Mask of Humanity

They reached the library after half an hour of travel, managing to avoid any encounters on the way. The Chosen were active in the space nearby, and it took some careful manoeuvring to avoid them. Nicolai didn’t want to get in any fights with them, as he’d observed that they were now significantly more aggressive and tended to call in massed reinforcements the moment their groups had any encounters. The Chosen had departed from their previous methods of robbing people then demanding they join, and had switched to some kind of all-out war against everyone who wasn’t a Chosen.

This was bad in general terms, but good for Nicolai. Their increasing aggression would drive more business towards him as everyone was pressured to arm themselves and fight back.

Reaching the top of the stairs where the gap blocking the way loomed, Nicolai considered. He had three Pegasi rings, Beth one. Jo wasn’t a Cultivator and thus if she wanted to fly with a ring, she’d need to use the roundabout method of activating it with her Seed, which wasn’t ideal. He opted to simply carry her across, figuring it was better he hold onto the three rings as he could use them at any time, and with three he could move a little faster than with two. However, though entering the library wouldn’t be a problem, he only had one library access token.

‘I’ll cross first. Those poles will spot you if you come close and activate, calling guardians. I have a token that will keep me hidden from them. I’ll see if I can disable it in some way, then you two cross.’ Nicolai didn’t anticipate the guard-poles activation causing real problems, as he and the other two had guns, now. The furniture wouldn’t be able to put up much a fight against that. But if he could avoid that fight, he would, if only to conserve their ammo and because there was nothing to be gained from destroying the furniture.

Floating over the gap he landed and approached the nearest guard-poles, his Soul Sense reaching out to it. It was surrounded by a weird, artificial seeming Soul Sense of its own, one that he felt was attuned to sights and sounds. Originally he’d considered just putting something between the orb atop the pole and the sight of the girls when they entered, but realised now that wouldn’t work. It didn’t see with its orb, it saw with the strange Soul Sense surrounding it. However, this meant there was an easier method.

‘Come over, its safe,’ he told the other two over Local. He’d extended his Soul Sense to blanket the guards poles, forming a kind of wall that blocked its vision. The two crossed quickly and he sent them to the side, the same place as he’d fought the animated furniture weeks ago. Once they were out of sight of the orb, he followed after them.

They moved around the outskirts of the library, retracing the route he’d taken last time, Nicolai leading the other two towards where he’d first encountered Maric.

However, when they reached the leaning book-shelf and Nicolai sent his Soul Sense to look within, Maric was not there.

Strange. Nicolai looked around, considering. Was Maric off amongst the stacks, looking for a new read? It was possible, but it would surprise him. He wouldn’t expect the skeleton to go and wander much, his impression was that it had been here for a long time and seemed to have already collected ever book it was interested in.

And yet, it was gone.

Something prickled within him. A warning in a secret language. Something was off.

‘Weapons ready,’ he said to Jo and Beth, who were standing there looking around with expressions of idle curiosity, more like tourists than fighters.

Their postures shifted, weapons raising, faces tensing with concern.

‘What is it?’ asked Jo.

‘Just a feeling. This is where the skeleton I mentioned lived. I’ll have a quick look for him, see if he’s somewhere in here, but I have a feeling he isn’t. We might have company. Unfriendly company.

The drones rose from his back, moving just below the ceiling to avoid the guard-poles as they flitted through the great room. In only a short time they had taken a look down every aisle, and Maric the skeleton was not to be found.

However, he did take note of a door on the far side of the room. A door which was open. Nicolai hadn’t located it his last time here, but he could guess at what it was. The route to the next level, which Maric had told him was locked and in need of the keys Nicolai found in the prison.

They headed over and he used the same trick as before to allow the other two to pass through the central area of the library and its guard-poles, then approached the open door. Through their Local connection, Nicolai coaxed the other two into the correct positioning until the girls were moving almost like an actual kill-team. Their weapons were raised to cover differing fields of fire, and no one crossed the line of another’s gun.

All of their Soul Sense tendrils extended together, peering through the doorway to check what was within, moving spiritual hands over everything. He was pleased that Jo was managing to keep her Seed’s Soul Sense out even during action, it was a sign she was making progress towards the integration.

Beth and Jo took quickly to this sort of thing, already showing a competence which had built upon the skills their combat chips provided. Watching their fluid movements gave rise to an increasing fondness within Nicolai, one born from a kind of pride. He’d taught them that.

He took a step and leaned to peer past the iron-sights into the opening. There was nothing lurking within the door. He saw spiralling stairs leading upwards.

Nothing living was within, at any rate. But as Nicolai’s Soul Sense roved out, something pricked at him. It was a tiny, tiny camera dug into the stone, connected to an ultra-thin wire hidden in a seam in the wall running up the stairs. Not operating over Local, which was why Cyberwarfare hadn’t detected it.

‘There’s a camera,’ said Jo, and he felt the flare of her alarm where his Soul Sense brushed her.

‘I know,’ he said, then decided what they’d do. ‘Ignore it. Look as dumb and clueless as you can. We go up.’ Nicolai adjusted his stance, lowering his weapon until it aimed at the ground rather than above at where enemies would come into view. ‘All clear,’ he said loudly and then bumbled forwards to start walking up the stairs, acting completely unconcerned. His Soul Sense swam up ahead, and with it he found more cameras hidden in the cracks higher up.

###

‘We’ve got company!’ someone called.

‘Eh?’ Joan turned to look over, seeing Scar, her second, holding a touchscreen pad.

‘Look,’ said Scar, approaching her. ‘People coming up the stairs.’ He showed the console and she saw a visual feed of three people. They were strolling up the stairs without a care. One of them turned around to briefly say something to the other two, and she saw them laugh at the joke. In the movement his gun swung around, flagging both of them in a demonstration of exceedingly poor gun safety. Her eyes widened as she took the weapon it. It was a goddamn auto-shotgun! The man turned around again and caught his foot on the stairs, stumbling a few steps up. Where’d this guy find an auto-shotgun?

For a moment she felt concern, but as she watched the three stumbling their way up the stairs, Joan scoffed. A bunch of amateurs. Idiots, but lucky ones. Most of hers were just as inexperienced, but even so, this was an easy win. She almost felt bad for them, but they were most likely an unsavoury rival group here to rob the library. She didn’t need the competition. And anyway, she wanted that shotgun.

‘Links off, and get to the sides. We’ll ambush them when they emerge,’ she said in a low voice, gesturing to the others and moving to put herself behind a shelf. There she shot a glance at the talking skeleton, Maric, who was standing off to the side. ‘And you, just stay over there. Don’t say a word.’

Though she told the others to turn their Links off, she kept hers on. She had a Cyberwarfare unit which allowed her to maintain a secured Link to Scar beside her and their two drones, a Scouter and a Scanner, which floated near the ceiling, all of their cameras and sensors watching the stairway exit, where the group would emerge.

She glanced at Scar, beside her. A wiry little bald man, the side of his face was dominated by a bionic eye installation, a model with numerous different vision capabilities. A long, ragged scar bisected his face, skipping over the bionic eye.

After her he was the best shot and most competent member of their group. With his eye’s thermal vision he could spot threats easily in open areas, and she was glad to have him beside her. Right now, his gaze was fixed on the console screen he held, where an image of three people walking up through a stairway was shown.

She leaned closer and together they watched the group advancing up the stairs. Joan’s eyes flicked from the console to the stairwell. She gestured silently to her people, pointing to the exit. They took aim.

The three were almost at the top when for some reason they paused. Irritatingly, they did so at a place that happened to contain one of the larger gaps between two of the cameras. She could only see the lower body of the last person in line, a woman. The other two were further up, but not far enough to be seen by the next camera.

‘What’re they doing?’ Scar murmured.

‘Who knows. Be ready,’ said Joan, sighting down her submachine-gun. As soon as the big idiot with the auto-shotty walked out she’d put three through his ribcage.

The pause stretched. The girl they could see was unmoving. What the fuck were they doing in there? None of them were speaking, either.

Suddenly her connection to the drones fractured, as a wave of interference hit her Link. Her eyes widened in sudden shock as her Cyberwarfare unit informed her they were under attack. Someone was attempting to seize control of the drones from her.

She directed her unit and was joined by the others but they were too late, the surprise attack had already wormed its way into her drones, and it pulled a switch. Her gaze rose as she heard sudden clacking noises, that of the drones rotors abruptly locking up, then the drones plummeted to the ground where they smashed into pieces.

Joan knew immediately what had happened. The group in the stairway knew about them; had somehow worked it out. They were attacking.

She was about to give orders when she saw a flicker of light at the stairwell exit, drawing her gaze. She took aim, sighting at it through her weapon’s iron-sights. Are they just going to assault? That would be suicidal, but she wasn’t going to complain.

However, no one human emerged. Instead there came… fire. A line of ragged red flame, seeming to crawl out from the stairwell and zip over the stone. It turned sharply left and sped towards a corner of the room, where one of Joan’s people stood, lurking behind a sofa, weapon aimed at the exit.

He rose and stumbled backwards, staring in confusion at the fire. It covered the distance in an instant then it jumped at him, landing on his chest.

He burst into flames, arms flailing at himself, falling and rolling on the ground, screaming and howling. The flames only burned brighter, even as he thrashed on the ground, but they showed no signs of leaving him and coming after the rest of them.

Joan gaped at the burning man. It took her a moment to process what had happened, and when she did she realised what this was: a distraction.

‘Scar, what do you see?’ she spoke, turning to the man beside her, who was staring at the man on fire, mouth gaping open. She grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him. ‘What do you see? Scan the exit!’

Scar stared at her in confusion for a moment before nodding, turning to look. His bionic clicked as it shifted into a different configuration. His human eye widened.

‘There’s someone, he’s cloaked!’ His hand raised to point. ‘Over there—!’

There came a sudden bang and a flash of light from the direction Scar was pointing. At the same moment, Scar’s head exploded.

Joan flinched as blood sprayed over the side of her face, but then she activated her aiming chip and immediately snapped her SMG over, squeezing the trigger, aiming at where she’d seen the muzzle flash. The sounds of gunfire erupted around her as the rest of her people opened up.

A flicker of light darted through the air, and some kind of barrier appeared in front of it. It was difficult to see, difficult to shoot, except when a bullet hit the barrier as then it would flicker with pale light, cracks that shot through it.

The light was moving swiftly toward the space between two bookshelves. Joan rose, her teeth gritted, managing to fire two bursts at the moving object before it disappeared behind the shelves. Her accuracy was as perfect as it could be, but the light was an unclear and difficult target, moving at speed, and her chip could only do so much when her body moved stiffly from surprise. Only a couple of the bullets hit, and they didn’t manage to break the barrier.

The light disappeared behind the bookshelves, and the gunfire ceased as Joan and the others stopped firing.

She cast a desperate look around, and saw that other than Scar and the guy who’d been hit by the fire, everyone else was still standing. Her jaw tightened. We’ve still got this. We’ve got the numbers. There’s only three of them

‘You two! Throw grenades into the stairway! And after that, watch it!’ she yelled at two of her people nearer to the exit. That should keep the other two in there out of our hair.

‘Everyone else, form up, move to cover the space between a shelf,’ she snapped, then gave a nod of her head to two others who were nearby.

‘Inigo, Teres, with me.’ She strode forward, heading toward the shelf where they’d seen the light disappear. She pulled out her SMG’s magazine as she went. It was still half-full, but she saw no harm in more bullets.

She intended to end things here. He was invisible and somewhere within the shelves, but it didn’t matter exactly where he was. If enough of them shot, they’d hit him.

She drew to one side of the shelf while the other two formed up on the other. She nodded to them, then all at once they pivoted to aim down the gap between the shelves. She clung tight to her SMG, sighting down it, hunting for a target.

There was no one there, just empty space lined by books, extending towards the wall at the far end.

On either side of her the others formed up, everyone aiming between shelves. No one called out that they saw him. Without the drones and Scar they had no means of spotting him. That was fine.

‘Fire,’ said Joan.

Gunfire roared as everyone fired into the spaces between the shelves, and even at the shelves themselves. The entire other side of the library was swept with rounds as they all opened up. Dust, chips of wood and bits of paper were launched around as bullets carved through everything.

‘Stop!’ she yelled, when she was sure the area had been thoroughly saturated with bullets. She stared down the space before her, but there was no sign she’d hit anything. ‘Anyone see him?’ she asked, frowning.

Calls came from around, all negative. Distantly, she heard the sound of a grenade going off at the stairway behind her, then another.

At least that’s sorted. But where is he?

She heard a clatter, a sound that was echoed from further out. Twisting to look, she saw something rattling on the ground. She recognised it immediately. A stun grenade.

‘Cover your eyes!’ she screamed, putting her hands to her face as she spoke, but she’d barely gotten halfway through the words when there came a flash of light and a tremendous crack that sent a spike of pain through her ears.

Everything veered around her as Joan lost all sense of balance. Her grasping hand found the support of a nearby shelf moments before she stumbled into it. The pain of her knee cracking into it was a bright spot in her suddenly numb and empty awareness. There was an endless ringing in her ears, drowning out all sound, but she’d succeeded in protecting her eyes and could see. Looking around, she saw people staggering around in the rest of the room. Her eyes caught on one man who was stumbling blindly, arms extended, face twisted in pain. An instant later a spray of blood and gore exploded from his body and he crumpled to the ground, shot.

As the ringing in her ears began to lessen, she made out a thumping sound, one she could almost feel through the air, reverberating in her chest. Fast, unceasing booms from directly above. Joan twisted to look up the bookshelf beside her, looking up to the top of it where she saw flashes of light. She dimly heard screams and yells from the others, saw blood mist the air. Up there! She was bringing her SMG up to aim at the spot above when she saw a flicker of light to her side.

She threw herself down and out of the way in time to avoid a sword which flashed past her. She landed and rolled, shaking off the lingering effects of the grenade and getting back to her feet in time to see it continue on toward the other two. All the time, the gunshots from above kept ringing out.

The rapier seemed to move with a mind of its own. It speared through Inigo’s neck and then ripped back out and he fell, choking and grasping at his neck, trying to keep the blood in. It came out in thick jets from between his fingers.

Teres shot at the rapier and missed as it came for him, too, then he yelled and dove to the side as it lunged at his chest, managing to dodge out the way.

Joan took aim at it, but then she paused. No. There’s no point. It’s just a weapon. She needed to kill the one controlling it. She could still hear gunshots from above, and she turned, taking aim.

The gunshots stopped a second before she squeezed the trigger and her SMG vibrated against her, 9mm rounds snapping from its muzzle. Aided by her chip, she drew a zig-zag in the top of the shelf, shooting through it at an angle. Dust, chips of wood, and shredded paper exploded from the perforated shelf-top. She heard the rattle of another SMG and saw the destruction intensify, knew that Teres was firing with her from the side.

Their SMGs clicked empty, and there was silence except for the rattle and thump as chunks of wood and torn books fell to the ground. She listened carefully as she moved to reload.

She heard the ring of metal on stone, and turned her head to see the rapier had fallen from the air. A moment later she heard a louder thump from above. A thump like a dead man falling over might make.

She glanced past the rapier, seeing Teres. He gripped his emptied SMG tight, peering up above, eyes wide. ‘Did you get him?’ he asked, looking at her. Below him, Inigo lay unmoving, his blood soaking the floor.

‘Yeah,’ she said, casting her gaze into the rest of the room, looking for the others. She didn’t see any movement. Did he get them all? Are we the last alive?

Shit. She needed to keep her eyes on the stairway. There might be two more down there; no guarantee the grenades had killed them.

As she finished reloading and moved to take up position covering the stairway, she heard a gunshot from behind; a heavy thump. She spun in place, jerking her head around. She saw Teres falling, blood spurting. A cloud of dust and splinters of wood flew from the side of him, the bookshelf. Her chip told her this meant he’d been shot from the other side.

Thump.

###

Nicolai lowered the smoking gunbarrel of his AA-12 from where he’d been aiming at the bookshelf. Via his Soul Sense, he felt the last of them fall.

He breathed slowly out, working to calm the pulse of his heartbeat. The world was spinning gloriously around him. That had been a good fight. Their leader, who he’d just killed, had been quite competent.

The smell of blood and cordite filled the air. It smelt delicious. The dark was out of its cage and had been for some time, drawing his lips into a vicious grin.

He turned his attention inwards, but the darkness was already retreating to its cage. It was sated. His Mask, meanwhile, was spiralling into horror, insisting he should feel bad, insisting he should feel something. Nicolai ignored it, sending the drones attached to his back out to perform a quick check of the room.

Once the drones finished searching, finding nothing, he emerged from between the bookshelves. Looking to his left, he saw a cringing skeleton in a corner of the room. Maric. Jo and beth emerged warily from the stairwell, weapons raised and ready.

‘No need,’ he told them over Local. ‘They’re all dead.’

He turned to Maric as he deactivated his poncho, pulling the hood down. ‘Long time no see, Maric,’ he called, forming his face into a smile.

‘Ah… hello, Marked,’ said Maric, straightening up warily and stepping toward him. Its blue-burning gaze roved over the bloody carnage and broken bodies as it moved. Jo and Beth were approaching.

‘I have good news,’ said Nicolai, pulling a keyring from a pocket and waving it at the skeleton. ‘I found some keys, though I see you’ve already managed to get yourself up here.’

‘Yes, I… these… people. Helped me.’ Maric seemed to be struggling a little to get its words out clearly.

‘Did you give them a quest, too?’ asked Nicolai, curious.

‘…Yes.’ The skeleton was giving him a wary look.

Nicolai extended his Soul Sense to touch the skeleton. Now his Cultivation and his Soul Sense had improved he was able to recognise that Maric was some kind of very weak Cultivator, with a Soul Sense of its own, if one less advanced than Nicolai’s. The undead seemed to be in some kind of half-way spot, more advanced than a human who’d yet to integrate their Seed, less advanced than one who had.

He could feel Maric’s emotions with his Soul Sense. The undead was currently quite worried.

‘Don’t worry. I don’t mind,’ said Nicolai. ‘I just thought you wouldn’t be able to give another. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

Maric shrugged its bony shoulders. ‘I tried, and Heaven permitted. I suppose it does that to make things more…’ It glanced around at the dead. ‘Interesting.’ It looked back to him. ‘You were gone a long time, I thought you might’ve died.’

‘I’ve been busy, that’s all.’ Nicolai saw Beth and Jo drawing close. ‘This is Maric,’ he told them. ‘He’s going to show us the way.’

The two nodded. He could sense that the dead bodies were causing them some unease, despite their increasing adjustments to this new world. Best to move on to their target, the top floor of the library, quick. But, he wouldn’t leave without looting first.