The Eighth Consulate

NOTICE:

This is a fragment page.

It is an internal page used by the Arstotzkan Universe Wiki, and is not meant to be read directly, but included by another. This page should be parented, see above.

---

THEN

— - —

A young boy stands in a long line of men and women in orange jumpsuits. He has a metal collar around his neck. He is marched out into the cold with a shovel in his hands, and as an adult with a flamethrower pushed back the vengeful brother, he pushes the ashes into small piles to be collected. He is thin, and sick. Their camp hasn't received rations in three days - but the guards stay fed.

There is a commotion, and bullets whip across the frozen earth. The boy dives for cover behind the humanoid’s black sword, and covers his ears against the screaming and laughing around him. It lingers for a moment, and then silence. When he opens his eyes, Jacob is leaning down to pick him up. The older man throws a warm blanket across Devin’s shoulders, and carries him to a waiting personnel vehicle.

— - —

Ivan Hilohiko stands at a podium, delivering news of a breakthrough to the first assembly of their new Council. He beams as the audience applauds.

— - —

The Incredibly Ivory flees down a dark alleyway in the Three Portlands, Council agents fast on her heels. She has run for what has felt like hours now, and knows she does not have much left to give. She hears dogs barking and her legs burn like cinders. She catches sight of another agent rounding the corner in front of her, so she stumbles down a side street.

It opens into a quiet intersection, but she can hear them approaching from all around her. Exhausted and resigned, she collapses in the street. Paint and blood are smeared on her clothes, and she laughs now seeing the mess. Well, she thinks, at least they'll give me something to change into.

A moment later a car screeches to a halt in front of her, and Karl pulls her into the car. When the Council agents exit the alleyway, she is nowhere to be found.

— - —

A phone is ringing.

— - —

In the distance is a mountain of fire and the sound of roaring machines and the continent being sundered. The earth shakes. Aleksander keeps the car straight on the road even as it bucks and buckles beneath him. In the back seat, Ivan is staring at the floor.

— - —

Through a small crack between two rocks, a man squeezes through followed shortly by his rucksack. He strikes a match, filling the chamber with light. Small white insects, those that haven't seen the light of day in a hundred generations, scurry for cover. The man lights his lantern and starts forward.

There's a draft from somewhere beyond this room, so he follows it. He ducks carefully under rock formations, tenderly brushing up against them so as to not disturb them. A bat flies low overhead and he is encouraged - this must be the right way. He presses on, and from somewhere not far off he can hear the sound of rushing water.

He opens into another cavern, but before he can get his bearings his foot snags the edge of the walkway and he tumbles to the ground, his lantern dashing and shattering against the ground, spilling oil and fire out in every direction. He hurries to stand, rubbing his side where he'd struck hard stone. Before he can move to put the fire out, a miracle catches his eye. In front of him is a waterfall, small but dozens of feet high. He approaches it cautiously, extending a hand out into the waters which he now sees flow up and around his hand. He splashes the water, which continues to flow up and out of the pool at his feet, towards some point in the dark far above him.

In the dimming light of that cavern, standing before an impossibility, Christopher Walker grins.

NOW

— - —

They drove overnight, Sam and Karl taking turns at the wheel while Devin slept in the back seat. They didn’t say a word until they reached their destination - a small inn in a tiny town on the edge of the jungle, a few miles from the main road. They pulled off and parked at a petrol station and Karl went inside the inn to meet their contact. It was morning, the sun had not quite risen, and they were exhausted.

The agent they had met in the burning city had given them not just a map, but a key and a notecard with a room number on it. Karl entered and climbed the stairs to the second level and found the door that matched the card. Quietly, as to not disturb anyone else who might be listening for him, he unlocked the door and crept inside.

A thin stream of light from a streetlamp outside had eased its way between the thin blinds on the window, but otherwise the room was dark. Karl closed the door behind him and took a few tentative steps into the room. He paused mid-step when he heard the distinctive click of a readied firearm.

“Does the Black Moon howl?” the voice behind the gun said.

“Only when the sun needs a reminder of the darkness,” Karl replied.

A small desk light clicked on next to a cot against the wall. Sitting in the chair was Kowalski, gun in hand, a thin bead of sweat having very recently eagerly formed on his forehead. He sighed when he realized it was Karl.

“Thank God,” he said, wiping his brow. “I don’t know if I could shoot someone if I had to. Targets, sure, but a person?” He grimaced. “It’s good to see you, Karl.”

Karl did a double take. “Kowalski? What are you of all people doing here right now? Was there nobody else you could send?”

The portly man frowned. “You know, I was an agent once too. It may have been a few years but I could still probably get the job done.” He pulled at his shirt slightly and uncomfortably, aware that they both knew that was a lie. “But no, I’m here because there’s something you need to know. Our sources have indicated that American troops are landing on a beach near where you just came from. Ostensibly they’re here to quell the rebellion, but the numbers don’t seem to match their intentions.”

Something clicked in Karl’s brain. “The jets. We saw bombers since the day we killed the Third.”

Kowalski nodded. “They were coming from the Harry S. Truman, who is anchored a mile off-shore. Something else you should know,” he continued, “is that there’s another ship in that group that doesn’t match any other US Navy ship on record. It’s flying an American flag but our sources believe it might be a Council destroyer - maybe the Scranton or the Wormwood. Either way, that probably means only one thing.”

Karl nodded. “The Eighth Consulate.”

Kowalski nodded as well. “They’re going to try and smoke you out, Karl. We can get you out of here if you want to get out, but…” he grimaced again.

Karl knew why. The Governor was maybe the most well-known of the Consulates but arguably the hardest to get near. Her involvement within the US military – notably the Texan military - had no doubt led to its explosion in size and technological achievement over time, and in return the military acted like a steel curtain around her. Away from the United States she was at least vulnerable, even if she had brought an army with her. It was their only opportunity.

“What you’ve done so far has been nothing short of incredible, Karl,” Kowalski said, leaning back in his chair. “I never would have though- we never would have thought anyone would get this close, but this one is different. There’s nothing clever you can do here. This is a hammer, and you are the nail.”

Karl frowned. “Appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“I’m serious,” Kowalski said, and suddenly Karl noticed something different about him - some quality that hadn’t been there before. Something stern and authoritative. “You’ve done amazing work but you need to keep doing amazing work. We might get a shot at this one later, after you’ve finished the others. Maybe that will help. But right now, you’re three people in a jeep in Canada, and you have an American military division a few hours away.” He sighed. “You’re no good to us dead.”

Karl hesitated for a moment, considering what Kowalski had just said. Before he could make up his mind, the other man continued.

“There’s one more thing, Karl. We have agents who have evidence of a secure container being moved out of the Foundation’s Site-19 and onto that ship. Whatever is in there, they’re no doubt planning on weaponizing it.”

“If you were me, what would you do?” Karl said.

Kowalski laughed. “Fortunately for both of us, I’m not you, because I wouldn’t be here right now.” He paused. “Here’s the way I see it. You’ve got no chance in a head-to-head anything. You’re outnumbered 3000-to-1, and that’s generous. Honestly, I don’t know if you’ve got a chance being sneaky, either. This army has spent the last four decades rooting people out of holes in the Middle East, there’s not a chance you wouldn’t be found.”

He paused again. “You know, I met 909-8 once, back before I joined Delta, at a government function. I don’t know if dhe knew who I was, but if she did she didn’t act it. I don’t know if there’s a more arrogant and braggadocious person in the entire world. The way she talks, she was the woman who singlehandedly built the most powerful military in the entire world.” He laughed. “Maybe he did, I don’t know. I don’t think you win here by being smart, Karl. I think you win by forcing him to do something stupid.”

Karl nodded. “Maybe. Either way, I don’t see a way we can leave. We’re not going to get the shot again, and everything we do after this becomes that much harder if we don’t eliminate her.”

Kowalski stood up. “I agree. I don’t envy the position you’re in, but I don’t know of anyone more qualified than you to be in it.”

The two of them walked for the door, with Karl opening it slowly. After catching a look from Kowalski, he shrugged sheepishly. “Don’t want to wake anyone up.”

Kowalski laughed. “Oh, no, you won’t. This whole town is empty. They caught wind of what was coming and abandoned their homes last night.”

As they stepped outside the inn, the sun was just beginning to come up over the top of the trees, and a thin fog hung in the air. Devin was awake, sitting in the back seat of the jeep and running his hand over the metal canister that the Spear was in. When Sam came around the car and saw them, she did an abrupt double take.

“Delta?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Delivering bad news, I’m afraid.” Kowalski looked back at Karl; his eyes morose. “Do be careful, Karl. You’re so close now.”

Without another word, Kowalski turned and began walking down the dirt road. He continued on until he was out of sight. Sam turned to Karl. “What did he mean?”

Karl grimaced. “The Eighth Consulate is sometimes called The Governor. She’s an old African-American woman, one of those ghosts from long ago that just refuses to die. She’s also really easy to find - she’s got an office in Site-7 – one of the least secured sites in the Council.”

“So what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that she’s nearby, not far from here.”

Sam shrugged. “That doesn’t sound bad. We don’t have far to go.”

Karl gestured with uncertainty. “Not quite. Kowalski says she brought an Texan army with her. They landed on the beach back in the city and chances are they’re moving inland looking for us.”

Devin was listening now. “How many is in an army?”

Karl considered. “About ten-thousand men in a division. They’ll have naval and air support, too. The jets we saw weeks ago were probably US planes.” He crouched down, looking at a rock next to his shoe. “I’m all ears if either of you have any ideas.”

“What did the Delta say?” Devin asked.

Karl snorted. “That she’s an asshole. Shocking, I know, for a gal who doesn’t go anywhere without an invading force behind her.” He sighed. “Either way, we need to put some room between us and them. The way I see it, if we can head further north, we might find a spot we can post up on for the night and see what they do next.”

They agreed, and together the three of them loaded into the jeep and followed the winding dirt road towards the hills in the north. For a while they could still see smoke rising in the far distance over the trees, but as clouds gathered above them and the rains began to fall the world behind them faded into the same shade of mottled grey. The road quickly morphed from something traversable to a muddy, impossible bog. They drove for hours, stopping only once to refuel from a nearly empty tank at an abandoned roadside shop. Day turned to night, and eventually the road turned into a gravel path leading up into the mountains.

They reached a short outcropping from which they could see for several miles over the trees, and backed the jeep into a small grove of trees. Sufficiently satisfied that it was not visible from the road below, they retreated below a rocky overhang to stay out of the rain. Karl posted up for first watch, and the three of them traded shifts throughout the night.

— - —

Dawn broke on Sam’s watch and the three of them collectively broke their meager camp. The rain had subsided but only just, and the skies were still cloudy and grey. While Karl finished packing, Devin stood on the edge of the cliff, quietly fuming at the sky.

“Something up there piss you off?” Sam asked, passing by him with a rolled bedding pad under her arm.

Devin shook his head. “I hate cloudy weather. This is bullshit.” He stared at the clouds a little longer, and then slunk off to his computer in the back of the jeep. Sam shot Karl a look, and Karl rolled his eyes.

In the distance they heard a crack, and then another. There began a rumbling somewhere in the jungle, and from their perch they could see trees collapsing and the smoke of engines as something began to push through the trees. Karl swore, and then looked into the sky. Dipping just beneath the clouds was a flying thing, white and metallic, that disappeared back into the overcast as quickly as it had appeared. A drone.

“Alright, well, time to go,” he said, leaping into the jeep. “Looks like the party found us.”

They came skipping down off the outcropping and back onto the soaked and sloppy road towards the north. As they pulled away, a hulking metal shape came through the trees a half mile away and leveled a long cannon at them. Karl jerked the wheel right and into the brush as a shell burned past, throwing up mud and debris as it exploded in the road. Karl righted the wheel and caught another path towards the west, and they continued on.

Over the sound of the jungle and their own engine, the noise of the war machine behind them grew louder and louder. Overhead they could hear helicopters and jets, and in the near distance the sound of more tanks and heavy equipment leveling the forest as they pursued the group. Eventually the trees thinned out and their jeep broke into open grassland.

“Fuck me,” Karl said, craning his neck to watch the skies behind them, “we’re exposed.”

The sound of blades came fast and loud, and six helicopters were suddenly on them. Karl pushed the jeep around another hill and into a dusty narrow valley. One of the helicopters came into view above them, and began to fire. Karl hugged the jeep up against a rocky wall, and Sam came up from the back seat with a scoped rifle. She braced it against the metal frame of the vehicle and put her eye into the sight.

“Cut it,” she shouted at Karl, who laid on the brake until they came to a complete stop. The helicopter turned to come around at them again, but broke hard to the left as Sam swiftly lobotomized the pilot with a bullet. Devin stared at her, perplexed.

“Aren’t you an artist?” he asked.

Sam shrugged and reloaded. “I was. I’ve been doing this longer.”

Karl crept towards the edge of the valley and cut through a small passage between two steep cliffs. Another helicopter came into sight as they crested one of them, and Sam took a shot. The bullet missed the pilot but hit a rotor, causing the craft to sink violently and out of sight. Karl made another turn, and then one more over a ridge, and then they were out from under the mountain. In front of them was a road winding up into the craggy land past the fields. It pushed through the grassland and then, not far from where they were now, straight into the badlands. Karl took his foot off the accelerator and they coasted to a stop.

“Ah, shit,” Sam swore.

Sitting between them and the badlands were military vehicles, hundreds of them, each trained on their jeep sitting on the hill. Above them helicopters circled, and Karl could make out the shapes of drones just above the cloud layer. Somewhere in the mass of tanks and assault vehicles a horn blared, and the door of a personnel carrier slid open. A woman climbed out and closed the door behind her.

She was tall, with broad shoulders beneath a wide brimmed hat. She was wearing a white dress with long socks, and on her feet were tall, glossy, oiled boots. She stepped forward from the line of guns and waved at them, motioning them to drive down the hill.

“Is that her?” Devin asked, his eyes poking out from behind the back seat.

Karl nodded. “Sure looks like it.”

Sam peered down at the woman. “What’s our play here?”

Karl drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We could try and ram her. If we got to her before she climbed back inside that vehicle that might do it. But I don’t think we’d even make it that far.” His eyes scanned the long line of metal pointed at them. “We could bolt back the way we came, but I don’t know if we’d make it far.”

“Not a lot of great choices there, boss,” Sam said, smirking.

Devin leaned around the seat. “I think if they were going to kill us, they could’ve just as easily done it already,” he said. “Maybe we just drive down there and improvise?”

Karl turned back to face him. For a moment his steely glare threatened to put a hole in Devin’s forehead, but then he laughed.

“Staring down the face of certain death, and your idea is to wing it.” He shook his head. “Incredible. I love it. Best option we’ve had so far.”

He pulled the wheel around and brought the jeep down from the hill and rested it a few yards from the woman in the dress. They parked, and then Karl climbed out. Before he turned away, he leaned back to the other two.

“If things get hairy,” he said, “one of you jump in here and gun it. I’m not saying you’ll make it, but you never know.”

With that, he turned back towards the woman in the dress and stopped just short of the front of the jeep.

“Morning,” Karl said.

“Mornin’,” the woman said, smiling. “You must be Karl, the fella that everyone is talking so much about.”

Karl shrugged. “Might be. Who’s asking?”

The woman laughed. “You’re a little smartass, aren’t you? I like it. The name’s Wintersmith, Kendra Wintersmith. You no doubt know about my exploits as a member of some secret underground associations, but let me assure you my loyalties to country come first. So believe me when I say that, whether or not the boss-man would like to hear it, I’m coming you today as an American citizen, not some woman in black or anything.”

Karl raised an eyebrow. “Admittedly, not what I was expecting. Plus, you are black.”

The Governor shrugged. “Look son, a woman’s got to look out for his interests - and there is nothing I am more interested in than the ongoing safety and security of the United States of America, especially Texas and Oklahoma, full stop. I got into this game because I wanted to be able to better anticipate the threats posed by the strange and unusual, and by God I’ve seen my fair share. During that time, I’ve been able to oversee projects that have strengthened the security of our great nation, by way of new technology or other such advantages that the paranatural offer us.”

She reached into her bad and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, slid one from inside, and caught it in her teeth. She lit it with a flick from a lighter, and took a long draw on it.

“Yes,” she said, “we have benefited immensely from our pact of cooperation with the Council. Hell, I wouldn’t even be standing here today if it weren’t for those benefits. We’ve got a good thing going here, and I was hoping to keep that good thing going for a good long while.”

His expression darkened. “But then you had to come along and snatch away our ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card when you pushed poor old Hudson down that shaft. Now, I’m not dying of old age or disease anytime soon - the Council took care of that a long time ago. But now I’m susceptible to all manner of harms and, by extension, so is the United States. That, I’m afraid, just won’t do.”

She pointed back towards the jeep. “However, you’ve got something back there that I think we can reach some sort of agreement on. I’m no monster, Karl - just an old fashioned African-American girl in good standing with some powerful people. I don’t need to see any bloodshed for no reason, so I’ll give you an offer. Might just be the best offer you’re gonna get.”

Karl squinted at her. “I’m listening.”

The Governor smiled again. “How about I let you and your two compadres back there scamper back off into the woods, and in exchange you hand over that spear you’ve got your hands on.”

“The spear?” Karl did a double take. “Why do you want the spear?”

The Governor flicked the end of her cigarette, sending ashes scattering across the ground. “It’s a funny thing, that spear. I can’t imagine how you would’ve got your hands on it, because we had it locked up tighter than a witch’s cunt. You probably don’t even know what it is, do you?”

“I know what it’s called,” Karl said.

“Sure thing, but you don’t know what it is.” The Governor laughed. “When we found that thing, it was locked in the dusty grasp of some ancient King. Definitely cursed, though; the lives we spent just trying to pry it out of that bastard’s grip - well, I’ll spare you the details. Just believe me when I say it took some doing. That spear there is the spear they used to pierce the side of Jesus Christ himself, the only one in the world that could’ve done it. How it ended up in that Roman’s hands I’ll never know, but it did the trick then and, apparently, it can do the trick now, too.”

“See,” she continued, “that spear is old, Karl. It’s got a sort of magic about it that you just don’t see anymore. The things it’s capable of doing surpass any army or bomb I could come up with. You think if Jehovah or Cthulhu or the flying spaghetti monster descend from the heavens and decide to fuck up the United States, that we have any kind of weapon that can deter their advances.” He shook his head. “No, we do not. But that spear could. That spear can kill gods, Karl. I don’t know if there’s a more deadly stick in the entire world, maybe the whole got-dang universe, and it’s sitting in the back seat of your car right now.”

He held his arms open. “So there’s the deal. Give me the spear, I make America safe again, and you get to go about your merry business with your lives - killing Consulates, overthrowing governments, whatever you want.”

Karl considered this. “You understand that you’re a part of this too, right? It’s no coincidence that you’re next.”

The Governor cackled. “Am I? I always forget which number I am, just that I’m somewhere in the middle of the voting call.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “I wondered as much when we found The Mercenary’s crusty corpse back in that town. Between you and me, Karl, I didn’t care much for him either. A little too much power gone to the ole noggin, if you know what I mean. I’m sure plenty of us seem crazy, but that old bird was a whole different brand.”

She pulled her socks up slightly by her knees. “That said, I certainly will not stop you if you want to try to kill me, but that will be after we’ve concluded negotiations here and you have handed over the spear.”

Karl shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

The Governor smiled again, but this time there was something sinister about it. The sincerity in his expression had run dry.

“Yeah, I was worried you’d say that,” she said, adjusting her socks. “You know, I could kill you right here, right now, with no effort at all. Could’ve done so last night when you three were hunched in a cave in the middle of the woods. It would’ve been easy, Karl, and really, this decision should’ve been easy too. But you’ve made it difficult for us, and now we have a decision to make.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what you think you’re trying to accomplish, and frankly I don’t give two fucks about the ideological war you think you’re fighting. All that matters to me is getting that spear, and as easy as it would be to just take it, that wouldn’t be very sporting. Besides,” she cracked her knuckles, “it’s been a little while and I’ve got some muscle to flex.”

She pointed into the sky behind Karl, who turned around to see a Chinook helicopter descending through the clouds with a massive steel crate strapped to its underside. “In that box,” The Governor said, “is something nasty. So nasty, in fact, that they’ve been trying to kill it for years, but just haven’t had any luck.” She tapped a finger against her head. “What I think I’m going to do is this: I’m going to let you go. I’m going to let you climb back in that jeep, give you a little water, and let you drive off into the hills. Then, after a few hours, I’m going to point that box in your direction and open it. If what’s in the box doesn’t get you first, then I’ll have the boys here roll over whatever’s left and scoop up the spear on the way back. We’ll call it a training exercise.”

She flicked the cigarette butt over towards Karl. “That’s what we’ll do. I like that. Seems fairer.”

Karl glared at her. “What if I pull a gun on you, right now, and kill you here?”

The Governor laughed. “I asked myself the same thing. See, the difference between if you try to kill me and if I try to kill you is that I’m definitely killing you. You pull a gun on me here and the 95th Infantry turns you and your friends into dust. Or, alternatively, you march out there into the rocks and dirt and die out there, only a little later. Either way, your little journey is drawing to a close. All that’s left to decide now is how you want it to end.”

Karl stood there for a moment longer, and then turned back to the jeep. He climbed in the driver’s seat and fired up the engine, and slowly they began driving towards the line of tanks and guns. As they did, the vehicles all pulled out of the way revealing the road into the badlands, and allowed them to pass by.

As they pulled alongside The Governor, the woman put a hand on Karl’s door. She leaned in and smiled at Sam and Devin, and tossed a half-full canteen into the back seat.

“Ya’ll have a safe trip, now.” She slapped the door. “We’ll be seeing each other again here real soon.”

Karl put his foot into the gas, and the jeep sped off down the long road into the hills.

— - —

Once the long line of The Governor’s division had disappeared into the distance, the three of them began to breathe easier. Karl wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

“Smooth move, kid,” he said to Devin. “Improvising was a good choice.”

Devin, though, was not happy. “Yeah, I guess.” He paused. “Why didn’t you just give him the spear, Karl?”

Karl looked back at him through the rearview. “It’s important that we hold onto it. Giving it up isn’t an option.”

Devin’s brow furrowed, but his next question didn’t come out of his mouth, but from Sam’s. “Where did you find it?” she asked.

Karl was quiet for a moment. “When I was younger my mother and I escaped from my father - he was a drinker and like to hit us when he wasn’t drinking. When we got out, we went to the countryside where my aunt lived. We used to take walks through the fields and the woods, just her and I, and those were some of the happiest times in my entire life.”

“Then one day,” he continued, “we were walking by a lake and she said she recognized somebody out in it. When I turned to look, I saw bodies, maybe hundreds of them, and she walked towards the lake and then into it and disappeared. I went in after her and I could hear the bodies talking to me, and I saw my mother and she just smiled at me and sank into the waters and I never saw her again. I fought through those corpses for hours and nobody would believe me when I told them she’d been taken into the lake.”

He sighed. “I went back there, recently. I hadn’t been back since my aunt shipped me off to boarding school, but I went back. The bodies are gone, and the paths to get there are overgrown, but the lake is still there. While I was there - getting my bearings, I guess - I was approached by someone. I don’t-” he hesitated, “I could barely remember what they looked like even immediately after they left. I don’t know how to describe them, other than they sounded… tired? Empty? Like the voice of a person superimposed over a ghost.”

“What did they want?” Devin asked.

“They told me two things. They told me my name, and they told me that I was an agent of the Insurgency. I assumed they were Foundation or GOC or Council or something so I shot at them.” He laughed. “Seems stupid now, but I had no idea who they were - still don’t, and they came up all spooky-like and, well. Either way, the bullets passed straight through them, like they weren’t even there. They told me to relax, and that they weren’t there to harm me, but that they had something they needed to give me.”

“I followed them through the woods until we reached a spot below a cliff. There were these brambles in between us and the cliff face, but as we walked through them, they just sort of melted away. Once they were gone, I saw it - a metal door in the rock, with the Council snake on it. This person, whoever it was, opened the door and led me inside. There were some old filing cabinets full of papers and a ton of dust; I bet nobody had been in there in decades. This person points towards a door on the far end of this little narrow room and tells me that there’s a tool past that door I can use to destroy the Council. They told me that, if I chose to go in there and take it, I’d have to make a horrible choice - and that if I could do that, I could have it.”

Sam frowned. “What was the choice?”

Karl took a deep breath. “When I walked through the door, I was suddenly out by the lake, only I was just a kid again and I was walking with my mother. She- I don’t think it was a dream. I reached out and grabbed her hand and it was real. Then-” he paused, “-then we passed by the lake again, and I saw her walking down towards the water, and there were so many bodies. I started running after her, and it was different this time, because I knew what she was doing before she did it, and I was just an arm’s length away. I could have grabbed her, or tackled her, and kept her from going in. When I was younger, I had just frozen up until it was too late, but this time I could do something. I could save her.”

He tapped his finger against the steering wheel. “But as I came up behind her something stopped me. When I looked back towards the treeline, I saw this person who had led me to the door, standing there on the edge of the forest. They- they were just standing there, and I realized then, I think, that they had always been standing there. They were watching me and, in their hands, they had this metal cylinder.” He nodded towards Devin, who turned the cylinder over in his hands. “All of a sudden I knew that if I didn’t go to them now, I’d never get the chance again.”

He swallowed hard. “So I turned back and went to the person in the trees and took the canister from them. When I turned back towards the lake, she was already gone.” He wiped at something in his eye with the palm of his hand. “When I came to, I was standing by the lake again as an adult, but I had the canister. I had always had the canister, ever since that day when I was a kid at the lake.”

They all sat in silence for several long seconds, before Karl continued. “This person, whoever they were, they came up beside me at the lake and told me my name and that I was an agent of the Insurgency. They asked if I remembered them and I told them I did. They handed me something else - the two vials of water. When I asked who they were they didn’t tell me, but something about the way they looked at me was just… perpetually sad. I took the vials, and then they told me they were sorry. I blinked, and they were gone.”

“Christ,” Devin said, sinking back in his seat. “I’m sorry. I just thought it was a really good spear.”

Karl snorted. “It is a really good spear. You saw what it did to those guys on the stairs back in the city weeks ago.” He shook his head. “No wonder Uncle Sam — or the female version of Patrick Ewing — back there wants to get her hands on it.” He rubbed his chin. "ERB reference, huh? Anyways, once I realized what it was capable of, I gave it to the Library for safekeeping. Best place to put something you never want to be found again."

Sam was thinking. “Hang on,” she said, “if this person gave you the spear when you were a kid, and the vials more recently, then where did you get the journal?”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t kidding when I said that I stole it,” Karl said, matter-of-factly. “I got a hint from one of our friendlier Coalition contacts that David McLean had taken to keeping it on his person while he was trying to decipher it. I also knew he was going to be in Berlin two days before the Von Marr Gala last spring, so I happened to find myself on the sidewalk as he was getting out of his car and just jacked him.”

“Jacked him?” Sam exclaimed. “You mean, like, you punched him? Jesus, Karl, isn’t David McLean like, 100 years old?”

“Older than that, yeah, absolutely flattened the lad,” Karl said, grinning. “Don’t feel too bad, though. I think he’s probably had a few pulls off the Fountain of Youth at some point in his past too, so he’s still in pretty good shape. Once he was down, I snatched it from his coat pocket.”

“Didn’t he have bodyguards or something?” Sam asked.

“Whoa, hold up,” Devin said, his eyes growing wide. “Is that what you were having me doing?”

Karl burst out laughing. “Oh yeah, it was perfect. I had Devin fuck with their GPS - they were a street over and had no idea what was going on. The only person McLean had nearby was his driver, and I punched that guy too.”

Devin rolled his eyes. “You had me break into Google Maps just so you could punch an old man?”

“Absolutely,” Karl said, nodding furiously. “Just clocked him, too.”

— - —

A few hours later the clouds overhead cleared. Devin leaned out to look at the sky and smiled.

“Finally,” he said with relief. “Clear skies.”

Karl looked back at him. “Enjoying the weather?”

Devin was quickly pulling his laptop out and slapping an antenna on the side of the jeep. “I had an idea earlier, but wanted to check something out first.” He stared at the screen as information danced across it, and his face lit up. “Hey, Delta said that The Governor is a cocky son-of-a-bitch, didn’t he?”

Karl squinted at him. “Language, young man. But yeah, that’s definitely the point he was getting across, I think. Why?”

Devin’s hands danced across the keyboard. “Do you think she’d violate Eurasian sovereignty?”

It was Karl’s turn to look surprised. “She might. What do you have in mind?”

“Right right right, and you said that Delta said our best bet was to try and get her to do something stupid, right?”

Karl rolled his eyes. “Get to the point.”

“Ok,” Devin said, nodding slowly. “Ok, ok. Yes. Ok. So, I also have a tragic story from my youth that is about to become useful.”

Karl and Sam snorted in unison. “Go for it,” Karl said. “Lead the way.”

“We’re actually really close to the town I grew up in,” Devin said. “My parents immigrated down here when I was a baby, and we ended up in one of these little mountain villages.”

“Why do we need to go there?” Sam asked.

“Just trust me,” Devin said. “I’m not saying it’s a perfect plan, but if you think The Governor is cocky and stupid enough to try and march her army up a mountain, it’s a plan.”

He pointed Karl in the direction of a road leading east. The sun was getting low in the sky behind them, and before too long the sound of distant helicopter rotors cut across the mountains. Shortly afterward, the sound of treads and diesel accompanied it, and then something else. It was a low, moaning sound, something like an animal in pain. These sounds continued to pursue them, but didn’t arrive before they had pulled off the road and into a small, quiet, seemingly abandoned village. Karl parked and the three of them climbed out of the jeep, walking carefully towards the center of town.

“Privet?” Devin called out. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

The first glint of the setting sun of a helicopter blade poked around the mountain, and they ducked into a house. It was empty.

Sam looked around the room as Karl posted up at the window. “What happened here? Everything is still in place - it looks like whoever lived here before didn’t take any of their stuff when they left.”

Devin grimaced slightly. “We didn’t.”

Suddenly they heard a loud clattering from across the small-town square. Something moved past the window, causing Karl and Sam to both draw weapons. Devin held a hand up.

“You two are going to need to chill,” he said, “at least for a minute. Don’t shoot anything yet.”

They snuck out the back of the house and followed the ridge behind the houses to the far end of the road, just across from where they had heard the sound. They sprinted across the street to the house. The thin front door was standing open. Devin leaned inside and pulled a flashlight out from his bag. He pointed it inside and turned it on.

A figure was standing in the far corner of the room - a shorter, round man wearing a thick, dirty shawl and no other clothes. His skin was pale and, in some places, unusually red. He was swaying slowly, and Karl noticed something strange about the way his body was shaped but couldn’t place it.

Devin took a step inside, holding a hand out in front of him. “Father Mikhail Ivanov?” he asked in Russian. “Is that you?”

The man turned slightly and looked at Devin. The right side of his face bulged significantly, as if something was pushing up against the skin from beneath. When he saw Devin, the man smiled.

“Ah, little bird,” the man responded. His speech was thick and each word was accompanied by a spray of spittle. “Welcome home.”

Devin looked the man up and down. From their position outside Karl and Sam could see Devin’s face, and there was a sort of resigned sadness to it. He managed a weak smile.

“Father,” Devin said, “where is everyone? Have they all left?”

The man tottered slightly towards Devin. “No, no little bird. They are here. They are all around us. The sickness came for them, just as it came for me.” He ran a thick hand across his bulging, exposed belly. “It will come for us all, in time. My ascension has nearly arrived.”

From outside the house they heard the same animalistic roar as earlier, an eerie sound that stood their hair on end. Devin turned away from the sound back to the old man, who was now dragging a meaty leg across the floor towards him. He said something in Russian to Mikhail, who uttered a slurred response. Devin turned back to the others.

“Something you both need to know,” he said, pulling his gun from its holster. “When I was younger, people here started getting sick. Nobody could explain it and no cure seemed to help. As they got sicker, they would… change.”

“Like that guy back there?” Karl said.

Devin cringed. “Father Mikhail was one of the last holdouts. People who got sick were sent into the mountains around here so they wouldn’t inflict anyone else, but others always got sick anyway. The Foundation showed up eventually and put those of us who were left to work cleaning out the mountains, but…” he trailed off, his eyes growing wide. Karl and Sam turned to look behind them.

Coming up the path to the mountain was a line of tanks, slowly crawling across the rock and gravel. Men in personnel carriers and on foot followed behind, a long, winding column that stretched as far down as they could see, and at the head of the line was The Governor standing up in the humvee, smiling and holding out a long, black whip. She brought it up over her head and with a deafening crack, pulled it down across the body of the creature in front of her.

It was massive, vaguely reptilian, with too many eyes and mottled green skin. It had long, thick strands of oily hair that dragged across the ground with every plodding step. Its mouth was long like a crocodile but its teeth looked like those of a snake. Every time The Governor brought the whip down across the creature’s back, it moaned in a horrid, foul agony. As they drew near to the town, the Consulate pulled a megaphone out from inside her vehicle and clicked it on.

“You’re a tricky sumbitch, Karl!” she shouted, her amplified voice echoing off the mountains surrounding them. “I thought you’d be smart and stick to the road where you could just keep going till you ran out of gas, but here you are trapped in the mountains. Nowhere to go now, boy.”

He cracked the whip again and the monster howled. “This here is my problem, folks. I can’t seem to do anything with this big guy. Now, I’m not saying you can, but the way I see it I’m walking into this little gathering with two problems and leaving with one. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what that’s gonna be.”

She hopped down from the humvee and slapped the creature on the side, causing it to growl menacingly. He gestured towards the group with the whip, and said something to the beast. Then, with an almost obscene viciousness, he brought the whip down on the creature several times in quick succession. It howled in rage and charged across the small dirt road towards where Devin, Karl, and Sam stood. They turned to run, but something waddling out into the street caught their eye and made them hesitate.

Father Mikhail was standing between the charging reptilian monstrosity and them, unmoving. The creature continued to charge but then hesitated and came to a stop just before reaching the old man. It leaned down to look at him, its eyes tightening. From deep within its gut they heard words - a voice, deep and gnarled like the roots of an old tree. Not truly of this world but unfortunately placed within it.

“What… what is this?” The creature took another step forward. “This… filth.”

Father Mikhail stumbled slightly, then gathered himself up. From where they were standing, they could see something moving, just under his skin. It had begun to seep in some places and blood was now flowing out of his ears. He extended his arms wide and smiled.

“I have ascended,” he said, his voice sloppy with orgasmic stupor.

“Hey!” The Governor shouted from her humvee. “What in the fuck is the goddamn hold up, you dirty ass-”

Before she could finish his sentence, Father Mikhail’s skin split from the top of his head down to his groin. His eyes bulged and burst. His smiling face pulled apart and fell off to each side, and his torso expanded rapidly. The reptilian creature recoiled, its eyes wide with confusion. The thing that had been Father Mikhail collapsed to the ground and writhed there, like an insect breaking free from its cocoon. After a moment it stopped moving, and the town was silent.

Then came another sound, more horrible even than the moans of the reptilian creature. It came from the pile of flesh and meat on the ground, and then echoed off into the mountains. It was half a dying animal, half a regurgitated human cry of terror. The sound that come out of the pile was suddenly joined by many other similar sounds coming from the rocks and high places around them.

The pile of meat began to writhe again, and up from it came an abomination. It was slick with blood and fluid, all pink and red and yellow. Its face, if it could be called that, was long and bore no notable features. It had many appendages, and more that came unfolded from its back and hung akimbo by its sides. Father Mikhail’s loose skin lay discarded on the ground, but his hateful flesh screamed its birthing cry.

The ground beneath them began to shake. There was the distinct sound of cracking rock as a nearby cliff face appeared to buckle, then collapse. The tumbling stone kicked up a cloud of dust, but when the dust settled there was nothing behind it but blackness. Out of that blackness came more cries, and then more from above. Another skin-creature appeared on a ledge nearby, then another. Then hundreds. Then thousands, each of them screaming and writhing and dancing a hellish dance in the light of the setting sun.

Then came the sound of a gunshot, and one of the flesh creatures stumbled and fell down the mountainside. The entire assembly stopped and watched as it crashed against the stone and came to a rest between two small shacks set against the cliff. It lay there unmoving, before writhing again and standing back up. It howled a ghastly howl, and then began to approach the soldiers, more quickly than seemingly possible. More gunshots, and then the howls reached a fever pitch and the mass of flesh and gore crashed down the mountainside towards the 95th Infantry.

At the head of the line was the lizard, who now turned back with malice in its eyes at the writhing form of what had been Father Mikhail. It struck out with its long teeth, but the creature moved too quickly and slid around the lizard. Its long, meaty appendaged stuck to the side of the massive reptile, who roared and clawed at its back as the flesh beast began to envelop it. The ground beneath them shook again, and suddenly the ground was falling away. Below the cracks they could see hair, and flesh, and eyes, all staring skyward and full of blood and hate. Thick tendrils of flesh rose up from the ground as the acrid smell of gunpowder and smoke filled the air, all while more and more of the skinwalkers flew down the mountainside and out of the caves.

Karl had grabbed Devin and Sam, and the three of them were now sprinting towards another humvee, left abandoned by its previous occupants who were now being pulled into the earth screaming by a mass of hands and teeth. As they got near, one of the flesh things came running at them. Karl threw a heavy kick at the creature, but his foot stuck in the putrid mass of flesh and began to sink into the thing’s skin. On its face, something like a sucker opened up and began to descend towards Karl before being removed from the rest of its body in a hail of bullets from Sam’s rifle. Her and Devin grabbed Karl by the arms and pulled him up into the humvee.

Behind them the soldiers were in full retreat. The mountains had broken open and now massive, horrible flesh nightmares were crawling out towards the column of infantry, crushing vehicles and man alike. A helicopter overhead was destroyed when a truck had been launched into the sky, and it came crashing to the earth, setting the path down the mountain ablaze. The skin creatures blistered and bubbled and screamed at the flames, but it did not stop the flood of them coming from out of the ground.

Karl threw the humvee into motion and they swiftly avoided a flaming personnel carrier that crashed into a nearby building. They drove past a church and then another row of houses, and came out on the other side of the main square. In the distance they could see the fires and the flesh and the panicked soldiers packed together in a horrible crush of man and meat. Near them, however, in the middle of the town square, was another scene entirely.

The flesh beast that had once been Father Mikhail had grown dramatically in size, and was now grappling with the lizard as the two tore at each other. Standing on the lizard’s back, one hand wrapped around a thick chain connected to a spike driven into the lizard’s spine and another wrapped around the black whip was The Governor. Her hat had been knocked off and her once white stainless dress was ripped and soaked with blood, but the ferocity in her eyes was like that of a hound, wracked with bloodlust and fury. She cracked the whip against the reptile’s back, spurring it onward while he cackled like a madman.

“Get fucked, you ugly-ass meat goblin!” she shouted, yanking the chain left and right. He pulled the whip back behind his head and lashed it forward towards the flesh creature that had been Father Mikhail, which recoiled from the strike. The reptile sunk its teeth into the creature’s fleshy exterior as they all howled and screamed. Below the reptile, smaller flesh horrors were beginning to assemble like a sea of gore, swaying rhythmically in a hypnotic frenzy.

As the lizard brought the meat beast to the ground, they could see The Governor again, standing on the lizard’s back and staring at them. Her eyes were red with lust and hate.

“You!” she roared, pointing the whip at the group. “You little whores don’t get to go anywhere until I’m done fuck-”

He was interrupted as Sam shouldered her rifle and took a shot at her. The Consulate brought her whip up furiously and caught the bullet in midair, shattering it with a resounding pop. She fired again and he caught it again. She fired a third time out of rhythm, and the tip of the whip missed the bullet. The Governor stumbled and caught herself on the chain, her whip-hand held up to his chest. When it pulled it away, it was covered in blood.

The Governor looked back up at them. Her face was covered in shock and disbelief, and she dropped the whip and started to idly rub the spot on her heart where blood was now cascading from. Karl thought he could see the Consulate start to say something, but before any words left her lips she let go of the chain and toppled off the reptile’s back, into the throng of howling meat creatures. They descended on him like ghouls, ripping and tearing pieces of her body away and incorporating them into their own. Then the mass descended upon the reptile, who finally succumbed to the weight of the massive flesh creature and all of the many thousands of small creatures and was pulled, piece by piece, into the earth.

They sat on the ridge overlooking the small village until the last scrap of meat had been pulled from the lizard’s bones and the tide of flesh began to recede again into the mountains. Once the last of the meat monsters had disappeared, the reptile’s skeleton collapsed into dust, out of which crawled the tiniest of lizards. It emerged from the pile, shook itself off, shot a dirty look at Sam, Karl and Devin, and scurried off into the hills.

“Hell of a shot,” Devin said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Karl said, to nobody in particular. He was still staring at the spot where The Governor’s body had fallen. All that remained was a red smear and a crushed brimmed hat.

“Devin,” Sam said hesitantly, “were those things…?”

“They were,” he said. “Friends, family. People I knew. Once everyone started getting sick, there wasn’t much stopping it. It’s not a disease, not really. The air would get hazy sometimes, like it was full of pollen. Spores, maybe. You’d breathe them and then start getting sick and then you’d go into the hills. My sisters went that way, and my dad. Eventually the Foundation and the Council showed up, stuck us in orange jumpsuits and put flamethrowers in our hands, and sent us out to burn back the infestation. Then I saw a tall man carrying a long dark sword.”

He sighed. “Our lives were hard enough. When we left Russia we were being pursued and anyone we didn’t know could’ve been some hidden assassin. Finding this place and somewhere to hide was a godsend, and then this happened.” He paused. “I think, for me, if someone tells me that there’s a way to stop this sort of thing from happening, well… yeah. I think I’d be down for that.”

Karl nodded. “It’s what Jacob would’ve wanted.”

They agreed. Karl turned the wheel on the humvee, and together the three of them crawled into the mountains and away from the ruination of the 95th Infantry.

— - —

As they came around the corner of a narrow road through the mountains, they could see a city in the valley below them. Running through that city was a road, one they knew would take them further into what had had been China and towards civilization. Karl was scanning the road, carefully watching even the slightest shadow out of place in the starlit night. Sam was cleaning her rifle with the end of a thin paintbrush. Devin was looking out the window pensively.

“So that’s seven down, right?” the young man said. “The dead guy in the tower, the math and assassin girl, the kidnapper guy, that crazy snake man, the one who killed himself, sort of, that robot thing, the other one who killed himself, and Ms. Texas back there.” He counted on his fingers. “Hang on, that’s eight.”

Karl snorted. “Aren’t you supposed to be the math one?”

Devin glared at him. “Reliving traumatic moments from my youth have thrown me off my game today. Anyway,” he continued, “so who does that bring up next?”

“They call her ‘The Vassal,” Sam responded, not taking her eyes off her work. “She’s a strange one - the journal doesn’t say anything about where to find her, just that ‘she has a way of just showing up’. I don’t know what that means.”

Suddenly Karl stomped on the brake, sending Sam and Devin into the dashboard and onto the floor, respectively. They scrambled up, each pulling a weapon as Karl did the same and stepped out of the truck.

Standing in the road in front of them was a small, strange looking woman. Her eyes were slightly too big for her head and she had a hooked nose with neatly parted, long hair. She was wearing a red-striped shirt and blue jeans. In her shirt’s pocket was a silver pocket square with a symbol of green acid embroidered onto it, covered by a small pink flower.

As Karl cautiously stepped towards her, the woman smiled warmly and extended her arms.

“Good evening!” she said. “I hear you are going to soon be looking for me, yes?”

---

- BACK -