated open, though nothing showed through. The words “SHOP OF TRUE NEED” spiraled from top to base of the structure. For him, at least. Gofir-1 clearly saw something different and sent as much, sharing vid with the pilot.
In the dwarf captain’s view, all that was there was a narrow dark alley. Just a cleft between “Vork’s Lucious Beauties” and “Bide-a-While Snacks”. That alternate vision hung in their shared view for .03 of a nano-tick, but it gave them cold, corrupt files, all the same.
“Dunno, Officer… me an’ the crew can’t pass the business line. Blocked from leaving the main drag or stepping out between buildings… but y’ say there’s a shop, there? Y’r seein’ something we ain’t?”
The pilot nodded, sending affirmation long before he completed the gesture.
“Yes, Captain,” he replied, while his head was still moving downward and Gofir’s hand coming up. “I see an establishment called ‘Shop of True Need’, and its adverts compel me to enter.”
“!” sent Gofir-1, his splayed metal hand less than halfway up to the pilot’s arm. “That shop is a legend, Mech-Jockey, appearing when it will, to them as needs it… and no avoiding the call, either. You go on then, Officer. We’ll wait. Catch ye on th’ flip side.”
Gofir-1’s hand finally reached and clasped the pilot’s right arm, giving him a rough, friendly shake. He’d never encountered that gesture or phrase before, and they triggered an open access send.
“On the flip side,” agreed the pilot, smiling without a tutorial. Then he walked in alone. Really, actually alone. The moment he stepped through that arched, darkened portal, the pilot was physically transferred, his connection to V47 severed entirely. It was worse than before, with TTN-iA. There on the magnetar’s shell, V47 had been locked in combat, then rebooting. Here, his link to the mech’s AI was utterly gone. Amputated. Someone had just chopped half of him loose, and the pilot went into nearly blind panic. Sent query after unanswered query, pivoting to face a blank wall where the doorway suddenly wasn’t. No response from V47, and no sense at all of where he’d been taken.
Reflexively, the pilot rolled arm cannons and missile launchers back out of their fey-space pockets and into position to batter that wall into dust. Then,
“Wait! V47 Pilot, withhold your strike. The effect of separation was unanticipated, your distress unintended.”
The pilot’s head whipped around at the sound of that creaky voice, adding his own optics to the scans produced by three just-launched drones. He did not so much send as torrent: “Open. <u>Now</u>, or I self-destruct.”
He meant it, too; able and willing to atomize the shop and every sapient present inside. A gnomish store clerk darted over to hover before him, flying on tiny, bubbling jets. At the creature’s gesture, a pinhole aperture formed in the wall. Suddenly, to his overwhelming relief, V47 came flooding back into contact with Pilot. He staggered, having to brace himself on the curving grey wall to keep from falling.
V47 had blasted loose of its gantry, was hovering over Bide-a-While station in “Ready-Attack” mode; locked and loaded for battle.
“V… it’s fine. I am here,” he sent, meshing again with the fighter’s AI. “Are you well? Systems check optimal?” had to be asked and responded to fifty times on both sides, before either was satisfied.
‘Pilot, this location is riddled with error,’ responded his mech. ‘Speed and caution are advised, as is return.’
“Yes. That’s affirm. I will hurry. Just, stand by.”
He straightened, getting his respiration and heart-rate under control with help from calming injections and music. Swallowed hard, anyhow, as he turned to regard that hovering gnome. A withered female sapient of small size and out-moded enhancements, looked like. She seemingly posed no actual threat, but his cannons and launch-tubes remained out. The drones stayed aloft, as well, scanning in every possible frequency.
“You lured me,” growled V47 Pilot, in a send/voice he barely recognized. “I am here. State your purpose.”
The gnome looked him over, smiling and shaking her head.
“In any iteration, you remain yourself, dear boy,” she mused. “But I see that you are not in the mood for exchange of pleasantries. Down to what used to be called ‘brass tacks’, then. Pilot, you are in possession of extremely singular and highly valued data. The shop would rent this from you, removing its trace from your memory core. That is our purpose.”
V47 had picked up the statement, despite the near constant send/ receive handshake still passing between mech and pilot. Now,
‘To what use will the shop put this data?” inquired V, seeming much more aggressive than usual.
“A fair question,” said the old gnome, buzzing back over to light on a cluttered display counter. “I can promise that the data will merely be… hmmm… ‘pawned’, I think was the term; kept by the shop for a time, possibly cloned, but ready when you return to reclaim the packet.”
The pilot considered, feeling very much only a waking month old.
“This place is secure? Shielded from hacking attack or surveillance? I may speak freely?” he demanded.
“Nothing you say here will pass to the outside world, and no self-destruct command will spring from your words, Pilot,” promised the gnome.
He nodded, arrayed his files, then said,
“It defines a location. Provides coordinates for a gate to the place where our makers reside.” The pilot stopped, bracing for total core-wipe. When that didn’t happen, he went on, saying, “They have abandoned us, Shop-clerk, and they do not wish to be found. Can this data be used to cause harm?”
The gnome’s small, wrinkled mouth pursed.
“Yes,” she responded. “In the wrong hands, the knowledge could result in your makers’ utter destruction.”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but...
“If the packet is to be stored temporarily, I will upload a copy, then delete the original and purge my own systems. I will have your guarantee, first, that this data will not be passed onward.”
What would the Draugr do with such knowledge? Wipe out the makers? Hunt down their wandering planet? Sounding just as aggressive as V47, the pilot said,
“No assurance, no file, and to 404 with the consequence.” Added, as Ace would have done, “Take it, or leave it.”
Again, the gnome smiled, inclining her fuzzy white head.
“Assurance given, Pilot… but you must return to this place, for the final decision cannot rest with this shop or its agents. Yes? Very well. Look at me, then. Open your systems and… there. All done.”
He initiated a total scan. All systems from conscious will to digestive subroutines. Found that the gnome had spoken truly. That deadly packet was gone. A box wrapped in old-style brown paper and string appeared on the counter beside her. In strange lettering, it was marked: Warning! Don’t open till Solstice! The box was addressed ‘V47 Pilot’, and it glowed faintly, setting the whole shop quivering, grinding and tinkling. The gnome made a face.
“As I said, you must return to collect this data, Pilot, then use it as you see fit. Moving to other business, no price was discussed.”
She tilted her head to one side, fingertip pressed to her very small chin.
“Hmm… you’ve always been something of a clothes-horse, or… ah! I have just the thing.”
With a swift gesture, the clerk opened a window in midair, revealing the interior of Orbital Station’s O-Club. What remained of it after Draug attack, anyhow. Empty space yawned on one side, while torn metal and sparking wires filled up the other.
The pilot strode forward, suddenly anxious. He had left Foryu and the Club’s AI in there, with instructions to wait for him. Construction drones were trying to demolish the club and nearby commissary, he saw, balked by a lone, disembodied companion. Foryu.
She zipped around like ball-lightning, desperately shorting out systems and blocking advance; protecting the podium in which she and the Club’s AI had taken refuge. V47 Pilot turned his head to look at the shop clerk, He was still very much armed, alert and upset. A bad combination.
“Help her,” he ordered, “Or send me to do so. She is a companion. She cannot hold off the station’s work crew for long.”
The gnome inclined her head once again.
“If it is your wish, dear boy, two artificial sapients will be salvaged from Orbital Station 1210.” And, just like that, their data streamed out of OS-1210 and into the Shop of True Need through her window.
The half-orc AI formed first, patting itself down as it scanned for damage. Next Foryu, looking weary and frightened. The pilot lunged forward to catch her, for his companion was near to collapse. She still wore his jacket, which now sported twin ray-burns on one shoulder. Her flesh and metal were hot from fast movement and shifting through others’ systems.
Distress radiated from the beautiful cyborg companion, who’d been sending an aid-call on every available frequency. From some show-vid or file came the words,
“Shh… shh… you’re safe. All is well, brave one.”
Her arms went around his neck. She buried her face against his shoulder; shaking, exhausted, but whole. Foryu ceased her distress call at last but didn’t look up.
“Oh, Pilot-Sir,” gabbled the O-Club’s AI. “How close we came to destruction, and how this companion fought to prevent them from demolishing my processing unit!”
He gave the half-orc AI a brief smile and friend-sending.
“You are in a location of shelter. One which may have need of…” he searched his data banks. “Of additional help.”
For of course, the Officers Club was now gone; reduced to spreading particles just as the window shut down. Turning his attention back to Foryu, the pilot dropped his head to put his face against the companion’s curly brown hair. She looked up at him, blue eyes wide.
He put his mouth to her forehead and then made a slight, soft popping noise. A thing, like those comforting words, which had sprung from a very old archive. She smiled, so he did it again, this time on her warm and half-open mouth. Much passed between them in that micro-swift contact, and when he lifted his head away, she told him,
“I like that.”
“Me, too,” he admitted, giving Foryu a squeeze, then releasing her. Said the shop gnome,
“There is still a considerable credit balance, Pilot. View the merchandise, please, and select any items of interest.”
V47 Pilot nodded. Holding Foryu’s hand, he wandered the vibrating shop. Saw 12,786 artifacts, including a strangely embroidered white shirt (which he picked up) and a glowing, cylindrical object, about the size of his thumb.
“What is this?” he asked the hovering gnome.
“You have a discerning eye, young elf,” said the clerk, with a wide, wrinkle-altering smile. “That is a very old-fashioned (but still useful) memory drive; the relic of ancient armies and long-ago battles. Quite a bit of storage capacity left, as you can see.”
For some reason, it appealed to him. The pilot glanced first at Foryu, who’d been examining that oddly patterned shirt. Now, she said,
“You can never have too much storage capacity, Pilot. I could fit inside, if there is no physical space in your battle-mech.”
There wasn’t, according to V47 (who wasn’t a bus). The pilot smiled at Foryu, sending a quick burst of friend/belong/access. To the gnome, he said,
“I will take this shirt and the memory drive, then.”
Meanwhile, Foryu had spotted a beautiful, opaline stone. It fit into her cupped hand like it belonged there, pulsing along with the companion’s heartbeat.
“It is lovely,” she whispered. Looking up at the gnome, she asked, “How much?”
“You couldn’t afford it,” sniffed the clerk. Then, nodding at V47 Pilot, “But he still has credit enough.”
“Yes. Done,” agreed V47 Pilot. “We’ll take this… rock… as well.”
The gnome smiled obscurely.
“Of course you will. Very well, then, Pilot. That about squares us… except for your promise to return for the stored information.”
He nodded, feeling like he’d been tricked. Manipulated, somehow. But the gnome seemed amused. Sad, maybe.
‘Recommend that you return to Bide-a-While station, Pilot,’ sent V47. ‘This clerk-entity produces an aura of menace.’
Which was true. By this time, the shop door had opened again. Through the gap, he could see Gofir’s entire crew, along with station security. V47 was just overhead, all weapons in launch mode and ready to rock. Even the mascot, Behuggler, was present; perched on V47’s right gun barrel.
That they’d come in response to his absence… for possible rescue… warmed the pilot right down to his core. He felt the face-muscle stretch of another smile.
“Stand down,” he ordered the crowd, recalling his drones and then stepping out of the shop with Foryu in tow. “All is well. I went… there was…”
Well, he couldn’t recall. Had misfiled the data, somehow. Just knew that he’d have to return; maybe soon, maybe not, to finish something he’d started.