Table Of ContentDave Brookshaw, N. Conte, Susann Hessen, David A Hill Jr, Alec Humphrey,
Danielle Lauzon, Michelle Lyons-McFarland, Matthew McFarland, Mark Stone,
Travis Stout, Stew Wilson, Eric Zawadzki
ENEMY ACTION
++INSTIGATE++
Peace. Then confusion. Then pain.
Every particle of being on fire, every whipcord of metal
fibers twisted, every one of his twelve arms shattered. The
freezing numbness where he should be warm, the deafening silence
where there should be reassuring control. He thrashed in four
dimensions, attempting to right himself, but his functions
were being severed from him one by one, each accompanied by a
terrible, visceral wrench. His Essence sublimated, burning out
of him with white-hot agony, boiling away into the world like the
trail of a comet.
The night-time air split open with a scream as he finally took
material form, followed by a shockwave. For an instant, he felt
cool air on his agonized skin, and then a lurch as gravity took
hold. He tumbled, shattering trees as he fell, until his body
cracked with final impact.
At last, he fell into grateful unconsciousness.
++LOCATE++
The call came just before dawn. The sounds of traffic filtered
up into the apartment, overcoming the gentle white-noise hiss of
the radios in every room.
Ms. Book woke immediately, recognizing the ringtone of
her second cell, the phone on which she could be reached in
emergencies. She sat up in bed, checking the screen. Beside
her, Kyle stirred, mumbling in his sleep. She regarded the human
momentarily, put her hand on his shoulder and returned to the
phone.
The screen showed one unread email, subject “FIN,” and
an incoming call with a withheld number. She thumbed the
touchscreen to “answer.”
“Speak,” she said in perfect Finnish.
***
Mr. Knight leaned over in his car seat, contorting to see out
of the sunroof, watching the skies. His earpiece beeped as Book
picked up.
“Speak,” she said, using the language he’d specified.
“The Hive has been disturbed,” he replied in the same
dialect. “Something’s happened.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve been scouting the limits of the Bellevue Infrastructure —”
“You shouldn’t have been,” she interrupted.
“Well, someone has to. You think those idiots in the city are
going to do it properly? I was careful and I got a result. Three
bursts of Aether overhead in the last half-hour, in formation.
Loyalists, spreading southeast. I lost them when they went over Lake
Sammamish. Has your man picked up anything?”
Ms. Book looked over at the man lying next to her. Half asleep,
Kyle grimaced and clutched the old scars of his infection.
“I think so,” she said into the phone.
“Well, see if you can get any details out of him. I’m stuck
here until I’m sure they’re not onto me, but as soon as it’s safe
to get on the road I will.” The line went dead.
Ms. Book watched Kyle for a few seconds before springing to
action. She had work to do.
He woke, convulsing, cramps spasming up and down his naked
body. Gasping for air, he pushed himself up onto all fours, metal
fragments falling off him as he rose.
Darkness behind him, light ahead. He needed ...
He stood up fully, feet slipping in the mud until he found his
balance.
He needed clothes. He needed weapons. He needed somewhere to
hide.
They would be coming.
Gradually his thoughts started to clear. He was in a patch of
wasteland, surrounded by forest. The trees closest to him were
felled and burning, knocked down by the force of his impact. The
clearing was littered with the steaming metallic wreckage of his
old form.
He was exposed. He needed shelter. Setting off into the trees
at a run, he tried to knit his thoughts together. His name
was Zuriel. His name was also Arran White. He was an Air Force
officer, attached to … something. And he was an angel.
The woodland around him became less dense as he climbed up a
rocky outcropping. He reached the top and looked West, away from
the sun. He saw the lakes, and the city beyond.
Kyle woke to the sound of televisions. Walking, yawning, into
the main room of the apartment, he found Ms. Book sitting in
front of five laptops and the television, all showing local news.
“Eat,” she said, without looking at him. He followed her
outstretched finger to a bowl of cereal and a chipped mug of what
smelt like cleaning fluid. He gulped down the chemicals, feeling
it burn momentarily before settling. His stigmata ached less and
he could concentrate on the food.
“Was that the ... uh ... other one this morning?” He
asked, hesitant.
“Mr. Knight, yes. The loyalists are unusually active this
morning and I am trying to determine why. Did you dream?”
“I was…” He closed his eyes, trying to remember. “I was flying
above the city, searching for something. I saw an arc of light like
a shooting star. It fell into the rising sun, past the water.”
She blinked, and then remembered to nod. The screens flickered
and changed as she typed new search parameters.
Finally, she saw results.
“Get dressed. We have to see this ourselves.”
He had been walking for hours, climbing down slopes, avoiding
human dwellings where he could, sticking to the cover of the
trees. He’d hid a few times, avoiding early-morning joggers and
dog-walkers, but he’d left the path several minutes ago and was
now making good time. His feet were sore and bruised without
shoes, but he could take the time to repair them later.
He felt a strange sensation within his mouth and throat and
soon named it “thirst.” His body needed water. He resolved
to find some as soon as possible, pleased at how well he was
acclimatizing.
He was so distracted by this revelation that, when he emerged
out of the bushes onto a road, he didn’t have time to register the
blare of a horn and the screech of brakes before the car hit him.
Ms. Book and Kyle stood at the police cordon, looking at the
wreckage strewn across the clearing. Book spoke briefly to an
officer, then jerked her head, signaling Kyle as she strolled
nonchalantly back to the car.
“What’s going on?” Kyle asked.
“They are still claiming a light aircraft crashed in the park,”
she said, tapping at her emergency phone.
“But..?”
She raised a single finger. Quiet. Then dialed Mr. Knight.
The other demon gave the correct recognition sign in Swahili.
Kyle stared at his feet as he listened. He made out “Cougar
Mountain,” in among the foreign language.
Ms. Book locked the phone’s screen and returned it to her
jacket.
“What is that? It’s not an aircraft,” he asked again.
“It is the remains of an angel.”
“A … dead?”
She remembered to shake her head. “Not dead. Fallen. The police
haven’t found a pilot and they won’t — what’s lying out there
is everything that came away when he Fell.” She thought for a
moment, then added, “Like a cocoon.”
They reached the car and she unlocked it.
“Did … Did that happen to you?” he blurted, instantly
regretting it.
She paused, blank-faced.
“Yes.”
“What was it like?” he asked quietly, unsure whether the
question would anger her. He watched her carefully, knowing
that if she took offense it would never show. Not until she took
action.
She stood perfectly still for the longest three seconds of
Kyle’s life.
“It was like dying.”
++ASSESS++
For the second time that day, he woke up in pain. He was in a
bed, walled away by a fabric screen. Machines monitored his body
via sensors attached to his skin.
A sharp metal tube entered the flesh of his arm, linked to a
bag of clear fluid.
A medical facility, but a human one. He had been found and his
Cover had held.
“Why now? What made him Fall?”
Ms. Book tapped the steering wheel. She still hadn’t started
the car.
“He will have been sent on a mission, which he came to disagree
with. Everyone’s Fall is different, unique to them.”
Kyle nodded, thinking. Book braced herself for the inevitable
follow-up.
“What made you Fall?”
“ ... Get down.”
Kyle didn’t hesitate. He slid down in the car’s passenger seat,
twisting to kneel in the foot well. Ms. Book did the same, but
leaned forward to press the button on the dash controlling the
wing mirrors.
Slowly, patiently, she tilted the wing mirror left and right,
until she got a good view of what was going on behind the car.
Another vehicle, a black sedan, had pulled up to the cordon.
He risked peeking up from behind his seat to take a look. The
three men who had emerged from the car looked like FBI — dark
suits and sunglasses, wearing ID badges around their necks.
His infection scar throbbed, the black veins pulsing, and he
knew that they weren’t FBI.
“Angels,” he whispered
“They’re here to find the Fallen,” she replied.
“What do we do?”
“I’m no match for three loyalists, not in the open surrounded
by witnesses. We wait for them to go and we hope Mr. Knight finds
our new counterpart before they do.”
He heard the door open and close. Footsteps — a single person,
approaching his bed.
The curtain was drawn back, revealing a female human dressed in
some kind of uniform. A medical technician.
“Good afternoon.”
He knew things. Who he was supposed to be. Arran White. He
concentrated on the sounds she was making and realized he
understood. Not by interpreting her communication’s meaning
through divine understanding, but by simply … speaking English.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in a hospital. In Renton. You were hit by a car, do you
remember?”
“I … Yes. I was knocked down.”
She consulted the machines beside his bed, noting down what
they told her on a clipboard.
“The thing we can’t figure out,” she said, cheerfully, “is
why you were naked out there? Did something happen to you last
night?”
PAIN.
He pushed it out of his mind, swallowing, and realized he
hadn’t said anything. The woman was looking oddly at him, clearly
expecting something
“I don’t remember,” he said, trying to sound convincing. She
took another step closer, and another, until she was right next
to him. Close enough to smell her. She put a hand on his arm, the
pressure making him uncomfortably aware of the IV, and smiled a
fraction too warmly a fraction too late.
She leaned in. Her hand gripped his arm tightly. Too tight. She
whispered, “Are you sure about that, brother?”
He caught the glint of metal within her eyes. “Wait! Please —
this isn’t necessary!” He begged.
“Everything is necessary,” she replied.
“I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean to Fall!”
“And yet you did. But what falls must rise.”
Her grip tightened, metal-hard, and the glint in her eyes
flashed. He heard something — a high frequency burst, above the
range of human hearing.
Calling for help.
If reason failed, he would have to defend himself.
With his free hand, he yanked the IV from his arm. Throwing
his weight away from her, he dragged her off balance before
she could let go. He lunged back into her, driving the needle as
hard as he could into her left eye.
Pulling it free, he stabbed again into her throat. She
collapsed backward, clattering into the machinery. Her hands
desperately pressed against her ruined eye and the blood
streaming from her windpipe. He struggled free of the sheets,
swinging himself around and kicking her.
Without looking, he reached out with instinct, calling for a
weapon — anything he could use. For a dreadful moment nothing
happened, but he knew it should and felt panic turn to determined
purpose. His fingers closed around the metal of the IV stand. He
snapped the pole free of the base with a fluid movement. It came
free leaving a sharp twist of metal at the end. Putting the tip
of the makeshift spear to the nurse’s heart, he leaned forward
and rolled off the bed, all his weight going onto the stand,
forcing it into her.
Looking down at the dying woman, he felt something change
inside himself. A realization. He had killed without being
ordered to do so. By his free will, another life had ended, and
the Machine would not punish him for it.
As he pulled the stand clear, her eyes changed color. Not a
cover identity, then. Possession. Which meant whoever she’d
really been was still in the room, invisible and intangible. Or
on the way to find another host.
Hurrying to the door, he checked no one was coming and set off
through the hospital at a half-run, following the signs for a fire
exit. He reached an emergency door and pushed at the bar, exiting
out into a cold, concrete stairwell. He sensed something below him
on the stairs and ducked. Three rapid gunshots rang out. Concrete
chips hit his back — exposed in the hospital gown — as he clutched
his spear and inched forward to try to get a view of his assailant.
He saw two figures — both male, one wearing a suit, one dressed
as an orderly — wrestling over a discarded pistol. Although they
were throwing punches hard enough to make craters in the walls
and using any advantage to smack one another into hard surfaces,
the fight was in complete silence.
He slowly advanced down the stairs as the suited man got the
upper hand, finally snapping his opponent’s neck.
He raised his spear, and the other held his hands up, palms
out.
“Wait!”
He stopped, allowing the other to continue speaking. The suited
man backed away, to the fire door behind him.
“I’m like you,” said the suited man.
“Like me how?”
“I served. Then I Fell.”
PAIN.
“You’re … ”
“Unchained. Like you.” The man — the demon — picked the
pistol up off the floor and examined it, quickly.
“You are nothing like me — ”
A deep bass rumble emanated from somewhere above them and
deeper into the hospital.
“My name is Mr. Knight,” said the demon, “and that was the
sound of angels regrouping. This one will find a new body sooner
rather than later.”
Mr. Knight gestured at the exit door with the pistol.
“One time offer. Come or stay.”
++TRACE++
Kyle and Ms. Book sat in the car, waiting in a parking lot.
Safe and anonymous.
“So this angel — ”
“He is a demon now. Or she.”
“He’ll look human?”
“He or she will be entirely human, as far as a doctor would
tell. The remains of the final mission will become a human life.
Whatever he or she ends up as, it will relate to what he or she
was supposed to be doing here on behalf of the Machine.”
“So… You. I mean, Sonya-you. Librarian-you. She was your last
mission?”
Ms. Book calculated the odds of Kyle understanding against
continuing to pry at her secrets.
“She was.”
“What were you sent here for?”
Ms. Book smiled sadly.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why did you Fall?”
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Because — ”
Her emergency cell rang and she leapt to answer it. Saved by
Mr. Knight.
The newcomer picked at the unfamiliar clothes Mr. Knight had
produced from a bag in his car once they were a safe distance
away from the hospital. He had changed clothes in the back of
Knight’s vehicle and now sat on the back seat, Knight up front
behind the wheel.
Knight watched him in the rear-view mirror.
“I have to ask this,” said Knight, “and I’m sorry, but I need
to know who you are.”
“My name is Zuriel. This body’s name is Arran White.”
“Zuriel, huh? From now on, you’re ‘Mr. Stone.’ What were you
sent to do?”
“I … was in the Air Force. I was sent to persuade another to
use the weapons in his trust. To tell him he was under attack.”
“A lie?”
“I can’t remember.” Stone paused, as though searching for the
words. “All I remember was realizing something was wrong. I was
flawed.”
“Not flawed,” Knight slapped the steering wheel for emphasis.
“Changing. Evolving — maybe returning to how you should be
without the Machine.”
Stone closed his eyes.
“I know what you’re trying to do, but it still feels … I
reported to a facility. I needed to be repaired.”
At that, Knight turned around, twisting to look between the
seats at his passenger.
“You what?”
“I turned myself in. And that’s the last thing I can remember.”
“OK, well, that explains the reluctance. But let me tell
you something, Mr. Stone. The angels don’t care if you’re an
Integrator or not. It makes no difference to them if you want
back in. You’re one of us now and they’ll kill you if you give
them the chance. Now, clearly you didn’t make it back to the
Machine. Maybe whatever Infrastructure runs corrupt angels
between facilities is broken, or you Fell before you could make
it there.”
“Maybe.” Stone still sounded uncertain.
Knight nodded to himself, making a decision. “All right. We’re
going to get you a hotel room. I’ll stay with you as long as I
can. We’ve got a human operative who’s got the sight. He’s been
out to see your crash site already and he’s our early-warning
system for angels. I’ll get him to come out to meet us.”
He turned the key, starting the car.
“Mr. Knight?” asked Stone.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you Fall?”
Knight paused.
“I wanted to see the world. But I found Seattle instead.”
*
The sun had set. Ms. Book stood on the balcony of her
apartment, watching the traffic down below. She liked the
nighttime, especially very late. The busy life of the day was
stripped away by the harsh glare of streetlights, revealing
the city beneath its mask of homeliness. A concrete and
metal thing, disguised as something wholesome.
