Requiem (48 page)

The Warlord and
Daniels watched from the crowd as Gliphen finished its oration,
gave the scroll to one of the Ordonians waiting on the side of the
stage, and picked up the executioner's hammer from its pedestal.
The crowd was in a frenzy when the Warlord noticed for the first
time, the other Ordonian on the stage with Gliphen. Its head and
hands had been secured through a large stockade that was itself
secured to the stage so that its head lay flat upon a concrete
block. Its legs and tendrils thrashed and it squawked
unintelligibly as Gliphen approached with the hammer.

Gliphen stood
for only a second before raising the hammer and bringing it down
with all its weight. The front two rows were sprayed with thick
dollops of viscous purple and the broken fragments of skull. The
crowd roared.

Gliphen
conducted three more executions before announcing that the day's
work was done. Reluctantly, the crowd dispersed and wandered back
to the market area. They bumped into the Warlord and Daniels,
eyeing them as the passed and making sure the humans could see them
doing so.

Gliphen was
still standing on the stage and with a single finger beckoned the
Warlord and Daniels.

'I trust you
enjoyed the entertainment?' it asked.

The Warlord
looked at the blood staining the concrete stage.

'Warlord,' said
Gliphen. 'That is your name, correct?'

He stared into
only one of Gliphen's four beaded eyes. 'Yes.'

'I've wanted to
meet you for some time,' said Gliphen. 'I've seen your work on
Earth and while it lacks a certain finesse, it certainly does send
a clear message.'

The Warlord
didn't challenge the compliment. He nodded. 'Then we have something
in common.'

Gliphen placed
the hammer at the edge of the stage next to the other, dismal
looking tools: callipers, a necklace of sharpened bolts, hooks and
chisels of various size, all rusted and ancient looking.

'What is it
that you want, human? As much as I know you enjoy slaughter, I am
sure you didn't come all this way just to watch me deal with of our
most petty criminals. And if you are like any of the other humans
that I've had the displeasure of meeting then you will be here
because you want something.' Gliphen placed its hands into a large
concrete basin filled with bloody water. It washed the worst of the
blood from its hands and asked, 'So? What is it you want,
Warlord?'

'I'm looking
for a girl. A human. Seline Esher.'

'Ahh yes,'
crooned Gliphen, 'the girl.' It turned from the basin and walked
down the stairs at the side of the stage. 'And what a lovely girl
she is, wouldn't you agree?'

Gliphen walked
past the Warlord and Daniels without another word. They followed
it, walking in the sunken footsteps that it left in the dirt to the
foot of the temple steps. Gliphen started up, easily taking four
steps at a time.

Gliphen passed
through the entrance at the temple summit while the Warlord and
Daniels were stopped by the guard and searched for weapons. After
their pistols had been confiscated, they walked through the
dripping interior, between the ancient columns of carved rock to
the wooden desk in the end chamber. The Warlord recognised the
statue of David from the vids he'd seen years ago and the painting
of the olive skinned woman with the faint smile was also familiar
to him.

Gliphen was
scrawling onto a sheet of paper when the Warlord and Daniels seated
themselves before it.

'What do you
want with the girl?' it asked.

'She has
information that I want.'

'Is that so?
For a human slave, she has proven quite popular.'

'You're talking
about NeoCorp?'

'Am I? You tell
me.'

'I'm not here
to listen to your ego, Gliphen. I'm here for information.'

It looked up
from its scrawling. 'Speak in that tone again, human, and I shall
be eating my next meal from your empty skull.'

Gliphen placed
its pencil on the desk. The Warlord said nothing. Daniels
swallowed. His hands were tight on the arm rests.

'Humans,' said
Gliphen. 'Your arrogance puts even the Yurrick to shame.' It waited
for a time, drawing on the tension of the atmosphere it had
created, soaking it in and feeding upon it. 'What will you pay me
for my services?'

'That depends
entirely on the information you possess.'

'
I
would
say it depends entirely upon what you're willing to offer me.'

The Warlord's
words were sharp, annoyed. 'There is a poison that I have in my
possession. With one drop it can kill a full grown adult. Tell me
all you know and the poison is yours.'

Gliphen had
leaned forward in its chair not to listen more intently but to
threaten more deliberately. 'A poison? What's so special about a
poison? Ordonian witchdoctors could concoct any number of poisons
that can kill a grown man, I simply give the order and I shall have
it.'

'I assure you
that none of their concoctions could pass NeoCorp's detection
protocols. This poison is undetectable in water and thus from their
tests, which I'm sure you know are quite extensive. And the effects
this poison has on living tissue... I think you'll find to your
liking.'

Gliphen looked
down at the Warlord. Saliva dripped from its mouth. 'You have my
curiosity human but where is your proof?'

The Warlord
reached to his neck and pushed his fingers under the bottom edge of
his mask. He pulled out a thin, metal case no wider than his
finger. He placed it on the desk and slid the top half of the
casing down to reveal a small tab, about the size and thickness of
his finger nail.

He pushed the
small casing with the poisoned tab across the table. 'If you wish
to test it then find me a test subject.'

Gliphen looked
at the tab for a moment and then spoke into the comm and shortly
after one of Gliphen's guards came up to the massive, wooden desk.
Gliphen took the metal case from the table, pinching it between two
thick digits and handed it to the guard.

'Eat it,'
Gliphen commanded.

The Ordonian
stared at the tab for a moment. Its four eyes searched the two
humans over, then switched to Gliphen and it immediately looked
away like a dog that had been whipped too many times. It looked at
the case with the tab but dared not raise its eyes to Gliphen a
second time. Hesitantly at first, the guard brought the tab closer
to its face before shoving it, metal case and all, inside its
mouth. Before it could even pull its hand away it had begun to
scream and spit. The Warlord watched in disgust as the Ordonian
retched violently and collapsed to the floor, its saliva bubbling
from its mouth, the small skull plate that sat atop its head
cracked and bled, the plates that covered its chest and arms
followed shortly after. Blood sprayed from the cracks then burst
out in a thick torrent over the floor. Gliphen stood over the
Ordonian to see its eyes, to see the true nature of its pain.

Even as it died
its eyes would not meet Gliphen's. They simply withered and the
lenses cracked and sunk back into its empty skull. Both the Warlord
and Daniels had stopped looking. Gliphen turned to them with that
same obscure smirk they'd seen on the execution stage.

'Of course, I
will need to verify that this is indeed undetectable to NeoCorp's
testing protocols,' it said.

'Yes,' said the
Warlord. 'But you've seen what you wanted to see. Now I trust we
have a deal?'

Gliphen sat
back behind the desk, its eyes were set on both the Warlord and
Daniels. There was only the crackling of the dead guard's flesh and
a steady drip of water from the unknown depths of the
catacombs.

'The girl has
been found,' it said. 'She is in NeoCorp's possession. She is
hidden very well.'

'She is
alive?'

'For the time
being, yes. Unless they got a bit carried away. Which is not
difficult for humans.'

'Where is
she?'

Gliphen smiled.
A deep throated laugh – a very human laugh – filled the
chamber.

'What do you
think is going to happen? That she'll just suddenly reappear?'

Sear was
standing behind Therin. He was watching the footage of Seline's
last recorded moments aboard the cruiser.

'What exactly
are you looking for?' asked Therin. 'We've looked over the camera
footage a dozen times. She took the shuttle down to Sceril to look
for her friend. End of story. We didn't even need to look at the
shuttle's diagnostics to know that's where she'd gone.'

'I didn't ask
you to turn the ship around. You could have ridden back with the
repair ship and Tialus – back to Saranture.'

'I know you
like to think that you can do this alone but you can't. And if the
probes are right, and Icarus has started backtracking, then we need
to find her. We need to start focusing on the real problem as soon
as we can.'

'… She's my
responsibility, not yours.'

'She's
responsible for her own actions, Sear. There's no longer any
professional obligation for us to be searching for her. Tialus gave
up on the blackbox a long time ago.' Therin turned from the
holo-display to Sear. He was looking back at her.

'So why are you
here?' Sear asked.

'Because I want
to be,' said Therin. At length she turned back to her own display
screen and flicked through the familiar menus and programmes
displaying the cruiser's diagnostics. 'But, to be honest, of the
two humans you brought with us, I prefer Belameir.' She paused for
a moment as if she'd just realised what she'd said. 'I'll kill you
if you even think about telling him that by the way.'

Once again she
woke up on the floor. Her mouth was dry. Her legs tingled with pins
and needles. She stared up at the ceiling. She wasn't sure how long
it took but the sensation finally stopped. She coughed. She looked
at the reflection. The door was open again. She couldn't ignore it.
She knew what they wanted her to know. That if she just ignored the
door, if she just stayed down then they wouldn't touch her. He had
told her that it was causation. She acts and they react because of
it.

Bullshit.

There were
footsteps. She opened her eyes. The Cockroach was standing over
her. He didn't speak but she could see the words like a giant
speech bubble silently floating next to his mouth. 'So you've
finally learned your lesson, Seline?' the imaginary words said. She
shook her head. She expected the Cockroach to smile but he
didn't.

'I've thought
about this moment ever since I met you. I'm a bit unsure how to
feel about it really. I'm proud of you, Seline, like a father or a
mother might be. But as proud as I am that you've managed to learn
something, I'm not sure how much fun you'll be now that you've come
to accept your circumstances.'

'I can't...
can't give you the memory to unlock the blackbox. I don't know what
it is.'

'You think we
don't know that already?' said the Cockroach. 'What did you think
the drugs were for?'

She swallowed.
The Cockroach rested his foot on her stomach and pressed against
it.

'I don't know
about you, Seline but I've never been a fan of gambling. There's
something undeserved about making money out of nothing. Ethically,
it's just something that I couldn't square myself with. But when I
saw you... I just had to push my normal sensibilities aside. Don't
worry, I didn't have to compromise my sense of morality. You see, I
want you to succeed. I know you're capable of coming through for me
in the end. Yes, I have a lot of money invested in you.'

She was lying
on the rug in her Mother's room, alone, hungry, thirsty, and tired.
Her cheeks and eyes hurt. Her nose was red and sore from rubbing it
too much. The sleeve of her jersey was damp. She wondered where
Mother was.

'… Why?' she
asked.

'Well, to put
it simply...'

Seline shook
her head. 'I wasn't talking to you.'

The Frog leaned
down to pick her up. She slapped at his hands, rolled over and
crawled on her elbows towards the door. The Cockroach was muttering
something. The Frog stood above Seline, scrambling on the floor
like a wingless bird. He grabbed her, one hand on the back of her
neck, the other by the waistline of her underwear. She reached for
the door but it shrunk away and shrivelled into nothing. She
continued to struggle as the Frog placed her in the chair and
secured her. She pictured an audience of a hundred children,
sitting before her. She knew she was supposed to say something but
couldn't. She could hear the kids begin to laugh. She looked down
at the small white cards she'd prepared but they were useless.

Everything was
blurring together. Memories running rampant, streaking through her
mind, confusing fiction with reality, past with present, pain with
pleasure.

The
Cockroaches' voice was bitter. He spoke loudly into her ear. 'I
thought we'd moved past this, Seline.' He sighed. 'And,
unfortunately for you, we cannot afford to take any more of these
backward steps, what with the more recent news coming from beyond
the Tryil Gate.'

The knife
pushed against her skin. She could hear every little fibre tearing
and separating from one another.

'The Boogeyman
is knocking on the door, Seline, and we need to answer.'

There was
warmth on her face. She was staring up at the sun even though
Mother had told her not to. It was twisting inside her, mincing the
muscle and flesh together. She'd tripped and fallen on the
concrete. Her knee was bleeding. It took weeks for the scab to heal
because she kept picking at them. The Cockroach stood to the side,
his hand down the front of his trousers. She could hear him
panting.