Gunnm/Battle Angel 1. Chapter 1

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter One

Gally sat cross-legged atop a cushioned metal block. Her friend Padraig was in another room and was trying to wake the princess from a late-day nap. Gally was far too on edge to do anything that required both patience and kindness at once. She could very well end up yelling or slapping. She wanted to do something else, was stuck staying _here_.

As for why the princess would nap at a time like this, it was not too hard to understand—given the degrees of sunlight. Most of the time, the low sunlight tended to make it always seem late day—the sun being more of a soft golden tone. Sunset was indeed supposed to be a time of relaxation. That was, though, the opposite of here and now. So much was going on outside—too much going on outside. There was going to be a fight with muties. She just knew it and wanted to be part of it _now._

Despite the frenzy of chaos and activity outside of this house, people running and yelling and kicking up gritty sandy dust from the road, Gally was still able to stay put right here on this cushioned metal block that served as a chair. Yes, indeed—sitting around, _just sitting, _that took a great deal of control and discipline while so much else was happening outside. Yes, there was a hot and exciting fight about to happen. And yes, there was going to be plenty of fun to be had—the thrill of chaos and obliteration of things to kill.

But…no. For Gally to leave the girl she was charged with protecting would add to a feeling of loss and hopelessness that had been plaguing her these past few years, since coming into this other reality. This world was only occasionally violent. The rest of the time, one could simply stare out at the wastelands and not see or do much. That, and there were other dangers besides the malformed, other-worldly creatures that attacked human settlements such as this one.

Or perhaps those muties appeared in the same way she had—out of nowhere. Gally did not exactly know how she herself came into this strange and dying world. There was just no reason for her. And the cyborg-girl thought that just perhaps not even computer-minded thinkers from a certain floating city would know—not even perhaps the likes of Dr. Nova. And somehow, that flan-eating bastard was in this world as well. Of all the other people that Gally had ever known, the worst sort of person followed her here.

Strange world, strange circumstances, and there was no way to get back as far as she could tell. At the least, Gally had been able to retain her physical capabilities in transitioning from her previous existence. She was still of small stature compared to most everyone else: just under five feet tall, a lean and lithe body befitting a dancer. Worn over her body was her one-piece bodysuit of synthetic leather that fit to all the curves of her physique, knee-length boots protecting her calves, an open trenchcoat thrown over for a degree of modesty. Her dollish face was just as befitting: a pale and delicate face was a contrast to the dark hair that framed it—night-silk hair radiating from her scalp and staying at just shoulder-length.

As petite and dollishly beautiful and wonderfully sleek as Gally was, she was not at all a helpless waif. Her body was electromechanical, a body of machinery that was manufactured to have a young woman's shape. Beneath her face of synthetic flesh was a metal skull—one to protect her human brain. Her body was not simply electromechanical for any random sake; it was designed for fighting—a killing machine designed for interplanetary warfare. Gally was capable of encountering and defeating entire platoons of flesh-bodied _humans _and their armored weaponryIn turn, it was almost impossible to kill _her. _Even if her body was severely damaged, it would repair itself—slowly but surely, by way of the supply of microscopic robots that flowed through tubes inside of her body.

Her mind was human. Or at least the cyborg-girl supposed her mind was still human regardless of what some had said—especially when it came to her love of battle, that time when everything seemed to go bright-white and there was nothing to be had but the destruction of her opponents. Moments like those made her feel oh-so-intensely _alive_.

Of course, her large dark eyes were electronic—large inhuman eyes looking out at the world, looking at a wall…_while townspeople outside were going crazy_. Gally so _wanted _to be part of that craziness, using her body for which it was designed! Sitting here was something more befitting a plaything or item of display, not a machine of warfare.

To worsen things, to deepen the temptation, things were getting hot and exciting outside. The female cyborg heard and felt an increase in the shouts of the townspeople outside of this old house—a typical, one-story sort of brick affair with four rooms. Most everyone in this walled-off town lived in such houses. Since the temperatures seldom varied, it did not take much of a house to keep a person sheltered. It also let in all the sorts of tempting sounds one could hear.

Since so many of the townspeople were killed off in periodic attacks by random creatures from the wastelands, there were plenty of free houses in which strangers could stay, the cyborg-girl and her friends included. Strangers are usually welcome in settlements as extra company is always interesting. That, and strangers were expected to have gossip of the larger world outside of settlement walls.

Now those settlement walls were sure to need all the extra hands available to defend this town—and were getting those extra hands. That was obvious to anyone who existed in this land for even a day. There were "muties" coming to attack this town, and everyone physically capable of holding some kind of implement, they were rushing to the town's defense. And given the high level of alarm brought up by the townspeople, there was likely to be quite a crowd of trouble to be had. Probably, muties would not get through the town wall. Yet the term _probably _was not a guarantee. Muties sometimes did get through walls of towns and settlements.

What was once a great land of prosperity had become a lost wasteland of scattered, isolated settlements and crumbling towns. These places surrounded themselves with walls, trying to keep out the larger reality of the things which roamed the lands. Gally wondered how people could live in such a land, darkened by living nightmares. She also wondered how long they could hold out. So she had heard, there were more muties from the wastelands all the time—even while the people grew fewer and fewer.

There were footsteps coming along a short hall in this house, the steps stopping at the doorway to this sunlight-illuminated room. Said a somewhat tired male voice, "I awoke the lass. Aye, the girl's an especially sound sleeper. One would joke about the likes o' her sleepin' through World War Three. But one glimpse at this land will tell ye that sort o' thing has come to pass already."

Gally turned her head to regard the man who now stood at the open doorway—a man named Padraig. Looking at him, one would presume the appearance of just another human being. He was a lean sort of man, the thinness of his physique defrayed by the well-tailored clothes of green he wore: a business suit of emerald-colored business jacket, a buttoned starched-white shirt worn beneath, and—of course—green slacks to go with it. His tie was green, of course. Not green, surprisingly enough, were his polished black shoes. In contrast to the outfit of deepest green was his pale, lean face and his red shock of hair above it. Then there were the daggers, worn on a bandolier that went diagonally across his business jacket-covered chest: three daggers…

Those three daggers were how Padraig could survive alongside Gally and the princess through the random times of physical danger and frenzied violence that troubled them in their journey, with more troubles all the likely being ahead. Additionally true was how Padraig was able to know a little about a lot very quickly—a very observant sort of person. She thought that to be strange: how another stranger to this world could quickly come to quickly understand the various machines and social contexts of this world, though he often expressed contempt about them.

That was not all. What about that green business suit of clothes? Just as Gally never found out how Padraig came to possess those three amazing daggers, she never could figure out how his suit was always so neat, clean and flawless despite their prolonged travels. Even Gally had to wash road-dust, smudges and sometimes blood from her trenchcoat whenever they came to a place of refuge that still had running water from faucets. Gally's synthetic leather bodysuit and boots were treated with stain-resisting chemicals that allowed her to brush off blood and other spattered life-fluids easily, but not her trenchcoat. Padraig's entire outfit seemed immune to dirt and, more often these days, splatters of blood and other substances.

Given how Gally had to clean her trenchcoat often, it was a good thing that most every building they went into had running water along with occasional appliances and machines of technology that had her amazed—a testament to the technical greatness that once existed in this land. There were indeed relics of a civilization that had just recently fallen and faded, the people of the land living in the shadows of a great past, not sure of the future. Someone was coming.

There was not even the slightest whisper of footsteps when the princess entered this room. And when Gally looked at her, the sight of _her_ always stirred some kind of feeling within her. That was because the princess was beautiful.

Princess Kyrie matched Gally in stature and body-shape, being herself something under five feet in height and with a slender look to her physique. The young woman of royalty had that lithe look of artistic grace worth thousands of paintings of elegant dancers and agile gymnasts—lean legs and flat abdomen, lithe arms and a graceful neck, her face matching in delicate beauty. From her head flowed long and glowingly pale-blonde hair, monsilk hair that cascaded behind her back as well as curtaining the sides of her face. It was lengths of hair that flowed behind her, gracefully going down to the shape of her hips. Her outfit consisted of silk shorts and midriff-baring top along with riding boots of leather that fit her legs to beneath the knees, a diaphanous open long-coat worn over. Like Gally's trenchcoat, the princess' long-coat of thin material made for a degree of covering to what would have otherwise been something far too revealing for Padraig's tastes. No matter how much of her body was exposed, one would not be able to know the true nature of the princess' physiology—her surface appearance merely a covering for what lie beneath the skin.

The princess was just as much a cyborg as Gally—if not more so. Her smooth skin truly was too smooth to be human, synthetic skin of a smooth and elastic material. It covered her myogel muscle tissue: artificial muscles over a titanium skeleton augmented with super-conductor motorized tubework. Within her torso were the components that powered her body as well as that which processed carbohydrates and nutrients for her living brain as well as reprocessing the chemical wastes in the synthesized liquid that served for her blood. Her entire body was powered by a heart-sized metal sphere that contained a microfusion reactor—similar to the very same source of energy that powered stars. Both Princess Kyrie and Gally were cyborgs, but Princess Kyrie's artificial body was of a type that looked human.

Yet to merely be a princess could not be enough—_especially _for a princess. For what was a princess in a time of war without _magic? _It may or may not be rightly called that, but the princess had certain energy-manipulating capabilities that could keep her party of fellow adventurers safe.

The technicians of long ago who designed the princess' body had integrated the ability for her to summon and manipulate massive amounts of energy. When necessary, Kyrie could reach through the fabric of reality to summon vast and concentrated amounts of nuclear-bright energy and destruction. Gally once had a similar ability with just nuclear plasma. But the princess' ability was beyond plasma. The princess' ability was also something worse, with the potential to be something far more dark and chaotic. In that her body's energy-manipulation ability came from distorting the fabric of reality itself, there were dangers in tearing holes in that fabric—the risk of opening the way for even more…_things _to enter this world.

There was also another cost—a cost to Princess Kyrie herself. Summoning such amounts of energy also overheated Kyrie's body to the point that the internal components would have difficulty providing enough oxygen and nutrients to her brain—making for her going into a state of befuddlement at first, then leading into unconscious.

It ought to be scientifically applied technology. But Padraig called it magic, saying that Princess Kyrie had magic. Both Gally and Kyrie knew better than to say that—how summoning incandescent amounts of energy and using it was based upon knowledge of science and applied technology. There was nothing magical about it.

Sure, Padraig knew it in a way. But he said that Kyrie's ability was the _equivalent _of magic and—by way of the logical rule of transition—still counted as magic. If _a _equals _b _and _b _equals _c, _then _a _equals _c. _If the princess had the ability (a) summon amazing energy (b), and summoning energy from beyond the fabric of reality was magic (c), then the princess' ability (a) was magic (c). Sometimes, Gally had the idea that Padraig just brought up that argument to try to get Kyrie flustered.

But Kyrie—_Princess _Kyrie—was never was flustered. The princess always had an ineffable ambiance of calm refinement in even the most trying circumstances. Yet Gally could sense an undertone of sadness and a just-so-slight quiver to Kyrie's voice when things were at their worst. For example, there was when the princess told of her father's death and how her sister—Princess Dahlia—began a harsh regime of madness in seizing power just around the time that Dr. Nova appeared.

Dalia was the _other _princess. Yes, Kyrie had a sister—the one who sat as the head of government. Dahlia was the one who made circumstances so difficult that Kyrie had to flee the palace upon the mountain, then having to escape the capitol city. Now they were out here and roaming the wastelands.

How long, they were not sure. Months of roaming turned into years of such traveling. Yet they were not exactly fleeing forever. They were actually out in the wastelands to search for something. Now here they were—Gally, Kyrie and Padraig.

Kyrie's eyes were looking in the same direction as Gally's—looking through glass to see what was happening again. "So it seems, we come to the outset of yet another attack upon a settlement. Gally, I again insist that there was once a time in which such uncouth and atrocious acts of wanton savagery were kept to a trifling minimum in the land." Kyrie looked out the window. "Once upon a time, threats such as those upon this settlement would not have existed."

Said Gally, "That fails to matter at this time. I said it to you many times before this moment. I continue to hold to a strong belief. It is the belief that there are some kinds of trouble can be destroyed by _fighting_." The cyborg-girl's eyes seemed to glint in looking outside—seeing a few more straggling townspeople running along the street, townspeople carrying long copper pipes, titanium-headed jackhammers and odd-looking shotguns. They were all going to the fight—where she wanted to be. "_To fight…_" she voiced. Again, she so strongly _wanted_ and _craved _to run from Kyrie's side and join the fray that was no doubt going to happen at the town's walls if the muties broke through. Even if they did not, Gally would be there to _do something_. But for now, Gally would say nothing and await what Kyrie would say. And _finally, _there would be the chance to get into the fight.

…

2.

…

It was the princess who broke their quiet impasse. Said Kyrie, her voice sounding as gentle as usual, "We shall ally ourselves with the townspeople. Then we shall exterminate the wasteland trash, the muties, for everyone knows that muties are the parasitic and destructive rubbish that must be dealt with accordingly to make better this world."

_That_ was all that Gally needed to hear. A quick nod of her head made for the slightest ripple in her silky dark hair, and then she was at this room's doorway in three quick strides. It was what the cyborg wanted to do all this time and was barely holding back. Now that it was time to move, time to kill and destroy, _now _was the time to live for the fight.

Kyrie moved just as quickly—a girl-sized blur that trailed a green coat-tail and a streak of pale-blonde hair… Her blurring speed came to a dead stop just at the doorway. "Do not tarry, Padraig! Battle is at hand. Have pride in your skills of warfare!" A pale-trailing blur, and the princess was gone—the agility of a ballerina with a nuclear-powered body.

_I'm only human, _thought Padraig as he ran for the door at typically human speed—his shoes pounding on the floor and his arms swinging. It was going to be another fight. Though he wore his three blades always at the ready, he was not always mentally ready to _use_ them. He did not want to kill. But he had to kill the muties, kill all of them, killing forever.

Fighting did not happen _every _time that they took refuge from the wastelands. It only seemed to happen that way. Or so Padraig liked to think. Even as he ran outside of this house, he knew that having his mind wander was not the thing to do. This was not the time to have one's thinking going elsewhere besides the battle to come—running outside into the warm orange-reddish daylight of near-sunset time, light from what seemed to be a dying sun in a fading land beyond its prime.

…

The house in which they had been resting was located near the edge of town as it was where strangers were usually allowed to stay, so there was not far for Padraig to run. Only the most trustworthy and valued of townspeople and settlers were allowed to stay near the center, where it was presumed to be safer—farthest from the walls of the town. At least this made for there not being too far to run when approaching the town wall. And the most brutal coincidence of this situation was in how the worst of this latest mutie attack came from the section of wall closest to the house.

While he was physically running with the townspeople, he was still mentally taking strolls back and around to the rest of his situation in thinking about it. Nowadays, it was getting to be as if every settlement they went to was one that came under attack from those damned things—those muties that roamed the wasted landscapes between the towns and settlements. Forget about most all of the cities, forget about factories, and forget about places of technological development; those places had fallen to the muties long ago. And so long as there were settlements still around, the muties would just keep attacking… They would keep attacking until every place where people lived was overcome and obliterated or until the people became muties themselves.

…

The city wall itself was only half a story tall and made of bricks, but that was usually enough to keep muties out—since those deformed beings were not often smart enough to contrive means of going around or over such obstacles. Muties were as physically grotesque and as malformed as their minds, or what they had for minds: seldom able to think beyond destruction, even if some of them could talk in some kind of rudimentary language.

A person could say that muties were generally human in appearance. But that was the same as saying that a fried piece of six-month-old steak had a generally bovine appearance. Muties, they were something different. They had two arms and two legs, again _generally _speaking. And they tended to have heads, just as humans would. But that would be it. More than a few people saw muties with an occasional extra limb or two growing out of where it ought not, growing through the tattered clothes they still wore as if still human. Some muties had heads that looked squashed down and sideways or necks with extra organs of sight. Then their was their skin: often thick and looking a ridged and crusty appearance, chunks of lumpy skin, sometimes looking grayish and dead as if cancerous and decomposing. If muties still had brains or some other organ that served the same purpose, the trauma of being so deformed would have challenged their sanity and what little humanity they had left.

If luck was at all merciful in creating muties, then it was in how they had almost no minds beyond a core urge to kill everything that was not them. Then there were times when muties did show something like thought processes beyond _kill-kill-kill_. With all the sounds of violence happening outside the town walls and people getting ready, there was plenty of noise to be had, filling the ears and the mind with the idea that ultra-violence was going to conquer the situation.

And finally, Padraig's slow human-meat speed brought through the crowd and over to where the cyborg-girl and the princess were standing: at the large metal sliding-doors that served as the town entrance. Then again, the princess was also a cyborg; Padraig sometimes forgot about that. Ah, but soon enough, he would be brightly reminded of that fact—the fact that Kyrie was also a machine—with all the abilities of a synthetic body. Gally would be doing more of the same, dashing madly about to obliterate her enemies while Kyrie resorted to her energy manipulation abilities.

All Padraig had to rely upon were the three blades, set in the bandolier worn diagonally across his chest. He sucked in a few quick breaths before trying to talk to Gally and Kyrie. Though taller than both of them, the two were due a great deal of respect and permission. "So… 'Tis to be the usual plan, eh!" shouted Padraig above the noise. Then he remembered, again, that Gally and the princess had hearing that went somewhat beyond the human range. "We go out and slaughter the whole lot?"

"_Violence is necessary_! _It is certainly the only plan for this situation!_" shouted Gally above the noisy chaos. The loud enthusiasm of her voice was even more than a bit for carried. And the toothy grin on her face matched her desire for what was going to pass, a dazzling sort of desire for the violence sparkling in those big eyes of hers.

Padraig did not necessary like that sort of look. Nevertheless, Gally was right. Violence was the only plan. When it came to muties, there was no such thing as negotiation—even in cases when they demonstrated a rudimentary intelligence enough to speak just a little. He had the idea that some groups of muties were maybe people at some point before something happened to them.

The princess' beautiful and sonorous voice then sounded out. "_To the front, lieges of mine! We shall make glory of this day yet._ _ Kill them all!_" Then there was the shape of her and Gally leaping upwards to land perfectly atop the wall. There Gally and the princess remained standing in waiting for the third member of the party.

Padraig had to do things his slow meat-bodied human way, climbing up one of the bolted metal ladders set in the town wall while the synthetic-bodied females had gone quick way. He still felt humanly inadequate in not being able to leap like Gally and Kyrie. Nevertheless, living in this strange and physically demanding land for some time now gave him the physical strength and agility to quickly clamber up the ladder easily enough. There was one way in which living in this strange land did not strengthen give him, however: He still took to having some kind of shock upon seeing muties.

When atop the wall, he saw them—about twenty of _them_. There they were, all along the ground and in their malformed non-glory. Their chunky, miscolored flesh and assymetrical bodies were all in frenzy as they hobbled about, dressed in the ripped remains of human clothes, bashing at the wall with improvised implements. Some of them were using those rusty pipes and tied-off lengths of thickly heavy cable from who-knows-where, using those for cudgels while others had sharpened pieces of bone. Dead bones would not likely do much damage to the brick-work of the walls… Again, muties were not exactly the brightest creatures in the land. A motley kind, the muties were parodies of humanity, physical mockeries of the people that they sought to destroy.

Not today, though. Gally took off her trenchcoat to let it go fluttering down behind the wall. Doing this exposed her slender body, outlined with form-fitting synthetic leather—a figure of deadly grace as a mad gleam came to her large dark eyes, her mouth making for a toothy grin. She leapt down from the wall. Of course, the cyborg-girl did so in a way that killed at least one of the muties—landing squarely atop the shoulders of one of them while kicking downward with her footwear. That maneuver obliterated one of the muties in a splash of dark fluid that spattered against the wall itself.

While several other muties stood around surprised, Gally did them the service of blasting open their chests with several kicks. The way she saw it, muties were not even people. Muties were just creatures to be slaughtered, and the cyborg-girl was acting appropriately.

But not for everyone. In that muties looked like distorted versions of humanity, it at least gave Padraig some pause. _Well, Hell, _he thought, going into the mercy train of thought, _I'm just putting the ugly bastards out of their mindlessly painful existence. _The man in green business suit then lowered and dropping himself down from the wall. When he was able to stand again, he was sure to begin moving well away from Gally. The way she became sometimes, she could easily obliterate him along with the muties.

Speaking of obliteration, Gally's attacks were beginning to rack up heaps of kills. Her legs kicked this way, arcing that way, and sometimes there were sharp lunging movements in which her fists and arms were through muties. The cyborg-girl was now a machine of killing and destruction of life—mass producing death in clusters of two and three now. There had been just about two dozen muties around here. Now the cyborg girl was rapidly making it to just about a third of that number—thinning out the crowd pretty quickly.

She truly was a machine of death. It almost resembled dancing how her body moved, kicks and graceful sidesteps, leaning punches that involved movement of the entire self. It was a reminder of why it was called _martial arts—_beautiful but warlike. Now Gally truly was a machine of fighting, of _warfare_. Every one of her movements resulted in at least one mutie being made dead in a very horrible way. Chunks of flesh and spatters of dark mutie life-blood spattered and splattered every which way, bodies falling a-plenty. For every two that tried to get at her, at least three more were turned to butchered meat. A human being would have easily taken on some kind of exhaustion from crushing and mutilating, murder and slaughter. Not Gally.

Twelve yards away, Padraig was just then squaring off against some of the muties himself. "Do ye want to tangle with me?" he asked, regarding the muties that began to close in. "Do ye truly want this?" Of the three daggers in his possession, he only drew one of them—the right-hand blade. Doing so suddenly made him feel slightly electrified—as this particular one always did. The feeling began to build… "Then ye want _death!_"

When he whipped the blade across in a horizontal slash, he did not actually touch any of the muties with it, because there was no need to do so. Matching his slashing motion was an arc of florescent green energy. That slash of energy fluttered brightly and hotly in the direction of some muties.

Suddenly, four muties facing him had their torsos burnt carbon-black and stiff. Their legs collapsing to the dirt while their heads and upper bodies were still alive, for now. Smoke from charred flesh hung in the air over them.

Now he would have to wait for the blade's potential to build, that electrifying feeling beginning to build again. While that electrifying feeling was building up again, Padraig drew a second blade with his left hand and began to approach more muties. Now the second blade could not perform distant attacks, but the person holding it was able to cut faster than an eye-blink.

In fact, it barely seemed as if Padraig moved. It seemed as if he merely twitched his left shoulder. But suddenly, there were two muties with their heads sliding off of their bodies. The other ones looked confused before two more had their own heads fall off of their necks, dark oily fluid jetting from the neatly severed neck-stumps.

Ah, but the battle had just freshly begun. Gally was continuing to decimate small crowds, turning and kicking, lashing out and almost dancing through the gore and slaughter. Padraig took to slashes of the blades. They were well on their way to having a victory.

This vicious frenzy of pain and death attracted even more muties from elsewhere along the town's wall. They came in all sorts of way, hobbling and trampling, whooping and hollering in all kinds of ways. "_Elkric, oblamah! Orp-orp-tantafallap! Elkyakraha!_" they went, snarling and growling in that gibberish. If it was ever a human language or even a language that ever belonged in any known world, no one really knew. "_Gonfle-e-e! Pu-u-lg!_"

_God damn this, _thought Padraig even while his right-hand blade filled him with a feeling of power and strength beyond what he ought to have as just a meatbag human. He made a movement that just looked like a flinch, his left shoulder just barely moving. Almost instantly, the three hobbling freaks running at him became separated at the waist.

That was because the second of Padraig's blades was a time-cutting blade. People always talked about cutting time for one thing or another. This blade actually did that, slicing through the fourth dimension. Padraig had the idea that it was made from the metal of a starship but could not be sure.

A glance to his left showed Gally sitting astride one of the fallen muties, her thighs clasping the fallen victim's torso while her deceptively slender arms moved to _r-r-rip _off the head—the dark oily fluid of mutie lifeblood spattering and spraying from the neck stump to wet the earth. She threw it, the severed head being hurled to strike another mutie that still had its head—temporarily. The impact of the hurled object resulted in that mutie's head exploding in a spray of contaminated flesh and dark life-fluid.

Unfortunately, Padraig so happened to have seen that particular development. He _did not need to see that_, just as he did not need to see the very ugly man-like creatures beginning to rush at him when he was not paying attention! Then he felt a wash of uneasy warmth coming from behind, making him give pause. It also made most all the muties give pause.

The princess was beginning to summon that energy—as was done to finish off most every battle. It began as a slight feeling of heat at the back. The already slow-warm air had just become a bit warmer. A flash from above, and a bright-hot _flare _of ragged energy flashed diagonally downward from above and plowing right into about six of the deformed enemies moving in this direction…turning them into tumbling chunks of burnt corpses.

It was Kyrie, standing with feet apart atop the wall, her lithe arms outward and her hands stilled in a gesture of thrown energy. The princess then began moving her fingers in a complicated way that made for slow blurs as the fabric of reality was being warped and manipulated—a strange sort of feeling overcoming oneself as the air heating up, a glowing sphere of energy that swirled with eerie energies… Kyrie then shoved with both hands, and there was yet another outwash that flared downward.

Something about the flaring blast of energy made Padraig feel deathly afraid. That brightly intense flowing energy was as beautiful as it was deadly. Wherever it would touch, it would incinerate. And it was far too bright for him to look at for even part of a second, making him look away and cover his eyes.

Similarly, the muties were shocked and stunned by this show of energy. If they had brains enough to run, intelligence not quite being their strong suite, they would have. They _should _have. Of course the dumb idiots stayed there. Most of them were just standing there as they were overcome with the wave of intensely burning energy. The six remaining muties still alive and dumb enough to keep running in this direction were suddenly not alive. Well, they _were _running.

Now they were dead—no doubt about that. Chunks of charred mutie flesh crumbled and tumbled to the hard grassy ground which was—strangely enough—untouched by the intense heat. Amidst the broad swaths of mutilated and charred bodies, there were now even more dead. Gally stood there grinning, her hard little teeth glinting. Padraig stood there and was feeling slightly sick.

Atop the wall, the princess lowered her arms. "_It is…done…_" came her weakened voice, her words almost lost to a sudden breeze. This princess then did her best to land gracefully from a leap down, getting down from the wall. Standing again and beginning to walk on weak legs, Kyrie went towards where her allies stood. But it was not even six steps before there was her falling to collapse on her left side—her thin long-coat blanketing her body, her long pale-blonde hair splayed out like a white shawl.

The safeties inside her body had forced her into shutdown to deal with the severe overheating. Those safety measures always activated whenever her energy-manipulation abilities were over-used—or simply activated when there was no longer seemingly in danger. So far, almost every fight fought by Gally, Princess Kyrie and Padraig was met with success. It was success and victory that came at a price. For being able to summon beautifully terrible flares of energy that heated the air and disintegrated enemies, it in turned cost Kyrie her consciousness. Then it almost always sent her into a faint of temporary death.

While Gally was just beginning to snap out of her battle frenzy, blinking and looking somewhat lost, Padraig was already running to Kyrie's aid, running at that pathetically slow human speed. He sheathed the two blades and snapped the sheaths shut before going to his knees next to her. His fingers shook as he carefully spread lengths of her hair away from her face, her mouth parted and very hot breath coming from her mouth. It would not be safe to touch her body with bare hands for more than a little while. Even brushing her synthetic skin with his hands made for searing hotness along his fingers. "Somebody! Draw water, please!" he shouted over the wall. The stress of the situation thickened his brogue.

Both Kyrie and Gally could recover from the most terrible damage to their bodies thanks to the billions of nanobots flowing through tubes in their bodies. Still true was how Padraig was always deathly afraid that Kyrie would push herself too far. Or the stress alone from seeing Kyrie do that to herself would kill _Padraig. _

The first shouts came from the wall from which the people watched the ending of the mutie invasion. "_Witch!_" shouted some of them. Now that started up an entire mess of jeers and chants of hatred agasint Kyrie. "_It's a witch! World-destroying power! Witch! Witch! Witch…_" Thank goodness Kyrie was unconscious and unable to hear the hatred against her.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 2

Gally easily lifted up Kyrie from the hard ground much as one would lift a sleeping child—though the princess was approximately the same height as Gally herself. Then again, they were both on the petite side. Everyone else in this land was an average of six feet in height, everyone excepting those two.

It left Padraig wondering why that was so. Why the creators of their bodies made them so juvenile and petite in stature, he was not sure. Perhaps it was because of technical reasons, there being reasons for smaller synthetic bodies. Padraig sometimes thought that both girls ought to have been given the bodies of nine-foot goddesses to be worshipped, deities that walked the Earth to make things right again…! Ah, but then he remembered that the people of this world did not call it Earth. What the Hell did they call this world, anyway? He would have to ask Kyrie that, as soon as consciousness returned. Or maybe there was no name for it.

He also wanted to call some of those people something terrible, preferably something obscene and pertaining to lewd acts of impossible or harmful sexual intercourse. That was because some of this world's people were standing atop the town wall and speaking oh-so-nastily. That, and they were acting like idiots. There are plenty of idiots around here; that was why they are called them idiots, because that was what they were.

There were plenty of idiots standing atop the town wall right now. "_Wi-i-itch!_ Take the witch away! Take _all _yourselves away!" came their shouts. "And take your evil magic clothes with you!" There was a flutter of movement when Padraig thought that one of the townspeople dared to hop down from the wall and confront them. "Go away, world-wreckers! Witches and robots, world wreckers!"

Padraig had to run to get it before the breeze snatched it away. That tossed article of clothing was Gally's trenchcoat—a wonder that they did not try to tear it. Or maybe they were afraid to do so out of fear of so-called magic. At the least they were kind enough to give Gally her coat back. No, that was not it. They simply wanted to rid the town of any remnant of their passing—fearing that any article of clothing worn by them carried _contamination_, that evil which was responsible for the spawning of the muties. He stood there, feeling shaky with anger at the townspeople. "And they always will, you loser."

_What? _Padraig wheeled himself around. He thought he heard someone there, a woman's voice. But there was no one immediately behind him. The only females behind him at the time had been Gally and Kyrie. But that was not Gally's nor Kyrie's voice. And the princess was unconscious. What the Hell was going on here?

Gally interrupted his confusion. "The people of this fallen world are apart and separate," she said to Padraig. "They do not know the presence of their own princess. Such is the case of at least one." She looked down at the pale-haired girl she held in her electromechanically enhanced arms.

"I think, 'tis not excuse enough," bitterly voiced Padraig, his cheeks getting to be as red as his head of hair. "Yet ye would be in the right, Gally. Truth be told…" He lowered his gaze to the hard scrubby ground and the wispy grass. "Ye are in the right, I gratefully admit."

Gally then did something that gladdened Padraig's heart. She smiled. When she did, seeing that pretty face put on such a cute and hopeful look reminded him that there was progress to be made after all. "We move onward," she said. "The opinions of those in ignorance are worth the darkness from which they have come. We do not need them to find that which we seek."

Now Padraig was feeling that smile. The Golden Hope, that was what they were looking for. It was what this was all about. When they found it, it would be the beginning of something new and wonderful in the land. This land truly did need something wonderful, and The Golden Hope was exactly it. A nod, and he began walking with Gally. He was carrying her trenchcoat, and Gally was still carrying Kyrie. They would just have to keep walking in the direction they had been before, traveling in the direction in which the sun rose every morning. There were times in which Kyrie pointed out somewhat different direction, maybe directions somewhat right of the sunrise or even straight to it.

Gally and Padraig could have stopped walking and waited for Kyrie to recover—when her body's supply of nanobots repaired any damage caused by overheating. But to stop walking would have invited trouble from potential jeering pursuers from that settlement they just left. The thing to do was to keep walking, going along this land of sandy dirt and scrubby grass.

Having come from an obliterated world herself, Gally had something of an idea as to how to cope with the ambiance of wastedness in this one. It truly was a pathetic land, little more than scattered, walled-off settlements of surviving humanity set in a vast and seemingly endless wasteland with the occasional fallen places of a once-grand civilization. Whereas the people lived in rustic houses and generally shared a folksy existence of simple work and traditional living, the ruins of cities and research laboratories bespoke a world in which grand technology made most anything possible. Then there had something that the people simply called the War.

A war that destroyed civilization, that was exactly the sort of story that Gally had heard before. It was so much like the reality from which Gally had come, also so much unlike it. This reality did not have a floating city of wealthy, educated and computer-controlled citizens. Nor did this one have huge Factory-run cities of machine-buildings—which Gally's world did. If it was better or worse to have a world not ruled by a floating city, Gally was not sure yet. What she was sure of was how The Golden Hope was something that her own world could use more than this one. If The Golden Hope was such a precious item powerful enough to restore hope to a world, did the people deserve it? After all, they were careless enough to lose such a precious thing in the first place.

Nevertheless true was how there was sometimes hints of doubt about making it to The Golden Hope. There was no way of telling how far away they were from that glowingly wonderful goal. All they could do was keep going and keep following the feeling. That feeling of approaching The Golden Hope was there and was able to give direction—but not distance, just like an analog compass. And Padraig always had the creeping notion that he might-maybe just not make it. "We've quite a ways yet, aye?" he asked aloud. But he knew the answer in mid-sentence.

Likewise, Gally said nothing in response—not stating the obvious. She simply continued going along, carrying the still-hot figure of Kyrie and going at Padraig's walking pace. Now that they were well away from the walled-off town on this wasteland plain, the low rolling lumps and near-flatness of this hard scrub-grass landscape made for there being plenty of wind blowing across—the wind pulling at the edges of Gally's trenchcoat and stroking her hair.

There was a sudden inhalation of breath—Kyrie's breath. "_Hmm?_" Surprised, Gally stopped her walk. She looked down into the face of the princess. Those large jewel-green eyes of hers opened up to look upwards.

Kyrie was awake, yet not fully aware. Her sense of self took some seconds to return. When it did, Kyrie was able to speak, putting forth a typically princess-sounding sort of statement. "I am recovered now, thank you. Your service to me is duly recognized. Now, do lower me, please—for I am capable of moving under my own power again."

Gally did so, lowering Kyrie to the ground. Kyrie wavered for a moment but righted herself. There was a moment of her stroking some lengths of her long pale-white hair behind delicate ears, herself looking down at her outfit, then looking around…before turning slightly to the right. "_That _is the way forward," came her next declaration. Then the princess began walking in the direction just indicated, her thin long-coat and moonsilk head of hair flowing behind her.

Yes, the princess was right and well again! That was certainly one relief to Padraig's worried mind. Another relief was how they were going the right way. He could _feel _it just as he knew that Gally could feel it. Of course Kyrie's sense of the correct direction was strongest. And sometimes, her way forward was a lot faster than he would have believed. Sometimes it seemed as if the wasteland plains stretched out almost infinitely in all directions with maybe something seemingly unreachable on the horizon. But then they reached some of those far-off places with mere quarter-hour periods of walking. That was just a rough estimate as he did not have a watch anymore—having thrown his last watch away when it started showing all the wrong times all the time.

If his watch was messed up, so were those muties. And then there were those damned muties: too corrupt to be believed. He wanted to call them something else. That would be something preferably heard in the intoxicated depths of a male restroom on any late Friday night at a drinking establishment.

"Gally, do ye ever come to contemplate the ways o' physics in this land?" asked Padraig. "What I mean to ask, if the latter makes a tad bit o' sense or a grand lot of it. Do ye ken the essence o' my inquiry?"

Gally tilted her head to one side as if trying to get a better angle on his words. "I have impressions that have come about from that line of thinking. This comes forth from passive times of wandering thought. It is nevertheless troubling to have one's mind wander far too much into the ways and means of this world." After a pause, Gally added, "This is in addition to the necessity to wander and wonder."

The first days that Padraig was with Gally and Princess Kyrie, as soon as he was over the awe of being in the presence of such beautiful figures of wonder and awe, he kept asking the princess lots of _why _and _what _sort of questions, along with confused exclamations of the _how _variety. Kyrie did her best to patiently explain—speaking in a tone one use to explain the moon or the ocean to a young child. This came out of living in this reality all of her life.

Meanwhile, Gally just went with the flow of things as if her existence had been in this world as well. He knew that the cyborg-girl did not come from here. He also suspected that Gally maybe found some aspects of this world just as confusing and strange. Yet there was a center of coolness and calm to Gally that kept her from caring too overly much.

…

2.

…

"Gosh-darned witches! Darn every one of them and whatever time or universe that they came from!" snarled the elderly man in red coveralls as he sat in the town square: an open area in the middle of this town that was surfaced with hard bricks. There was a raised brick platform, upon which was a row of similar elderly men. "Invaders from the goblin universe, that's what they are! Always trying their darned evil best to reach into ours and mess things up worse than they are!"

Those elders were a group of aged men who largely oversaw the attitudes of the townspeople. All of the town's elders had slightly different faces, though it was difficult to tell the differences between them when the folds of age begin to soften faces. They all shared a set of general characteristics: all of them with gray hair and slight beards, all of them dressed in the traditional long shirts and red coveralls of typical townsmen, with hard brown work-shoes on their feet even if they did not do any real work anymore.

No one really knew how old the town elders were. The big lazy truth was, no one kept a calendar in the times since the War. Time just seemed to go on, first day to day, then year to year as years went into decades or whatever. People just kept going on as best as they could—not really getting any worse—unless one counts those who died due to the contamination or became changed. Then there were people who died at the hands (or claws, or fangs…) of the things that roamed the land.

People went on, and time did as well, in ways. And no matter how many decades passed, the town elders continued to exist and persist. It was as if the town elders seemed to never become any older or sicken from the contamination. All that really mattered was that they were just very old and spoke from tradition. Therefore, they were considered wise since they knew so much about the deep roots of tradition.

Yes, it was the grand old comfortable thing of tradition. _Tradition_ that kept the ways of living alive since the War. _Tradition _told people how to fix houses good enough to keep the wind, sun and rain out—as pathetic as the sun was. Tradition also told people how to fix the walls. Out of tradition even came rules about how to live together even while the big government cities were obliterated by the War and were habitats of the muties. Right now, that group of wisdom representatives was sitting in a row and telling the townspeople something out of that…_tradition_.

"What destroyed the world? _Magic _did!" shouted another elderly one right of the middle. "All of the fancy magicians and witches thought that they could do whatever they wanted with their evil machines and their downright oddball ways of talking… Dark talk of _fiss-sicks _stuff and _Sy's borg _and _warps. _All of that is contamination talk, contamination from using energy! They used their evil energy to wreck and contaminate the world!"

Chimed in another elder on the far right. "Now look, gosh darn-it! We've got those damned muties coming here! Darn witches and their darn magic! Yes, we do have random attacks from the muties. But was it just dang-on bad luck that muties attacked our town just as soon as some of those witches showed up? Heck no! And what about Miss Couchroy's boy? Did he get the contamination and became a mutie just for no reason?"

Yet another town elder nearer to the right leaned forward. "_Witches and magicians_," he declared. "They destroyed the world once. Now they're trying to eat up and kill off what's left. We're still around, folks. We'll keep on being around and not get stomped out by the witches and the magicians!"

Said an elder on the left of the row upon the raised platform, "It used to be that the world was a good place for a while when the magicians and the witches used those _fiss-sicks machines _and _sinse _magic to make lots of good things, making great big cities and little machines to make life easier. A long time ago, people didn't have to work so hard on chores for living's sake. Everybody could do what they wanted without really having to do work…so long as they did not bother anybody else. There were strange metal creatures called _row bobs _and _otto's mation_. Everything was _e-e-easy _under the life of magicians and witches, witches and magicians. Then the magicians and witches turned on us. They started the War. The good days are over. Now we have to get along as best we can, but without the witches and the magicians! Shun them!"

When that last town elder went quiet and leaned back in his chair, the townspeople knew better than to shout out in cheering. Instead, they talked lowly among themselves—turning to one another and discussing the points. Oh yes indeed, the town elders were right-smart in what they did. They always knew the right thing. It was a good and right thing that the witch and her sinister friends. Who knows how long they would have kept attracting muties to this town? Now they were safe with the_ witches _and the _magicians _gone. So they thought.

But the thoughts of idiots are not terribly strong or reliable anyway. "Dear goodness me, Mr. Pluck!" came shouting from the edge of the town square. "What have we here upon this fine and sunset-tinged day? Such was a forthrightly demagogic burst of propaganda if ever such a thing was blatantly declared! The manipulative appeal to outmoded but dogmatic thinking combines with random _emic_ appeals to further solidify the rabble-rouser's hold upon the people!"

Said another but similarly accented voice. "My dear sir Mr. Tibbs! I wholehearted agree with the latter and the former sentiments expressed by yourself. You _are _a quintessential expert in the matter, after all. I now humbly request the following: May I hazard to add pedagogy to the analysis?"

The townspeople turned to look in the direction of the strangely accented voices. There were what seemed to be two elderly gentlemen in strangely styled black-and-white business clothes: black jackets and vests over white shirts, with black trousers and polished shoes worn for bottoms. Roundish black hats topped their heads. Long ago, city people somewhat dressed that way. But all the cities were gone, and so were the city people. So why were those two here?

"How _dare _you!" shouted one of the town elders. "This is _our _town meeting! These are _our _people! Or are you a _magician? _You and your _sinse _talk! How else could you get through our town walls? Only a _magician _with _sinse _could do that!"

"Bullocks to the notion! Bullocks, I say! Bullocks and balderdash!" declared the darkly dressed elderly gentleman on the right. "There is no more a notion of magicians with magic than there is of the truths behind backwards superstitions. Or in your rather corrupt tongue, do you endeavor to say _science?_ Nevertheless, your rather boorish and atrocious opinions are of little consequence in the vast sway of things to come.

"What I now mean to ask is, _where _is the princess and her friends? We have followed their travels here. We have the means to ascertain their whereabouts even if such means are delayed. They _have _tarried, however. They therefore must have remained in place. I demand to know if this is the place. To be particular about the matter, I demand to know the whereabouts of Princess Kyrie, Gally the cyborg-girl, and Padraig of the green?"

Back here across the town square, shouted out an elder on the right, "What are you talking about, _magician? _That talk of _Sy's borg _is _sinse _talk! It is not wanted here! Had we known that the strangers were witches and magicians, we would have exiled them long ago. Or we would have killed them!"

One of those two new arrivals put on a look of exaggerated surprise, the one on the left. "_Preposterous! _According to your boorish and insipid mindset, we are _magicians, _you say? Are we to now remove our hats, reach into them and pull out albino lagomorphs of the stereotypically carrot-consuming sort? I say, to partake of such an act of juvenile delight would sully our reputations." He turned to his similarly dressed companion, the one on the right. "My dear great Mr. Tibbs, I humbly and kindly inquire of you, am I to partake of parlor tricks dredged up from the annals of the worst compendium of that which is cliché?"

"My great and kind Mr. Pluck, my worthy and great companion, I kindly present to you the following answer," began the one on the right. "You need not sate the desires of those whose intellects are of an age within the single digits. That is to say, one could count their mental ages upon a single hand and not even approach the danger of running short on prehensile appendages."

"Cease this _sinse _talk! Now we have tolerated far too much!" shouted another one of the town elders, the one farthest right on the row. "Townspeople! They are evil _magicians, _both of them. Take up the arms you were to use against the muties and destroy them. _Destroy the magicians!_ _Kill…_" _Crack-am-m-m!_

Following a sound like exploded thunder, the town elder was stopped mid-sentence. He would have said something else had it not been for the inconvenience of a sudden hole appearing through the back of his mouth and continuing out the back of his head. With his mouth open, it was a hole large enough to see one of the houses behind him—if one looked through the dribbles of blood cascading down through the hole. Then he collapsed to fall, a soon-to-be corpse twitching and bleeding.

There was a deeply surprised silence. Throughout the town square, the townspeople simply stood there with a variety of stunned looks on their faces. No one ever dared to question the town elders. Everyone gave deep and disciplined respect to them. For one of them to be reduced to a twitching, bleeding corpse in traditional coveralls was as shocking as someone blasting an old man in daylight, with a small crowd of witnesses—which is exactly what the Hell just happened here.

The cause of this sudden sudden appearance of a hole through an elder's head, was to be found way across the town square. Over there was the stranger on the left with his left arm extended, a strange machine-pistol in the hand. The tip of the barrel glowed had reddish smoke seeping up from it.

"That was an excellent show of gunnery and marksmanship, Mr. Pluck!" declared the stranger on the right. "It is a due credit to the skill in which you utilize even the most esoteric and obscure of projectile-based weaponry—or _any _weaponry. In all the times and worlds in which we have been companions of the cause, you have continued to show your greatness in matters of the before-mentioned. Good for you, my good friend!"

Nothing else needed to be said before the big loud show of violence erupted next. All of the townspeople began to make a mad rush at the two elderly looking gentlemen in dark business clothes. Little did they know that the two elderly looking gentlemen in business clothes meant business. As arms of the sovereign over this land, or what was supposed to be the government, it was sometimes necessary to show what sovereignty meant.

The stranger on the left reached into his business jacket to put away the strange pistol. He then pulled out…kept pulling out…and finally finished pulling out an impossibly large and long rifle sort of weapon—a weapon that was easily as long as he was tall. It was impossible in that such a massive weapon could not possibly have been hidden in a business jacket or even the storage area of a very large vehicle. However, this was a world in which some of the rules were different.

Likewise, the stranger on the right reached into his business jacket to take out an odd device. It was a block of metal about the side of a hand, one side of it glowing orange-red. Staring into that bright red glow made for an after-shadow on one's vision. He flipped it as so the glowing side was facing the crowd, and brightness flared out…

It made for the first rushing row of townspeople clutching at their burnt faces and hands, which had suddenly turned the red of barbecued meat with the skin still on it. All the townspeople behind them were doing their best to shove the fallen down and stampede over them, stomping over their once-fellow townspeople in getting at those strangers. It did not matter how many were killed. They were all dead-set in getting those two magiciansand doing something terrible to them.

Then Mr. Pluck went to work that huge weapon. Bright blasts of rapid red flared out from the muzzle of the long barrel, zipping through multiple bodies. People were screaming and dying as their bodies were blasted through and through, hot red radioactive death holing them as easy as hyper-velocity rounds through fresh meat. In truth, the weapon was originally designed for use by humanoids in space combat against mid-sized warships or the destruction of artificially accelerated asteroids. It nevertheless worked especially well against the crowd of people, screaming and blood, blasts and death. Magnetically accelerated plasma, generated by an intensely micro-controlled matter-antimatter source, that was not really magic.

It may as well have been; it turned all the people into a wide group of red-soaked corpses with holes blasted through them. At least now there was no more of that _get-the-magicians _nonsense here. Now all the former townspeople were all as quiet and as well-behaved as one would expect dead bodies to be, not making any rude noises or acts of aggression or anything! Across the way were town elders all blasted out of their seats, also made into corpses, also having become well-behaved.

Though Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck so dearly _hated_ to commit themselves to deeds such as the above-described, it was nevertheless necessary. After all, they were arms of the sovereign and would deal with dissent accordingly. The only unfortunate outcome was in how there were none of the corpses alive enough to tell Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck where that trio went. In fact, none of them were alive at all. And so, Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck would move on, doing what was necessary until they found the night-haired cyborg-girl, the princess and the man in green.


	3. Chapter 3

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 3

This part of the wasteland was pretty much like every other part—the ground being that hard surface of scrubby grass that grew with roots in sandy dirt. Sure it could be boring and seem as if there was nothing out here. Yet that was during the day, or what passed for daytime in this world—its sickly level of bright orange light from a dying sun, a dying land. And the sky was getting to be a deeper orange-red that neared the darkness of night. Night was _not _the time to be out, when all kinds of things would appear at random. Sometimes, some of those things had no names because no one really bothered to think of them. Chances are, wherever crazy universe whatever those things came from, they had names—not in this one. And chances are, one of these days, Princess Kyrie's party of three would run into some no-name things that could not be beaten with Gally's deadly dance-like fighting grace or Padraig's skilled blades, or even with the Princess' own manipulated energy.

If Gally and Princess Kyrie could keep on going without saying anything, so could he. Well, the facts that Gally's feet were shaped machinery and Kyrie's flesh was synthetic could be ignored for now. He ought to also ignore the fact that both Gally and Kyrie could be practically brought to near total destruction without dying due to how their bodies had supplies of nanobots flowing through tubes. Padraig had blood, and he would bleed if something got him if his blades were not drawn.

_We cannot win forever, _came a concluding thought. It was not a question of _if_ but _when. _They had some close scrapes before. And there were times in which Padraig was unsure if he would live to see the next fight. And since it was getting dark, the probability of that increased.

No, that was not the thing to think about right now. Instead of thinking about _that, _Padraig thought about dirt. Where he came from, this sandy and hard sort of ground was called _loam_. Goodness knows what the locals call it, or what they called it in the world Gally came from, her own lost land. Gally said that she was born on Mars but lived on Earth. Well, the way Gally described Earth, Padraig was unsure if it really _was _Earth—at least not the planet Earth he came from. Still true was how Padraig never found out what the name of this land was.

Kyrie was leading them somewhere along the landscape of this world, going to a place that was bound to be a way to the next settlement or something. Padraig hoped they were heading for someplace with a salvageable vehicle. He could feel his feet beginning to ache a bit in his hard polished shoes, unsuited for this sort of travel. He nevertheless kept his mouth shut about such petty aches.

_Loam _he thought again. _And the way it's hurting these feet of mine, I've got another few names for it as well, _he thought. Now the ache was beginning to spread from the soles of his feet to his head. Or maybe he ought to count himself lucky for having shoes that lasted this long at all and remaining in perfect condition.

That, and he was in the company of two very beautiful young women… Gally was gussied up in that tight-fitting leather outfit that fit to _all_ the curves and lines of her lithe body, her dark eyes and midnight-colored hair contrasting with her pale skin being the promise of something exotic. And the princess was wearing that shorts-and-middie outfit to show off legs, abdomen and the rest of her slender figure, her ghostly silk-white hair cascading from her scalp and fluttering behind her like a pale banner of silken beauty. Even if both girls wore long-coats over such sleek outfits, the wind blew in such a way to reveal what was worn—and not worn, delicious thoughts of what both girls would look like without anything on.

_Now you stop thinking like that, fool, _he then thought, biting down on the raunchy ideas. Gally's body, as nubile and as lithe as it was shaped, it was just shaped machinery beneath that synthetic leather bodysuit. No doubt Princess Kyrie's exquisite body looked and felt human. But the chances of Padraig ever doing _that thing _with a _princess _were about as good as a janitor making it with a corporate CEO's surgically sculpted beautiful daughter.

Gally's faintly accented and carefully articulate voice interrupted those thoughts. "I see that something is not very far from the direction in which we are walking. It is in the presence of an aggressive physical activity. Caution and preparation for aggression are therefore advised in traveling forward."

"Huntress Gally, your observations regarding the matter are duly acknowledged," said Princess Kyrie. "I see movements of faint bustle of activity in the distance as well. Something is most certainly afoot."

"What's that, ye say?" asked Padraig as he increased his walking pace to keep up. As petite as the girls were, their agility and physical endurance exceeded his own. They were both now walking faster. "Aye… Those electronic eyes of yours are leagues better than my own flesh ones. And the Princess' mind's eye leads us to rights yet again. Then 'tis to be conflict." He lightly touched the bandolier of three daggers which always were at his chest, making sure that they still were there to be used. _Not yet_, he thought. He did not have to draw his tools of murder and death yet. There was still quite a distance between where Gally saw trouble. He could not even see it, just more of the landscape off in the vast wasteland distance. There was maybe just a dark hump in the slightly hazy distance.

If this was a full and proper day, he would likely be able to see what was ahead with no problem. Damn the ever-dim sun of this world. What the Hell was wrong with the sun of this world? Was it _ever _full daylight? And did sunsets ever have to be so red in color?

Ah, but Padraig was again reminded of how the rules of this world were different. What should have been far off in the kilometers of sunset-toned distance and almost out of sight was suddenly coming into sight. Before long, he could see the shadowy shapes of what was no doubt going to be trouble. It was all the more likely going to be more of that messed-up _mutie _trouble. He could have just as easily wished it to have been an evening outdoor party of well-dressed socialites all wining and dining on caviar, white wine and finger-foods _Not bloody likely, lad_, went a thought.

They were at the scene too quickly—a group of those malformed, deformed, ill-formed man-like creatures hobbling and moving around what looked to be some kind of wheeled vehicle. Now part of the scene was coming in this directionThe muties must have sensed the oncoming presence of normal people through some kind of evil extra-sensory perception, because there was no way in Hell that the messed-up eyes of muties could see this far in such low sunset-toned light.

One did not need too much light to see how terrible the muties were. In fact, one could very well wish to _not _see them, because this bunch was just as atrocious as muties usually were—if not more so. Some of the muties had once been women, because only women could bear children. These "children," though, were growing right out of their mutie mothers' open abdomens, out of rips in the soiled dresses. Both mothers and children had snarling and sharp teeth.

If it was to be believed, there were some other muties that seemed almost as worse off. There were some other muties whose heads had somehow become flattened and deflated. Those muties looked as if someone sewed hairy topped meat pancakes to the top of mutie bodies and let the results go about their way merry way. If they had brains, those brains were likely mutilated and squashed flat. They ought not even be alive, let alone up and walking. But muties were not exactly known for their usage of brain-power anyway.

As for the rest of that motley bunch of atrocities, they were the usual selection of rot-skinned muties in ripped coveralls. They had extra arms growing out of places where there ought not be limbs. Most of them had patches of hair growing on random parts of their lumpy faces. This would all be more of the grotesque sameness.

Of the small group of muties running or hobbling in this direction, one of them stumbled. That was because the ugly meat-pancake it had for a head was gone. That so happened to be because Gally had dashed past it, her left arm arcing in a sleeved blur, edged with a metal hand held straight in a knife-styled strike. Even before the head plopped to the ground and the body followed suite, Gally had already cut into a sharp right turn and went for another one of the muties—who soon went down when she did something terrible to its meaty back.

_Hell, here we go again, _thought Padraig with two of his blades ready, the third one still in the bandolier. The blade in his right was just beginning to build up that charge but would not be ready to cut an energy arc just yet. Nevertheless, the time-cutting blade in his left hand was always ready. One second, he was standing here with two daggers in two hands. The next second, he was standing six meters forward, his left arm seeming to have come out of a flinch. Three muties tumble-bumbled forward while their legs fell off—sliced clean through the flesh and bone.

The last of the muties to run over here were the worst of them, those with the malformed children growing right out their ripped-open abdomens. Padraig was feeling the right-hand blade beginning to fill him with power… Even so, just the sight of those muties with unborn children growing right out of their abdomens made him swoon with a sickening and dizzying sense of dread. Went his thoughts, _Oh God, how can such things exist? _That would be if God had anything to do with such creatures at all that were too damned close to looking vaguely human, should not have been human.

Suddenly deep in her battle-lust, Gally had no issues in putting on a show of slender grace and ballet-like skill in slaughtering three muties. Lunging forward, her left leg was braced against the hard scrubby ground while her right leg was extended behind her. So positioned, she swept upwards with both arms, both hands _gripping _one of the parasitic children growing out of an abdomen—grabbing it almost like a dance partner. There was a _r-r-riping _sound of wet meat and flesh, followed by a loud and painful squealing sound. Now the unborn mutie-child was ripped from its grotesque mother, wagging its meaty head in the air and moving its sharp-toothed mouth before Gally hurled it at another one of the muties like a grotesque ball of sports.

The new impact broke that other mutie's back, the body folding backwards and in half like a felled sugar-cane stalk. As for the now-childless mutie, it staggered backwards as dark fluids gushed from its midsection. An observer would have made a sideward comment regarding late-term abortion or something of the sort.

There was still one more mutie, and it was doing its damned best to go hobbling the last nine meters towards Kyrie…just as the sunset-colored air in front of her was beginning to heat up and waver. The princess was beginning to summon and manipulate energy already, not even waiting for the fight to truly start. Those slender arms and delicate fingers of hers were moving in weaving and manipulating local reality in summoning energy. It was intensely hot enough to make that mutie begin to slow down as its ragged clothes burst into flames, the mutie's skin beginning to slide off as the fat beneath the skin began to melt…

When there was enough energy summoned, Kyrie finished with a shoving motion—making for a quick-lived flare-out of energy that was intensely brighter than a thousand intensely white-hot suns. The intense energy flared over and past several muties.

In its aftermath, there was nothing left of the muties but a pair of charred leg-stumps. It took just that deci-second to turn what had once been a semi-living meat-creatures into ash and vapor. An ever-so-faint wisp of dark powder dissolved in the sunset-toned air. As for the burnt-black leg-stumps, they were still there and just now crumbling.

"Did ye both…_have to do that…?_" was all Padraig could say before going to his knees, still gripping the hilts of his dual daggers. Keeling over, his stomach heaved began to heave. Thank goodness nothing much came up. He did have to spit some sick out of his mouth, though, staying on his knees for a while.

"_It was all completely within what was necessary!" _shrieked Gally. Somewhat more coherently, she began yelling a speech at Padraig. "Do not be a weakling! We must do what is needed. We shall do all that is necessary in seeking that which is our hope. Are you so _weak_ as to hesitate even now? Stand up now, you cowardly and very pathetic man!"

Gasping for air, Padraig had enough strength to lift his head. "As beautiful as ye would be, I sometimes think…ye have the cruelty o' the muties. Perhaps that would be worse…" Anything else he was going to say was cut off with coughs.

Gally took a step closer to Padraig before the princess spoke. "The cyborg huntress is correct in what is said," said Kyrie, her hands clasped together. "You must take heart in the truth of the muties being merely rubbish. They are merely carriers of fetid infection, impeding our progress. And what does one do with rubbish and waste to be rid of it? One _destroys_ and _burns _it straight off. Or one could think of it as cauterizing wounds upon the blight of the world's people." This princess then tilted her head to the right in a look of sympathy. "What we do is also a show of mercy. Such malformed beings would be better served in being taken out of existence—at least this plane of existence. Would _you _wish to exist as something so obscene?"

Part of Padraig's mind could not help but be swayed by Princess Kyrie's words, her voice so softly beautiful and softening. Indeed, if he ever became a mutie, maybe he would not want to exist any more. But still true was how not _all_ muties could be destructive monsters—like those ones with unborn children still attached to them. Now that he thought of it, they did not put up much of a fight at all. This party was the first to act aggressively.

Kyrie then pointed in the direction from which the muties had come. Not too much of a walk away was a sort of roundish vehicle that resembled a cross between a motor home and a space buggy—big ridged tires attached to a long rectangular vehicular body that had roundish attachments to its roof, the front of the vehicle being steepled. Said Kyrie, "The muties were midway through an attempt at destroying our next means of rapid transportation. We are rather fortunate in that the vehicle could not be damaged by the likes of the muties and their improvised weapons."

…

2.

…

One would have sworn to any available deity those muties really had a good time in trying to bash and smash the salvageable vehicle—a vehicle that looked like some kind of retro-futuristic mobile home out of a corny science fiction movie from twenty years ago. The body of the vehicle was boxy and about as long as a house, a vehicle surfaced with a ceramic or plastic-coated chrome—at least something like those materials. There was no telling what that material really was right now. Four wheels were at the back and covered with just about the silliest-looking roundish hubcaps ever seen, and there was a really stupid-looking set of dish-antennae on the top. Worst of all, the whole vehicle was an absolutely ugly reddish purple shade--maroon or something, hard to tell since night-time was not far off now—the sunset burning low and dark red. Even in dim light, the thing was not at all pleasing to anybody's eyes. But as ugly as the thing looked, it stood up to the rusty pipes and chunks of concrete that the muties used in trying to wreck it. Big, ugly and tough, it was just like someone he met while on vacation once—a world ago.

Padraig mused aloud, "But if bashing it with pipes puts nary a dent in it, how is one supposed to enter it? We haven't a key among us…" Looking at the silly door at the side of the vehicle, he added, "If this garish nightmare of an ugly vehicle even uses keys, that is."

Gally walked over to the door in the side of the vehicle's body and ducked down, looking at a sort of boxy attachment set close to the ground. She touched it and was going to pull when the thing unfolded itself—unfolded into a set of stairs. Simultaneously, the door in the side of the vehicle slid sideways open with a motorized electric-machine sound. The inside of the vehicle was dark—until Gally stepped in, triggering automatic lights.

"The Hell ye say! Of course!" exclaimed Padraig. "'Twas painfully easy a thing for ye to do, Gally. No wonder the accursed muties could not get in. Muties barely have brains enough to breathe in and out without bein' reminded by each other, let alone utilize something mechanical…" He looked to Kyrie. "Princess, after ye."

Kyrie gave an ever-so-slight nod before passing by Padraig in entering this ugly contraption created in poor taste. He was also ever-glad that no one he ever knew from home was seeing him get into this traveling atrocity. At the least, it was transportation—or could be.

…

The main space inside of the vehicle looked almost as stupid the outside. There was a hard white floor, and the walls were just as white—everything illuminated with circular florescent lights set in the ceiling. A plastic-looking low '70s-style Formica coffee table was set between two dark green sofas, those ugly sofas being the color of murdered spinach. Some really terrible-looking pink-colored cabinets were set in the walls at the far-right side, a sort of low faucet and sink being there. Strangely enough, there was no dust. Or not so strangely enough, the salvaged vehicles found in this land almost never seemed to have dust on them—as if they simply appeared here. In fact, the air had that super-clean smell to it that one found in highly filtered hospital air—a slight smell of disinfectants of some kind.

And the two girls were not in sight, not in this particular room. There was a door open to the left—presumably leading to the driver's compartment. He crossed through this part of the retro-styled vehicle to get over there, having to actually duck down to get in. Left and right of the door stood Gally and Kyrie—both of them standing in front of the big blue-cushioned seats that faced out the windshield, set in front of driving controls. He began talking before he saw it. "Now we can…" Then he saw them.

_They_ were the owners of this vehicle. Or make them the _former _owners… Slumped sideways in the three seats were two particularly short, distorted beings. The inhabitants of this vehicle had very large heads, fronted with faces like that of elderly men—if one ignored the vaguely whitish-blue cast to their skin. In contrast to the large heads, their bodies were small and dressed in red coveralls over silvery, plastic-looking shirts. And they were the former owners because dead beings cannot own property.

Padraig did not even know if those two things were close to human. He wanted to just call them _muties _and be done with it. But muties were almost always staggeringly dumb creatures with burnt-looking cracked skin, bodies dressed in ragged remains of clothes. Muties deserved all kinds of nasty names and deserved anything that happened to them. These elderly, large-headed beings looked as if they did not deserve whatever the Hell just happened to them. All the same, he wanted to get the Hell out of here. He had seen a lot of things in the short amount of time he had been in this land—too many things. But this was damned frightening. Those beings looked a great deal like the big-eyed creatures of flying saucer lore he glimpsed at in shop-counter tabloids, those silly papers with stories titles like, "I was Abducted by Space Aliens!" or "Celebrity Babies Results of Hybrid Bug-People Experiments." Their faces were somewhat human, but somewhat was not the same as actually being human.

Said the princess, "We shall be rid of them. They are yet more rubbish to be rid of, yet more contamination upon this land. At the least, their sudden and fortunate presence made for a boon in light of our progress."

There was something wrong with that. Padraig wanted to do something proper with them. But what? He was unsure if he ought to give them proper burials or burn them. Well, burn them with what? Nothing in this vehicle looked flammable, everything looking shiny and artificial.

While Padraig's mind wandered and wondered, Gally did something. She approached the place where the dead beings lie slumped in two of the driver's seats. Waving metal fingers in front of their faces produced no reaction, nor did staring into their dead eyes. So she then ducked down to pick up the beings, stacking them one atop another, their huge heads tilted left and right. Using one corpse as a grotesque sliding cart and the other corpse atop it, she began dragging the dead out by ankles. She had the strength to lift them both up but did not want to knock them against the door frame when carrying them.

His mouth open in shock and awe, Padraig watched as Gally made her way through the main living-room sort of place to see Gally dumping the large-headed bodies out head-first. Little arms and bodies flailed limply and pathetically as the heads to which they were attached went _out _and down—barely making much sound when tumble-bumbling onto the hard ground outside. Then she found a button to touch, which closed the door again.

"It _is _further fortunate that such transportation came at a necessary time," continued Princess Kyrie. "The land outside is already steeped in darkness. Indeed, the guiding path to The Golden Hope blesses us with fortune to get us through this night in the wastelands. This is certainly the way forward…"

"Aye," said Padraig, not sounding too happy about this business of riding in a vehicle once piloted by creatures that barely looked human. Who the Hell knows what could be strange or wrong with this vehicle? And where did it come from? Just like he himself did, and just as Gally did, these beings probably simply appeared here and were probably wondering how the Hell they were going to get back. He recalled the disinfected, hospital-clean smell to the air and wondered if the beings died because of the atmosphere or something. "Someone is fortunate," he added.

Having seen all kinds of carnage before, it was Gally who sat in one of the vehicle's driver seats. Those big dark eyes of hers took some seconds to look over the myriad of colored buttons, along with finger-sized little joysticks. "I would immediately say that such joysticks are for navigation of this unusual vehicle," she said. "There are no labels in any apparent language. Yet this vehicle must be usable somehow. Hmm…." Then she knew. She pressed a sun-colored button, and plenty of lights came on—some of them green and yellow. Gally was able to move this vehicle forward by manipulating the joysticks.


	4. Chapter 4

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 4

They kept on driving through the night. Or rather, Gally kept driving. The dark-haired cyborg-girl required less sleep since it was only her brain that required the rest. That was also true of Kyrie, her body being of synthetic skin and myogel muscle tissues over titanium skeleton and created components—the princess getting by only on naps. As for big, meat-bodied humans like Padraig, he had to rest up totally. He slept on one of the absolutely strange sofas in the main area of this odd, futuristic mobile home on strange wheels.

It was mid-morning when Padraig awoke—feeling as physically refreshed as a shower, a shave, and a teeth-scrubbing, the same as what happened any time he napped since coming to this world. He could tell it was mid-morning by the way that moderate sunlight shone through the tinted plastic dome set in the ceiling of this vehicle—the rumbling sound of the engine and wheels making for a steady hum as it drove along the sandy, scrub-grass landscape.

Then he remembered that this vehicle's engine was smoothly quiet before. It ought not make anynoise. Now it was getting to sound as noisy and as inefficient as any vehicle he had known. He sat up on the sofa, put dark-shod feet to the floor. Yes, he slept in his shoes as he always did, in case he had to wake up running. Thank goodness there was no running this morning. Not yet, at least. He then crossed the hard, vibrating floor in getting to the driver's cabin of this vehicle.

Gally was still driving this vehicle along, Padraig at the far left, Princess Kyrie in the center seat that was bigger than herself… Every so often, Kyrie would gently tilt her head somewhat to one side or another, her eyes seeming to go out of focus. Gally would take quick glances at the princess. "We must make an ever-so-slight change in direction," said the princess, "a change of merely a few degrees to the right if this vehicle remains capable such minute adjustments."

He greeted the females. "Top o' the morning to you, Princess Kyrie… And Gally, o' course," he said. "So ye know of something mayhaps goin' askew with this vehicle? It didn't make any noise before. Now, 'tis grumbling like a bear's belly in the depths o' winter."

Kyrie did not know what a _bear _was exactly, but it was likely a creature from Padraig's world. Without looking in his direction, the princess answered. Saying, "We came to know of such a diagnosis by way of this vehicle's control panel. It has begun to take on a reddish color. Such is likely a reflection of the vehicle's viability."

He looked. Indeed, the plastic casing of the vehicle's slanted dashboard truly was a reddish color. There were no dials or gauges that color. No, it really was the dashboard itself that seemed to have changed color to indicate the mechanical viability of the vehicle. Between the color of the dashboard and the nasty sounds being made by the vehicle's engine and drive-train components, this big ugly retro-futristic spacemobile was not going to be _mobile _much longer.

As for what exactly was going wrong with the vehicle, there was no way to tell. There ought to have been something as simple and easy-to-read as dials or gauges for engine temperature, fuel level, battery output, oil pressure, radiator integrity, speed, RPMs, seat belt, all of those lights and widgets that people liked to look at when not looking at the road. Every other vehicle Padraig had ever seen had all of that sort of analog Tomfoolery and such to indicate the condition of major systems.

Then again, he remembered that this vehicle was probably not fashioned by human hands. Those large-headed dead beings they threw out of this vehicle probably understood their system as being perfectly normal. That, and there was the ever-more-noticeable grumbling of the vehicle's once-quiet engines, not normal for it. And if this vehicle did not hold out, they would be going it on foot until they could reach the next place as indicated by Kyrie's senses.

A low glow emanated from the vehicle's control panel flickered just before this vehicle _lurched_. There was a sound of the vehicle's wheels skidding along the hard ground before going ahead again, Gally's boots going _th-thump _in bracing herself, keeping herself from flinging forward. Princess Kyrie looked as if doing a quick but violent forward-shake of her head, long slim lengths of her pale-blonde hair fluttering forward to obscure her face. Padraig was flopped chest-first into the back of the center seat—then flopping backwards, clutching his midsection.

Running slim fingers through moonsilk hair and with a look of reified dignity on her delicate face, Kyrie said, "Such is an agreeable understanding of this unforeseen circumstance. We shall therefore abandon this means of transportation at the next place we come across. Such is the way of found things in this fading land, perhaps—all the more reason for us to continue our quest…" A blink of those big green eyes of hers, looking forward, and the princess gestured ahead. "We are not especially far from a place."

Looking through this vehicle's windshield, squinting to look farther off into the distance and the weak sunlight, he did see something. This wasted landscape was as generally flat as usual. As boring as it could be, it at least allowed a person an unobstructed view for quite some distance around. And some distance ahead was some kind of wide building set behind a platform and a wide cut in the ground. Now he saw something like that before. He had an idea as to what it was. Yet such a thing out here would make no sense.

With beautiful Gally controlling this ugly vehicle, they were getting closer still. Now that place in the distance was getting ever more clearly into view. It also looked less sensible. Said Padraig aloud, "Erm… Is that what I _think _it to be? If so, 'twould make painfully little sense"

Gally responded, "Who is to say what should be sensible and what is not? You and I are not of this world. We would therefore be in a less advantageous position to make declarations regarding what constitutes sensibility."

Padraig pressed his lips together, not saying anything. It was as if every other thing Gally said sometimes got through his patience. _Of course _that place they were approaching ought not make sense. It ought not make sense at all, not even to someone who just smoked several bricks of marijuana or consumed any other severely mind-altering substance. That particular facility of mass transportation belonged in a _city_, not in the middle of some scrubby wasteland of pathetic grass and sandy dirt.

Ah, but the rules of this land are different—different land, different rules. _Malarkey_, came Padraig's responding thought. Things were going from tolerably bizarre to outright head-smashingly insane in a hurry. Now they were approaching a damned _subway station _out in the middle of this nowhere land. It still made no sense.

…

Gally parked this vehicle not too far from the building in front of the pit in the ground. It was not a choice on her part. The vehicle just stopped working when it came too close to the building. Wheels locked up, lights flickered, and the whole thing quit. "I suspect a degree of increased radiation is to blame," said the metal-bodied cyborg-girl. "However, the hard radiation is not the sole cause of this vehicle ceasing to function. It would therefore be partially caused by the transition." She tilted her head and turned it, regarding Padraig. "I can feel the slight levels of _ionizing radiation_ upon the metal surfaces of my body. It would not be very dangerous to you if exposed to it if such exposure is limited to several hours."

_Increased radiation, _thought Padraig. _Ionizing radiation… _Yes, Gally knew what she was talking about—likely because she was a sort of governmental super-spy where she came from. She therefore knew a lot about what was dangerous. When Gally explained that several hours' exposure would be fine, it still made Padraig take on a clenching feeling of tight coldness inside, and that was not having run gut-first into a seat when this vehicle stopped.

_Ionizing radiation, _that was the kind of radiation that led to all kinds of bad news for a human being. A person could not see, feel or hear most kinds of _ionizing radiation_, the bad kind that made human bodies play roulette with possibilities of developing all kinds of cancer. Maybe a little bit of it would increase the chances of developing cancer and shortening your lifespan by ten years or so. Maybe a little bit more would maybe get the average human person to feel a tad bit sick as the soft tissues of the body begin to break down, bleeding intestines, coughing up blood, the teeth and hair falling out, _radiation sickness. _Padraig thought about nightmarish scenarios he read about in history books, about how nuclear attacks were launched against two cities full of people—the only two cities in human history to have been hit with nuclear weapons. Many people in those cities died outright. But worse still, the nuclear attacks _kept _killing people, the _ionizing radiation _having contaminated the ground and water. And even decades into the future, people died due to all kinds of cancers and complications. _Ionizing radiation_ is like a killer out of nightmares: invisible, stealthy, and slow in painfully killing its victims.

Gally was still staring, those big dark eyes of hers waiting to see his reaction. _I'm not afraid, _he forced himself to think—though he was. He then said aloud, "If the way forward would be through the likes o' that strange station and its _radiation, _then I still say carry on." He said this though neither Gally nor Kyrie had to worry too much. Gally's body was made of alloys permeated with dense radiation-blocking metallic compounds, and the synthetic flesh of Kyrie's body was more resistant than several layers of hazardous materials suits.

And right now, Padraig would not mind any sort of hazardous materials suit, no matter how damnably ugly it was—a nice, big shiny sort of getup with a big goofy sort of helmet and thick material designed to let a person walk through the happy water that flows hot and fresh from a nuclear reactor. Then he thought of those shiny shirts worn by those little big-headed guys—those little guys who were now just dead corpses and not in need of any sort of protection. Then he remembered, of course, that the little shirts of those big-headed little men could not ever fit a full-sized human man. Oh, but he would have found a way to use them. He would wrap the silvery material around him like blankets if he could. Now everyone was getting out of this vehicle—a vehicle that was now useless in addition to being ugly.

The doors out did not work because there was no electrical power. Gally had to use those metal fingers of hers to grip into the once electrically powered sliding door. She used her body's electromechanical strength to then open it out, allowing the princess to step out.

When there was nothing separating himself from the radioactive outside, Padraig felt a warm tingling sensation on his skin as if the _ionizing radiation _was getting him already. But knew that it was just his imagination. No one would really be able to feel the effects of _ionizing radiation_, at least no one being a fleshie human. Out there was _ionizing radiation_ coming from that abandoned subway station in the middle of nowhere—enough _radiation _for Gally's electromechanical body to detect through the protective windshield of this strange vehicle. Yet again the last of their party to leave a location, stepping out into a place that could slowly give him killing cancer just by being here. Damn it, at this point, he hoped that he would not have to be here long—that they found the way to the next place.

…

2.

…

Gally and the princess were just calmly walking along and approaching that big dark gray-concrete train station, or subway station, or whatever the Hell it was. Padraig felt a bit weak and shaky in approaching the strange place set before a house-sized rectangular pit in the earth—low-glowing sunlight overhead. He had the fleeting idea that maybe this was not the way forward, that there was hopefully another means of transportation, any better place. What if they took too long in finding the vehicle hidden here? Or what if Gally was wrong about the intensity of the _radiation? _Right now, the _radioactivity _was permeating his skin, his muscles and internal organs—invisible and unfelt energy that was no doubt shortening his lifespan, however long he would live in this world. "A few hours, ye say?" he asked.

"I assure you," began the dark-haired cyborg-girl, "the dosage of _ionizing radiation _is not of such a level as to be immediately lethal. Exposure to harmful _radiation _is more of a cumulative and chronic consideration rather than an immediately dangerous one."

Gally was simply restating what Padraig already knew, just as he knew that several hours' time would be what he could seemingly safely take. _Cumulative, indeed,_ he mused as they approached the big metal swinging doors that went into the subway station… Funny, he thought the doors were made of wood. They actually were just made out of a cold, lightweight brown metal that just looked wooden from a distance. It was not painted metal; the metal itself was somehow wood-colored. He let Gally touch and open the door to get in. In fact, he was going to try avoid touching most everything here, likely contaminated.

…

The inside of this subway station was one large space that was much like every other public space that Padraig had seen. Or it would have looked that way other than the fact that this place was falling apart. Much of this place was just illuminated with the sunlight shining through windows high up. There was a hard, tiled sort of floor. Some low and crumbled piles of ceiling tiles were in places. A view up showed that parts of the ceiling high up had actually fallen down. Also visible were the tops of handrails—parts of a very wide staircase going down. So down they went, boots and shoes going down the hard stairs and into the dimly lit basement area.

And the basement area was likely where the real business of this abandoned place must have been done—a place of a wide floor and low ceiling. Just in looking down made for a view of the wide basement area, some illumination down there with some lights going _wink-flicker. _Padraig was surprised that this place in the middle of a nowhere prairie had any sort of electrical power at all—likely having an independent power source.

There were ticket windows to the right, a small ticket office back there with bits of paper and junk on desks in there… _Flick-flicker! _Some lights in there flickered on, went out again. "I highly suspect the presence of transportation nearby," said Kyrie. "Yet first comes the necessity of seeking the means of summoning or locating it—likely a sort of train on tracks. The necessity of purchasing passage is likely defrayed due to the lack of personnel."

"Aye, I'll purchase a ticket from the _imaginary_ ticket seller," announced Padraig just before he stumbled. _Flick-flicker…! _Feeling dizzy and lost, he looked down and tried to stay on his feet—which he could see through. The rest of him was also see-through. He looked at his hands and saw the floor through it… _Blink-flicker! _As everything…_became weak, he saw the princess looking at him. Gally was shouting something. She was reaching for him, her metal hands out of trenchcoat sleeves. But she was just so far away. _

_Flick-flicker! _"_Padraig!_" came Gally's shout, also the hard feeling of her electromechanical hands on his elbows and hurting. If the cyborg-girl gripped any harder, she would probably break bones. "Stay with us! Do not break our party of three!"

"What…?" he asked as he began to feel solid again. That feeling of feeling lost and disconnected was gone. What it left was a spinning and dizzy sort of feel. "What was _that?_ I'm feeling more than a wee bit flushed about now."

The princess nodded. "Such is an after-effect of the War, that which made the fabric of this universe weak in places. The very fact that this station and other objects have appeared is symptomatic of other realities seeping into this one. Likewise true is how one may come upon places in which the contrary holds temporarily true: one slipping or fading out of this reality rather than aspects of other realities slipping into this one."

_The War, _thought Padraig. Then he began to feel sick. "I would much appreciate usage of a restroom right about now," he mumbled, staggering in the direction of the ticket booths. To the right of the ticket booths were two metal doors with rusty signs on them—likely indicating restrooms. Before anyone could say anything to him, he began slow-walking towards there.

…

Inside this restroom, the lights seemed to be in even worse shape—florescent light fixtures buzzing and barely producing much illumination. _Blinkety flick-flicker, _went the lights in here.Padraig made his dizzy and sick-feeling way for the toilet stalls, swaying and staggering. Feeling the way he was, he was not sure if stuff was going to come out of his mouth or out the other end. In either case, being next to a toilet would be a good course of action. So he pulled open the gritty, rusty door of the toilet stall.

There was a dead, bald-headed corpse of something sitting sideways on the toilet, its strange face stuck in death pains. The thing was generally human-shaped, even if the face was not—a face with little tentacles reaching out sideways from both sides of the too-strange face. And the clothes were the strangest that Padraig had ever seen. And the hands were web-skinned between the fingers. Yes, the corpse was generally human shaped, two arms and two legs on a man-shaped torso, a head at the top. But that did not mean that it had to be _human. _

_Occupied stall, _thought Padraig, doing his best to quietly and calmly close the bathroom stall door as if to not awaken the strange being, doing his best even if he was feeling sick. He instead turned to the bathroom sinks and approached them. There, he gave a twist of the faucet which he half-expected to produce water… Yes, water actually did come out. A bit of it did. But where did the water come from? The pipes of this place were probably not really connected to anything but dirt. He was going to splash some on his face when he noticed that the water had a definite rusty tone to it. So he turned it off. It was bad enough that he was being exposed to _radiation_ that would kill him if he stayed here too long. He did not want to add toxins to the list of bad exposures.

_Flick-flicker _went the florescent lights over the bathroom sinks. "Excuse me," said a woman's voice to his right, followed by the breeze of someone brushing past behind him. Padraig nodded and edged himself forward to let the female stranger pass. It would have been rude of him to just stand in the way of someone else's business.

Two realizations struck. First, what was a woman doing in this bathroom? Secondly but even more importantly, what the _Hell _was a stranger doing here? This place looked abandoned since close to forever. How could anyone else be here other than Gally and Kyrie?

He whipped himself around, that swirling dizziness getting worse. That voice… He heard it before. Yes, he heard it back at that previous settlement, when he went for Gally's trenchcoat. Now the source of the voice was here as well and nowhere to be seen.

There was _someone _here. They could not simply have left as soon as they arrived. There was also that very definite feeling of somebody being here. It was that feeling a person took on whenever there was someone else in a room. But he could not see anyone.

"Who are ye!" shouted Padraig. "This malarkey cannot go on indefinitely. Ye cannot hide from sight forever. Are ye afraid? Ye need not be afraid unless ye would be against that which my party seeks."

"Oh, all right! Dumbass," complained the female voice. _Flick-flicker… _Suddenly, there was a pale, darkly clad to the right of the bathroom door—leaning suggestively against the wall. She really did come out of nowhere. There was no way that the woman could have come through the door without moving it.

And, oh yes, Padraig saw that she was most _certainly _a woman. Shapely legs were exposed to well up to mid-thigh, where a soft leather skirt covered a firm set of hips beneath a half-unuttoned white blouse that exposed the inner halves of round breasts over a flat abdomen. The view was only partially obscured by the open black-leather jacket that matched the color of her deliciously tight leather skirt. Of course, her face was beautiful—deceptively so, a roundly beautiful face of black lipstick on lips and supermodel's cheeks with dark eyes, her face framed with shiny and silky hair.

"Are you happy now, you dumb fuck?" said the woman. "From the way you're agog at my breasts, I'd say you were!" She straightened up to begin walking away from the wall, her high-heeled bootlets clicking on the bathroom floor. The air chilled, so much so that frost formed on the mirror. Raising her arms, long-fingered hands forward, she called to him. "Come to me! And I do mean _come._"

Carnally, he wanted to ravish that image of womanhood. Yet being close to her made him feel very sick. "Embrace ye? _The Hell I will!_" yelled Padraig, backing off. He drew two of his three blades. The warmth of the first one began to fill him and keep away some of the chill. "Back away, Hellish strumpet! Ye are not normal! Ye are _cold._"

"Like, whatever!" said the too-beautiful female. "I'm more normal that _you _are. I'm the most normal thing in this world—or the world you came from. Don't you want what's _normal?_ Aren't you tired of running with those short doll-girls and doing nothing?"

"Back away, I say!" he said. But what was it, exactly, that was wrong with this female figure? Just looking at her beauty would be enough for any attracted to women. But that would be looking without seeing details. Staring, now he began to realize aspects of the too-beautiful female in front of him. As voluptuously attractive as the woman was, it was all too much beauty. Things were wrong.

Her creamy skin was not the smooth beauty of goddesses depicted as marble statues. No, her skin was the alabaster color of death, colored with that grayish tone that even darker-skinned people took on when no longer alive. Her dark eyes were not just dark… They were eyes that swallow light itself. Looking into her eyes was like looking into a void out of this universe—an infinite universe of darkness.

"Yes, my darling… _Now _you're being less of a dumb fuck and more of a smart fuck," she said. Her dark fingertips stroked her own firm hips and thighs in soft, tight leather. "Too bad. It would've been a lot easier for us both if you just gave up now."

Padraig closed his eyes, shook his head even if it made the dizziness even worse. Yes, the ravishing image of beauty before him was not really a woman. It was something else. It could also have appeared to him like a rich man in a business suit, money overflowing from his pockets and making promises of prosperity. Or it could have been an elderly relative with wine and smooth talk of comfort and old times. But all of those were trying to do the same thing, trying to lure him into giving up.

The too-beautiful woman-thing smile, lips of dark lipstick spreading. "Or maybe not!" she said. "I sort of like it when you slaughter people by the dozens. That's good too, even if you won't come to me. But you can't keep winning forever! One of these days, you're gonna get in _so-o-o _much trouble that your party is gonna get broken in a real hurry. Then you'll belong to me. Like, _totally_."

"Begon with ye!" yelled Padraig. He swung with the right-hand blade, an arc of intensely bright green _flaring _out. Just a sliver of a second before being struck by the blast, the female thing disappeared. There was then a bright blast of light and heat, followed by shattered wall-tiles and smoke everywhere in this bathroom. Worse still was how some of the lights were broken.

…

He got out, bursting from the bathroom and to where Gally and Princess Kyrie were standing. Gally was the first to stand up, looking surprised at this outburst. "'Twas a temptation!" shouted Padraig…before coughing. "_Something from somewhere else! Soemwhere…terrible!_" He began coughing some more as Gally tried helping him away from the smoky bathroom.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Gally. Helping him over to the metal benches. "We did not hear much of anything. There was simply you entering the bathrooms. This, of course was followed by you suddenly emerging from the bathroom almost at the very second that you went in."

Padraig wanted to say that it was not true, but he was too busy coughing. It must have been at least a few minutes when he went in there. When he was in there, there was time enough to see the corpses, turn on a faucet, and hold a conversation with someone who simply appeared there. He _was _in there for at least a little bit of time. Yet it only seemed to have been time just for him.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 5

The petite, leather-clad cyborg huntress stood there on the train boarding platform, regarding that tall man in green business clothes. Yes, it could be said that something was most certainly wrong with Padraig. She suspected that it had something to do with the level of _radiation _in the air that was perhaps affecting his mind. Moderate levels of _ionizing radiation _would eventually lead to physical ailments, affecting the body. But intense levels of it could affect living brains. The other possibility was of him actually seeing something real in the subway restrooms. _The rules are different, _he said every so often.

He now said, "There was something more than a wee bit _different _about the lass. Clad in really seductive dark clothing, those eyes of hers just so _dark _as night, and her smooth skin was as pale as death… I don't think those eyes will _ever _go from my mind."

Of course, Gally herself fit that general description—herself being dark-clad and dark-eyed, her synthetic flesh a pale contrast. At least, that was true of her face, the only part of her that had any sort of skin. She tilted her head to a side and put on an ever-so-faint smile, said nothing about that… Padraig eventually understood the hint, the irony of his description and closed his mouth.

Behind Gally, the princess spoke. Saying, "Regardless of miscellaneous circumstances, this remains a train platform. It is currently bereft of a train. However, there must have been some reason for The Golden Hope to have led us…." _To this place. _Those last three words were lost in the _loud roaring sound that suddenly filled this subway station as a train blasted out from the tunnel._

_Everything was shaking when the train made its appearance, everything being so loud. The princess was swaying with arms out, her green leather boot heels vibrating like mad, doing her best to stay standing as it would have been improper for her to succumb to something so foolish as a train. Meanwhile, Gally had gone to a kneeling position in the chaos, her left hand bracing against the insane tremors. Padraig and his human body did not have the balance to stay upright, falling over just as the train began…_to come to a quiet stop.

There it was, a commuter train of dull red metal. It had typically long cars on metal wheels—the all of which were set upon the metal rails beneath. Next to the train's doors were circular symbols of the other-worldly corporation ran the trains—written in black enamel printed letters, _Thunderhorse Transport Industries._

Gally said something, but Padraig could not hear her. He tried saying, _Wha-a-at's that, ye say? _But he could not hear his own words. Nor did he hear Gally's response though her mouth was moving. _I'm deaf now, _went a worried thought. _Hell's bells, I'm deaf! _Deaf as he was, though, he nevertheless saw what happened next. Now he _knew _that he was not just imagining this because both Gally and Kyrie turned to look. Then the real fun began.

When those doors opened, fun came in the form of six little hairy-faced men in red business suits running out. From scalp to neck and beyond, they seemed entirely covered with hair—the hair going down beyond the collars of their little white buttoned shirts. No doubt, the rest of their bodies were hairy as well beneath those little red suits. "_Elkric, oblamah!_" they babbled, "_Egglesplork! Donglehump-a-dumple!_" Then they all began hobbling straight for Padraig, their sharp little teeth gnashing and ready to bite.

_Like predators, _thought Gally, _they approach the weakest and seemingly crippled as easy prey. _Not even bothering to ascertain their motives, she made a quick step towards the little men. She spun leftward, her left leg whipping an arc in the air that obliterated three of the little men. Her arms snapped out into multiple punches, her metal fists smashing through the hairy faces of the little furry men.

Yes, they were _smashed. _Their noses and foreheads were caved in, making their eyes unable to focus. Dark oily fluid began to gush from broken faces. That fluid could have been some kind of blood, but looked more like dark pus.

Instead of experimenting with strikes to other parts of the enemies' anatomy, Gally simply continued to smash faces. Her fast fists and swift kicks obliterated the fronts of all of their hairy little heads. They tried to break off their advances towards Padraig at some point. But it was too late by then. Gally had smashed them all.

Really, the fight was over before it even really became much of anything. Hell, it ought not have happened in the first place! "What in blazes what that!" shouted Padraig, struggling to get to his feet. "The bloody little bastards came out of nowhere_, just like that train! What goes on here! What goes on here! What the Hell is that ringing noise!_"

Princess Kyrie pointed to her own lips, then made gentle lowering gestures with her right hand. It was hopeful that Padraig would understand the pantomime and _lower his voice. _He was shouting. There was no need to do so. Doing such could also make for more trouble than there was.

"_Very well then, princess! I am shutting up!_" he shouted, realizing that he probably looked foolish in shouting at two people who heard him perfectly well—even if he could not hear himself. That was true even if there was just a loud and maddening ringing sound only he could hear. Yes, and the _radiation_ in this bizarre subway station was making him not feel well. He was slowly going into death for every minute spent here.

Nevertheless, the train door was still open—the door through which those little hairy men had come out, all of those little hairy men being _dead_. There was no telling for how long the door would be open, though. And there was also no telling when the next train would arrive short of scouring the absolutely abandoned ticket office on the first floor. It could be ten minutes to the next subway train, or it could be ten thousand years.

Gally began walking first to the open doors of the nearest train-car—illuminated from within by florescent lights. The princess followed, her thin long-coat and pale-white hair flowing behind her as forced air blew outward from the train. Of course Padraig went in as well, clenching his mouth shut to keep from yelling and trying to hear his own voice, thinking about being newly disabled by _deafness_.

Not that Padraig could hear it, but a sort of loud electronic horn sounded out some minutes later. The doors painfully squealed close, the passengers inside. Without a conductor, it was simply electromechanical devices that allowed a certain electrical potential to build up within the train's capacitors—some minutes passing before the train sounded out with another electric horn. Then this train was on its way.

…

_Blink-flicker-r-r-r! _There was now the occasional and rhythmic sound of a train on a track—a smooth sound of metal rails occasionally interrupted by a _click-clop, click-clop, click-clop…_ This was a very strange train-car. It was at least strange to Gally's eyes, as so many things of this world were unusual. Upside-down light bulbs set in plastic cases made for illumination inside of this train car. There were supposed to be _florescent _lights to illuminate everything, the seats along the sides, lighting up the floor and the overhead rail to which riders could hang. And if the lights were wrong, the seats were wrong as well, made out of wood instead of metal or plastic. So few trees grew in the world that Gally came from, it was very strange to see so many _seats _made out of the rare and expensive material.

As strange as things were to Gally's eyes, they seemed especially normal to Princess Kyrie. The Princess had already found herself a seat near the middle of this train—sitting with her knees together and her back straight. Other than her decidedly contemporary outfit of calf-length leather boots, thigh-baring shorts, and tank-top to expose her midriff, Kyrie looked much as a princess would in circumstances like this.

Meanwhile, Padraig was looking around and looking for trouble. With his hearing gone, he was now beginning to rely more upon his hearing. At least he had stopped shouting, knowing that it was his own hearing that was affected.

Now that everyone was okay, there was the question of where everyone was going by way of this train. Where was this train now? It could be a tunnel of some kind that ran underneath the wasteland. Yet prolonged tunnels beneath landscapes of unstable, sandy dirt would require occasional points of above-ground access for maintenance and safety purposes. Such would be various buildings at points along the surface. Yet the train station seemed to be all alone in the landscape.

No maintenance points meant that this tunnel was maybe not too well maintained. Either this tunnel went on for dozens of miles beneath abandoned landscape, or they would go crashing into a sudden blockage. Machines and structures in this world were in such a state of disrepair and lack of maintenance.

_Winkety-flick-flicker, _went the lights again even as the rest of the train was going along smoothly. If not a tunnel, then where were they? Everything is supposed to be somewhere. Curious, her eyes big and open, Gally knelt on a seat and leaned forward, those metal hands of hers clasping the top of the seat. She saw darkness out there… As this train sped onward, it occasionally whisked by something dark and strange, fleeting views of things she was not sure of.

"_Aa-a-ugh!_" Padraig's scream interrupted Gally's peering into the darkness. Gally snapped out of the wooden seat and was suddenly in a kneeling position, one dark-clad leg forward and the other poised behind her as if to let her dash forward, her arms up and ready to strike, ready to kill anything coming this way. "Things!" he screamed. "_There are things trying to get in!_"

As Gally carefully stood to full height and approached the inter-train door, Kyrie stood up from her seat to look on. Padraig was pointing and doing his best not to scream at the door with its glass window—a view of malformed faces and hands pressing against the glass and looking into this train car.

Such was unexpected. Gally thought that this train was largely abandoned after releasing its burden of furry and aggressive passengers at the last stop. That was apparently not the case. There were now multiple faces of muties pressed against the door that led into this train car, staring and snarling with lumpy, furry faces and eyes filmed over due to exposure to the _radiation_. Most kinds of muties were largely immune to continued effects of _ionizing radiation, _but this radiation must have been terrible enough to cause some trouble for them.

That was not all. Gally turned to see even more muties trying to get in at the _other_ end of this train car. Just like at the front end, those at the back door were looking hard-pressed to get in and do something. It was all too likely that they would seek trouble. This was such a narrow space, however—limited room for maneuvering. Gally could fight well enough here, but if the princess used her energy manipulation here, using an energy blast, it could damage the train or collapse the tunnel they were riding through. The sudden heat in an enclosed space could then overheat synthetic bodies—both Gally's electromechanical body and the princess' synthetic one. Padraig would just end up cooked.

Padraig's favorite right-hand blade of green plasma could cause significant mechanical trouble with the train. His left-hand blade would allow cuts that even cut through time. But what would happen if his attacks accidentally cut into a part of this train's walls? He could cut something critical and cause this train to crash that way. And the energy arc-shots from his right-hand blade could do damage to the train's electrical system, even more trouble.

It would all be all upon her, then. Gally stood there, waiting. Which end would have a break-through first? The metal doors were holding for now. Yet there was no telling how many centuries old the metal doors were, how long they had gone without being maintained. And an indefinite number of muties could be pressing against those doors, still pressing.

"They shall not enter," declared Princess Kyrie in taking a seat. "It is such as they are _unable _to do so. Both inter-car doors must be made of a metal highly resistant to forced entry. As muties are lacking in intelligence enough to simply _open _the doors, we shall not be accosted."

Despite his damaged hearing, Padraig must have heard faint traces of what Kyrie was saying. Or he must have seen the calm look on her face in speaking and interpreting that as a command to _stand down. _That was because he was no longer standing with his hands on two hilts of his daggers. He nevertheless looked worriedly around just as the muties continued to look into this subway train car from both ends—this train speeding through darkness that could maybe or may not be a tunnel.

…

2.

…

Gally and Princess Kyrie slept in shifts, one sleeping while the other kept watch on those doors. It was apparent that the muties were not, not, _not _getting into here. If they could have, they would have. They did not. Or perhaps they did not have enough of their own people to do so. Therefore, it was simply a matter of looking at those doors. And since both Gally and Kyrie did not require a great deal of sleep to rejuvenate their brains, they only had to sleep for four hours apiece. As for Padraig, he fell asleep eventually after talking loudly to himself about being deaf, trying to hear his own voice.

There was suddenly a _flaring _of intense brightness glaring into this vehicle. Gally thought that it was light from a nuclear blast in the distance. She was therefore suddenly out of her seat and against the cracked gray floor, glad that Padraig and Kyrie were already lying down flat. With nuclear blasts, first came an intense glaring white brightness brighter and hotter than a thousand summer suns, followed by a murderous shockwave-bearing radioactive firestorm enough to obliterate a city.

There was an intense _squee-e-ealing _of brakes and a jolting feeling over this whole train, jostling the sleeping bodies of her allies. _It is fortunate that the other two are unconscious and unable to experience this end, _thought the cyborg huntress.

Eyes clenched shut, she waited for the blast after the intensity of the light… It did not come. Nothing happened. When there was no shockwave or all-destroying firestorm, Gally opened her eyes. The light remained, but there was no destruction. She quickly scrambled over to a window at one side of the train and peeked just over the rim of seats. Something had to be out there now, this train no longer in darkness. What caused such an intense amount of light?

It was the emergence from the tunnel that caused the brightness. Peeking over the seats, she saw the city they were now in. Outside was a view of a city street that went off into the distance, cars parked at the sides. Brown-brick buildings flanked this street, buildings with windows that glinted in the glowing tones of sunrise over this urban landscape.

Princess Kyrie awoke with an opening of her large, emerald-green eyes. There was one smooth movement of her sitting up and standing. "I come to see that we have arrived at the next location. Hmm… It is, in fact, a city. Yet it is not the grand place of the capital." Her eyes went unfocused, looking off into the distance. "And it is not abandoned."

"In what way is it not? I came to believe that most all cities were overrun with hoards of the muties, therefore abandoned by people," said Gally. "Is it true that some have discovered a means of protecting an entire city from the likes of muties, such as those that have stared at us for the duration of this journey?" She looked over at one end of this train car. Indeed, the muties were still looking into this car of the train, their faces pressed against that little square window looking in. But they were of little concern at this time.

When she noticed a nodding motion of the princess, Gally returned her attention to the view outside. _Muties, _thought Gally in seeing a group of the malformed beings come shuffling into sight from a left corner of the street. She now reminded herself how foolish it was to believe that a city was actually free of muties.

There were two of them, shuffling together across the street and moving at the same speed—muties with little hairy baby-sized heads atop very huge and muscular bodies in ragged coveralls. Those vaguely humanoid creatures were at least nine feet tall and just about as wide, shoulder and leg muscles thick as boulders, stretching the huge clothes. Huge straps looped around their huge shoulders as their gigantic bare feet shuffled along the street. Chains extended out from behind those straps around their shoulders… The chains from their shoulder harnesses were attached to the front of a chariot—one driven by two men in black pants and red buttoned-down shirts. It was a wonder at all that the muties could move their bodies with such little heads.

One of the men riding the carriage had a whip and was snapping it into the air. "_Wa-hey! Wa-hey!_" shouted the driving man, snapping the whip, getting the muties to drag that chariot onward. "Keep goin', ya stupid meat-bags!"

When that part of the outside scene passed, Padraig just began to wake up with a shake. He shook his head and stumbled to his feet. "Where's trouble!" he shouted in reaching for the blades at his bandolier. When he saw none other than those muties staring into this train car, he lowered his hands, then put them to his ears. "Aye! My ears are right as the rain again. I don't mean the rain of this land, o' course—sullied as it is by _contamination_. If my hearing is right, so must be these eyes o' mine. Are we at our next stop?"

"We indeed are, Padraig of The Green," said the Princess in an even tone of voice. Padraig's voice still was somewhat rudely loud. "And it would be highly advisable for our party to exit this train, for there is no reliable means of knowing when it shall move on to locations unknown—perhaps again entering the void from which it came."

Gally went to the sliding electric doors—now only opening partway. She then had to put her hands into opening the doors even more widely open. The mechanism made a whirring sound but yielded. It was then a slight hop to the street.

…

Only in standing away from the train did they come to find out that the train was not on rails. With the Princess standing by with calm patience, Gally and Padraig stared at how the metal wheels of the train just cut right into the city street itself. Thin cracks spread out from the long cuts in the asphalt. Yet there had to have been rails. And there had to have been a tunnel—also nowhere in sight.

"This whole business, 'tis daft!" loudly commented Padraig, and the loudness was not due to his recent bout with deafness. He shook his head. "Can ye come to anything resembling a sensible answer about the likes o' this?"

Gally smiled and said nothing in response. It was perhaps partially due to seeing Padraig lose his temper so easily. It was also somewhat due to how things were sometimes so ridiculous that it was not thinking too much of them. There were likely reasons for everything that happened. Such reasons would likely come to a person eventually.

She turned to face Kyrie…and the city street that went off into the distance, cars at the sides of the streets. Come to think of it, the cars looked to be in better-kept shape than the buildings. Many of the buildings along this street had no windows—a view of mottled walls and empty rooms where one could see. The electric streetlamps on metal poles looked pitted and had rusted bolts. High overhead, atop buildings, the billboards had long gone without any advertising postings.

"I see very little inhabitation," said Gally. "This city is therefore lacking in people. Can a person truly say that this remains a city? A city has many people…"

_Whi-crack-k-k, _went the whip. "_Wa-hey-y-y!_" yelled a man. _Whi-crack-k-k! _That was the sound of a driver's whip snapping in the air. This was soon matched with the same sound of big shuffling feet as before, huge mutie feet moving in pulling a carriage … It was another one of those metal carriages drawn by teams of baby-headed muties. "If ya get any damned slower, I'll show ya why we call this the City of Chumpley! We'll put ya in the slaughter house and turn those big bodies of yers into a whole bunch of _meat!_ _Wa-hey! Wa-hey! Go! Go-o-o!_"

"Aye, 'tis yet another dead city," declared Padraig. "Every city in this world is dead…" He regarded the morning sunrise, which was easy to do since the sun was a dim bulb compared to the bright yellow orb of day where he came from. "A dying sun over a dying land, 'tis heavy upon the soul."

The princess looked straight up at Padraig. Though Kyrie was barely half his height, her straight-backed posture and stern face bespoke one of still-remaining pride. "Say what you will, Padraig of The Green. Yet bear in mind that what is said is said of _my _land. It was once a grand and thriving world of bright marvels and living dreams, with machines and progress that would make your world and Gally's world look broken and shameful. This land was a great land." Then there was that far-off look on her face again. "This land shall be great again with acquisition of the blessed artifact we seek."

Added Gally, "It just may be that hope is all one has at times. We can all hope to dream and rise above whatever darkens life. This city is not as badly off as some I have seen. This, though there are few people hereabouts able to enjoy it."

A look around, Padraig said, "I'd just as soon like to find something drivable and in workin' order. The sooner we find a way out of this city, the better off we'll happen to be. Princess? Do ye have a sense of where our next transportation might be?"

Kyrie looked at the abandoned vehicles. Came her flowing answer, "As backwards as this may sound, I have the idea that every one of those vehicles is usable. Some products made by this land's factories can last and exist so long as they have some fuel. We should have our pick of whatever vehicle we so desire. It would nevertheless be favorable to select one that seems to have a great deal of physical viability and mass…"

"Aye? Why that?" asked Padraig. Not only was the princess looking around suspiciously, but Gally was as well. He also saw that Gally's fists were clenched—metal fists at the ends of trenchcoat sleeves. "Ah, never mind the comment. I ken what ye would say, if not saying it aloud."

This party of three moved over to a sidewalk and began using it. All the while, they looked for any sort of heavy vehicle to drive. Padraig wanted to run like Hell. Yet he did no such thing, going at the same walking pace as the girls. This was because there would be no way to outrun an entire city of potential trouble as there were a lot of building windows with faces looking down at this street. Not all of those faces looked human.


	6. Chapter 6

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 6

Gally thought that they ought to do the most obvious thing to find transportation. Since there were still some people in this city, the thing to do was ask if there was anything drivable. _What_ to do was obvious. _How _to do it was not so obvious. They didsee the occasional man going by on one of those big metal carriages being pulled by teams of huge muties. Yet sights of those vehicles were always off in the distance or behind them.

"Mayhaps," began Padraig, "we ought to sit right down and wait for one o' them accursed mutie-drawn vehicles to pass us by—slave-drivers in the most literal sense. 'Tis like they await us passing an intersection just prior to passing themselves. Why is it that when one _wants _something related to muties to appear, they don't?"

And as soon as the tall man in green business clothes made that complaint, there was a clatter-clomping smattering of heavy and bare feet on asphalt. Kyrie gave a faint and pretty little smile regarding the irony in watching the sight of what was coming along the city street. Of course it was the opposite of what Padraig expected to come—the opposite of it not coming. Meaning, it was coming.

Then came the now-familiar yell of a carriage driver. "_Wa-hey! Wa-hey!_ Send you to _the slaughterhouse, _I say!" yelled the driver of the mutie-drawn means of transportation. He was cracking that whip and forcing the muties to go _onward. _There was something to be considered about that, about the idea of a carriage driver using threats and inflicted pain in getting mutiesto go onward. Yet also true was how the carriage driver seemed not to drive himself too well—a carelessly dressed man, more sloppily attired than other carriage-drivers: a sloppy business outfit. His dress-shirt half-unbuttoned, dress jacket opened up, and his pants wrinkled and without a belt.

He cracked the whip over the baby-sized heads of the huge-bodied muties. "Bunch of worthless _muties!_ You'll get some _sha-bwack _for sure! Count on it!" He kept up this yelling until this chariot came clattering to a stop close to here. "_Ya-a-rp! Stop it now…_"

All the muties stopped, their gigantic shoulders still flexing and legs bending just a bit. The chariot driver now looked down here on the sidewalk—looking at Gally, looking her up and down., noting the way her synthetic leather outfit fit to the shape of her body "_Hello-o-o…_hotties! Wouldn't mind giving yaa ride at all! A ride on my lap! _Haw-haw-haw-haw-haw-haw…_" His eyes then flickered to the more baring outfit worn by the Princess—before his attention was riveted by her displeased stare.

Kyrie was a princess of this land. That synthetic-bodied princess could do things with those large green eyes of hers to make a person stare and keep staring. Maybe there were microscopic lights to provide slight hypnotism. Or maybe it was simply an aura of royal authority being imposed upon an ordinary townsperson. Indeed, though half of forever's distance from the palace and though this land was a fallen one, the princess still had power over people of this land. And some of that power was being used now. That stare of hers made the tall driver shut up.

Gally's reaction was different. She knew that nothing could come of the driver's carnal desires, at least with herself. The cyborg-huntress' outfit of synthetic leather only revealed the shape of her body, not what it actually was—a physique of fitted alloyed parts to make a robotic physique of feminine shape. Sex, however, was not possible with such a seemingly sexy body.

Said Princess Kyrie, "That is a interesting form of transportation. We are three travelers who are in search of something more, ah…_fuel efficient. _Are there any salvageable vehicles remaining within this city. By salvageable, I mean vehicles capable of movement under their own power."

It took the driver an effort to actually talk under the intense and empowered _stare _from the princess. He started blathering, began awkwardly, as if his mouth was not working too well. "The-eye… _Hrr-r-r…ff… _Lost their dogs… _Ach!_" He used his left hand to massage his jaw. "What I'm tryin' to say is, have yourself a look-see around. Ya can take _anything _ya want that has wheels on it and nobody behind the steering wheel! Most everything in this city still works, factory made. Yeah… I'm talkin' about the factories from the _good _old days of this land. They had some darned good factories back then, all kinds of that _sinse _magic that could last probably forever. Course, everybody knows stuff ain't lasting forever anymore, everything getting broken down like everything else these days. The magic's goin' away, probably 'cause they used it to mess up the world and shit."

Padraig gave an angry shake of his head. He then looked at the baby-faced muties with the gargantuan, muscular bodies, dressed in coveralls big enough to make sails. Muties or not, they were an especially miserable lot. Contrary to what the princess or what Gally would say, chances were that muties deserved as much a chance to exist as any other creature. Not all muties were grotesque, viciously violent creatures.

He asked the driver, "So… If all the vehicles hereabouts are in good working order, why enslave muties? Aren't ye in fear o' them getting out of those contrivances and doing something to ye? Ye claimed there to be plenty o' cars in working order."

The loosely dressed chariot driver looked around as if Padraig said one of the strangest and most ridiculous things in this world. And considering how many things in this world were ridiculous by default, that was no simple feat. When the chariot driver returned his attention to Padraig, he said, "Are ya _kidding _me, buddy? Why bother with some boring old bucket of bolts when muties are more _fun _to boss around? Especially _these _pin-heads?" Just to drive in the point, the carriage-driver _snapped _his whip across the top of a mutie's baby head. The mutie mewled, making a deep but sad sound. "Yeah buddy. You can go ahead and pretty much pick most any vehicle on this street. But they ain't fun!"

Asked Gally, "Most any vehicle, you say?" The long bottom of her trenchcoat fluttering, she walked right over to a van parked along the side of the road. _TPS _said a logo painted at a side of the vehicle, accompanied by the profile of a galloping animal of some kind. After regarding the logo, Gally tried opening up the driver-side door—which was unlocked, opening right up.

There was some whitish powder in the driver's seat and some scraps of clothing—which she brushed out of the seat. She then climbed up into the vehicle and sat down sideways before slipping both her legs beneath the steering column—feet on accelerator and brake pedals. A twist of the ignition switch, and there was a _r-r-rumbling _humming… It sounded like some kind of electric engine.

"What'd I tell ya, sweet-cheeks! They start right up!" cheered the chariot driver. "But they've got no _kick _to 'em. I'm tellin' ya! Just get yourself a bunch of these big bastards from a pen and go places… Unless ya wanna go with _me_." He gave a nasty sort of wink. "We can really go places, places where I can get ya anything ya want! The best booze, the best jewelry, fur coats… _Anything! _This whole damned city belongs to _us! _Everybody in it just up and died, probably from some of those funny weapons used during the War. But who the Hell cares! This city is _ours, _dolls! Let's say we go get drunk and get fucked up!"

Princess Kyrie _stared _to shut the chariot driver up. Said the princess, our manner is specially crass and crude. Your blatantly crass remarks towards myself and my female companion are unwelcome. Further true is how your sloven speech and manner of dress leave much to be required! Be on your way, and trouble us not with your presence, lest we slay these muties out of spite for their existence."

This locked up the attitude of the chariot driver. Whereas he was briefly a decadent idiot, the empowered stare from the princess mentally slapped him into coherence. "_Y-yeah_, lady! Okay, I'm gettin' outta here in a jiffy!" He raised the whip to snap over the heads of the muties. "_Wa-hey! Wa-hey-y-y! _We move on, you freaks! Move on! _Slaughterhouse, _I say!"

The chariot driver then drove that vehicle quickly out of sight. Muties made grunting and squealing sounds that were lost in the sounds of their own foot-stomping sounds. So pressed, they were galling right out of sight and nearly tipping the chariot over in veering and steering. Round they went in going right around a corner. The Princess told him to go, and he _went_.

Now the three members of the party were left here alone with a working vehicle—one of an entire street of vehicles to choose from. Padraig hustled over to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the door. The Princess gave that nod of acknowledgement for service rendered before climbing up into it. Padraig closed the door and went over to the shotgun seat. He just could not believe just how easy it was to get a ride in this city. All of these cars were just sitting around and not being used—even who knows how many years after they were abandoned. They also operated by using those strange-sounding electric engines… He only shuddered once in thinking about the ashes and scraps of cloth that Gally had so haplessly scooped out of the driver's seat—leaving a person to wonder just how many piles of remains there were in all the cars and buildings.

And not even a minute after Gally started this vehicle, Padraig spotted sight of a bunch of mutie-led carriages in the rear-view mirror. Oh yes, when everyone was waiting and looking for a mutie-drawn carriage driver, it took some time to find one. Now there were suddenly plenty of those big-mouthed jokers. And in all likelihood, they did not take too kindly to the angry and empowered words that Princess Kyrie said to one of their fellows.

It would have been easy to simply kill them all. All that they had to do was step out of this van and get ready. Be there six or even _sixty_ mutie-drawn carriages, Gally would have been more than glad to just start _killing _them all. Deep red thoughts of mutilated corpses and blood-splashed streets hazed through Gally's mind. Oh, it would be fun.

"No, we shall not best them in combat," declared the princess. "Gally, would it not be more amusing to set upon a merry chase? After all, taking to speed would decrease the amount of time it takes for us to reach our goal—getting closer by the day. Are your vehicular skills enough to out-pace and out-perform the rabble?"

Gally whipped her head around to look at the princess. Gally was _grinning. _It was not a pleasant sort of grin, either. Oh yes, she would _love _to get some speed right about now. Snapping her head forward, her right foot _rev-rev-revved_ the engine… There _was _power in the machinery of this vehicle—which roared with energy.

Looking around, Padraig sought out the seat belts… Oh Hell, there _were _none. What kind of sadistic, twisted and psychotic world was it when somebody built an over-powered delivery vehicle _without safety harnesses? _He was again reminded that _the rules are different. _Then there was a screaming squeal of tires as this vehicle began to _blast _forward.

…

Padraig expected the tires to explode or something, or for them to glance off of one of those vehicles parked at the sides of the streets. The tires did not explode, not yet at least. Luckily, they did not smack into any of those vehicles parked at the sides. Gally gripped the huge steering wheel of this van with her metal hands and whipped it skillfully around in navigating the streets.

Yes, and Gally was loving it too—this crazy blaze of speed. Her lips were pulled back in a toothy grin as her large dark eyes took on a sort of mean look. Somewhere in the periphery of her vision, a side-mounted rear-view mirror gave sight of all kinds of things now filling the street behind them. It seemed to be an entire crowd of those baby-headed muties. But really, they were fronting the huge chariots behind them.

"Oh merry joy!" cheered the princess from the back seat of the van. "We shall see if the inferior muties are a match for the capabilities of this aged vehicle. Speed onward, Huntress Gally! Give the trash of the world a trial of speed!"

_Don't speed onward. Don't speed onward, _thought Padraig as he gripped his seat. Of course, cyborg-girl Gally did not have to worry about much since her body was metal; the only part of her that seemed vulnerable was her face of synthetic skin. And Kyrie was free to cheer and clap with joy because her body was synthetic skin and artificial muscle tissue over a titanium skeleton. In addition to all of that, both girls were as close to immortal as one could get because nanobots would fix them right up after most anything that would happen to them. Meanwhile, big human Padraig had to worry about not ending up becoming ground meat in a vehicular accident. At the speed they were going now, this van would likely crash, smash and explode from hitting even a pebble.

…

2.

They zoomed right on out of the city in just minutes, making the city seem not too large. Or maybe they were able to leave so quickly due to the psychotic speed at which a psychotic Gally was driving—fast as Hell. But how fast-as-Hell were they going, anyway? Padraig glanced at the speedometer and saw that it was labeled in numbers in units that he did not know. The meter was labeled _pognards per hour, _and the red dial was fluttering beyond the last number on it: 180. What the Hell were _pognards _anyway? Whatever they were, they were going over 180 of them.

All kinds of _bumpety-squickety _sounds came from the underside of this vehicle when they came to where the city street was chopped off, going right onto the grassy hardness of the wasteland plains. Gally made this van do a dangerously quick left half-turn, nearly tipping this thing over. Now they were right out on the vast openness of the landscape.

"What joy!" cheered the princess above the rumbling of this vehicle's engine and drive-train. "Are they even close? Why, of course the answer is _no-o-o! Hah-hah-hah…!_" There was then the sound of squeaking cushion springs, her bouncing up and down like an excited child. Meaning, the princess was not wearing safety harness. That was because there were none.

Thought Padraig, _Am I the only sane person in here? _He looked at the rear-view mirror on his side of the vehicle and noticed the little print in translucent white letters: _Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. _But this time, he doubted it. So long as this crazy crate of a van kept up this insane speed, they should be fine. _Thumpety-clack _went the vehicle's suspension when the wheels slapped a particularly difficult bump. That, or something just went mechanically wrong.

Taunted the princess, "The rubbish of the world _cannot_ match our swift pace! They are merely waste and corruption. We have the wings of justice and goodness! Ever onward, Gally! Be they changed or not, the wastrel rubbish cannot run forever!"

All this time, Gally had said nothing. There was still that Hell-eater sort of grin on her face in maneuvering this thing. The cyborg huntress loved her fighting and danger more than anything. Somehow, maybe this crazy speed of over 180 pognards per hour was giving her a similar sort of thrill.

Just for the Hell of it, Padraig hazarded another look at the rear-view mirror on his side. It was better than staring at the deranged look of glee on Gally's face. Just then, he saw some of the muties—_whoops_--go tumble-bumbling back and out of sight when the wheels on the chariots they pulled caught on something. But for every mutie-drawn chasing chariot that fell back and away, there were still the rest to keep things going fast and windy.

If this was one of those too-predictable action movies from America, this was supposed to be the point in which Gally would say to Padraig, _Take the wheel. _Then she would climb on back and find some sort of high-caliber automatic rifle and shoot up the bad guys chasing them. Of course, no such thing happened—even if it would bring a faster end to this chase.

Just when Padraig settled into a sort of acceptance of this pace, Gally turned to look at him. What she said next was not exactly say that American action-movie signal-line. Instead, she said with that slightly accented voice of hers, "_Padraig! _You are to take up the controls of this vehicle now. I shall find a means of obliterating those who give chase. _I want to see blood!_"

"Aye," said Padraig, though what he said was lost in the noise of this vehicle's revving drive train. And _okay _was just about all he _could _say. No way was he going to argue with a killer cyborg-girl from a post-apocalyptic future-world. He reached over for the steering wheel as Gally deftly crouched to get beneath his arms, going for the back of this vehicle.

Now Padraig had to do his damnedest to keep this vehicle going straight and fast as it was. The problem was, the steering felt especially wanked out, as if the wheels were turning on ice. It took just the slightest effort to turn the steering of this vehicle too far in either direction. He had to keep his arms tight at his sides to keep this vehicle steering just right. Yes, _and _he had to keep his foot all the way down on the accelerator pedal to keep this thing going at the too-crazy speed it was going. His shoulders were already aching from the strain of the effort. Then came a thick mechanical _chu-clunk _sound from the back. "What happened back there!" yelled Padraig.

Back here in the payload area of the van, Gally had opened up the rear doors. This made for a view of the speed-blurred ground. That view included the crazed group of muties running, pulling carriages at a racing-fast speed. Oh yes, those speedy jokers were doing their damnedest to get here. The muties' huge stomping feet and gigantic muscular shoulders seemed to do little in slowing them down; those malformed beings were able to keep up in running with a van going _over 180 pognards per hour_.

The slender and petite princess stood with her back pressed to the wall while Gally pressed metal fingers against the seats, the sound of air whipping from the opened doors. Gally and Kyrie both were both of such a height that it was possible for them to stand up to full height in here and do things without hitting their heads on the ceiling. Or it could be that this vehicle was designed for especially tall people. Then Gally ducked down, beginning to do something to the seats.

A thick _sh-r-r-rip _sound, and the cyborg huntress had ripped open a van-seat cushion. Out came some kind of thick and heavy gray fluff—filling the air with fine gray particulates while most of the clumps flopped to the floor. It was asbestos—able to cause various ailments in human lungs when inhaled over time. Never mind that now, though. The only full human in this vehicle was way up at the front of the vehicle and was not likely to inhale the worst of the stuff. Most of the toxic dust was being whipped out of the vehicle, anyway. Also to go out the back of the vehicle were some of the springs Gally was busy plucking.

With two handfuls of asbestos-covered cushion springs and a dark grin on her face, Gally knelt on both knees and was looking over the back of the undamaged van-seat. She put the pile of plucked springs to her left. Taking up one, she crumpled one before lightly tossing it out the back. This was done for several more springs—being bent up and tossed out the back.

Now these were not cheap, easy little springs that one finds in smashed up kiddie toys. These were alloyed cushion springs designed to bear the weight of adults weighing hundreds of pounds, getting to weigh that much from easy living. The cushion springs were very thick and industrial-strength, _super _springs put into vehicles that would last for a very long time. These cushion springs were now being used to make the lives of some uncomfortable.

Soon, another group of muties went tumble-bumbling down and falling out of the running, another chariot flipping to crash. This disrupted the nearby groups of muties that were still running full speed. That is, until another few handfuls of springs were carelessly tossed out of the back—making for even more tumble-bumbling of muties as their _bare feet _were shredded up by industrial-strength springs.

Then Gally just tossed both handfuls just went right out the back. With her and the princess walking, nothing happened immediately as the ground went blurring by… The grin widened. Something was going to happen.

It did a lot of _something, _actuallyAll the rest of those muties and the carriages they were pulling, along with the drivers of those carriages, all of them and their allies were disrupted in the same moment. Big carriages were tossed and smashed everywhere as muties stumbled and bumbled. Consequently, the carriages flipped over some of the muties and the tossed drivers to squash them into meat pancakes, kicking up sandy dirt and clogs of grass everywhere, mixed up with gobbets of blood and flesh. Even as this vehicle zoomed away from that disastrous slaughter of muties, carriages and bodies were being flipped around and smashed up by their own momentum. And that was the end of this chase—if not the end of the speeding of this van that was making dangerous noises itself.


	7. Chapter 7

_The Golden Hope_

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 7

They were still riding along, speeding along. There were occasional squeaks and grunts coming from the underside of this vehicle. And something did make for a painful-sounding _thump _underneath. But still, this form of transportation was still going along. And the longer they were able to keep this thing going, the less time they had to spend on foot, having random encounters with hapless creatures of the wastelands.

"There were points in my existence," said Gally, "in which I questioned the purpose in my life. One time came bout when it was necessary to sell myself to the authorities to merely continue—despite having saved dozens of lives from destruction. I violated laws to save lives. Still true was how the laws were violated. That was while those in authority stood idly by and did almost nothing. Who would wish to exist in such a world? One _must _continue to persist in whatever world one exists within." She leaned back against the long and undamaged van seat—the one that remained after the chase. "That was how things went in a land dominated by a computer-dominated system in a floating city, a city above an unmanaged land."

The petite princess was sitting next to Gally. Responded to Gally, "You can be assured that this land was one in which the government cared for its people. It may not be that way as of now. However, given the artifacts and ruins that you have seen, you can clearly see how great and caring this landscape had been. It can and shall be that way again."

Padraig was half listening while driving this vehicle. He asked Gally to take over driving. It was really to continue the idea that he was not as useless and as weak part of their party. A real-bodied person was _not _a waste of space. His arms were getting just a bit tired, and his eyes were taking on that slightly glazed-over sort of look from looking at kilometers and kilometers more of just vast green landscape ahead with no landmarks.

At least this was a break from the chaos and insanity of the past few days. Most of the time, things went along smoothly and calmly as they traveled the land in search of that miraculous artifact. Things were not always steeped in speed and danger. There were swaths of time in which there was just time to merely exist—to talk and think, and read if such materials were available. This was one of those calm and long moments when it seemed as if everything was going to be okay.

_You cannot win forever, _came a random thought in Padraig's mind. Those words had been said in the sultry voice of that exotically beautiful woman in short leather skirt and open white blouse, a voice that was seducing and taunting at the same time. That woman also seemed to not truly be there at all. After all, Padraig was the only one who encountered her. Real or not, what was said really stayed within his mind—_cannot win forever. _

The princess suddenly sounded enthusiastic about something. "Tell me something deep, cyborg huntress. And tell me true! Was there nothing in your land to make the people reach for that which is greater than themselves? Or is it simply that the City of Zalem in your world merely exists for itself to control the people for the sake of control?"

For just some seconds, there was just the rumbling of the van's wheels and suspension dealing with the hard grassy ground. Kyrie asked the question. Now it was on Gally to answer it. It meant that Gally had to answer for the oppressive wrongness of an entire society. That was because there was almost no one else from her reality in this world—no one else but that crazed, flan-consuming scientist a thousand miles away or something. How could any single person answer for a world?

"It existed, not quite a thing of love or hatred," said Gally. "Zalem was as much a part of my world as the blue of the sky and the winds that blow. This is true even if winds carry the chemical pollutants that lead to the chronic lung ailments of those who still have real lungs. Such winds also carry away the pollutants to disperse the troubles. Zalem takes from the people. Zalem also gives to the people…" Padraig glimpsed at Gally by looking briefly up at the rear-view mirror—seeing Gally looking to the right—as if she could see her world in the distance. "So I believe, if my land still exists under Zalem's watch."

Princess Kyrie responded with sudden enthusiasm and vivaciousness. "My dear huntress! Why-ever would you long for such a land! Such a land has no future. It has _no hope! _Everything is fallen and shall _remain so! _In this one, there is progress and a future to be had. Your land is gone and with no prospects of resurrection. Stay true to me and true to the quest. There shall then be glory, peace and happiness to be had so long as you live—which could very well be forever provided that misfortune does not befall you."

All the time Padraig had been riding with the princess and Gally—having been with Princess Kyrie before Gally joined their little party—he never heard the princess say _that. _This land was a great deal like the reality he had left behind, and most of the aspects of it were enough that he could continue to exist in it. But for Princess Kyrie to outright declare that immortality was possible was certainly enough to get Padraig thinking about the future. He suspected the possibility of existing forever, since he seemed to not have aged in the least in coming into this world. Now it was for sure. And then something happened.

A person ought not be surprised at what came to pass next. The van had been sitting on that city street since _too long_. Also true was how things in this world are simply falling apart a little bit at a time—little by crumbling little, bit by crusty bit. Anybody that knows even the slightest bit of anything about machines knows for sure what happens when a vehicle is left somewhere for _too long. _Things go wrong with such a vehicle, all kinds of things. Dust and rust and all kinds of things can seep into all the billions and ka-jillions of systems and parts of a vehicle: the drive train (including the all-important _engine, _of course), the cooling system, the chassis, the electrical system, cruise control, climate control, microscopic little gears, circuits, transistors, pistons, fuel valves, crank-case, camshaft, air filter, all kinds of what-not sorts of thingies. So when the front-left tire _exploded_ and jostled the vehicle's drive-train, making the vehicle go _flip-flip-flippety_ up and into the air, it should not be a jaw-dropper of a surprise for anybody.

Now _everything _in the van was going crazy and wrong. It was the _wheels _that should have been spinning, not the whole damned vehicle. That was what was happening now. Everything was swirling and whirling up and down and all around. Somewhere in the chaos, Gally was keeping an electromechanical _grip _on her seat. She held on and stayed in place even while this place was flipping chaotically.

Princess Kyrie was rapidly kicking and slapping the whirling surfaces of seats, ceiling, and everything else that was rotating around. Her thin long-coat swirled about, and her long hair was splaying everywhere, not making things easier. All of this rapid and frenzied action on the part of the princess was certainly a change for her and looked somewhat undignified and un-princess-like. Yet doing this kicking and slapping prevented the worse indignity of slamminginto anything.

But it was Padraig was the first one to lose it and the one to suffer. Those human hands of his, silly and weak _human _hands of living meat, they were incapable of letting him keep a grip on the steering wheel. Nor was that tall man in the green business suit able to keep a grip on his cool. As soon as he heard the thick, meaty _crunkle_ of his left arm breaking, he knew that he was a done deal. Even while he was tumble-bumbling around in the vehicular equivalent of a sadistic centrifuge of pain and death, he wondered why the bloody Hell the people of this world did not design their vehicles with safety harnesses—also known as seat beltsThen it was his _head _that _hit something next. As everything seemed to fade off and go away, he thought he heard the far-off but triumphant laughter of a very sexy woman with eyes darker than the universe… _

…

Of all the stupid ironies, the vehicle came to a stop in an upright position. The windshield was obliterated. That was also true for the roof, the sides, and the axles of all four wheels. In that the vehicle was electrical, there was no real possibility of explosion short of rupturing the microfusion battery—though condensing gushed up from the cracked radiator. In short, the van was totaled. But at least it landed upright and looking parked out here in the middle of nowhere.

_Fwack! _One of the rear doors flipped out and away from the van, courtesy of a kick from Gally. The cyborg-huntress then pulled back her leg—before popping out of the vehicle herself, looking around for trouble. She was still feeling especially jazzed up from that brush with danger.

As for the princess, one leg went out, then the other. Her feet touched down. Then came moments of her straightening her clothes and using slender fingers in stroking her pale silky head of hair back into something like neatness. Her large green eyes looked calmly around. Yes, Princess Kyrie retained her cool composure. After all, a mere brush with injury should not have ruined her royal composure.

As for Padraig, he was nowhere in sight. Gally first looked into the distance, looking back and ahead, then looking around… Had he been thrown clear? No, that was not it. Padraig still had to be in the obliterated vehicle. He would have also likely been injured.

That in mind, Gally and Kyrie went to the front of the van, over to the driver's side. Crumpled and wrinkled metal meant that the door would not open on its own. There, the cyborg huntress used those metal fingers of hers to peel away the part of the door that was supposed to open. Then she just _yanked _the door off of its hinges—showing the man in green to be slumped to the right and not moving. Spattered blood splayed across the dashboard.

"Are you capable of speaking, Padraig?" asked Gally. She saw that man in the green business suit move somewhat. That was a good sign, or not. Some kind of anger suddenly began to bring heat to her attitude. "You weak man! Why do you continue to lie there?"

A brief spate of coughing, and Padraig responded, "I say, _fine day _to ye as well." He tried pushing himself to a sitting position. The grinding of bones in his left arm and a swirl of sickening pain made things go otherwise. Yet he kept pushing with his still-good right arm in sliding himself off of the seat. He did so slowly.

Gally thought that he was moving far too slowly. She grabbed Padraig by the ankles and pulled him partway out. "_Aa-a-augh…! A-a-augh!_" So what if he was screaming? She continued to get him out of the vehicle. There was no use in keeping him around here.

Yelled Padraig, "_Stop that! Stop…!_" He began coughing again and sat down hard against the side of the van—his left arm on one of the three blades on the bandolier across his chest. He was gripping the middle blade, the one that he never drew in fights. That was because the blade was so dull that it actually _blunted_ most any attack that landed upon him.

This time, though, the infinitely dull third blade did not stop him from being as battered and splattered as he had become. The third blade, the one that Padraig never drew in battle, it at least kept him from being splattered and battered into a sodden mess. He had survived a vicious accident that would have murdered anyone without the third blade or without a great deal of armor.

One of his eyes turned to the right while the other one looked barely ahead—the eye on the undamaged side of his head. "Spin me shades of oatmeal," he declared as blood and a clear fluid trickled from his right ear. "Reality blurs."

…

2.

…

If what Padraig said last did not seem to make sense, it at least seemed to make sense to him. He blinked up at Gally and Princess Kyrie. "Oh, I _know _you!" he said. "Not in the Biblical sense, I mean. Well, erm… _Nobody _can know you that way anymore, your body being another body. Where's your other bowl! _Hee-hee…_ You know… Tell the Martians that there is no more drool in the cup, for thine cup hast runneth away. Tell Jimmy and Tammy to beware the Twistali of Sarajevo, too. There's some heavy cinnamon in that! Let me tell you…" His head lolled to the right before he started having a conversation with a person he thought was there. From the tone of voice and occasional giggles, it must have been a friendly relation.

Gally simply stood there and regarded the wreck of a man and knew what was wrong. That clear fluid leaking out of his right ear was what all humans had in their heads, in their brains. There was also blood coming out of his nose and the dried blood that now made for dark paths out of _both _ears. Compound that with how Padraig seemed to make no sense, and the answer was obvious. It was severe brain damage. Every cyborg knew that a person was _done_ when the brain was damaged.

Now Padraig was singing. "_Things are go-ing do-si-do! We were…supposed to…have _fun_ tonight! Hey, wa-hey! Hey hey, wa-hey… But hey, it's just how the story goes…_." He stopped singing. His voice in sadness, he said, "It's just how the story goes."

The princess looked at Gally. Gally gave her a sidelong look with those large dark eyes of hers. They both knew that Padraig was as good as dying: injuries to the brain, no doubt bleeding and tearing of the brain tissues. And despite the degree of addling caused by brain damage, Padraig knew that he was on the way out as well. _It's just how the story goes._

It was not time to give up just yet. "You yet live, Padraig of The Green," said the Princess. "So long as you draw breath, there is hope to be had for your life. Remember the Golden Hope."

A mention of that revered artifact made Padraig's lift his head. He looked into the distance. Just in that moment, a sort of clarity and purpose again seemed to restore him. "The Golden Hope, aye… 'Tis the light of a good tomorrow in this dying, pathetic world." Then he lowered his head before bursting into song again. "And I'll _see _you! Then you'll _see-e-e _me! And I'll _see you…_in the _branches…_that _blow-w-w-w!_ _In…the breeze…_"

After Padraig said that, a random swish of breeze blared across the landscape. It was enough to make Kyrie turn herself around to see if there was actually someone physically standing behind her and doing something to her long-coat and to the lengths of her hair—all of which were fluttered around by the strong wind. A strong wind was what it was. There was not anyone really there. And she stayed facing in that direction. There was the feeling that _something _was happening.

There was a slight gasp of surprise from Gally. She then declared, "That building was not visible before! How could something so especially large and prominent in the landscape have suddenly come into full view? For what reason has it suddenly made itself known? And why-ever was it not visible to begin with?" Her voice took on darker tones when she added, "This is certainly a highly suspicious development."

When Princess Kyrie was done stroking that long pale hair of hers back behind her ears, her eyes came to focus upon a rectangular, red-bricked building that was not even a minute's walk away. It was less than half a city block in width and just one story tall. Nevertheless, an entire _building _should not have gone unnoticed. There was something very important about the unmarked building.

"_Hee-hee-hee…! I-i-n…the breeze!_" declared Padraig as if it made the most sense in the world. Then he did something a person in his condition ought _not _to do. The man stood up. He kept his head bowed, but that head of his was dripping blood out the orifices of the ears and nostrils. Still, he was up and moving. Then he began to make a limp-staggering walk towards that red-brick building—towards the glass-and-steel doors of the entrance. "I'm gonna man-dog it over to there."

Gally looked wide-eyed at Padraig. It was not a stare of sympathy. It was more out of the fact that the fleshie man could walk at all after that accident. Brain damage and broken bones should have prevented most any kind of mobility. With no immediate way to deal with the brain damage, Padraig should be dead or dying. _The rules are different, _went a thought.

"Huntress Gally, we shall watch the steps of our Padraig of The Green," declared the princess. Then her own footsteps took her to walking closely behind the injured member of their party. Their obvious direction was towards the front entrance of this anomalous structure. It had the appearance of a sort of industrial field-office or something of that sort.

"_Hee-hee-hee…!_" Giggling, Padraig reached forward with his left arm to take hold of the long metal door-handle. Before Princess Kyrie could say anything, he pulled at the door—also making for grinding sounds of broken bone within the living muscle. The arm even stretched a little in its sleeve as he pulled. Not only was the door unlocked, it also remained open as Padraig just walked in—his left arm now swaying where it was broken.

…

Beyond the illumination, the inside of the building was largely steeped in shadows. But this made for some confusion. There was still plenty of daylight outside. As the front-entrance doors were glass, there should have been some of that orange-reddish sunlight shining right on into here. Gally turned to see that there was not light shining in. It now seemed to be the depths of night outside. "What goes on here?" she asked. Perhaps the doors were made of tinted glass?

No, that was not it. Such an idea was one of those mental excuses made up to give normal explanations to things that would not seem normal. Gally knew that opening up the doors would reveal the darkness of night, exactly what was visible through the glass doors. Somehow, entering this building also made for slipping into the night. This building, she had a feeling that that there was something different about it.

Said the princess, "Tread ever-so-carefully, Padraig. Things are wrong here..." When Padraig just giggled and continued shuffling along, the princess spoke more loudly. "Do you yet hear my words, Padraig of The Green? As a sovereign of this land, at the least, one is to lend me audience to my concerns and commands given what comes to pass."

No, no, no… Padraig was not home in his head right now. That would be his _misshapen _head that was made distorted by the skull-crushing blow at one side. His brain was damaged as was the mind contained within it. He was close to dead and should have been by now. Yet he was not there yet. He was going somewhere. "_Hee-hee-hee…!_" went that giggle, his right eye focusing forward while the pupil of his left eye was rotated towards the floor of this darkened place.

As Kyrie followed that walking dead man, someone as good as dead pretty soon, Gally looked to the right. There was a reception window that had the sort of sliding part—something that receptionists would slide aside in talking to people who came in. The secretary-receptionist's body was lying slumped at the desk in there, as if asleep—a red-haired figure in white blouse and maybe a skirt. Gally knew better than to actually believe that the secretary-receptionist was just sleeping. Though the clothes and hair were in almost perfect condition, the face and hands of the corpse had that deep blue-green color of decomposition. To the right of the corpse's desiccated face was something written atop corporate stationary: _Thunderhorse Research Laboratories._

Looking away, Gally saw that there was a small sign with the same racy sort of slanting letters: _Thunderhorse Research Laboratories. _There was no sign of exactly _what kind _of research went on here. Nor was there anyone around who could answer that sort of question.

Gally took a few steps…_and felt somewhat dizzy herself. It was somewhat like standing within an invisible, swirling whirlpool of some kind. Her head felt aloft and disconnected, herself feeling far away as she…_swayed into her next step. What could that have been? She looked around for a sort of source for any sort of device or sort of trouble. _Wink-blinkety! _The few ceiling lights that worked had just flickered.

Looking up at the ceiling and its florescent lights, looking down at the floor, at the walls far left and right, there was nothing but typical office-styled materials of walls, tiled floor and office-type ceiling. Her body was made to be intensely resistant to most any kind of _ionizing radiation, _and the machinery of her respiratory system would have filtered out any biological or chemical agents in the air. If not _radiation _or airborne toxins, then what made for the dizziness?

Gally took on the idea that, just maybe, it had something to do with the research of this laboratory. Just perhaps laboratory was a very dangerous place even to those with metal-type or synthetic bodies. Gally walked around the spot that caused her dizzy spell. Even so, her left leg felt odd in walking past. In getting over to Padraig and Princess Kyrie, she hoped to not randomly run into that sort of trouble.

_Wink-flicker… _As soon as Gally stepped deeper into this research laboratory and its darkened reception area, thatblinking of the overhead light was enough to give pause. That was right: there was just _one _light working in this main room. She blinked her eyes more out of concern and slight confusion than physical irritation from an unreliable light source. Was something now happening as a result of them having entered this abandoned place?

Ah, but Padraig seemed not to mind. "_Hee-hee-hee…! Punch a hole! Sha-bwack, op opple-plort!_" Speaking or blurting that, he kept staggering along, that odd and leering grin on his face even while blood dribbled down it. There was something going on in his mind that only he seemed to know right now. Whatever it was, it was leading him somewhere onwards and towards one of the doors. "_Sha-bwack!_" he exclaimed as he _yanked _open the door.

This revealed a room in this building that seemed to not belong here at all. It was the size of a large parlor-room. Not only was it the size of a large parlor-room of liesure, it also had some of the furnishings to be found in that sort of place. At the center was a circular table made out of wood. And the three chairs around the table were also made of wood--that oh-so-rare and too expensive material made from the bodies of dead trees. In contrast to the rather leisure-oriented furnishings, a strange machine was against a corner at the right—forward and to the right. Pipes from it went into the floor while wires connected it to the wall and the ceiling. _Hee-hee-hee…!_"

Gally heard Padraig's distorted giggle come from behind her. But Padraig was actually standing in front of her right now—standing in front of the circular wooden table. Wide-eyed in surprise, the leather-clad cyborg huntress quick-spun herself around, her beige trenchcoat and head of dark hair whipping and fluttering. Something darkly chuckled behind her and to a side. Whipping herself around again, she had the impression that the chuckling and giggling had come from the strange, engine-looking sort of machine in the corner.

"This is another one, another anomaly," said Princess Kyrie gently. "This must be another lost place. Hmmm…. One says _lost_ in the sense of such places having become lost to the original world from which they came. Other worlds, they lose places to this one. But _why_, I hazard to guess that it grows out of having partaken of metaphysics."

_Sno-o-rt! _That deep and loud sound came straight from Padraig's red-dripping nose and mouth. "_Shut the Hell up, bitch! Before I kick your ass, whack you down and fuck you 'till your skull-bowl leaks your brains!_" That voice was partially coming from Padraig, but it was also coming out of the air in this room—all of the air. It was as if the air itself had become an acoustic speaker, vibrating with the beastly voice that was coming from both inside and outside of Padraig—coming from everywhere.

"_Hee-hee-hee…!_" was the follow-up sound from the left side of the table. Following that giggle and the deep sonorous outburst from Padraig, things went very quiet. Of course, not every place can ever be perfectly quiet. In this case, the interruption in the quiet was coming from somewhere else. It was a sort of slight and far-off thrumming of live machinery…

What did it mean? Gally knew for certain that everything happened for reasons. Almost everything had some kind of meaning or purpose behind it. Almost everything in this dying world had some worth in terms of _symbolism_. Likewise, there must have been an reason for them having come to this place.


	8. Chapter 8

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 8

Sitting with legs crossed, arms crossed as well, Gally regarded Padraig—sitting slump-headed on that long couch over there by the right-side wall. _The weak man is dying,_ she thought. _He is taking a great deal of time in dying. For him to sympathize with the grotesque and malformed creatures of this land, it is a liability. _More bitterly, she thought, _We do not need liabilities in our journey. His death is inevitable. _She looked over at Kyrie, the princess sitting primly with hands lightly upon thighs, her back straight—her emerald-green eyes looking at Padraig.

Both the princess and the cyborg huntress were sitting on these chairs at the circular wooden table. The surface of the wooden table looked polished and gleaming despite having been here for who knows how long. Also true was how the chairs were in unusually good condition. In fact, the wooden chairs looked almost new.

Indeed, Padraig was sitting up, barely able to do even that. His head was no longer leaking so much out of its various holes—ear-holes, nose-holes, mouth-hole. Now the blood and clear fluids largely left drying stains where they had leaked down his collar. Just because the various drippings had stopped did not mean that the words out of his mouth stopped. He was muttering and mumbling dark and strange phrases that were plainly audible in this very quiet room. Some of them made some kind of sense.

Turning herself halfway around on the wooden chair, Gally gave a questioning look to Princess Kyrie. Gally said nothing; there was no need. Everyone knew that the man in green was a goner. It was just a matter of what to do once he finally decided to lay down and shove off.

"_Hee-hee-hee…_" giggled the man in the green business suit. "Aye, those agents o' the red are still at it, eh? Can't help but think about them bein' in the breeze as well. And ye _think _ye've won, ye agent o' Darkness, do ye? Go put your spare _heads _in a cylinder! Aye, that machine will smell out the electrified cinnamon. The concrete block is interlocked in the chunk. 'Tis the darkest truth…. Right, Mr. Thunderhorse?"

At the mention of the name _Thunderhorse, _Gally took extra notice. What of that name…? She had encountered it before. _Thunderhorse _was part of the corporate name painted on that darkened train. It was also in the name of this research laboratory. Gally wondered if that was why Padraig would hallucinate a conversation with someone named _Mister _Thunderhorse—the name playing out from his subconscious.

Then again, just maybe _Thunderhorse _could simply be the name of the corporation that built the train and this laboratory—not the name of the Chief Executive Officer that ran the corporation. And no doubt, if there was a Mr. Thunderhorse in another universe, he was more than likely not going to be pleased upon finding out that some of his corporation's assets were vanishing into an alternate universe—a train, a laboratory, and the people within it. Everybody knows that things just don't vanish from reality. That is just silly. Then again, a lot of things in this world are just silly. Not so silly would be those blamed for the disappearances. If Mr. Thunderhorse was anything like the corporate-governance dictatorship from Gally's world, then those people would likely lose their heads.

Maybe it would be amusing for the first eighteen minutes or so, but now it was getting to be annoyance. There was no Mr. Thunderhorse in this room right now. There were no so-called agents of darknessin this room, either. It was just the sight of a dying man and his nonsensical nonsense, sitting upon a long-couch and dying from a deforming blow to the head. Well, there was no use in arguing with the illogic and strange wrongness with Padraig's conversation with hallucination, all in his fractured imagination.

"_Hee-hee-hee…! _Imagine a cute lil' Yoko and her cute lil' cyborg-body. Red truth all over the minefields. Look out for th' _breeze! _It'll knock ye off the feet. She'll give you something golden, your pal, all _kawaii_… _Erp?"_

Gally _clicked _to her feet, beginning to yell at the dying man. "_You stop your insults! _Do _not _make light commentary of others' pasts!" She took one step in Padraig's direction. That was it. One step, and she stopped cold. She _never _told Padraig about her childhood. In fact, of all the time she had been with the weak and pathetic man, she never told him anything about her past—just made basic and factual comments to and said nothing about what went on personally.

"_Light _comments…? _Hee-hee-hee…! _She said 'light,' when the light's just getting lost in the frost, dimming into the darkness," said Padraig. His head lolled to the right. "It's not the sun's fault. Have a look-see at the people who pretty much run the show. They take the light, mix it in with the darkness, watching everything sink into its own darkened, miserable rotting rustiness all mixed with gentle tones of seductive red… Just let everything sink into the peace of darkness…"

A sob blurted out. Gally turned her head in the direction of the sound. The sound had come from Princes Kyrie, her emerald-green eyes of hers glaring. Though the expression on her face was that of anger, a quick tear rolled down her left cheek. The synthetics of her body allowed her to cry. But to make the princess cry would have required something especially hurtful, something regarding the future of her kingdom. "I do wish for your commentary to cease as well," was her bitter comment. "Stop your dark talk of darkness and failure. The Golden Hope yet guides us."

For just a moment, Gally thought that the princess was taking on aspects of weakness herself. Was Gally to be the _only _person willing to move on with the desire of seeking that so-called artifact? Was that not what this was all about? Now they were all in one room of a fallen laboratory facility and commiserating over one broken man's mad rants. Who was to say that Padraig's comments were to be taken seriously? Then again, he seemed to know _something. _

Said Padraig, "Aye, lass… 'Tis golden. 'Tis naught but a symbol. Ye need symbols to keep some kind of hope alive even when everything else is pretty much inevitably gonna go down. Ye get th' Golden Hope. _Then…what? _When _ye _die, mayhaps due to some florescent revolution or other, The Golden Hope shall disappear yet again. Darkness, 'tis inevitable. 'Twould be th' final darkness of us all, preceded by the power of the red…"

Princess Kyrie took in a deep breath and kept her poise, just as what a princess was taught to do. The pose was all the more easier to hold in that a synthetic body and its myogel muscle tissue had infinite endurance—no aches. Yet something was aching within the princess. "Your words are harmful to the well-being of the party. Padraig of the Green, I request once that you cease."

Said Padraig, "Aye, I'll cease. When this darkness closing over my head begins to shut me up, that'll be the end o' my part in this quest—which is likely to…_fall into darkness! _Death always win, the crimson and dark death over this land…" His eyes widened suddenly, his head going upright before slumping. "_Hee-hee-hee…_"

Gally watched things happen. Part of her hoped that the princess would put Padraig out of his weak misery. Again, was it not for those three blades of his, the man would have been dead eventually. What they needed was a party of strong and wise warriors, not sympathetic meat-bodied weaklings. Fleshies had their place, but this quest was not one of them. "We shall make faster progress without him," she said.

"Huntress Gally! Do you not understand?" voiced Princess Kyrie. "Upon accepting Padraig into our party, we all became bonded. Three is one of the most powerful of numbers. Note how it takes a minimum _three _examples to set an idea. The ancient tales that my family was told for generations strongly feature _three _of anything—be it three siblings, three parts of a quest or even three wishes. Scientists note that we normal beings view reality in _three _dimensions. Did you also fail to note the number of blades that Padraig came to aquire?"

It was true. Gally recalled the own tales of her own long-ago childhood. There were many tales of three, indeed. And yes, _three _featured prominently in much of what came to pass. Even the name of the other-worldly corporation that created this building, _Thunderhorse, _it was a name of _three _syllables—_Thun-der-horse. _Still…

"It is an interesting observation," said Gally. "However, I still do not fully comprehend why the failure and weak death of Padraig is critically important. He is dying. There is nothing that can be done regarding it. We should move on."

"Huntress Gally! Shall we move on with a _broken _party?" voiced Princess Kyrie. "Remember, it is the power of three. _Three _is our number. _Three_ is our strength. Without it, I fear that our incessant series of victories in our battles may be fated to an end. It would therefore be the end of our quest."

If Kyrie was not a princess, Gally would have been around the table in two swift steps to deliver a slap across the face. Mystical talk of calculations and fate, such was the sort of thing expected of that bastard Dr. Nova. Dr. Nova and his distortions of science, Dr. Nova and his ideals of ascertaining and manipulating the forces of universe, Gally so dearly _hated _him. Not only did Gally have high contempt for Dr. Nova, she also had contempt for the way this was developing. Were they indeed to be bound by ideas similar to those posed by a crazed scientist?

This in mind, the cyborg huntress said, "We must be strong enough to make our own fate. We must do what is necessary to continue onward, regardless of the misfortunes that befall us." She looked at Kyrie. "You and I, our bodies have small supplies of nanobots that allow us to be revived an infinite number of times provided that we are not decapitated. It may be five days or five hundred years, yet we are very capable of coming back so many number of times as necessary in fulfilling your goal. Or shall we surrender to the darkness of failure and oblivion as the muties continue to exist? Those hapless creatures are unworthy of dominance over what was once your kingdom. It can also again _be _your kingdom. Fail here, and you fail your father."

Princess Kyrie bowed her head at the mention of her father, once the king of this land. The king had died. With his death seemed to come a great deal of what came to pass. Things truly were a great deal more stable in the past. It was when this land was one of greatness and success. They were memories of the past, of greatness and nobility before the war. Now the sun seemed ever dimmer, the darkness even more close at hand. With the darkness would not only come more muties, also would come things that were maybe worse than muties, things from other worlds, other realities.

"I am of accord regarding your statement, huntress," said Princess Kyrie. "I shall not allow the darkness to triumph. For if it does, it shall be the end of this realm. My father's legacy would be dishonored should our party fall to failure." Her eyes came to look upon Padraig, still with head lolling, still dying. "This means going beyond our current pains. Still, we must do what we can to maintain the sanctity of our party, the strength inherent in the number with which we began."

"_Hee-hee… Erp?_" went Padraig, his giggle interrupted by something. _Flick-flicker, _went the overhead lights in this room. Padraig jerked as if being electrocuted by the same force or whatever it was that was interfering with the lights. Then he began to talk. What he said was not what Princess Kyrie wanted to hear.

Tough tamales, he was going to say it anyway! "_One, two… Whee-e-e-e!_" he jeered. _Blink-flickety…_ "Something is happening. Something is happening! Shut your windows, and close the doors, because they want to get out of the breeze and onto something solid. The nearest solid thing they see is this nice hard land and its hard sandy dirt." _Flick-flicker, _went the lights again. "Guess what, folks? This laboratory is a place where the fabric of reality was made pretty weak, just like some of those weapons used during the War. Things will get weak and weaker still!" _Flick-blinker…_ And that was when _they _began to attack.

2.

…

"Goodness me, Mr. Pluck!" declared one of the elderly gentlemen, speaking to the other. "If I may dare comment upon the matter at hand, it would be a comment upon the aspects of _inconvenience. _How _inconvenient _it is that the bones and sinews of men's necks are some of the most tenacious? It truly takes a master of machine arts such as yourself to make such neat work of the matter. Why, even with the greatest of blades, it takes a practiced set of hands to perform the final act of surgery known as execution! In any event, those who fail to use their heads in contemplating methods of pursuing their quarry are deserving of losing them."

Dozens upon dozens of kilometers away (or pognards away, depending upon one's reality), these two elderly gentlemen were at it again. _It _so happened to be the continued pursuit of a certain pale-haired princess, her metal-bodied "huntress," and a tall man in green business suit. Those two elderly gentlemen were _again _behind the curve of things. They were _again _behind that party of three. And _again, _they were especially disappointed.

They were venting their disappointment upon the surviving group of carriage drivers sitting out in the open on the grassy ground and its hard sandy dirt. Not too far away was a group of van-sized racing carriages, jumbled pile. Mixed in with that pile of vehicles were the corpses of baby-headed muties, dead when the carriages squashed them from behind. These six carriage drivers somehow survived the pile-up—being thrown free to go flopping along the hard grassy land and its sandy dirt.

Well, the six carriage drivers were surviving for now. The carriage drivers' hands were laced behind their backs with rusty barbed wire—done at gunpoint. They were now sitting upon hard rocks with sharp parts that dug into their rear ends. Even so, they valued whatever life they had left—looking on wide-eyed as a fellow carriage-driver's severed head was lowered into something that looked like a hat box.

Hell, that was no ordinary hat box! No damned hat box made awful, eating sounds when something was put in it. And was that…_screaming? _How the _Hell _could a severed head scream? Indeed, there are things wondrous and strange made from the old days that could make life these days especially nightmarish—life unto death.

One of those two elderly gentlemen in Victorian-era business clothes closed the hat box and laid it upon the ground. "_Aa-a-augh….!_" came a scream from within it, the hat box all shaking and bouncing as something terrible began happening in there. Whatever was happening in that hat box was enough to make a severed head start screaming—able to _make _a severed head scream. Then came all kinds of _squnch-crunch-crunkle _sounds as skull-bone and brain covered in flesh were crunched up really good.

The elderly gentleman on the left was glad to see the carriage drivers look wide-eyed and afraid. It was _good _that the pathetic wretches were afraid. It was all part of the punishment for their failure. Failure was _not _a good thing in the eyes of the dark queen. Failure was tantamount to disobedience. Disobedience to direct commands was death. And that death could be made to be as prolonged and as painful as the executioners saw fit.

So _swish-chop _went Mr. Pluck's sword as he cut off the head of another carriage driver. _Spurt-spurt-spurt _went the blood from the severed neck-stump. The jaw of the freshly severed head was going _maw-maw-maw _in trying to talk, eyes going _blink-blinkety. _A head does not die immediately, of course. _Thump _went the head when it went into the hat box that was more than just a hat-box. _Plump-p-p _went the lid. Then all kinds of _scrunch-crunch-munch _sounds came from within, mixed with plenty of _a-a-a-augh _screaming sounds—the hat box bouncing around on the grass of the hard sandy ground. One more down, there were still five more heads to go—those heads still attached to the bodies of five carriage drivers.

"Now…! To the matter at hand, the subject that is the very reason for our excursions into capital punishment," said Mr. Tibbs as Mr. Pluck opened up the hat box to accept another severed head. "One could ask _why _it came to be that a certain cluster of individuals took to using rather inefficient teams of grotesqueries for pursuit of a _motor vehicle. _One could ask _why _such was the case. Yet to ask such a question would be both redundant and without point. It would be simply because there no longer is any reason to bring about such questioning.

"The quintessential truth of it all lies within the foolishness to be found within your own heads. It was rather _foolish _that you chose to use muties to pursue that most important party. on the loose. It was _especially foolish _that you chose to delay capture of the party long enough to put up a merry little chase that resulted in your failure. You failed due to foolishness. Therefore, you shall die due to your failure—which shall be failure unto foolish death."

Was that a _belch _coming from the open hat-box? Maybe it was the sound of the wind blowing across the open top and the meaty smell wafting from within. Then what would explain the flexing of the open top, as if it was some kind of maw? Never mind that now, though. The carriage drivers more minded losing their minds than they minded any sort of oddball sounds and movements by the hat box that was not really a hat box. It was losing their _heads _that was a concern, when their heads were lopped off and put in there.

Mr. Tibbs continued his condemnation. "In what modern world is it _ever _appropriate to take up pursuit of a _motor-vehicle _with anything alive and breathing—especially anything living and breathing _these days? _Boor! The beasts of burden these days are so thoroughly _contaminated _as to make them unusable. Muties, they are so thoroughly compromised at the biological level that they are creatures fortunate enough to simply _function _as entities at all, let alone being used to take to _merry chases. _Now the only merry chase that shall take place shall be that of Mr. Pluck's well-skilled blade in pursuit of your staid necks!"

One of the carriage drivers leered. "C'mon, pal! Ya gotta admit, it was some really hot action! Hot chicks and a hot chase! Yeah! You've gotta love carriages goin' full speed with some muties at the front. It wasn't like we expected some boring old electric vans to have some power to 'em. Yeah, buddy! Who expects _electric _vehicles to beat good old fashioned carriages?"

Mr. Tibbs was sure to get that bastard next. Oh yes, the elderly gentleman just stepped behind the leering carriage driver. He then reached into that dark jacket of his to draw out that impossibly long sword. Unfortunately, the carriage driver moved his head at the wrong moment—making Mr. Tibbs miss his original mark. Instead, the sword lopped off the top of the carriage driver's head instead of removing the head from the neck.

Even then, Mr. Tibbs cut again. When the entire head came off this time, he put the sword back into the shadowy depths of his dark jacket before kneeling to aquire both halves of the head. These he plunked down into the hat box. This made for yet more screams and bopping bopping about coming from the hat box that was not a hat box. What a happy little hat box it was, all kinds of excitement…!

Then there were four. Declared Mr. Tibbs. "In the end, it is the end of your existence upon this plain of reality should you fail to exercise prudence in pursuit of our goals. There is no need to seek pleasure in fulfillment of that which we seek to acquire. Prudence, I say!" exclaimed Mr. Tibbs. Now that prudence has failed, we shall have _jurisprudence._ My dear Mr. Pluck, swing away!"

"I shall do so presently, Mr. Tibbs, my good fellow!" responded the other elderly gentleman. "Yet I fear, these unworthy scoundrels are not at all deserving of that which you seek to instill into them. You are deserving of an audience steeped more in refinement and intellect, resplendid within the walls of a grand and cultured institution. I nevertheless applaud your attempts, Mr. Tibbs—just as I crave the praiseworthiness of your grand standards!"

"What's yer point, pal?" asked one of the three surviving carriage drivers as one more had his head lopped off. As yet another head was on the way to the hat-box that was not a hat box, he added, "We're all goners any way ya slice it…so ta speak. And if ya kill us, who the fuck is gonna be around to care? Whose gonna be around to tell everybody what the Hell ya just said?"

"My pathetic fellow," said Mr. Pluck, "It is not the action that matters. Rather, it is _how _the act is done, the refinement of the matter. Such is the heart of symbolism, something grandly crucial in this world as you should understand." Then he dropped this next head into the hat box and put the lid over it. The dark things within the hat box-thing now enjoyed another victim.


	9. Chapter 9

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 9

Swift confidence made for her stride in crossing the grand gleaming floor—her white bootlets clicking out the quick pace of her steps. Her her pale moon-silk hair fluttered behind her, as did the cloth of her royal robe—an open robe. And the robe did not hide much, open to show off the pleated skirt and close-fitting silk worn beneath. The outfit revealing and accentuated her lithe figure, the shapes of smooth lean legs flowing into graceful hips, a flat abdomen and slender torso, only her arms being hidden by the sleeves of the open robe. Her face was just as beautiful—large green eyes in a round face of high cheeks and pert nose. Yet as beautiful as the girl was, the look of dead-set confidence upon her face would make for fear for those who knew of her.

Those under her control knew, such as the two massive metal-bodied men behind her. The guards were nine feet tall and with gigantic bodies that were almost as wide, palace guards that needed no armored vehicles because their bodies were just as strong as anything on tank treads. They were large and armored, mighty machines of fighting, but even they knew to respect her.

The guards saw that look before. It was with that very same look upon her face that people's heads were cut open to make way for electrodes and blood-infusion bypass tubes—keeping their brains alive with stimulants and oxygen-enriched blood while their bodies were tortured to death. _That_ was the sort of look on her exquisitely beautiful face upon commanding the slaughter of an entire city simply because it failed to meet production quotas—the murder of everyone from the limping elderly to the toddling young in cradles. There were cries of adults and children alike in being shot, chopped, impaled, burned, whipped, skinned, defenestrated, disemboweled, decapitated, sliced, slaughtered, and made dead, dead, _dead. _ _That_ was the look that came upon her face on the day that her father died following the War.

Since then, the pale-haired beauty would see to it that the land still under her _control. _It was her decision that this land would not fall into the decadence and pathos of the wastelands and the useless bands of muties that roamed it. The government over this land was a monarchy, and _monarchy _was _control_.

It was especially unfortunate that her twin sister decided to take into something so foolish as myths and legends. To seek anything but direct control over the land, to go off on foolish gallivants for silly baubles and trinkets of superstitious power was a wasteful effort.

And _that _was why Princess Dahlia would have her twin sister returned to the capital city and to the palace by most any means necessary. If it meant tearing apart cities and villages on top of that to get her, it would be done. If it meant sending out two of Father's closest council to beyond the lands in her control, such would be done. To have Princess Kyrie returned instead of going off on quests of folly was part of what Dahlia wanted.

Unfortunately true, this also meant dealing with the likes of a disgustingly gluttonous fool from one of those other realities that occasionally leaked into this one. Terrible, it was. There was no controlling what fools seeped or fell into this universe. Such was yet another aspect of things going awry.

Yet true was how that absolutely ridiculous fool, a sloppily dressed madman, had _somehow _retained the intellect and wisdom of a researcher and physicist. The fool was much like the masters of science and technology from the days of old. Was it not for his knowledge, Princess Dahlia would have had him killed slowly over the course of six days.

Upon coming close to the appropriate door, Princess Dahlia made a sideward throwing gesture, a swish of her left arm made without breaking the rhythm of her leggy stride. With that gesture, the door of traditional steel _flung _open—the jamb broken, the hinges nearly snapped. It was not that the door was motorized in any way, it was the result of Princess Dahlia using the abilities built within her own synthetic body.

Like her sister, Princess Dahlia's own synthetic body was designed with energy manipulation capabilities—a body of synthetic skin over myogel muscle tissue, a skeleton of gleaming titanium deeper within. Nuclear-powered components inside of her chest supported her real, living brain. But there was more to Dahlia's body than just synthetic beauty. Dahlia's metal skeleton had superconducting strands of a secretly formulated alloy that allowed for extremely intense magnetic fields. With mere thoughts and gestures, Princess Dahlia could control all metals and all forms of electromagnetic energy—even able to bend light itself. Because even fleshies had traces of iron in their blood and flesh, Princess Dahlia could lift up and throw crowds of people by using her electromagnetic control abilities.

Of course, the nine-foot cyborgs behind her had metal bodies and could be destroyed with gestures. Dahlia chose to make examples of more than a few palace guards who chose to merely mention her name in the wrong contexts. Then their brains would be scooped out from their magnetically mangled skulls and dumped into slop-pits for mutie slaves to consume.

It was _control. _Though princes Dahlia could not summon energy and directly obliterate others, there was the ability to physically _control _people where they stood. They could be manipulated like play-pieces on a game board. And to her, they were.

Ah, but there was a limit to this power. There always are catches, always limits. The limit on Princess Dahlia's ability was in how her abilities were restricted to _available _energy in her environment. Her ability to control electromagnetic energy was not the same as being able to _summon _energy. Dahlia was not able to bend the fabric of reality to bring about energy that was not already present. That would be the ability of Princess Kyrie. And so long as Princess Kyre was out and about, wasting her abilities, consolidating control over the lands would be all the more difficult.

The bright orange-reddish light of day slanted through amazingly tall windows to illuminate this side-hall. Princess Dahlia knew that the madman would be within one of several palace office-rooms turned into laboratories. In that the advisors to her dead father were long dead, killed during efforts of the War, they would no longer need them. Some of them now served as the insane scientist's laboratories.

Princess Dahlia heard insane chuckling coming from behind one of the metal doors. _Swish-clank-k-k! _A swift sideward gesture with her left hand, and the metal door was _flung _open. Striding into the room, the princess wasted no time in getting to the point of this meeting.

"I demand _answers_, _Doctor _Nova," said the princess. "Do not trifle with me this day. My patience is quite limited. Should that patience be crossed, you shall know a taste of the consequences."

…

This laboratory was once a place of decent and comfortable size, the size of two living rooms put side by side. Considering how even a moderate amount of room in the grand palace was at a premium for those not of royalty, this was an especially valuable space. Yet now, most of that space was set aside for the scientist's meandering efforts into science and technology. At the left side were multiple engine-sized machines of energy and computers on carts. Three desks were at the far right, with thick folders full of papers atop them—hand-written notes. Off in the corner was something that looked somewhat human and strapped into a chair—the top of his head sawed off and with wires poking in. Those wires led to several computers.

Dr. Nova himself was at one of those computers when Princess Dahlia came in. He truly did resemble the ancient motif of mad scientist: a rumpled laboratory coat worn over a business-casual outfit of slacks and buttoned-down shirt, a striped tie around the collar, wild gray hair flaring out from his scalp, a wrinkled face that did nothing to dim the bright gleam of wide-awake intelligence...or madness… The semi-circular mark upon his forehead seemed not to have changed in all the decades it existed there, set into the skin.

He was sitting at the computer, but he was doing nothing especially important with it at the time; the seat was just serving for a place to rest his butt while his mouth consumed food. In his left hand was a ceramic bowl of flan, a spoon in his right. That spoon was in his mouth since Princess Dahlia strode in—was still in his mouth.

"_Mmmph?_" went Dr. Nova's inquiry. _Mmmph _was all he could manage in that the intense and tangy sweetness of the fruity desert was already filling his palate—while mental reams of information flooded his mind. Both mouth and mind were full, hence his inability to produce a coherent response.

The spoon was metal. Princess Dahlia set her eyes upon it, making it _whip _out of Dr. Nova's mouth with such speed as to make spittle go with it—sending the spoon across the office-turned--laboratory. Any harder, and some teeth would have gone as well. Dr. Nova suddenly looked sad—not just out of the sudden ache, but because he would have to get something else with which to eat his wonderful, tasty, delicious flan!

"Your response is far and away from being appropriate, Doctor Nova!" declared Princess Dahlia, anger darkening her voice—usually a deceptively sweet voice of angelic soprano. "Even with the best and rarest of equipment at your disposal, you remain _incapable_ of identifying the future paths of my sibling. Are you or are you not able to obtain knowledge of her whereabouts in a timely manner?"

Dr. Nova stopped whimpering, a man looking suddenly brightened. "Ah! That is _certainly _a question worthy of extrapolation!" He stood up and walked over to where the mutie was strapped into the chair, wires going from the creature's exposed brain to the computers. "We are dealing with karmatronics of a sort that I have not encountered before in my own native reality. This other universe has some basic laws of reality that are fundamentally different from my own—the likes of which become ever more apparent to me over the multiple years I have come here. It is therefore of no surprise that such a fundamental force as _karma _should operate in ways dissimilar to that which I have previously studied before transitioning into this universe.

"I am most certainly surprised to find, for example, that the spin of tachyons correspond very closely to karmatronic vibrations. Such frequencies are very susceptible to predictable paths. It is _that _predictability which leaves one able to foresee ever-so-slight developments in events that would otherwise seem unpredictable.

"Such is where setups such as _this _come in. Though the material computer technology of this reality seems to have fallen behind, the capabilities have not—such as the successful blending of living brains with pre-existing computer work-stations. Of course, living brain-matter is especially capable of computer calculations provided that one first overrides miscellaneous operations within the brain: speech centers, personality, emotions…" The bowl in his hand raised up to hover in front of his face, making him stop talking.

Princess Dahlia's left arm was outstretched, her fingers in a holding gesture as the bowl hovered meters away. Said the princess, "I am aware of the general subject matter, Dr. Nova. I have followed the aspects of your research for the past several years now. One would presuppose that the implementation of a living brain into your experiments would improve your efforts sixfold at the least. Why do you yet still have incremental improvements?" There was a pause in which her eyes changed color. "Fail me, and there shall be no other chances." A throwing gesture from her, and the bowl of flan _blasted _across the room to strike a solid wall—leaving the bowl itself a mangled mess that somewhat resembled part of a wrecked metal vehicle. "Do be more productiveThe alternative would be you sharing a fate similar to the bowl you once used. I expect immediate results." That said, Princess Dahlia turned in a swirl of red cape and pale hair—her bootlets clicking in leaving this laboratory, the door _slamming _behind her.

…

2.

…

"Oh, the flan…!" moaned the wild-haired scientist in lab-coat when the princess was gone. "Why did that flan have to go in such a way? I have such deep regrets for such a loss of something so precious, so scrumptious… So…_delicious!_" He went over to one of the machines set up in this laboratory—a blocky sort of device that looked like a lawnmower engine with a spigot set in its front. Realizing that there was no bowl, he did what he had to do to get flan.

On his knees, he put his mouth to the hard length of the spigot and began to suck as the machine made churning sounds in synthesizing and pumping. He stayed on his knees, his head moved back and forth as the machine churned, his mouth sucking as the device kept pumping of the thick substance. It was flan; it was _delicious! _Never mind how this looked.

When the sucking was done—for now—the mad scientist stood up. The hair atop his head looked all the more wild for what was just done, a head full of rejuvenated inspiration. "Ah, _flan!_" declared Dr. Nova. He looked to the big-headed mutant with the top of the head sawed off and the brain exposed. "I consume it, and my desire for knowledge returns. What _is _it about flan? Could it likely be the glucose produced from consuming it, an increase in it making for bolstered thought processes? In any event, prior to making unfounded and random hypotheses, we must attend to the matter at hand!"

Never minding a smattering of flan upon his tie, the mad scientist strode over to one of several clunky devices set upon the table behind the big-brained mutie—the devices with wires coming from the mutie's exposed brain. He regarded the analog dials that measured brainwave activity. The brainwaves were an indicator of the mutie's worth to the computing devices: If the indicators went too far down, it would have meant that the mutie's brain was going bad and would have therefore had to be replaced. And since the mutie's brain went with the whole mutie, it would just mean that another dead mutie to be ground up and fed to the other muties in the dungeons.

Yes, this palace had real God-damned dungeons, low and reddish lit, several floors of them—real stone halls, real stone walls, metal doors to lock up, and chains on the walls and real God-damned _everything_. This palace and the rest of the capital city rested right on top of a decapitated mountain, and the dungeons beneath this palace were carved right out of that same rock. The only thing not so God-damned realistic about them were the florescent light-tubes—giving off a low reddish sort of light that made a person feel sick from being around them too long. Then again, since when did health inspectors ever bother to peruse dungeons? Were there any health inspectors at all?

Of course not. Moreover, Dr. Nova found out what those dungeons were like from first-hand experience. When he first appeared in this world, things were in chaos as a certain member of royalty made a run for it—not wanting to be around the palace any more. Great big palace guards started scouring the capital city and all the local towns in rounding up, locking up and torturing anybody who looked as if they knew anything. And since Dr. Nova looked as if he knew a great deal, he was one of the first to have been locked up and tossed into an all expenses-paid dungeon suite.

That dungeon was dark and terrible. He still had some blemishes on his skin from being in the presence of exposed heating pipes in the dungeons—pipes leading from the multiple antimatter and fusion generators that provided so much electrical power. _Ionizing radiation, _it was. There really was little to no telling what would have happened to him physically if he remained in those real God-damned dungeons for far too long. More than likely, the damage to his DNA would have made him vulnerable to terratogenic substances in this world's environment. Then it would have been _him _with the top of his head sawed open to find out if there was a brain to be used.

"But such is _not _the reality of the current situation!" cheered Dr. Nova. Speaking to the mutie in the chair, he added, "It is you who has the living brain-matter that is compatible with the software of this particular hardware. Now, would there be a comparable specimen for usage? Yes, yes there are! Yet karma has dictated that you be the one this day. Hmm… _Mmmm-m-m… Flan-n-n…? _No… Karma! The issue at hand is karma!"

Of course the mutie said nothing in response. Muties had varying degrees of intelligence and capability in terms of comprehending spoken language. He was able to have basic conversations with some specimens of muties brought to the palace for his experiments, as strange as some of their accents were. That was, of course, before he sawed open the tops of their skulls and had the appropriate arrays of electrodes inserted. From then on, the majority of their brains were taken over by the cybernetic processes demanded by the machines. It therefore left the muties as slack-jawed idiots.

Language-wise, Dr. Nova found it an especially endearing coincidence that the very same sort of language spoken in this world was of the very sort of dialect that came to pass in Zalem and Scrap Iron City. Not that Dr. Nova was terribly amenable to the rough-and-tumble vernacular of that wasted industrial landscape, but it was understandable at the least…_at the least. _The fact that this was an alternate reality and still similar enough to understand the spoken words was the sheerest of coincidence or the work of that guiding force—that of _karma. _

"Now _such _is the crux of the issue," declared Dr. Nova—still speaking to the mutie as if the speech centers were intact. "You and I are to continue our meanderings into the very same workings of that which I have stated." He thrust his right hand in the direction of the machines against the wall behind the mutie, the machines to which the mutie's sawed-open skull-bowl was wired.

"I cannot expect the karmatronics of an alternate reality to match exactly those of my previous one. It could very well have been that this reality could have been so different that the very laws of physics and chemistry would have generated an environment incapable of sustaining my own biochemistry. Or it could have been that the processes of my mind would have been befuddled due to alternate rules of particle physics pertaining to electrons.

"The karmatronic principles of this reality, however, are _similar _to the karmatronic principles to which I am familiarThey are _similar _enough for me to partake of studies from a very basic vantage point—that of utilizing karmatrons at all! This reality could have had other particles as a fundamental aspect of karma—not this one. Yes, and I have found that one fundamental difference is _especially _fascinating."

All this time, the mutie with head sawed open just gave that blank sort of stare. The eyes maybe seemed to follow Dr. Nova a little bit. But if not those miscolored eyes did not follow, those bluish ears could maybe not understood to do the same. Who is to tell? Was there, in fact, a slight flickering of the dials, a slight variation in the brainwave patterns? That failed to matter. The wild-haired scientist continued.

"What _is _the difference? The difference is, the karmatronics of this reality are a great deal more predictable at times than in my previous world_—especially _considering the wandering actions of the lost princess and her party of three!" he declared. He strode over to a computer monitor wired to those machines—the machines wired to the open head… "Now we shall determine the location of the lost princess in pursuit of the karma-manipulating artifact."

He went madly to work. All of that which he was typing made for digital signals, signals shunted to the mutie's brain—the brain being used as a very powerful co-processor. All kinds of things appeared on the screen. Those would be any series of equations and items, reams of calculations that would have taken years to do by hand. Bu thanks to the usage of a living brain as a central processing unit, it would be done all the more faster. Not that Dr. Nova saw it, but the mutie with the sawed-open head shed a tear from the right eye. The mutie's brain was being used for something very bad, and something worse was going to happen.


	10. Chapter 10

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 10

The sleek cyborg huntress in synthetic leather outfit was a bored huntress. Arms crossed, she leaned against the back of the wooden chair. This boredom came about from not being able to _do _anything fast and exciting for a while—and not going anywhere any time soon. It was also _boredom_ being heated by this passive waiting for _Padraig to finally die. _

Padraig was still seated over there across the room of this abandoned place. He was _still _sitting with his head slumped—a mutilated, injured head that was bleeding again. Worse was how he would not shut up. It would become easier if the tall man in the green business suit just went to sleep somehow, hopefully forever. The longer they stayed here, the longer it would take to reach that artifact that Princess Kyrie was so fond of seeking out.

"_Hee-hee-hee…!_" giggled the dying man. "_I like that ceiling. Hard shines are fronting the darkened greenery, too. It is so solid and cozy inside that other side. The breeze blows through and out from machines. Listen to the voice of generations gone and coming. It's the truth surrounding lies… Hee-hee-hee! How's the flavor in the breeze? It'll taste like cinnamon!_"

Only that sort of nonsense could come from that sort of person. It took someone with a blow to the head to even dare to talk that way. Gally had the notion that maybe Padraig thought it made sense. To other people, though, it made less than decent sense at this moment. Why talk about spices when nearing death?

Gally turned her head to the right to look at the princess. Princess Kyrie was sitting pert and primly. Knees together, hands placed lightly upon thighs, her back was straight and her eyes were wide open—as if it was possible to see the words as well as hear them. Such was that pose of hers when listening with intensity, probably a pose trained into her when a child.

Thought Gally, _What was the use in listening to such foolishness? _ The rants of somebody not too far from death were just that: chaotic statements from a mind falling into the night. Then again, what was the use of any of this? Gally wondered if she ought to just stand up and walk out on this pathetic mess. The princess could fend for herself eventually—especially with that energy manipulation capability of hers—so long as her abilities were not used to the point of overheating her body. As for Padraig, he was as good as dead…_eventually. _All that the cyborg huntress had to do was stand up and walk out of that door over there. Out there would be the vast wastelands and scattered, fortified settlements of humans, fallen cities and abandoned anomalies like this research facility. And all the more likely, some of those research facilities could have the way back to her reality.

Just perhaps, there were places with ways that could get her back out of this wrong-headed alternate reality and back to where things made more sense. The princess sometimes mentioned how the fabric of this universe was thin in places. Maybe one of those places was thin enough to walk through, maybe the way back home.

Even then, there was no way in Hell that the way to escape this world would be the way back to _her _world, her reality. How many other worlds? Gally had no way of knowing. There was also no telling if she would accidentally step into another world where the rules of physics and reality were so crazy and wrong that it could not even support life as she knew it. Just because there were other worlds did not mean that any person from anyplace could actually live in them.

"_Hee-hee-hee…!_" giggled Padraig. "_There are other worlds._" he said, cutting into Gally's train of thought. Yes, it really was as if he had actually cut midway _into _her thoughts—literally so. With his one still-working eyeball, Padraig rolled it forwards to look at Gally. "Won't be too far off from now. That hottie in the dark leather skirt really knows how to cut out a taste of the future. You will _know._" And he kept with his one good eye, staring at Gally.

Not only that, the one eye seemed to look _into _her—making her feel especially uncomfortable. Gally's body was made of shaped metal parts—a body of metal. Therefore, she really had no compunctions about being unclothed. But _somehow, _that eye made Gally _feel _naked and exposed… No, it was worse than being merely physically naked. That eye could see _into her. _She suddenly wanted to dash across the room to blast one of her fists into that eye-socket.

Then Gally began to hear things. They were all kinds of sounds. It included running sounds, mixed in with shuffling sounds. Giggling came in, a not-so-nice kind of giggling. _Something is coming, _went a thought. Now the party of three was no longer alone in this research facility.

_Click-clack…! _Beyond the door into this room, there was the sound of steel and glass doors opening up. That would be the front entranceway. And whatever it was that came into this building made no attempt in sneaking right on in. No, the bastards just made all the noise they wanted—heavy sounds of rapid shuffling, sloppy breathing and jostling bodies. There was the idea that those bodies were irregular ones, misshapen physiques. They could be nothing but muties.

Came a man's voice from the outside, "We know you're in here! Don't make us come in after you! There ain't any way that you're _not _here! We've got a whole gang of gray-boys, cyborgs, rejects, freaks, shufflers, bobblers, demp-pempers, and all kinds of shit out here! We're gonna get your asses! So come out of hiding and into our hands…or there'll be all kinds of red-colored trouble. You hear?"

Then added another voice, a similar male one. "Yeah! Stop hiding. It's over. We got a guy on our side who found out where you were going even before you could get there. He's got fancy machines and a great big computerThat's right! He's using machines of _sinse._"

Yet another voice added to the words of the previous statement. This voice actually sounded more coherent than tht of the other two. "In fact, some of us have been following you for the _longest time! _Now that we know were you were going before you get there, how about you just making things easier on everybody! Loddy-doddy, every-body! Give up and we'll _gently_ escort the princess back on to her great big comfy house on top of that chopped and flatted mountain. If not… _Heh-heh, _maybe we'll have a little fun with her tight little ass along the way."

Gally looked quickly around. Across from her, the princess sat passively and looked worried. Padraig giggled quietly, his one good eye staring. Things in this room were very still and quiet. Then the action started.

_Thwack-k-k! _The doorway to this room burst open with a six-foot, massive man in metal armor shoulder-ramming his way in—a man that was just about as huge as he was wide. In fact, sideways was probably the only way that he could fit through the doors. His momentum carried him several steps into this room, huge steps from a massive figure. It was a physical presence that seemed to fill half the room.

"Oops, we lied!" boomed the gargantuan figure. "We're here to cause trouble anyway! So how about it, Princess Kyrie? You come with me. Then we go take a ride back to the palace for you to get comfortable while I get my reward… _our _reward."

"Such is an absolutely unacceptable proposition!" shouted Princess Kyrie. "I shall _not _return to that home of darkness and torturous decadence. The palace is far too steeped in corruption to rule this world. I shall not be until the Golden Hope is secured again!"

The hall outside this room became suddenly crammed full of jostling, malformed beings. They grunted and squealed. Some of them made more or less human noises. Then there were those that were never human in the first place. Even then, there were glimpses of more that had off-color skin or not even skin. They wanted to get into this room, and they wanted to play.

"I'm still in the game!" yelled Padraig, rushing to stand. Even with one eye looking in a totally different direction, his still-good eye looked ahead. "Come on, ye heavy fool in armor! I'll take ye at battle." He reached for his bandolier and drew out the left-hand and right-hand blades. Of course, the third blade was broken in its scabbard and was never drawn—would never be drawn again. "If this is how the party of three ends, then I'll make the best o' things!" He swung the left-hand blade—a flash of that infinitely sharp blade. Even while he attacked, one perfectly clear thought ran through his brain-damaged mind, _cannot win forever._

The left-hand blade flashed, but it flashed nowhere near its intended victim. Padraig had missed. He only had one good eye, after all. And his brain was pretty much done in. He looked around as if hearing something else that was not in this room. He was hearing _something…_and was oblivious to the fight that he had just entered. Princess Kyrie tried shouting something at him to try and get him out of the way as so Gally could attack.

Yet it was far too late. The gigantic beast of a man in powered armor raised a huge metal fist the size of several heads together—a metal wrecking ball of a fist at the end of an arm as thick as a part of construction machinery. When that wrecking-ball of a metal fist slammed through the air, to _strike_, Padraig was blasted backwards with a sound like _sha-bwack. _He _slammed _into into the wall at one end of the room, _smacking _the back wall and falling dead.

For just a moment, things stopped for Princess Kyrie. It was not just because Padraig was undoubtedly dead. It was because in _that _moment, the party of three was now _broken_. It took a minimum of _three _to establish and maintain a party. Now they were three no more. There was just Gally to be a companion.

While the gigantic figure in the strange powered armor stood leering at the wrecked man across the room, the cyborg huntress made a rapid-fire series of steps forward. There was a dark streak as she leapt with one leg forward. The leap ended with a sound of obliterated metal and too-loud burst of noise as Gally's jumping side-kick made her go blasting _through _the enemy's powered armor.

The man in the powered suit looked confused for a second. He tried to look down to see what had just happened to him. Trouble was, he could not even see because the armor was just far too bulky. But if he _could _have seen the damage to himself, he would have been able to see _through _it. There was now a hole through his armor and body—a hole just about the size of a metal-bodied cyborg-girl. The top of the hole gushed blood. He tried to say something… Yet the man was dead before he could, his head slumped, only the rigidity of the powered armor holding him up.

Sounds of muties came from the open door, more of them out in the hallway. "_Orp-orp, donglehump!_" cheered something that looked vaguely human, followed by squeals and grunts … There were plenty of sounds because there were plenty of the ugly bastards piling on into here. An awful lot of them were bustling and hustling in—all kinds of them. First there were several dozen. This grew into at least sixty of them, too many of them to fit into this room. They just scrambled, hobbled and galloped around that dead man in the powered armor.

And they were coming right at the princess. "_Ga-a-ally-y-y!_" cried the princess in seeing a hoard of grotesque, malformed and miscolored creatures coming at her. This was the first time in a very long time in which enemies came directly at her. Almost all times before, her dealings with muties were done at a distance. Close-up in-fighting was usually a task allocated to Gally and Padraig. Padraig was a done deal, of course.

Over where Gally was, fighting in a corner, she may have heard Kyrie's scream. Now, the definition of the word _heard—_past tense of _hear, _the infinitive being _to hear_—is that of vibrating air molecules (known as sound) being successfully interacted with by a auditory sensory organ and the successful processing of such nerve signals as a result. True, the analog auditory inputs that served for her ears did take in the high sound of a certain girl screaming. Yet there was no real sign that the brain to receive the signals actually comprehended that signal. Gally's brain was far too preoccupied with fighting to heed the cry of the princess—the brain too busy putting the body to work in obliterating the grotesque and malformed beings that seemed to _want _to die, coming over here in groups and waves.

And there was no end to the mutie distractions for Gally's mind, it seemed. Likewise, there was no end to the burning joy that Gally was feeling in _crushing _and _destroying _the enemies—fighting the monsters, fighting the monsters, _fighting the monsters…!_ For every lashing blur of her machine-fast legs, at least two deformed bodies were obliterated. Her elbows and hands also went into this destructive wet work, arcing and striking to explode heads everywhere—every-damned-where. There were so many muties that every one of Gally's strikes did some kind of murderous, blood-and-guts damage.

It was very soon getting to the point that the muties were slipping on the spilled blood, the spattered guts, and the chunks of brains on the floor. That made things all the more better: They were unable to move too far as Gally simply ducked down to lift up smaller muties and rip off an occasional limb to use for a bludgeon—or a short spear. Sharpened bone-ends stuck out the ends of limb-stumps… Oh, this was joy.

But it was not joy for Princess Kyrie. Before her mind and fingers could move in gestures to summon energy, too many scaly hands grabbed her legs, distracting her. More hands grabbed her wrists. Some more little ugly bastards in dirty red coveralls went for her long-coat. The princess was unable to move—making her shriek in sudden fear. This was the end of it, then. In closing her eyes, the princess hoped that when they killed her, they would do it quickly. Then all of this would be over without too much pain.

Shouted a male voice, "_Get 'er over here!_" A pause, then the male voice said, "_Opp-opple-port, elkrik!_" The accent was off, but it was certainly the sound of that gibberish spoken by the more intelligent muties. That gibberish was a sort of language after all. And if a person could use language with these muties, then they could be controlled—which they were. "No, not _that _one, you numb-headed blood-machine rejects! The one with moonlight-colored hair! _Nesielke-porleporple mobob!_ Yeah, like that!"

Those rough, hot hands lifted her off of her feet. Gnarled, malformed hands and paws and claws grabbed her ankles and waist. More hands went to her back. Some of those hands were getting to be _especially _personal—hands touching her where shorts left thighs bare, along with hands going under her buttocks, grabbing her arms as well, of course. Fingers pushed through her hair to also grab her by the back of the neck. The indignity of such actions was enough to make her scream and struggle with the modest amount of strength in the synthetic muscle tissue of her body. Kyrie's synthetic flesh-type body was not equal to the electromechanical strength of Gally's cyborg-huntress body, but it was quite strong. Kyrie actually managed to tear off a few hands and, with some effort, broke the necks of some muties.

Nevertheless, the man in the crowd of muties was succeeding in directing the muties to doing the deed. He chuckled darkly amidst the mad chaos of bustling mutie bodies filling one room. The prize of the moment was being delivered in all of her petite screaming glory—pale and slender body struggling, her head of pale blonde hair with fluttering lengths everywhere.

Damn, the princess was even more beautiful in person. With all of those hands touching her up, he felt himself getting to be a tad bit randy. But if he so much as dared begin satisfy any of those urges, he would likely end up like what was going to happen to those old fogies, Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck. Princess Dahlia would likely _not _appreciate her sister being groped and molested by hired hands.

…

2

…

After this motley crew of muties and armored humans took the pretty princess outside, some of the the muties eventually began to go into spasms. Those were the unclean muties that actually touched the clean, smooth body of the beautiful princess. Now they were suffering. Their eyes rolled back in their heads, their teeth chattering, and they fell to the hard ground. Apparently, touching the princess was far too much for them—the creatures of darkness. If they were sick and unable to work, then they were useless.

The man in red business clothes drew a thick-looking sort of pistol and shot the nine muties that actually the gir. Each of those muties received a shiny brass bullet apiece—delivered by way of compressed gasses and bursting out of rifled tubing, impacting and penetrating skulls to make brains go splashing out of the back.

Seeing the muties killed by a human was only worth some satisfaction to Princess Kyrie. Her party was _broken_. And in a party, if the party was broken, then all would fall eventually. Padraig's body was no doubt being ripped apart at this very moment. This while Gally continued to fight in close quarters with what now looked to be _hundreds _of muties. Even while Princess Kyrie herself was locked into the back of the huge truck, there was still her able to take in the sight of too many muties lining up to pile into the research building. Gally would have hundreds of distractions to deal with while Kyrie was here being taken away.

"_Haw, haw, haw…!_" laughed one of the big men forcing the princess up the ramp and into the back trailer portion of this huge truck—a huge sort of person in a big red business suit doing the pushing. He was pushing and holding...and was still holding her. Yes, the big man _wanted _the princess to see what was in store for her ally. "That's right, kiddo! Look at that! Take a nice long gander at what's gonna happen to your sexy little girlfriend back there. The little cyber-bitch has got herself an electromechanical body, but not even that can go up against six hundred muties—or six hundred of anything!"

Kyrie looked wide-eyed at the big man. It was not her intention to reveal any sort of weakness or looks of failure to any of her enemies. Yet in this case, it could not be helped. There easily were over _six hundred_ muties all assembled in front of that building. There were rows and clusters and groups of malformed beings and creatures with grotesque skin-tones usually found on rotten corpses—creatures and entities so biologically compromised that did not even look as if they ought to be alive at all. They _were _alive. And they _were _going to all keep going into that building.

No way could anyone or anything stand up to that many muties alone. For all was known, just maybe Gally was being beaten into submission at this moment. If so, then there would be no one left to rely upon. Kyrie's big eyes went to the sight at that door,

The big man in big red business suit spoke up again. "_Wa-hey-y-y!_ Don't get any ideas into that pretty little royal head of yours! I can't read minds like some people, but I can see when a girl is scheming! Yeah, don't I know it… Nothing personal, ya understand."

"Stop it, please," asked Kyrie. "You fail to understand the importance of what is coming to pass. I was to seek out that which would save this land… It was the artifact that would bring about hope…and goodness… This world is dying. All the time, there are ever more muties. This goes while there are fewer and fewer people. Can we continue to exist in this way, forever driving back the mutie hoardes of the wastelands? Only the Golden Hope can save us all now."

"What the Hell…!" exclaimed the man in the red suit. "Look, princess. I ain't totally ignorant of the Golden Hope—the particular item of which you so happen to speak. But I gotta do what I'm told. If not, then I'm gonna end up like two elderly gentlemen who used to serve as part of the king's right hand in the land… Heh, that rhymes. Anyways, we gotta go—artifact or none." He looked over at the research building and that steady crowd going in there, all of those ugly creatures. A far-away sort of look came to his face when he said, "There ain't any sort of hope anymore, anyway."

"Oh, yet _there is! There is!_" exclaimed Princess Kyrie, hoping that the lost look on the man's face was a hint of him changing opinion and being swayable. "The Golden Hope is capable of brightening the people and reinvigorating all of that which is good and proper. The muties shall flee in terror away from the inhabited territories of people. Then the teams of scientists, researchers, factories and laboratories shall restore the kingdom to its proper glory. We would not have to suffer any more."

The man angrily shook his head. "What the fuck kind of shit is that! Nothin' gonna fix this world, ya hear? This world is deader than dead, the whole…fucking…_world. _Now you're tellin' me that some kinda shiny bauble or pretty thing is gonna make everything fine? How? By us just starin' at it? No way, toots. That ain't gonna happen." One hand still on the princess's handcuffed wrists, he took her over to one side of the trailer. There, he gave a double slap to the side of the truck—the vibration of his fist resonating throughout the vehicle. Then he shouted upwards, "_Yo! Let's go-o-o!_"

On that signal, five more men in red suits came out from the sides of this truck. They were out of sight all of this time. But here they were now. Truth was, they were just _waiting _for the princess to try and make a run for it. The odd pistols they were armed with implied what would have happened to Kyrie if there was an attempt at escape. Namely, they would shoot her—knowing full well that no amount of shooting would kill her. Not kill her _permanently_, at least. The nanobots within her would simply repair her body and brain.

But in the meanwhile, her body would be useless. Kyrie once knew what it was like to experience the death of her body. It was something that the princess did not ever wish to happen again, that prolonged nightmare period in which nightmarish hallucinations combined with the claustrophobia of not being able to actually move, see, hear or touch. At the least, the last time that happened, there were some friends nearby to watch over her while in that state. Now there were none. There was no one left to stand against the darkening insanity. The huge engine of this truck made thick rumbling sounds when it started up …


	11. Chapter 11

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 11

They closed up the loading doors, making everything black-dark. Kyrie nearly lost her balance, everything blanked out. At least there was the feeling of the floor beneath her feet. Then one light flared into existence—just one light. It glared down upon the one chair in here.

There was just that seat for Princess Kyrie to sit upon for the duration of the long ride back to the capitol city. It was a square, sharp-edged sort of chair that looked to be cast from one block of metal, with hard angles everywhere and solid rectangular armrests. There were no cushions anywhere on the thing—just hard cold flatness. Once they stripped away her long-coat, it was into this seat that Kyrie was made to sit.

Once placed there, Kyrie gave out a gasp of surprise when some quick things happened. Thick red-alloy shackles _slammed _around her ankles. More shackles _clanked _over her wrists—holding to the armrests. The red metal of the shackles was unusually cold, too cold against her skin and making for a chill that somehow pervaded the insides of her synthetic body.

All the while, that one solitary light shone down upon her as a stage-klieg would glare down upon an actress. Kyrie wriggled in the too-cold seat but could do little against the chill. This was going to be the way things were until they reached the capital city. Kyrie was unsure if it was tolerable…

Meanwhile, the guards in red suits seemed to enjoy her discomfort. Even while they were shrouded in the darkness beyond the spotlight, Kyrie could feel their eyes going over her body. They were staring at how the tops of her calves were hugged by her boots, also how her shorts exposed thighs to nearly the buttocks. Those staring eyes moved on up to look at how her top exposed the smooth lean flatness of her abdomen, the material clinging to her breasts. Of course, that was why they had removed her long-coat before making her sit, the excuse being that the princess could be _maybe concealing something dangerous. _

So hard, everything was just so hard and unyielding, especially with this vehicle jostling so in riding to the capital city. Though there were no windows at all for this truck, the princess would know that they approached the capital city in that there would be a great deal of bumpiness to be had in traversing a broken-up road, then there would be a period of smooth riding diagonally upwards. That was because the capital city was at a leveled-off mountaintop.

A hard mountain, a hard chair, the hardness of those who captured her… Everything was far too hard. Or just perhaps it was _all _too hard to have even been started. The princess bowed her head and clenched shut those large, jewel-like green eyes of hers. The princess did _not _wish for her captors to see her cry. They would _not… _Her synthetic body simulated many functions of an actual human one—including the shedding of tears. Even while they ogled her body so closely, the princess hoped they would not see the two tears that raced down both cheeks simultaneously to drop wet and warm onto her arms just in front of where they were chained at the wrists.

_It took but a handful of time, and I have failed, _went her thoughts. _I have failed my companions. I have also failed myself. All is lost… _Her memory produced glimpses back to the research building and how there were _hundreds _of muties lining up to get in there and fight Gally. Padraig was dead, certainly. Yet there was still a trace of hope for Gally. _Gally was left behind, _thought the princess. _Gally still had hope enough and was alive, but I left her…_

In crying, with thoughts of Gally, a sort of hot heaviness closed over the princess' head, a kind of heaviness brought about by the chill of the red-metal cuffs. This was far and away from being an appropriate time to sleep. But now came an intense and heavy sort of stupor. The princess gave a quick shake of her head, trying to shake off the sudden drowsiness. For a moment, the princess suspected that someone may have drugged her somehow. When one is royalty, poisons were but one selection of tools among assassins' wares. Yet no one served her anything. Even so, any offers would be refused.

Refusal was what the princess was trying to do now with this…_drowsiness closing over her head. Her desire to remain awake was compounded with that feeling of failure. There was likely a good reason as to why there was failure in obtaining the Golden Hope—be it lack of willpower or fighting skill. Now the soft, tempting dark pillow of sleep closed over her as the lulling hum of truck tires on hard land added to the soothing smoothness. _

_And when the princess fell into a dream, things became confused and dark. There were impressions and glimpses of terrible, malformed things. Glimpses of creatures with vibrating heads passed through, shadowy and dark-red rooms in halls of metal. The short, rot-skinned humanoids in coveralls began making noises. They were short man-looking things with six fingers on each of their big nasty hands. Chortles and grunts sounded out as they did their great dark works. Mechanical rhythmic sounds resonated beyond metal walls in industrial rooms of strange machines. _

_They were doing something with those machines of theirs. Whatever it was, it was not immediately identifiable. Whatever it was that they were doing with those machines was not at all good. Those machines were powered with blood—the blood flowing thick and warm through pipes set in floors and ceilings while the dark creatures with vibrating heads used their six-fingered hands in rhythmically pulling levers and turning certain wheels in certain measured directions. _

_Something crawled along the ceiling, something with six arms and what could have been a human torso. But there was no way in Hell that the thing was human—even if it ever had been. Its six arms pulled it along the bars as rusty little parts attached to its head swiveled about. It knew that someone was here—someone that did not belong. _

"_Elkric, chomp-pomple!" snarled the thing with six arms—the sound coming from those little rusty metal parts in its head—little metal parts clicking, some of the parts turning like little radar dishes, some kinds of radio antennae. At this signal, some of the six-fingered man-things in red coveralls did some things with a strange machine in the corner. Fiery and powerful sounds vibrated the walls and slammed everything into darkness._

…

_And then Kyrie was…_slammed back into reality. "What-ever could it be!" came her shout as loud brightness blared in from the left. Things were getting to be loud and terrible. Though the electronics of her artificial eyes were well-made, they still took as much time as real eyes to adjust to sudden changes in light—if not taking a bit longer. Her sleep-addled brain also took precious seconds in trying to adjust to all of this noise and light.

"Up and at 'em, princess!" declared a man's voice in the glaring light. Eyes clearing, the princess saw that it was one of those large figures in red business suits. "We can't have you sleeping through your very own _homecoming!_"

The red-metal shackles snapped away and off of her ankles, then off of her wrists. Still, there was a lingering feeling of weakness and coldness inside of her, as if it would take some time for her to warm again. There was something about the red metal of the shackles that drained heat in such a way that it seemed to take some from inside of her—leaving a deep chill. Feeling weak, the princess was unable to resist as huge hands wrapped around her upper arms near the shoulders to lift her into a standing position.

"Listen carefully, toots, 'cause I ain't gonna say it again," said that man in the red suit as he put on a Fedora-styled hat. "We're gonna ride the lift up to the roof of this truck, see. And when we do, you're gonna stand there, looking healthy and alive." He grinned, his big round face becoming a big broader. "They miss you! And if you don't act like you wanna be back in town and try to make a run for it, we're gonna start hurtin' people. We're gonna shoot anybody and everybody that _saw _you try to run away. That's right—every-fucking-body! No witnesses. Can ya dig it? Then we're gonna shoot ya in the ass so ya can't run too far. And don't think we'd miss, either! We're good at shootin' people."

_They would do that…? _Kyrie knew better than to ask that. Yes, thugs hired by her sister would certainly do that sort of thing. A numbed and shocked nod of her head, strands of her pale hair draping over her face, the princess agreed. Besides, it was not as if there was any more reason to run. There was no way to escape the capital city. There was nothing out there to which the princess could run. There was _nothing _now—nothing but this forced welcome back to the capital city.

"Yeah, that's good," said the man in the red suit. "_And lower that fuckin' light! The girl's up already!_" he shouted to his cohorts elsewhere. The bright light cut low while a large square section of the truck's ceiling began to whirr its way down to floor level—moving on metal tracks set in the wall. It was some kind of modified cargo elevator, now to be used as a sort of platform to raise the princess up above and in sight of all the people.

"I said, look happy!" shouted this man in the red business suit. "They've been waiting for you to come back." He smiled. "Like this!" He gave her a shake. "You hear me?"

Any other time before this, and such treatment would at least have been met with an indignant slap from Princess Kyrie, a slap with enough synthetic strength behind it to break a human neck if unconstrained. But that was before her party was broken and her confidence broken with it. _Kyrie _was broken, broken inside—her will to resist gone.

Sadness in her heart, Kyrie managed a weak and shaky smile. It was because no one else had to be hurt. At least Kyrie could try…

"That's what I mean, doll-girl! Keep it up, 'cause we're going up!" said the man in the red business suit. He began walking Kyrie towards the vehicle's cargo elevator. That whirring noise then began to lift them up and towards the large square of orange-red overhead—the orange-red of sunlight glowing down from the sky and into this truck.

_My people, _thought Princess Kyrie as the elevator neared the top of the truck. _They will know that I have failed them. _More tears threatened to come. _Do not cry, _thought the princess to herself. _They need someone to be happy for them. They need a reason to live on with some kind of happiness and hope—even if I have failed. _

…

When the elevator finally reached the top of the truck, it made for a view of the residential city that surrounded the palace itself. It was the street—a street sided by many two-story houses and store-front businesses, sidewalks at the sides. On those sidewalks were the people of the capital city, all of them humans and with the occasional metal-bodied cyborg. All the hard-working men and women dressed in traditional coveralls and work-shirts, work-shoes on their feet. The children were dressed in shorts and buttoned shirts, sneakers for footwear. They stared at the parade of trucks coming along their street. Every city block, a man in a business suit stood at the corner as if to represent himself as leadership of his particular part of the city, as if to say, _I help run this town, and we do things right._

Everyone turned out for this event. More exactly, all the townspeople of this mountain-top capital city were _commanded _to turn out for this event even if their houses and apartments were not along the parade route. Those along the route were standing out front and facing this parade of trucks that drove by.

Very calm eyes stared at the princess atop the truck, the eyes of the people. Though this was a parade of sorts, no one cheered. No one waved. They knew that this was a very serious event. And Princess Kyrie could feel all of that attention. Unlike the greedy and perverted eyes that stared at her during the truck ride, these were eyes of those who were hungry for something else. These people were hungry for _hope._

Even if the capital city's official newspapers and radio broadcasts were tightly censored and controlled, there were always verbal conversations told about how there was the other princess out in the land and looking for something that would save everyone. It was also talk of her party of companions: Gally the Huntress, and Padraig of the Green. No matter how hard things were in the capitol city, there was that glimmer of happiness and hope that those three would come back and make everything good again. But now, the princess had returned…without her party.

Those eyes looked at Princess Kyrie—standing without her legendary companions. Gally was not there, the lithe and beautiful cyborg-girl with midnight-colored eyes and dressed in a close-fitting black bodysuit. There was no Padraig of the Green either, the man in noble green business clothes and a bandolier of three blades across his chest. No, none of the three stood with Kyrie.

What stood there instead was one of those palace-hired thugs. Standing tall over Princess Kyrie, his hands gripped her in a way that did not look polite in any sort of way. And he smiled. It was that kind of smile that meant, _We win. And you'd better believe we always get what we want._

Princess Kyrie herself had smiling lips and looked at the people, though her eyes did not reflect that smile. Her large green stare reflected the same feelings felt by her people. It was a shared feeling of sadness and regrets. Those regrets came out of having some kind of hope, some kind of expectation that things were going to get better. It was not so and not to happen after all. And just maybe, it was foolish to think there was going to be some kind of better future. This _was _the future—one in which power was vested in those who still held the reins of control from the king that was dead and gone.

Hope was gone. Princess Kyrie had returned, but her quest was gone. _I am sorry, _thought Princess Kyrie. As her eyes looked at the downtrodden and tired people standing along the sidewalks, there were thoughts of deepest regrets going through her mind. _I am sorry to you all. I am just so sorry…_

…

2.

…

As for the palace itself, it seemed to loom ever so larger as they approached it. It truly was a palace worthy of a thousand Western fairy tales—the structure itself as large as a small mountain, fifty stories tall and at least five miles wide. All kinds of small towers poked upwards among places at the top floors. Red silken banners with divot ends fluttered in the breeze against the sickly sky of orange-red. More banners draped down at places left and right, flowing downward from windows.

This saddened Princess Kyrie even more, a freshet of disappointment making for a twinge of inner pain. But that burst of misery was just a drop in the ocean of suffering being felt by her. What more could go wrong? Once upon a time, all of the banners were of shimmering gold-colored silk—the color of the sun—when the king reigned over the land in the glorious days before the War. And gold still was the color of royalty—until now. Her sister must have made that change. Then what other changes were in place?

Princess Kyrie was soon to find out. This parade of trucks motored on up to the grand metal-brick wall that surrounded the palace—a wall tall enough to serve as a barrier for a small star ship. The gigantic gates of the wall were closed, but a platoon of metal-bodied palace guards were at the ready to begin opening the structure. Though the cyborgs were all easily nine feet tall and of gigantic metal bodies, the gargantuan metal-brick wall made them seem as small as insects.

"_The other princess has returned!_" came a shouted declaration from one of the large palace guards. A thick sound of clacking metal came about when he raised his right motorized arm. "_Prepare… to open!_" he commanded.

He was referring to the opening of the gates. Behind him, two squads of palace guards turned and began moving into position. Four guards were positioned at the left side. Four more were at the right. Large electromechanical hands went to thick slots at the base of the gigantic gate as huge armored feet fit into titanium tracks to prevent slipping. They leaned forward and had their massive armored backs angled. Yet they did not move yet.

"_Open_…_gate!_" commanded the palace guard, bringing down his right arm—a clacking sound of cyborg armor. Now the palace guards began actually opening the thing, two teams of eight huge cyborgs shoving the halves of the massive metal gate much larger than themselves.

And they were doing it, even if it was slow. Their shoving was making for the gargantuan gate opening up ever so slowly. It sounded like a minor earthquake as powered metal rollers within the wall bore the weight of the building-sized gate being moved. The rollers of the gate were motorized and could have been opened automatically by way of a thick-looking industrial control panel—from up in a gatehouse. But for this moment, this _special _moment, ceremony dictated that the cyborgs of the palace guard open the gate for the return of once-lost royalty.

Princess Kyrie gave a start when a massive metallic sound shook the air. That was the sound made by the two parts of the gate met the ends of their tracks. Now that the gateway was open, the paved road to the palace itself was freed and accessible. It was a paved road that went through a well-cultivated forest.

Yes, there was a real forest of real trees planted right into the cultivated and flattened mountain soil. Well, maybe the trees were genetically engineered by the scientists and masters of long ago, trees with some reptilian-animal DNA to make them hardier and capable of surviving at this altitude—the trees all the more tougher in that sometimes they grew mouths with which to eat small animals. It was still a forest, surrounded by a wall, the forest and wall surrounding the palace itself.

It was through this road that the parade of trucks drove through. Still in the grip of the man in the red business suit, Princess Kyrie stared into the depths of that forest which seemed darker and more forbidding than remembered. It could also have been that her sister made additional, darker changes to the forest. When something hairy and manlike made its shadowy way through some trees, that idea was reaffirmed. Things were certainly different.

…

It truly was a sinister forest. Kyrie stared into the dark depths of it as they drove through. Dark, shadowy things ran past and fluttered between tree trunks. Some of those things looked vaguely human. Yet things were…_wrong _with them. It was certainly a change from when her father's will dominated the palace grounds and the land around it. Back then, the forest was brightly lit and beautiful. But eventually, the trucks made it through this forest.

_I refuse to let them see me broken, _thought Kyrie as the parade of trucks came to the tall doors of the palace. This close up, a person could try and look straight up and still not be able to see the top of the structure short of trying to take steps back. If it seemed mountainously huge from a distance, it seemed to go upwards and outwards forever from here. And of course the palace seemed much larger than remembered, as did the entrance doors—doors large enough to allow even the trucks to go in.

Of course the trucks did not enter the palace. They simply pulled up to the double doors, and the cargo elevator holding up Kyrie lowered itself down and into the vehicle—Kyrie stepping out and being hastened towards the doors. Doormen in ancient garb, white gloves and feathers in their caps opened the double doors. The floppy clothes and white gloves actually covered over the metal of their metal-type bodies. It actually took a cyborg's strength to open the palace doors, as it did with the main gates a mile back. Now the way into the palace was open, a view of a theater-sized reception room. They walked into that huge indoor area, the palace doors closing behind.

…

Inside the palace itself, it took a good five minutes to travel across the long red carpet of the reception hall. Far left and far right were more silken draped banners of that same red color—all of them put in place of banners that were once a bright and merry golden color. Where past statues of past kings stood near the walls, there were now just empty pedestals. Even the pedestal of their father's memorial statue was gone.

Finally at the end of the reception hall, Kyrie was taken into an elevator that was left of the marble staircase upwards. This was not just a generic, plastic-and-metal setup found most everywhere else. _This _elevator was made for people of luxury. Velvet carpeting made for the flooring, cushioned chairs along the left and right sides. There was no sound of motors from beyond the insulated wood-paneled walls.

Still, there was a slight and noticeable acceleration of going upwards. Thought Princess Kyrie again to herself, _My sister shall not see me afraid and broken, shall not see my failure! _So thinking, Kyrie gave an angry look to the man in the red suit who was grasping her by her right arm near the shoulder. "Such is not how one treats royalty!" insisted Kyrie.

"Whatever you say, toots!" said the man in the red suit. "No funny stuff, though. Ya don't wanna try that energy-summoning in a tight space, either. It's a lo-o-ong way to the bottom of the elevator shaft, and it'd be _how _long before your body fixes itself?" He gave the girl an angry shake before letting her go. "And if ya hurt yer brain in the process, maybe the nano-healing won't fix up yer memories and mind _exactly _as they were before…"

Of course Kyrie knew that. Nanobots could heal a brain and make it workable, but maybe in the process, things would be irretrievably lost—gaps in her mind. No, Kyrie did not want to risk her own brain for fear of losing parts of herself.

Yet Kyrie wanted to do _something _in retribution for the indignities of all this, even something dangerous. Her large green eyes were half-lidded in cool anger as they came to the top floor. Some kind of gentle chime sparkled out from the speakers of the elevator upon coming to the correct destination. Doors opened up to the throne room itself.

A person could use the word _room _and merely think of just any typically enclosed space, usually a place inside of a building. The throne room was not just a _room. _One would get a better idea of the place if one saw it more as an enclosed _auditorium _or cathedral. To the far sides were marble walls that went way up. Vaulted windows were up near the ceiling to let light go slanting in diagonally, helping to illuminate the place. But in these times of dying sunlight, a massive chandelier added to the light. Down here at floor level, a broad carpet wide enough to seat a house led the long, long way across the gleaming marble floor. Far across the space, two thrones were set to reside over it all.

Princess Dahlia was there, of course—sitting in the left-side throne, her legs crossed and her arms outstretched, hands upon the arm-rests of the throne. Of course Dahlia was in the traditional clothing of a princess in this land. It consisted of a too-short pleated skirt worn with a close-fitting silken top, an open robe worn with it. With such an abbreviated skirt, crossing her legs more revealed than hid a great deal of smooth thighs, one let exposed nearly to a hip. Her head tilted to a side to rest upon her left palm, long pale hair cascading sideways and away from her face. Princess Dahlia was nearly a perfect double for Kyrie—other than her red eyes.

Upon seeing Kyrie, Dahlia's eyes seemed to flash once, her face widening into a smile. "Dear sister! You have tarried for _so-o-o _long?" came her call to Kyrie. "Why, you _must _come closer. I shall do no less than _assist _you in doing so!" That said, Dahlia sat up straight and put out her left hand, robe-sleeved arm outstretched.

With that gesture from Dahlia, Kyrie was suddenly swooped upinto the air. Floating, Kyrie stiffened when lifted up, but knew that it was best to not resist. This once-lost princess allowed herself, limp limbed, to be magnetically levitated over to the throne. Doing this made her also seem like a ghost—legs and arms dangling, long pale hair curtaining her face while floating forwards. When this floating brought her close enough, Kyrie stared at her sister. "You may place me down now," came her words.

Dahlia did not at first, instead stood up while keeping her left arm outstretched in that gesture of levitation, keeping Kyrie in the air. Then Kyrie was magnetically floated along the steps and to the raised platform of the two thrones to stand close. Another gesture from Dahlia, and Kyrie fell out of the air—yet able to land gracefully. Her calf-length boots making slight sounds.

As soon as Kyrie stood again, Dahlia put her hands upon shoulders. "I welcome you home, sister," came Dahlia's greeting before giving her sister a kiss. And dear goodness no, it was certainly _not _a polite kiss upon the cheek. Dahlia's kiss was a full, lusty, open-mouthed lip-lock, tongue invasion and all. Her left hand went to the back of Kyrie's head and intertwined with her hair while her right hand grasped buttocks in shorts, bringing her close.

Kyrie was too stunned to do anything immediately. Her eyes went wide even while Dahlia's were closed. As Kyrie's mouth was undoubtedly occupied, there was the sound of her inhaling deeply through her pert little nose. With some effort of her artificial strength, Kyrie was able to _shove _and break out of Dahlia's grip.

This was disgusting! This was incestuous and…_wrong! _If the skin of Kyrie's face was made with blushing features, the pale flesh would have certainly reddened with embarrassment and anger. "_How could you perform such a lewd act!_" came her scream. _Thwack!_

Stunned and dizzy, Kyie was on the carpeted floor and sprawled sideways. Her hair was splayed out around her head and fanned like the wings of a fallen angel, legs and arms loose. Beautiful as it was, her splayed hair added to the dizzying haze of pain that dazzled her eyesight. Though Kyrie's body was synthetic and more viable than that of a real one, Dalia's slap was enough to kill a human. It was therefore strength enough to strike down her sister with a fierce slap.

"How could I perform such an allegedly _lewd _act, you ask?" voiced Princess Dahlia, standing over a fallen Kyrie. "Such is quite simple, sister. _I do what I choose._ Such is the draw of power. Such is _control._" Having said the word _control, _Dahlia used her magnetic capability to lift Kyrie up off of the floor. "In a fading and darkening world, control is _necessary. _It is control that you have _scorned. _Now you shall again learn the worth of control and power over the people—just as I have control over you at this moment!"

A contemptuous gesture, and Kyrie was electromagnetically tossed—much as a brat would do to a loose-limbed doll. Kyrie tumbled several times before coming to a stop to lie there upon the wide carpeting. There, Kyrie lay, not moving.

"Take her to the tower suite specifically prepared for her," commanded Princess Dahlia. "My sister is…unwell. Perhaps a time of contemplation is required for her readjustment to the ways in which we do things." As soon as that was said, a far door opened up, several bald men in white uniforms running up with a velvet-cushioned wheelchair—also prepared as if this was going to happen in the first place. Then Kyrie was put in it and carted away.


	12. Chapter 12

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 12

_If the sun seemed weak before, it was now weaker still. All of the land was cast in tones of a dying sun as disaster and slaughter visited all. It was a crimson sunset serving for a prelude to a darkness that would last forever… Screams of those being killed intermingled with the grunts and chortles of creatures that ought not exist. This was how things were ending. _

_It was a darkening and frenzied time of something terrible and insane. Something especially terrible was happening, something about the end of the world, all full of horrible creatures and gigantic cyborg-beasts finally overwhelming all the settlements, then seizing the capital city. Everyone was being killed, the screams of pain and misery filling the air, going up to the sky—the sky finally taking on a color of glowing blood. Somewhere in the dying light of the last day, Kyrie was in the chaos, running and screaming for the last of her party—for Gally. _

_But Gally was far and away. Gally was out in a sunset-colored field and fighting hundreds of enemies—fighting muties, also fighting things that were worse than muties. There were hundreds of them, and then there were thousands. Though Gally knew that the land was going down, though everything was going to be lost and broken, there was that predatory, toothy grin on her face in fighting the monsters…even if the monsters now controlled the world._

…

_Then consciousness began to…_fade in. What only seemed to be so real was not _real _now—just the aftermath of a nightmare _It was just a nightmare, nothing more than that…for now, _thought Princess Kyrie.This in mind, the girl sat up on the soft surface as ever-more awareness was coming about.

This was a bed. Looking down through bleary eyes, the princess saw that they had changed her clothes—taking her adventurous outfit of calf-boots, shorts and abbreviated top, taking her long-coat away. They must have done so while her body lay in a sleeping-and-repair phase, her body shutting down to better facilitate nanobot-based repairs. It was because of being hurled about by the other princess.

Now they had dressed her in a traditional princess outfit—at least the outfit traditional of this world. Her shorts were replaced with a short pleated silk skirt that went well up her thighs, her top consisting of a close-fitting silken bodice that clung to the lean flatness of abdomen and pert shapes of breasts. Her outfit was completed with small, high-heeled bootlets that went up to her ankles. Wearing such footwear required training and control as befitting a princess, as did wearing a skirt that could show a bit _too _much if one did not walk or sit carefully.

Now Kyrie felt like little more than a play-thing for Dahlia to dress up and manipulate—just as Dahlia manipulated and controlled the remains of the kingdom. Not only had Princess Dahlia won but had also reaffirmed her victory by throwing Kyrie into a tower room, locked away in a place where people of royalty were put out of the picture of daily affairs in the land.

Kyrie's quivering fingers wiped wet tears away from her cheeks—real tears from machine-made tear-ducts. That nightmare was no more real than the flesh of her synthetic body. It _seemed _real. But it was not. For a time, while lying unconscious, the nightmare _was _her reality.

The princess looked around. Now _this _was her reality, this well-furnished, grand palace room…and its two doors. One open door led to a marble-and-silver room for bathing. The other door was a solid, red-metal setup with bolts all along its edges. It was also locked in addition to being reinforced with a tensor field.

Kyrie was locked in, trapped in. There were six walls to this place, a hexagonally shaped room. The hexagonal shape was due to this being in a tower—one of multiple towers that poked up from the highest floors of this massive palace. Outside was one thing; being trapped inside was something else, a prison. And in the past, people put into places of this sort were forgotten.

As extravagantly furnished as it was, it nevertheless was sort of walled cage for wayward royalty. The walled cage was well-furnished with two silk-cushioned sofas, a music-playing machine, and multiple bookshelves. Both sofas were next to the tensor-fielded window and facing away from it. To the right was an armchair next the bookshelves, a desk-and-chair setup nearby.

On the bookshelves were fancy books on fashion and history. Below that were square pieces of plastic that, when inserted into the music player, played an extensive selection of refined classical music—the music from glory days of the long-ago past. Even if a princess was locked within here, that did not mean a princess stopped being a princess. Knowledge of history, music and fashion were all well-expected of such a high-ranking female member of ruling society, of _royalty_. And in that Kyrie was female, there was little expected of her to do little besides being pretty and well-cultured until a new king was born or was chosen.

Of course, that was not to be any more as the king was dead and the War obliterated civilization. It was exactly why Kyrie decided that a princess ought do more than simply sit about and be pretty. Kyrie wanted to _do _something, originally fleeing the palace, fleeing the capital city and seeking out the Golden Hope. In doing so, the princess had come into the company: Padraig and Gally.

This made her think of Gally—the sleek cyborg huntress, of dark shiny bodysuit and dark eyes, silken hair the color of midnight, able to fight against the darkness and the night. The huntress did not need to rely upon others. The huntress was able to fight enemies and muties with her legs and fists, swift and strong. The huntress was as invincible as a swift night-time wind during a hurricane: deadly and omnipresent when necessary, dashing about breeze-fast and able to strike with destructive power. Gally the huntress could never be trapped.

_I was weak, _thought Princess Kyrie, climbing off of the bed to stand up. _I was unable to utilize my energy manipulation abilities. Why must I need others?_ Her eyes looked down at herself, at the synthetic body of hers—a petite and pretty girl-woman of dollish appearance, dressed in a traditional princess outfit of skirt and silk bodice. _I am pretty…but also useless! It makes me little more than a play-thing! _

The word _useless _resonated through her mind, herself feeling _useless. _It made her immensely upset. Forgetting to walk in that careful and controlled way required of high-heeled bootlets, Kyrie took one long stride towards the window…and fell. A shriek of agitation, Kyrie pulled off the bootlets. One bootlet was _hurled _at the red-metal door that had her trapped in here. The other, that was _hurled _at the window. Of course, both the red-metal door and the tensor-reinforced window were unaffected by such petty blows as pieces of feminine footwear. The red-metal door was made of an alloy able to stop nuclear blasts, like all walls of this palace. As for the window, a tensor-energy field made it invincible to anything, so long as massive amounts of energy were supplied to the tensor-field generators set left and right, in the wall in which the window was set.

This palace was powered by massive nuclear power-generating facilities buried within this mountain, those reactors specifically designed to last for at least thirty thousand years each—at the _least_. Meaning, a person could be trapped here for at least that long. Of course, one of two things could come to pass in that amount of time. Provided that a person did not die due to starvation or thirst, thirty thousand years in one room just ought to be enough time for a person to go in either of two ways. A person could attain some kind of infinitely deep enlightenment, or sink into unreachable levels of insanity. Perhaps true was how both of those things could be one and the same.

Starvation and thirst were out for Kyrie since internal components within her body used airborne elements to synthesize nutrients in keeping her brain alive, Kyrie did not to need to eat or drink. If there was an attempt at suicide, Kyrie's body would simply shut down until the nanobots within her repaired and healed damage to the body and the brain.

Kyrie actually considered ways to kill herself if the edges of madness began to creep into her mind. Yet the princess also realized that her brain could be repaired with memories missing after a suicide attempt: some of _her mind _missing. Yes, indeed, Kyrie could be trapped here for something like forever—seeming to be forever as eye-glazing insanity sunk in.

_Click-clack _went the sound of solid metal mechanisms. Kyrie snapped herself to her feet—bare feet since her bootlets were on far opposite sides of this hexagonal room. The red-metal door was opening. That was all that mattered.

"Knock-knock, doll-girl!" came a faint male voice from the other side of the metal door. A final _clickety _sound came from the door mechanism. "_We're coming on in!_"

When the sounds stopped, someone opened the door. First, Kyrie saw one of those thugs in red business suits. Two more stepped in and flanked the door—standing left and right. But they just walked deeper into this room and pushed aside the red-metal door to make way for the real purpose of this visit. It was Princess Dahlia, striding in on her own traditional outfit of pleated skirt, silken bodice and bootlets, the open robe of royalty worn over shoulders and flowing behind her.

"A good evening, dear sister!" said Dahlia. "Though I would vastly prefer to have you remain here in contemplation of your fallacies and childishness, there is business to be done with you. It is to be…_direct _business of the physical sort." Dahlia then raised her left hand in a gesture towards Kyrie. "_You, _dear sister, have made for quite a prolonged chase through the wastelands, and we wish to know how you have survived for the duration. A certain scientist requested to ascertain the properties that allowed you that survival. And for the sake of expanding technological knowledge, I shall grant him such a request…" Dahlia turned her head to the left. "Doctor! If you will!"

In walked that wild-haired scientist, a bowl of flan in his hands. Behind him came a trio of several medical-looking men with shiny bald heads and buttoned white clothes, pushing a cart with machinery on it. They promptly began going towards Kyrie's bed and were quickly setting up all kinds of paraphernalia—wires connected to thick-looking straps. Some more were needles connected to more wires. Kyrie did not like the looks of that equipment—and did not like it at all when one of them unfolded some kind of red-metal frame and set it atop the bed.

"Good evening to _you, _Princess Kyrie!" he said cheerily, using his spoon to scoop up some of the tangy desert in his carried bowl… "_Mmmm-hmmph.! _Delicious!" When he finally stopped savoring that mouthful of stuff, he continued. Saying, "_A-a-ahh_… As you have been told, there is certain data that must be obtained—that of karmatronic balance within you. It cannot be done at a distance as even the presence of others between you and the equipment could make for false and contaminated data.

"The equipment I have obtained from this palace's research facilities is capable of taking accurate measures of karmatronic qualities within individuals. However, for maximum accuracy, it requires direct contact with the center of your body—and has been modified accordingly." He took another scoop of flan and closed his eyes for a prolonged several seconds… The man was lost in the sauce for seconds. "You must first facilitate our efforts by lying down."

"Doctor!" chided Princess Dahlia. "A mere citizen of the kingdom may notorder a _princess. _Do _not _command her!" Turning to her robeless and bare-footed sister, Dahlia said, "Sister, lie down upon the bed. The process will not be _overly _painful…"

Kyrie took a look at the equipment set up at one side of the bed—that equipment including straps and needles connected to wires, all of it connected to the vicious-looking machine on the cart. Thank you, but no! The girl suddenly made a dash right for the door, but the thugs in red business suits were already there—one of them crouching down to wrap arms around her waist.

Her legs flailing and giving throat-tearing shrieks, Kyrie put up a struggle. Her efforts were even stronger in that the synthetic tissues of her body gave her more ability to resist than someone of similar size, as petite as that size was.

But the thugs in red business suits actually had metal-type bodies hidden beneath those suits. They were also a great deal larger. Struggling against them was like a slap-fight against construction machinery. Meaning, a person was not likely to win.

They got her over to the bed and put her atop the red-metal frame. Straps went over ankles. More straps went over wrists. For good measure, a kind of collar fit around her neck and was pulled tight as so it pressed her throat, squeezing a little. One of the bald doctors turned a thick-looking dial on the machinery, and Kyrie felt a buzzing filling her body and going up to her head—making her feel…_ numb and weak, not able to move any more. It was also suddenly hard to see and hear. Everything…felt so far away. _

_Part of Kyrie wondered what they were going to do to her, but the panic and fear was lost to the feeling of being faded. Certainly true was how a needle pierced her abdomen—inside where the mobility components of her synthetic body were located. Damage signals flittered to her brain in the form of pain. Her body was being violated, but Kyrie's brain was too weak and faded to care…_

_"The karmatronic properties inherent within the subject is especially pronounced," said the far-off voice of Dr. Nova, somewhere nearby. "Note the pronounced orderliness of the wave-forms, a lengthy yet very predictable sequence. The amplitudes have deep crests and waves…"_

_Kyrie's vision hazed over with darkness for a little while. Also going was her hearing. As the warm thrumming from wires of the machine lulled her body close to a shut-down mode, Kyrie mentally struggled to remain conscious. This was important, even if the terminology was beyond her. _

_"Successively increasing two times and decreasing once," came Dr. Nova's voice. "As it just did, you see. In fact, it may simply be that the subject has some of the strongest karmatronic waveforms I have ever recorded. They are somewhat similar to a certain wayard female cyborg. Except, her brain was permeated with a substance highly conductive of reflexes and able to facilitate action…" _

…

2.

…

Outside the palace, live went on for the rest of the people in this mountain-top capital city. It was getting to be near the end of day, the city houses close together in the midst of blocky factory-buildings—all of the houses and factory-buildings surrounding the grand palace that stood up to the sky. In truth, the factory-buildings had long since shut down production a full three hours ago—giving people enough time to buy some food, clothes or whatever, hang out at drinking places and then _go somewhere indoors_. Yet the large, dark factory buildings still churned out some kind of smoke from smokestacks and with industrial lights scattered among the structures.

When clocks hit a certain time, somewhere among the various buildings and factories nearest the walls of the palace, there were certain long-wailing sirens. They actually sounded exactly like air-raid sirens of World War II. And the people knew that those sirens were exactly that sort of trouble. It was curfew time for all of the citizens of the capital city: _loddy doddy every-body!_

Trouble was, some people were spending more than a little extra time at places of public drinking and socializing. It was because they knew that Princess Kyrie was back. And now _everyone _was talking about it, everyone sitting around in living rooms, sitting around tables at pubs, lingering at the shops. They saw that Princess Kyrie was back, and a great deal of people saw her. But they saw her…_alone_.

One guy, a twentish sort of man, stepped out of a street-side pub when he heard the wailing sirens of curfew. He had on a white tee shirt beneath his leather jacket, the white shirt tucked in to blue jeans—boots on his feet. Though he had changed the rest of his outfit prior to going to the pub, the boots were the same ones he wore to work at the truck-engine repair shop. Since he got around the city on his motorcycle anyway, he may as well have worn the boots everywhere.

Good thing, he did not have any drinks of the head-warming alcoholic sort, any alcoholic sort. In fact, nobody did so this damned close to curfew time. And nobody was so damned foolish as to be out—this damned close to curfew time. But here he was. His name was Jimmy, and he was an average sort that took an above-average interest in some things some times.

Jimmy had spent some time reading some thick, novel-sized comics that an old man found from somewhere. That old man at this pub, he found the most interesting things sometimes, at least in Jimmy's opinion. The old man knew that. He was therefore saving the novel-sized comics for Jimmy's perusal.

And, _wa-hey, _they were most _certainly _interesting. A tall glass of soda-pop to his right, the book at a pub's table, and Jimmy had spent plenty of time thumbing through pages, staring at pages as the old man looked on. Jimmy had heard all the stories in keeping an ear out for news about Princess Kyrie and her party of three. But now he came to finding something that should not have existed.

In truth, those novel-sized comics were about the cyborg-huntress—about Gally. There were some differences, like how the Gally in the novel-sized comics changed bodies at some points. The girl in the pages was named _Alita, _not GallyYet the details were all there: the lithe, elegant-faced girl with raven-dark hair and big cute eyes the color of darkest night, her having the ability to fight anything of any size.

The old man said that the comics were from another place—cool and low emphasis on the words _another place_. Jimmy believed him because the old man tended to find the strangest things that really _were _too strange to come from anyplace local. Those comics could only have come from one of those other places, from some kind of other place were things were different. They were other worlds, other planets or something. But the old man said that the things he found were from some places even farther away than that—yet also very close. Even so, how could a fictitious cyborg-huntress girl actuallyexist outside of comic-sized novels?

_Other worlds, _thought Jimmy. And as the curfew sirens continued that old wailing sound, sunlight was going down and away. The darkness of night was coming. Meaning, he had to get onto his motorcycle and _get the Hell back to his apartment. _Or the muties would get at him. Yet he just _had _to have some extra time in reading those comic-sized novels.

Now he had to spend some fast time on his motorcycle. It was parked at a side of the curb—between some cars driven by low-ranking palace workers who had come around here for a good time. Those cars were long gone, and now Jimmy's motorcycle was alone, cast in long shadows as the street was illuminated with the dull red glow from the warm colors of a city sunset.

This motorcycle looked a great deal like a Harley Davidson: two thick wheels on a powerful motorized frame, rear wheel with its center bound to a thick chain that was connected to the inside of the transmission and engine, a thick motorized engine beneath the long black seat, slanted handlebars connecting to the front tire. Though it looked a great deal like a "Harley," there was no such thing as _Harley Davidson _company in this world. This bike was made by a company that called itself _Ripley Motors. _Besides, the Harley Davidson Corporation would not really be interested in building nuclear-powered motorcycles. Oh yes, this _Ripley _was most certainly nuclear powered: twin redundant microfusion pods set akimbo a thick electric engine that _ro-oared _to life with all the thick sound of anything powered by juice made from the boiled juices of long-dead dinosaurs.

As the snarling roar of Jimmy's _Ripley _drowned out the sound of the sirens, he kicked up the kickstand and twisted the accelerator. The powerful nuke-powered motor taking the signal and powered out, making the rear tire spin around—squealing. Jimmy let off the front brake and _zoomed _away with speed enough to almost make the front tire go up from the street—that maneuver being known as a _wheelie. _His apartment was just about fifteen minutes of riding away in normal traffic. With streets abandoned due to the nearness of the city-wide curfew, he would be there in about six.

Speed brought things into a different perspective. On a motorcycle, the buildings of the city become swift-passing parts of scenery. The street beneath the wheels became a gray paved blur. Jimmy zipped by occasional parked vehicles still at the sides. Right now, he was probably on the fastest motorized thing for miles around. No way could muties catch him now… Then again, some of those muties were pretty damned fast.

This guy in the leather jacket braked and slowed, then zoomed around a corner—leaning this bike so far to the left that his left kneecap nearly touched the street, such a kneecap coming within a fingers bredth of becoming shredded clean and exposed to the bone. Going along two intersections, he leaned into another right and accelerated again. The street became a blur again as he sped up. He also thought he saw something that he took for being a pile of clothes at a side of the street. But piles of clothes don't move.

Something walked out into the street, something that looked like an elderly but muscle-bound man in animal skins. Those animal skins still had its tails and claws, too—some of those skins looking as if they belonged to dogs. Jimmy speeding progress brought him closer to seeing that the guy had a green face, a mouth where a nose should have been. The mouth opened sideways as a claw-hand came out from its back, holding a skull and cocking it back for a strong throw.

Jimmy veered slightly left. His right boot went out to _thump _solidly into the chest of the creature. His impacting kick nearly unseated him, but he had done the maneuver just often enough to know to keep his leg just loose enough. As nearly off-balance as it made him, there was a glimpse-fast blur of the mutie being blasted off of its feet. A quick look back, and Jimmy saw that the mutie was sprawled in its animal skins.

Hells yes, the curfew muties were let loose—as they always were during sunset. Everyone was very occasionally alerted to the appropriate curfew times as printed in the newspapers and radio broadcasts. Everyone also knew that Princess Dahlia let those muties loose to _make sure _that _everybody _was indoors when curfew came about with the sunset. If not, there would not be the palace-hired police force to keep everyone indoors. No, a person out at sundown more had to worry about not being taken by the muties. And here he was.

One more city block, and he was at the front steps of the apartment building. It was a four-story sort of building, made with red bricks and with windows facing the street. He slowed and parked his motorcycle, kicking down the kickstand and turning off the engine. Then there was him running up the stairs and pounding on the door. Thick sounds of mechanisms meant that someone was unlocking it.

…

Upstairs and in his apartment, his girlfriend was not just angry. Oh no, she was _pissed. _Lisa was a thin, tall dark-haired sort of girl whose soft blue eyes ought not to quite belong to someone with such a fiery temper. Long jeans and close-fitting top outlined her long, lithe body—the thinness being a result of a childhood ailment—a severe bacterial infection—that affected her digestive system. And sometimes, Jimmy thought that the intestinal ailment of Lisa's childhood must have affected her brain.

"_You cock-headed fuck-head of fucking fuck!_" shrieked the thin girl in the little apartment kitchenette—which was really a partitioned off corner of the living room, a corner with a formica table and two plastic chairs designed to look like wood. One little light was on over the stove, the rest of the light coming in through the window—the light of sunset nearly into night.

Lisa's cheeks were taking on a crimson flush, her thin hands balled into hard fists. "Do you fucking realize that your _shit-for-brains sense of time nearly got you killed! I fucking begged…_almost going to my _hands and knees _just to convince the landlord to let me be there to open the door! _Did you want to die!_"

Putting his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, Jimmy stared out the closed window. By now, the wailing sirens of curfew had gone quiet. "I was doing some late reading, ya know? The old man found somethin' especially interestin'. A really big comic book. I was surprised."

"_Yeah! _Something interesting," said Lisa a bit too calmly. "You nearly found your fucking self all ripped up from the muties! _Fuck! _First Princess Kyrie comes back and failing everybody, now you go ahead and _nearly get fucked up by curfew muties!_"

And so it would probably go for some time. Jimmy would just stand here and take all the anger. Lisa would probably pick up a spices container or something and break it. In this sort of mood, she always had to break at least something. Then she'd probably cry herself to sleep and not wanting to be in the same bed as Jimmy—Jimmy sleeping on a sofa while listening to the radio. Lisa was pretty tolerant, but that tolerance only went so far. Tomorrow he would tell her about the girl named _Alita _in the novel-sized comic books and how she could not be beaten forever—just like the cyborg-huntress that accompanied Princess Kyrie.


	13. Chapter 13

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 13

Gally stood alone in a room of the dead. Her trenchcoat was off, ripped off by the muties at some point in the chaos and fighting, leaving exposed the shape of her lithe body, clad in the close-fitting outfit of synthetic leather. Of course, the in-close fighting made for much spattering of mutie life-fluids, coating her with the stuff. Thank goodness the synthetic leather outfit was resistant to fluids. Otherwise, it would have certainly been soaked through and have been a pain to clean. Bad enough as things were, her face and hair were spattered with the stuff as well.

In her left and right hands were the knives that once belonged to Padraig. This was something else that had also happened during the fighting. The cyborg-girl did not exactly remember grabbing the bandolier and taking two of the three blades, did not remember when or how. It just happened during the fighting. Now the bandolier slung very loosely across her right shoulder, blades in her hands.

Her breathing was slowed at this point since there was no need for frenzied energy. The action was over. It was over for some time now.

Oh yes, and the cyborg huntress had _made _it over. Her eyesight wandered over the scene before her in this quiet little room—made to seem smaller since there were so many corpses. The floor was lost beneath three layers of mutie bodies and several bodies of human thugs in powered suits. In some cases, there were just body partsIn another world, advertisers boasted of wall-to-wall carpeting. Right now, there was wall-to-wall death. Gally had killed them all

_Killed them all. _But what was the result? With her battle lust better sated than it had ever been before, a certain clarity of mind was coming to Gally. Fighting and fighting and _fighting_ _some more _was satisfying at some level. All the tension from prolonged boredom in traveling the wastelands, all of that was vented in a fast and amazingly prolonged amount of vicious combat. Gally's body was a machine of death, a body that only so happened to have a female shape. Machines are very good at being productive. Gally's body was very productive now—producing much death.

And much death was made as hundreds of muties were slain—tens and dozens and hundreds… Yet the fighting was done for now. Now there was nothing but corpses in this room. And, somewhere buried in the dead, there was the dead body of Padraig—from which Gally had taken the bandolier and the blades. Padraig was as dead as anything else in this room, dead and buried somewhere among the corpses.

Gally stared at what her fighting hands had taken from Padraig's corpse. Her eyes looked upon the two knives—the left kife able to cut any material object, the right one able to throw arcs of glowing plasma when charged. But why, in his last moment, did Padraig make his final attempt with the left-hand blade—a close-range weapon? The right-hand blade was capable of throwing arcs of cutting energy and never missed. Maybe Padraig _wanted _to die…just as Gally was waiting for him to do since he was being a burden to the party.

Her eyesight lost focus, the blades becoming blurred gleams. As much as she hated him, he was a good man after all. He was just doing his best. It was not his fault that he was merely human—a meat-bodied human. Not everyone could be synthetically enhanced, not having an immortal artificial body like Kyrie or an electromechanical sleek-armored huntress body like Gally. Padraig was just doing the best he could. Now he was dead and gone.

The bandolier over her left shoulder slipped down, going down an ichor-slicked electromechanical arm. Her eyes snapped into refocus. A flick of her right wrist, and the cyborg-girl caught the bandolier before it fell. Gally would not want Padraig's bandolier to fall into the wide pile of slaughtered beings and creatures. Then she went to work in sheathing the two blades, putting them in this bandolier. Wait a moment…

She noticed something about the bandolier just then—this thick green band with the holsters for the blades—the third broken dagger still in its sheath. It looked as if certain parts were detachable. Her hands now free, her metal fingers pinched certain little round parts on the bandolier—little round parts that were actually little snaps.

Unsnapping parts and re-clicking others, Gally found that the bandolier was not a unified object. It was something of three independent components. From the sizes of two detachable sections, they looked just about wide enough for something...

Gally looked down at her own legs. Flexing herself at the waist, the cyborg-girl bent over to wrap one section of the bandolier around her upper-right thigh—snapping it closed. The same was done for the second detached section. It fit her left thigh just as well—also snapped closed. Both of these detachable sections of the bandolier fit her legs perfectly, as if they were made for her.

But why, of all coincidences, would that be? Thinking that, Gally noticed a white square in the leftover middle section of the bandolier—the section with the broken blade still in its holster. The white square was folded paper. She took it out and unfolded it, slung the remaining bandolier section over her right shoulder. It was a note done in neatly hand-printed letters, the result of strict formal schooling. Gally read it:

_To My Dearest Gally,_

_You probably think that I'm a bigger fool than most. I'll admit outright that I am not quite the strongest of the party, nor the sharpest blade in the drawer when it comes to fighting, so to speak. It probably comes from having lived a soft human existence, me coming from a world that was pretty much peaceful and calms. My world was one of softies compared to this one—and the one you came from, given your descriptions of it. Aye, lass, I come from a land of many weaklings. And a weakling, however big he may be, just may not live forever, cannot win forever…_

_Somebody said, "Cannot win forever." I could try telling you about her, but you would maybe not believe me. Well, try to believe it anyway. There is someone or something that looks like a too-beautiful, voluptuous young woman—dressed like a cross between a secretary and night-club hottie. The girl told me that, said that I or we cannot just keep winning fight after fight. She was right. I knew that I could not win forever. No one does. But even so, someone has to win in the end. Somewhere, somehow, there must be victory for someone._

_Since Princess Kyrie is not beholden to direct combat, it was only fitting that my blades be fitted and fated to you. And since you are reading this, the fate of the blades have fallen to you. And if you are reading this, you have also likely figured out that the bandolier was modified to have fittable sections—able to go around the upper portions of your legs. Just maybe it was perversion that had me take interest in the rather attractive shape of your body, enough interest to well-estimate the width of your thighs. But maybe now that interest had some kind of less-than-pervie interest after all. _

_My part in the quest is over. Now, the way of purpose is yours—as are the blades. Princess Kyrie needs the close-ranged support, and you now have more than extra means of providing it. Please do not fail the true princess of this land. Far too many have failed already._

_ Yours Truly,_

_ Padraig_

Her hands began to tremble. Tears threatened to come. Gally could barely believe what she just read. Padraig had known all along that he would not make it. He also seemed to have just as much irritation and hatred for her as she did in return. Beneath that irritation, however, was a larger sense of purpose and sense of eventual fate. He had prophesized his own death.

…

Gally stepped out of the crowded room of the dead. This brought her into the tiled hallway, dimly lit with one office-type florescent light fixture. If memory served correctly, when she first entered this building with Princess Kyrie and Padraig, there should be a door that led to a washroom—a combination of lavatory and shower point. This was a research facility fully outfitted to house researchers that stayed overnight to handle prolonged projects. And wherever there were places in which people had to say overnight, there had to be places to wash. Most certainly, covered with the splattered dark blood and life-fluids of muties, the cyborg huntress needed a wash.

The washroom was not too far, a few rooms down in this dimly lit hall. Gally pushed open the door and walked into a brightly lit place with six shower stalls and just as many toilets. SAll of them had some dust in them, but the tiling beneath the dust was clean when Gally turned the faucet.

Gally removed the thigh holsters of the twin blades before unzipping her bodysuit. Uncovered, her body resembled a feminine physique covered with close-fitting, silver-grey armor alloy. Yet the surface of her body was the armor itself—never really being "naked" in that there was merely shaped metal, not flesh. Only her face and scalp were of synthetic skin—her scalp holding her shoulder-length dark hair.

Perhaps some day, if local technology permitted, her body could be replaced with one of synthetic flesh—as to what Princess Kyrie had. Princess Kyrie's body was one that looked perfectly human, even if it was somewhat more vulnerable than a metal-type body. It made her very beautiful…

But never mind that now. At the moment, Gally washed herself clean, the water flowing over her face and hair, going down through the sections of her armored body's surfaces. It may have been warm water. Yet it was primarily just her face and head that registered most of the smooth warmth of the liquid. The thermal sensors of her body merely registered the warmth of the shower water, not the wetness of it.

Therefore, she did not linger overly long in the shower as a person of a flesh body would, since the shower of warm water was not too relaxing to a person of a metal-type body. Body cleaned and rinsed, she then moved on to washing clean the synthetic leather of her bodysuit—first holding it in the shower stall to rinse away the slime and dark oily blood. A few more shakes and strokes was all it took to get it clean since the ichor rinsed right away.

And somehow, her armored boots took longer to deal with. Hot water splashed away the oily fluids on the surfaces. She had to turn up the pressure to get some of the corners of the armor. At the least, it was the bottoms that had the most slime—having been used to kick muties.

Finally, Gally dried her body. She was careful to not cut the towel in the sections of her body that fitted over each other at the joints. Having been a cyborg most all of her life allowed her to do this with ease.

The towels went back to the shower rack to dry. The cleaning people that once maintained the washrooms of this research facility were a world away and centuries dead. Even so, even if there was not likely to ever be anyone else to use this lost place for another thousand years or so, Gally was sure to not leave the towels uncared for.

It was time to dress once more. The cyborg-girl put back on the cleaned, synthetic-leather bodysuit--slipping legs in and fitting the upper portion over her body. A long zip along the right side, and her body was once again covered. Armored boots came on next, fitting to her feet and calves. Of course, the thigh holsters for the blades went back on. A look in the mirror of the bathroom mirror, and Gally gave some strokes of her somewhat damp head of hair… The cyborg-girl was freshly ready to face what was going to be a long journey ahead.

_I will find the princess again, _thought the cyborg-huntress, staring into the mirror and seeing her own face—her own large dark eyes staring back from the reflection. _And I will not fail her again. Besides, it is not as if there is much else of purpose in this fallen world. We all need purpose. _Now there was a purpose. That in mind, Gally turned away from the mirrors to walk out of the washroom.

In the hall, the exit doors to this facility were to the right. Out there was the orange glow of daylight in this world. That was because out there was the rest of the world—the day. It was going to be a day to be won. It was the first day of the rest of her journey. Swift strides, hands close to the thigh-holsters of her newly acquired twin blades, hair fluttering, the cyborg-girl stepped out into the hall. She was not sure of how to find Kyrie. It was an entire world out there. However, Gally was sure that the princess _would _be found again. Then they would seek the Golden Hope.

…

2.

…

Gally took a right turn in going around a corner. There was the idea that the way out ought to have been in plain sight right after leaving that washroom. She instead found herself in the back halls of the research facility. It seemed odd, somehow—walking into one room in one part of the building and suddenly finding herself leaving through another. How was that possible?

_Hmm…_ The cyborg-girl turned around and walked the way just stepped—heels of her armored boots making solid sounds on the hard-carpet floor of this research facility. She was making her way back to the shower-room and found it again. What would happen if a person walked back in, then walked back out?

A press of her right hand, and the cyborg-girl opened the washroom door. The door opened right up as if nothing happened, and she walked in. _Bzzt…! Wink-flicker, _went the washroom lights. Gally thought she saw a tall figure with legs bare, a female—or a trick of the shadows? _Flick-flicker! _Ignoring that—for now—the cyborg-girl turned to leave the washroom. Something was not right about this…

Not sure of what to expect, Gally again stepped out of the same washroom—the same door. There was some kind of dizzying sensation in going past the doorjamb, just a fleeting feeling. Standing outside the washroom, she looked left and right, and quietly accepted what her eyes were taking in. This time, stepping out of the washroom door brought her to a different part of the research facility.

The cyborg-girl half-turned herself to look back to make sure that it was the same door—a door that somehow took her to a different place in this abandoned research facility. It was just a door, just a simple public-looking sort of door. It also looked especially bland and typical with just one square little sign that indicated it was a washroom, a door that looked perfectly innocent.

So Gally looked away from it…for now. Now she saw the doorway out of the research facility in plain sight—so it seemed. The orange-red color of this world's sunlight glowed through the glass squares of the glass-and-steel front-entrance doors.

Out there was daylight and the way ahead. Gally began to stride directly for the front entrance. There was no reason to tarry here any longer than necessary in this strange place and its dead people. If Gally did stay around, there was no telling what else could happen: doors that warped to random locations, soft spots in the air that made a person feel strange, things of that sort.

_Flick-flicker, _went an overhead light. And Gally stepped right on into one of those soft spots…_and felt a swirling sense of falling dizziness that…_made her stumble. It was that feeling of going down an elevator, that quick-falling sense. Her sense of balance and coherence returned in less than a second, hands going to the hilts of knives strapped to thighs. Now, instead of facing the way out, the cyborg-girl found herself facing the way back in. _Something _was not right about this research facility.

Yet it was not something that could be fought with blades. Besides, the last time fighting went before thinking, the princess was taken away. Gally thought to herself, _Use your mind, fool! _Her hands went away from the hilts of the twin blades in thigh holsters, left-hand and right-hand blades. Instead, her right hand trailed along the right-side wall of this hallway while her left remained on a blade-hilt.

When Gally came to that _same place, that weak spot again, the dizziness was still with her. Yet keeping her right hand to the right-side wall allowed her to keep walking the right way even if things felt dizzying. Something unseen was pushing at her entire body, an invisible field of some kind. Still, Gally allowed her right hand to stay to the wall and used it to…_walk straight through.

What was this research facility used for? Now, yes, the glass-and-steel doors of the exit were right ahead, through the reception area. Gally quickly made her way there and hoped to not run into any more trouble. No sooner had that hope passed through her mind when there were stomping sounds in the air. With them were slight whirring noises.

Gally knew that sound. It was the sort of sound made by one of those thugs in a powered armor suit. She looked around as the stomp-walking sound came closer. _Now _was the time of her hands going to the blades strapped to thighs. As soon as the trouble appeared, Gally hoped to deal with it as quickly as possible. This would also be a chance to try the blades and see if they retained their unusual qualities.

And that whirr-stomping sound of the powered armor was coming closer still even if the source could not be seen. _Blinkety flicker, _went the overhead lights. _Whirr-stomp…whirr-stomp…whirr-stomp… _Gally's eyes just saw an indoor carpeted reception area of this research facility. Those sounds of stomping feet were getting to be very close. Yet, she did not _see _the source of those stomping steps even though they should be right next to her. Were her auditory receptor systems malfunctioning?

"_A-a-augh…!_" came a man's scream, echoing from far away and coming close. "_Where's the way out! Where's the Hell is the fucking…way…out! Wa-a-y out!_" There were some more whirr-stomp sounds of powered armor going along the carpeted floor. Those overhead lights flickered again. "_He-e-elp!_" Now those stomping steps were getting to be right in front of her.

It took an effort to resist running through the invisible presence that was stomping around in here. Was Gally frightened? _Hells yes, _she was. But the cyborg-girl was also keeping a steady head about this situation. Maybe running into that invisible presence would put her in the same trapped predicament.

"_Get me outta here!_" came the shout near the ceiling—a sound right out of the air itself. Things began to happen. The air shimmered and wavered. It was that same effect one saw on a heated highway or stretch of desert, things looking a bit wavy. Except there was no heat, just the modest summer-like warmth of this building that had broken air conditioning. Still, something was making the air go wavy. Gally leapt back when there was a rush of air as something blurred its way back into this reality

"_A-a-a-a-ugh…!_" _came another shout as…_the shape faded in. Gally's presumption was correct about it being one of those hired thugs in a powered suit. But it was something now worse than that. The cyborg-girl would have been better not seeing this awful sight.

What had once been a thug in a powered suit was now a diseased, infected mess. The man in the powered suit had a ruined face. Curly blood-colored worm-like things had half-burrowed their ways into his cheeks and neck. His nose was gone, leaving a hole in the middle of his face, little things wriggling in there. His hair was greasy with some kind of oily reddish ichor. If the rest of his body was in such awful shape inside of the powered suit, it was hard to tell—not that the powered suit of armor was in much better condition itself: the powered suit was chunks of its exterior armor plating. This exposed the wiring beneath. Some kinds of small creatures crawled around in there—some of them dropping to the floor when exposed to the air. Some of them resembled mice—but mice are supposed to have four legs, not six.

"_He-e-elp me… E-e-e!_" howled the head of the man-thing in the powered suit, or the thing that had once been a man. Spiral-shaped worms began to twist their way out of his face and pulsed in the face. "_Me-e-e! Olk-krop em!_" And then his voice dissolved into a pattern of gibberish as the powered arms swung wildly around, the damaged robotic arm of the suit moving a bit more slowly.

Gally had dealt with worst things before back in Scrap Iron City. That was just so long ago, dealing with people who became crippled and deformed due to the various levels of toxic wastes. Sometimes, contaminations from toxic chemicals made people deformed in ways that made them a great deal stronger than most. And more often than not, those severe chemical contaminations affected their brains. But this thing standing before her looked as if some kinds of parasites were responsible in addition to chemical contamination—parasites she had never seen before.

The man-thing in the powered suit took another grabbing swing at Gally—who went into a crouch. And as the huge man-thing's powered arms were swung halfway around, Gally just leapt up and drew the left-hand blade. Only at the top of her jump did her left arm flash, the blade moving so fast that it seemed to disappear for a nanosecond—before reappearing at the end of her swing.

After that maneuver, Gally landed in an agile crouch. This brought her again to be in front of the legs of the suit of powered armor. After her landing, the severed head fell next—landing on the hard carpeting behind the enemy—now a headless enemy. Of course that severed head landed in a much less graceful manner.

The job was not done yet, because that thing in the powered armor suit had a few more surprises for the cyborg-huntress. A syrupy orange fluid began to spurt out from the neck-stump at the top of the powered armor suit. It should have been blood, but was just not blood. Hell, no way was that any sort of blood. It looked more like rotten syrup spurting out. Then more of those spiral-shaped worms twisted their way to the surface of the severed neck-stump.

Yes, the headless enemy was still walking. And _yes, _the body in the powered armor suit was still alive—at least alive enough to blindly swing in Gally's general direction. And Hells yes, it was grotesque.

It simply had to be put out of existence. "You will trouble no one ever again," declared Gally before finishing things. She drew the right-hand blade from its sheath at her right thigh—now having both knives out. Now both blades were beginning to warm. Gally felt some kind of power beginning to build up within her. She cut in front of her, a _flash _of her left-hand. A swing with the right-hand blade made for a yellow-gold florescent arc of light that flashed bright enough to light up the inside of this building.

When the brightness of the flash faded, the headless thing in the powered armor suit was left standing there as if confused of what to do next. This was as if something without a head could be confused at all. But in this case, the thing was confused. Both legs of the powered armor suit quivered before sliding apart at the knees. But that was not before the torso began to slide diagonally apart.

It was now something in pieces and on the hard-carpeted floor. Most of the upper half had fallen on the severed head to squash it like a hard melon under a piece of fallen construction machinery. The lower half and legs were scattered metal parts. And among the chunks and pieces of the powered armor suit, more of those spiraling worm-things wriggled and twisted. Now they were being exposed to the air as that orange fluid oozed from the scattered parts.

The parts were still moving. And it was at this point that Gally decided to walk away. Maybe it would take complete incineration before the creature was completely destroyed. It was also better to get out of this abandoned research facility before something happened to her. There was a journey awaiting her—a journey back to the capital city.


	14. Chapter 14

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 14

It really was brighter outside of the building than it was inside—though the daylight was still that dying gold color. No matter how long Gally stayed in this world, there was no getting used to full daylight being low and weak. Daytime always seemed to be as if someone turned down the wattage on the sun. At the least, there was more light out here than in there. And there was progress to be made—an entire day to confront. Out here were the vast fields of the wasteland, the hard grassy plains that stretched out in all directions from this abandoned building. This place was not entirely abandoned at this moment. Looking ahead, the way ahead, the cyborg-girl saw a trio of long trucks that had been parked diagonally.

And they were big trucks. Those were massive, eighteen-wheeled behemoths with the long boxy trailers at the back and huge, diesel-powered vehicles at the front: fifteen feet upwards and the length of twenty cars end-to-end. They were parked as so the backs of the trailers were facing the building. It was very likely that those were some of the trucks used to transport those dozens and hundreds of muties.

Why were they still here, if they were empty? Just maybe they failed to work any more and were left there, as were vehicles in that previous city.

Gally could see no one in sight. Yet those trucks looked to be recent arrivals—no sandy grit upon the sides. Then again, vehicles that looked fresh were sometimes not. Some of them could be damaged on the inside from not having been used for decades—like vehicles from that city. Even so, those trucks were simply here. And if they were here, Gally would use at least one of them.

The cyborg-girl began taking steps in the direction of that trio of parked trucks—not far from the building. Her armored boots went from the hard concrete of the front steps to the hard grassy ground. In walking, her eyes stayed ahead and looking at the trucks. On coming closer, she began to see some shadows, some activity. This made her stop.

Something was moving over there. Now it was better to run than to walk and be out in the open. She dashed forward, hard boots rapid-pattering to take her over to one of the parked trucks. The massive wheels were more than large enough for her to kneel behind for cover.

From here, the cyborg-girl was able to peek around a side of the wheel and see what was making for that movement. She could also hear what was happening—some kinds of grunting sounds, some kind of animal.

Her eyes took in sight of what was actually making the noise. It was indeed an animal—the sort of animal known as _homo sapiens. _This particular specimen was an adult male. The adult male was in the process of mating. Pants down, he was copulating with a female specimen classified as the _mutie _sub-species.

Some other men were sitting around on unfolded metal chairs and watching the spectacle with all the passivity of someone watching a movie. All of them were in the red business suits typical of hired thuggery from the palace, though some of them had their red business jackets off. One of them was smoking some awful thing that looked like a hand-rolled cigarette but was full of chopped-up pieces of red leaves, giving off a smell like burning flesh. Well, there was little else out here in the way of visual entertainment, so they were doing something to keep themselves amused—something other than reading or turning on a radio for weak broadcasts from the capital city.

As for the entertainers themselves, only one of them was enjoying the obscene performance. The round-faced man had quite a sheen of sweat on his balding brow as he kept pumping away at female mutie. The mutie was naked, all of its human-like body exposed. It actually could pass for being human—in the dark. It had two legs and two arms on a human-shaped torso and hair in places where most humans had it. But then one would have to look past the dark-spotted blue-green skin and toe-nails growing out of random places.

As for why the female mutie being so passive about this, it was because the front of the head was cut away. It was a crude and mutilating field lobotomy that would have killed a human being. Yes, nothing makes a mutie more passive than being deprived of its frontal lobe. The mutie was still alive, however… At least its body was—just a living piece of meat to be screwed.

That was all that Gally needed to see. She drew both the left-hand and the right-hand blades. In a blur of speed, there was her dashing beneath this truck's trailer to burst out into the middle of the circle of chairs and the thugs that sat in them. Those hired thugs were too surprised to do anything, everyone stopping.

To Gally's mind, her victims were now posed like meat statues. Three red-suited thugs sat in fold-out metal chairs on the hard grassy ground between these parked trucks, smoking that thick, hand-rolled cigar full of ground-up red weed. Those three were sitting and watching one of their buddies do something explicitly pornographic to a mutie. On his knees, the bastard doing the act with the mutie was stock-still, his face suddenly going into a look resembling the stricken stiffness of sudden death.

And such a thing was not too far away. Gally's left-hand blade streaked an arc, and that thug on his knees was made a gasping sound…before his head tumbled off of his cut-through neck. The other thugs sitting in chairs did nothing and said nothing. This was one of those moments where the eyes are seeing things, the ears are hearing things, the brain is working—but the mind just cannot quite believe what the fork is happening. There was no way that a girl-woman in a form-fitting, dark-leather and drop-dead-sexy bodysuit dashed out from beneath the trailer. And there was no way that her speed was so much that one of her blades decapitated a thug in the amount of time it takes a person to blink. _No way in Hell was this at all happening at the same time._

Too bad, it was. Moving just about as fast as her blades, there was a rapid pattering of boots as Gally dashed around to behind the thugs. The thing to do was kill them quick lest they draw their pistols, which could be loaded with anti-cyborg ceramic rounds. Such bullets could cripple and damage a metal-type cyborg as easily as a person of flesh. Her left-hand blade flashed twice more again. No, they would not get a chance to cripple or damage her.

Two of the thugs started gagging and choking as the backs of their metal chairs fell apart. That was because Gally had cut clean through the backs of the chairs…and through the backs of the men sitting in them. Blood suddenly spilled out in little red streams from the rears of their suits. The two thugs then fell apart at the waist as their upper bodies fell to the grassy ground. Their butts and legs were still sitting down in the chair. It was as if those legs were saying, _Hey guys! Where ya goin'? We're still watchin' our buddy screw a mutie, right?_

This still left the third thug sitting in his chair. And from the looks of things, he maybe ought not make any sudden moves. His eyeballs turned ahead as so his eye-focus went to what was in front of him, a headless buddy caught with his pants down and blood gushing from his neck-stump. Somehow, the headless body was still kneeling. Eyeballs turned right, and he saw two more of his fellow thugs in red business suits—parts of them still sitting in the chairs and parts of them on the ground. _There was blood everywhere_.

Gally stepped slowly around to stand in front of the thug, a girl moving with the deliberate and calm grace of something very sleek and dangerous. Her close-fitting dark bodysuit had not a single bit of blood on it, and neither did the two blades held in both of her hands. That was because the left-hand blade was far too swift to be stained by the blood of the flesh it cut. As for the right-hand blade, it gleamed just as brightly in the sun.

Her eyes over the gleam of her own blades, pretty face framed with shiny dark hair, Gally stared at the thug in the red business suit—large dark eyes staring. "I am learning to control my dark urges. Such are urges pertaining to mutilation and killing. My control is to be kept to prevent more of the same. It is, nevertheless, a difficult task to maintain…" Her head tilted to the right. "It would therefore be as difficult for me to kill you as to not do so." A wide smile stretched her lips, flexed her cheeks, but something very dangerous glinted in the depths of those eyes—large and dark eyes the color of eternal night.

Something in the thug reacted to that. All of those years living the bad life made for the thug becoming a very bad man. In another world, in another _universe, _maybe there was a such thing as retribution and reform. But in this land, people can be so severely changed for the worse by simply _being _bad. Being bad changed people physically—even going so far as to cause chemical changes in some parts of their brains and internal organs. _Rotten to the core _was the expression, similar to _bad to the bone_. Except it was just the organs in this case, not the bones.

It was this badness in the thug that made his lips skew into a sneer. He then said something no sane person would say to someone who just slaughtered all of his friends in all of a minute. "_Scre-e-ew_ you, robo-bitch!"

Gally's neck straightened as so she was looking right at the thug—her eyes level. And the cyborg-girl was still smiling as she made a slash in the air with the right-hand blade, making for a bright blue flash of light. Somewhere in the brightness was a florescent arc of brighter blue energy.

What was once a red-suited business thug in a metal chair was now something that looked like a piece of shock-art. A burnt skeleton was sitting upright with its ribcage blasted open. There were just strips of burnt tendon holding the bones together. As for the chair it was sitting in, it looked partially melted but was rapidly cooling—the metal sagging and smoking. At the feet of the skeleton, there was a circular patch of ground that was burnt black. Behind the skeleton was the tall side of a truck, which had a shadow cast in ash.

Such was the power of the right-hand blade—both knives cooled now. Yet the blades were heating again, becoming hot with summoned energy from beyond the fabric of reality. Gally sheathed both blades as the energy from the weapons. The twin blades made a person _want _to fight, but it also left a person's mind clear enough to know when to stop. She put the knives in her thigh holsters.

This done, the cyborg-girl walked away from this place of killing. There was no reason to stare at the dead and mutilated other than some kind of grotesque desire to stare. Nevertheless true was how killing the thugs left her access to three parked trucks. And since she had killed the hundreds of mutie passengers within those trucks back in that abandoned research facility—as well as killing the human drivers of them—these vehicles were hers for the taking. It would certainly be better than trying to walk her way through the wastelands in returning to the capital city and the grand palace within it.

Her destination simply had to be that mountain-top capital city, where they took Kyrie. Since it was hired capital-city thugs that put on this little field operation, dropping off hundreds of muties and snatching Kyrie, there was no doubt about their future location. The palace-hired thugs were long-gone, having gone back to where they came from, back to the city that paid them.

The biggest problem of this all was in _how _she could return to the capital city. Distances and directions in this fallen world were just so different from that which Gally knew: a person could presumably travel along a straight line and end up going in the wrong direction altogether. Places changed. Places even appeared out of nowhere and made for new places of shelter—or obstacles. It was because there were places in this world where reality was distorted. No doubt Dr. Nova, that joker, loved that sort of thing.

These were the doubts playing through Gally's mind in walking towards the cab section of a truck. They were doubts about traveling this land without the guiding sense of direction towards the artifact. Princess Kyrie had that sense of direction that did not fail in guiding them from one place of shelter and rest to the next. Somehow, a bit of that sense was with Gally as well… Yet that was before Padraig died and Princess Kyrie was taken. The party of three was broken. Now Gally had lost her way.

Nevertheless, the cyborg-girl _had_ to try and _had _tomake the effort. Metal hands and solid boots went to climbing up the side and to the door of the vehicle. Of course it was unlocked. Even if it took the rest of her existence, Princess Kyrie _would _be found. Then they could act together to seek that coveted artifact which Kyrie prized so highly, one hope in making things better Then Gally heard a man's yell, followed by a thump. It was that _I'm-in-trouble-and-something-damned-scary-is-gonna-kill-me _sort of yell.

Not even bothering to close the truck door, Gally got out of the driver's seat and dropped back to the ground—landing in a crouched position. The yell had come from one of the other two trucks. She moved swiftly, becoming a dark and shiny-clad blur. Something was happening. Someone was in trouble. Or someone would _be _trouble, more trouble for her.

Her blur-fast movement stopped in front of a scene of struggle. A man in blue work-shirt and jeans was on his back, his big arms shoving and pushing at something covered with red fur hairy and with too many arms. The creature was making happy sounds, and the man was making scrared-as-Hell sounds.

"_He-e-elp!_" he screamed. "_Somebody he-e-elp me!_" The mutie chortled and crouched down closer to the man's face. "_Aa-a-augh…!_" With that scream, his eyes big and wide, he was watching his own death coming.

Gally dashed over and _kicked_—her leg blurring straight up. Her boot struck the mutie in the midsection, blasting the once-human creature up into the air… When it eventually came back down, it was now ten yards away and struggling on the grassy ground. This was because its chest was caved in.

It was therefore little trouble for Gally to simply put the creature out of pain with a decapitating cut. Stringy worms and dark blood gushed out to wet the grassy dirt. For good measure, Gally kicked the head away from the body—punting the thing like a furry ball.

The cyborg-huntress turned to walked back to the fallen man, who was sitting there on the hard ground. He was just sitting there and looking, a tired and surrendering look on his face. It was not the look of someone who was going to betrouble at all. It was more like someone who had seen too much of it. There seemed to be no injuries on him, no tearing of the trucker clothes he wore or his skin. Yet he looked to be hurt some kind of way.

He looked hurt inside, spiritually hurt. And a man with a broken spirit—a broken will—may as well be dead soon. His eyes were so full of a deep and long-lost sadness that seemed to be part of eternity, part of all the pain in this world..

"You know what? I'm tired," he said. "I'm so damned tired of all of this mess. Driving for hours, working for hours. For what? So I can get chewed up by messed-up animals or get shot up for not listening? Yeah, and I was around when the War happened—screwed up this world. Messed up, screwed up, too damned much…" He shook his head. "Well? If you want to be just another psycho out to kill every damned thing that moves, go ahead and finish me off. I'm just too, _too_ tired anyway."

àKeep scrolling, dude.

àIt's Wednesday. If it wasn't for that ninety-minute delay, I would not have met this morning's quota in a timely fashion!

Gally looked at the truck driver and almost expected him to say more. He was sitting there on the hard ground and had his mouth open. But no words were coming out. It was as if someone pointed a remote at the man and tapped the _pause _button. Well, what was he going to say? Gally nodded as if to say, _Go on… _

A circular section of the ground _exploded _behind the sitting man. Sandy dirt and clods of grass were everywhere. Everything was obscured by the dust and such while something stood up and _howled—_a noise that sounded part human and part something else. Gally had a hard time seeing what the Hell it was because the dust obscured it so much…

The grit and dust in the air settled to make for a view of the thing. It stood like a human being but had long ceased to _be _human. Ripped coveralls and a gritty workshirt clung to a body that was covered with thick, reddish reptilian scales instead of skin. Lean arms ended in claw-hands good for rooting through dirt, claws that looked thick and sharp. As for the face, it was a wedge-like surface that gleamed with flattened red bones—a bonework face for getting around underground.

And that mutie was standing right behind the truck driver, who somehow seemed to not have been touched by the dirt and grit from the outburst of dust and dirt. He also seemed not to care. Looking down at the ground, the tired guy just shook his head as if nothing mattered anymore. Things were just too far gone…

Gally had both blades already drawn. While the right-hand blade began to heat up, both blades resonated with the heat of summoned energy. A blur of movement, and the cyborg-girl was suddenly a meter to the right to get a better angle of attack on the enemy. There was just a flare of wind-tearing sound to mark her sudden movement.

The mutie stood there for a good three seconds, not doing anything. It was confused. Then again, muties were easily confused anyway. A person would think that since not a lot was going on in a mutie's head to begin with, there ought not be much in the way of think-works to be befuddled. Such creatures had simple minds with thought processes that pretty much just went towards destruction of anything that looked decent.

By the time the mutie shook its head to realize that Gally was standing to its left. That is, Gally was _still _standing to its left. And the creature was _still _not attacking. Its half-dead, zombified mind was still trying to wrap itself around the concept of something being there one second and suddenly _not _being there another second. The confusion turned into a snarl, opening its mouth to reveal a gullet ringed with thick musculature—much like a wormYes, the mutie eats dirt.

Its days of culinary consumption were soon to be over, however. Gally struck. Part of her disappeared into a slight blur, a quick flash of metal going through the air. Along the way, the flash of metal went through the mutie. And just to be sure that the mutie got the message—the message being in the form of an attack—she struck again.

The mutie tried to take a step towards Gally. But it is pretty hard to take more than one step when one's head falls off—the head tumbling off of a neatly sliced-through neck. Both arms fell off next, just dropping off at the elbows while the upper part of the torso slid off of the lower part. Now the mutie was a pile of sliced sections.

Gally put the twin blades away, sheathing them in the thigh holsters—her hands staying on the hilts. A sort of exhilaration filled her. Yes… Oh _yes. _Victory was now coming to her with the greatest of ease. _This _was what the quest was about. _This _was how things were supposed to be. Even if the party was broken, there was still victory to be had and hope for the future. It was the Golden Hope to be found

Meanwhile, the truck driver was still sitting there. His attitude had changed markedly. "Geez! I thought you were gonna finish me off or something. Or that thing was going to do me in. Something was gonna happen to me."

"Such an attitude of surrender is death itself," said Gally. This cyborg-girl then put out her hands—open palms of smooth metal sections reminiscent of slim armor. A smile came to her face. Unlike a smile given earlier, this one had care behind it. "Why should I harm someone who could serve as a guide?"


	15. Chapter 15

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 15

Though the truck driver was especially capable of driving this vehicle, Gally was sure to be the one at the wheel. It wasn't that Gally thought badly of the man. He just seemed to be somebody caught in a bad life-situation. He seemed like a trustworthy and decent sort. Yet things were not always what they seemed.

It was getting to be annoying, how the truck's tires rumbled and bumbled along the hard grassy ground. It also made maneuvering this vehicle more of a hassle. Gally preferred vehicles with agility and lightness of control. Driving this truck was more like controlling a broken, motorized shopping cart loaded with flan. The cyborg-girl thought that maybe they ought to detached the trailer to make this vehicle at least a bit more controllable, but the truck driver disagreed—saying that driving up to the capital city without the truck fully intact would have made for concern at the trucking company. Then the capital city's vehicular supervisors would have in turn alerted minor executives at the great big palace…

But which way was it? As Gally maneuvered the large truck away from its parking spot, the driver pointed to a section of the grass and asked, "You can't see it? That double-set of tracks? It's kinda pressed right into the ground and is mushing down the grass."

Then Gally did see it. It took a while, but there they were: a double set of tracks that could only have been made by a caravan of three heavy trucks. It was maybe one of those things that was not immediately noticeable unless one was really paying attention to it. Then again, it was odd how it took the truck driver to notice something that Gally's electronically enhanced eyes should have detected more swiftly than mere human organs of sight.

"Hey! This noise makes the ride at least a _little _more interesting, right!" loudly the truck driver above the rumble of wheels. "It's a real bitch to deal with at first. But then it sort of starts to make at least some kind of sense. Everything does. Ya just have to go with it," he added. "The highway ought to be just about three-fourths of a pognard from here."

Pognards, kilometers, miles, it was maybe a bit confusing. Yet much like what the truck driver said about the tracks, he was also immediately correct about this. She turned her head just long enough to give him a look before returning eye-focus to the way ahead. There really was a wide paved gray that could only be a highway. And when the wheels of this truck came to the road surface, things became a great deal less noisy. There was still the rumble of the truck's heavy electric motors and the hum of large tires on highway, but this was bearable.

It was easier to hear the truck driver talk, now that the ambient sound was that of humming tires instead of rumbling ones—eighteen tires making a droning sound rather than quaking ones. The cyborg-girl listened to him talk about the way that the capital city was nowadays, how it was since the last time her party was there. And from the first few minutes, it sounded as if not too much had changed. It was all the more reason to keep going.

The capital city was still under the lock-down of a totalitarian regime. It was a place where the ruling class pretty much did whatever it wanted. Princess Dahlia still ruled supreme, and all of those closest to her were also in charge. If a low-level bureaucratic rat wanted somebody to become a truck driver, the person had damned well better become a truck driver—or else. Yes, indeed! Just do as one is told, and one can have a moderately comfortable life in the capital city. If not, there are plenty of bullets and bludgeons to deal with citizens that disagreed.And it was exactly to the mountain-top city ruled by Princess Dahlia to which they were headed now: Dahlia, Bitch-Queen Supreme.

"It's the long haul now, girlie… Going this way,' began the truck driver. "We oughtta be back at the capital in just about two day's time provided nothing happens to the engine or wheels." The man gestured ahead at the view beyond the windshield. "You'll know when you see it—that great big mountain with its top flattened off. Yeah, it makes ya wonder how or why they chopped off the top of a whole mountain instead of just settin' up a city at the base of it. But why not? They did it…just because they can—or they _could. _Yup, they had some really strong machines back before the War, the good old days."

"Much is said of glory days gone by," said Gally, both hands still on the huge steering wheel. "Also true is how much of what I have seen is merely the remainder—as well as there being remainders of other places. Yet I must ask, were they truly days of glory if they amounted to a world-obliterating conflict?" _Much like one I knew from my own world? _

"Sorry to say, but maybe that's the way things go with humans," said the truck driver. "Think about it… Everybody in charge of the world is sittin' around, havin' a good time... Things get comfortable for the people in charge who really don't have to do a lick of work. Pretty soon, the people in charge start taking the idea into their pretty little heads that maybe things can be a bit _more _better. They're thinking maybe there's something _wrong_ with everything being _too_ nice and _too _comfortable."

Gally's eyes narrowed. "And so, the world took to conflict to alleviate the boredom of the ruling classes. It is therefore a world in which those who control possess the people as playing cards in a larger game. Such is the complacency that generates fools."

In the periphery of the cyborg-girl's vision, the truck driver glanced at her and shrugged shoulders. "Well, ya gotta admit. _Some _of 'em took some sense into their heads to get things right. Or they were tryin' to set things right—even if some others disagreed on _how _to do that. So which side would you agree with? Right now, I'm guessing you're siding with Princess Kyrie because of her being your best friend and all that, not just because of her bein' cute. Her sister, her _twin _sister is equally as cute—at least physically, is what I'm sayin'. But why choose one sister over the other? Princess Dahlia's at least keepin' things in decent running order and is opening trade with the scattered human settlements."

Gally had no immediate response to that one. That truck driver had a truly valid point. _Who else_ was running this disconnected, crazed-out landscape? Better yet, who elsewas _trying to_ run it? All she saw were just groups and settlements: groups of people in huddled human settlements that had walls and gates set up against all sorts of malformed and destructive creatures. And it seemed as if those damned _muties _were always out to destroy anyone and everyone with any degree of human intelligence left. The way the world was going, at least this one, it was the opposite of fairness and sensibility.

She thought into the future—some kinds of _so what _questions. So what if Kyrie was not found at all, after all? Would it truly matter in the long run? And _so what_ if Princess Kyrie hated the behavior of her sister? Maybe this land would be somewhat better off under Princess Dahlia's perspective and philosophy—building and expanding the empire through control and brute force. At the least, it was one way of dealing with the waves of muties that roamed about.

The truck driver's next comment cut into her driving thoughts. Going, "Yeah, Gally… Maybe you were just friends with Kyrie 'cause that was the person ya so happened to run with on yer run from the capital city. Kyrie could be right, or her sister could be right. Ya just so happen to be against Dahlia because yer sidin' with Kyrie—jus' like yer ol' boyfriend Fogia 'cause he was the nearest thing ya had fer company. But did ya ever stop to wonder _why _Kyrie is yer friend"

And Gally had no immediate response to that comment, either. Now the truck driver was making even more sense. It was because Princess Kyrie just so happened to be there when Gally was anxious to ally herself with anyone who knew what was going on around here. Things were simply so wrong and strange, and it was hard to get along. Princess Kyrie so happened to be there. Padraig was there as well. Therefore, it was circular logic: Kyrie was friend because Kyrie was a friend.

The word _was _could not be the right one. _Was _represents the past tense. Not _was _but _is._ Kyrie _is _a friend. Kyrie _is_ someone to hang onto and was there through the rough times. Kyrie was a member of the original party, as was Padraig. Now Gally felt the affirmation of her answer. Friendship is a good enough answer.

"Because Kyrie is a friend," said Gally. "That is why I wish to stand by her. Friendships happen for the very same reason that families do. Friendships arise out of need. Something makes friendship become reality. And I wish to stay part of that aspect of reality. A world without friendships and loyalty would be a fallen broken one." She thought to herself, _As_ _fallen and broken as the landsape under Zalem's carelessness and all of its broken people…_

There was a certain rise in the truck driver's voice, as if he sounded happy. "Ah, there ya go!" he agreed. "And here _we _go. Funny thing is, ya just went along with everything I said and just took me along fer the ride without _really _knowin' my purpose. Maybe yer a mean person that does nice things—regardless of what kind of person I could truly be, not even knowing my name…since I didn't tell ya."

True, Gally did not know the truck driver's name. Of all the things said to a person upon first meeting them, if a person was to be trusted, names were supposed to be swapped. Why was that? Yet the truck driver knew Gally's name. And the truck driver also knew about Gally's relationship with Fogia—a relationship that was another world away.

This just could not be. Many things could not be with the truck driver. The cyborg-girl turned her head quickly to the right. "How is it that you know of these things!"

"_Hee-hee-hee…!_ Girlie, I so happen to know a lot of things I'm maybe not supposed to know about," said the truck driver. "I'd wink, but I want ya to keep yer eyes on th' road ahead. Keeping our eyes forward and our quest in mind is what helps us make it through. In fact, we're going _through_ somewhere right now. It's maybe one of those somewhere places that maybe would be nowhere."

That last statement was somewhat lost on Gally—who was still trying to understand that man in the shotgun seat. Though the truck driver could have maybe guessed that Gally was somehow affiliated with the lost princess, there was no way in Hell he could have found out about Fogia. Only, maybe, even possibly did she say something to Princess Kyrie who was closer to her than anyone else. And that was even after being a handful of years with her. Gally knew that there were rumors and tales told about what was being done by their party of three. But not ever, not even once, did anyone in the party let slip to anyone else the talk of her deepest and most private conversations.

Now this total stranger out of nowhere somehow knew things—things that are _not supposed to be known_. He also seemed to know how to make truck tracks appear where there were no tracks before. A troubled and shaken sort of feeling began to pass over Gally as she risked looking away from the road to look to her right—because this vehicle's passenger side was on the right.

He was staring at her as she stared at him. The cyborg-girl was looking for some sign of the truck driver being something other than normal… No, it was not the clothes: work clothes, vest-jacket worn over thick shirt to go with jeans. He still had on his hat—an ordinary cap with some kind of logo on it. And it was not his skin, or his face. Muties always had something that looked wrong with them. The truck driver looked as normal and as solid as anything. Then there were his eyes.

The eyes… The truck driver's eyes were far too dark and had no shine to them, as if his eyes were not there—as if one was staring into two pits. The brim of his hat cast no shadow over his face to hide this fact.

Gally's eyes narrowed, and she deliberately forced herself to look at the road in realizing the man _had no shadow at all. _Light was shining in from all over the place, through the windshield and both side-windows. Everything _else _had shadows to it—everything except for the truck driver. In fact, some of the light from the passenger-side window cast illumination on the space between the truck seats as if the driver was not really there at all _Pull over right now, _went a thought in Gally's head. _Stop the truck. Then run away. Do not look back. _

This time, the truck driver's voice was more squared and less jovial. "You are beginning to understand," he said. His voice was perfectly clear despite the rumbling of the truck, as his voice had a direct route to Gally's ears. "We must encounter trouble very soon. You must not understand that." No sooner had he said that did the blue car appear.

…

2.

…

The vehicle was an anomaly—something that wasn't supposed to exist. That was because the thing was something of _luxury. _And unless one is a member government, living within the walls of the capital city, _luxury _does not exist. Hell yeah, it was the kind of vehicle that looked as if the driver drove it while leaning way back and with one arm had a hand on the wheel while the other arm rested on the window. Not that brand names mattered much, but it resembled a blue Cadillac, a car of ancient American manufacture, circa 1983 from General Motors. It was a _luxury _car.

Luxury cars, no way in Hell did they belong around here. They were from a world and time in which luxuries could be had by people that lived on the ground. Oh, what a luxury it was… The long body of the car was shiny blue, cruising low to the road with the front sloping upwards, a shiny deep blue vehicle that gleamed in the faded sunlight of this highway as wind whipped over it. All around the upper half of the vehicle, tinted windows blocked out view of the inside. At the bottom, four wheels were spinning fast in cruising along to speed up ahead of this truck. Even while zooming along, it seemed to be moving with relaxed cruising ease.

A lifetime ago, Gally had seen the remains of such vehicles before in the mountains of metal junk and waste before. The cyborg-girl had come from times in which centuries of world-smashing interplanetary warfare, world-splitting quakes and world-burning environmental catastrophes pretty much made consumer goods such as privately owned vehicles a very, very rare commodity in a world that was burned, split and _smashed_. Even then, the few personally owned vehicles that existed were designed with armored chassis and durable wheels to withstand the rugged terrain. The sorts of cars that were supposed to be on roads were supposed to be big, tough and durable, built to endure, not built to look low and comfortable. _Luxury _vehicles like the one driving ahead simply had no place in the world known by her—or _any _world known by her, even this one.

Said the truck driver, "Ya see it, right? _R-i-i-ight…?_" Apparently, he slipped back into his casually conversational speech patterns, sounding less like someone or something to be taken too seriously. Gally thought the word _something _because she really did not know what the heck the truck driver was—not really human. People are supposed to have shadows, and the truck driver did not.

Neither did that blue Cadillac, or at least the thing resembling a 1983 blue Cadillac: a big vehicle, no shadow beneath or at its sides. It looked as real and solid as anything else out here on the highway. In fact, it looked extra-solid with that shiny blue color on its gleaming metallic body, the shiny shellac-like blue paint job looking all clean and sleek.

But the thing had no shadow, damn it. From the way the thing was driving ahead, she could see just a little bit of the underside from behind. She saw that the roadway under the Cadillac (1983, General Motors) was as brightly lit as if there was nothing really there. That thing only _looked _like a damned blue Cadillac. But it was really something else, maybe something that ought not exist at all. But there it was, defying all kinds rules of reality.

_The rules are different. _Gally was getting that same sort of feeling inside upon seeing that something just was not right abut the so-called truck driver. The truck driver was one thing. That shiny Cadillac—circa 1983, sky-blue paint job, deep-set wheels—was something else. How can something have _no shadow at all?_

It was getting to be too much, and the cyborg-girl wanted to make everything stop right now. She wanted to stomp on the big heavy brake pedal until all eighteen wheels of this massive truck screeched and smoked. Then she would run as far away from this highway as possible because there was no way of telling what-the-Hell kind of distorted-reality tomfoolery would make itself known.

But the cyborg-girl did not do that. Though fear was making her feel full of trembles and keeping those big eyes of hers looking bigger, those electromechanical hands of hers stayed put on the big steering wheel to keep this truck going forward. It was maybe related to that way people went stock-still with shock and confusion when something very wrong was happening.

She thought calming, reasonable thoughts. It was just a vehicle, _just a vehicle. _She had seen her fair share of malformed muties. Just the sight of a _blue Cadillac _ought not shake her mental equilibrium—_just a vehicle! _It was not as if some kind of multi-tentacled, other-worldly creature rolled down a side window of the Cadillac to wave a grotesque, mutated limb in revealing its presence…because that was exactly what kind of creature Gally thought was driving the Cadillac-that-was-not-really-a-Cadillac, circa 1983, sky-blue paint job…

"It's a blue thing, and it doesn't like ya. What are ya gonna do about it?" asked the truck driver. "Its way with you somehow. Even if ya managed to get over or away from it, so long as yer the focus of its attention, it's gonna get ya. Oh yeah, _i-i-i-it's _gonna get ya."

Gally kept her eyes on the vehicle that was speeding ahead of her. Eyes focused that way, the highway itself seemed to blur. There was the sound of the truck's heavy engine. Beyond that was the sound of that car's antique-gasoline engine. These were the sounds of vehicles speeding along, the sounds of speed—the sound of danger. This was turning into a fighting situation. Said the cyborg-girl, "I do not wish to become lost to endless fighting. Haste is my emphasis."

"Well, I've got _n-e-ews_ for ya, baby! Peace ain't happening any damned time soon!" countered the truck driver. "That blue vehicle zoomin' up ahead wants a piece of ya… Yeah, a piece of yer action!" He leaned forward and whooped. "_Whoo-hoo! Look out, doll-girl!_"

Now the blue Cadillac-car was changing its speed and movement. Screeching sounds of tires ripped the air as that shadowless vehicle began to swerve—the back of the thing swaying on its suspension. One thing about cars of American manufacture was their weight, especially the weight of luxury vehicles. And if that vehicle retained many of the physical qualities of such a thing—blue Cadillac, circa 1983, low chassis—then it was certainly going to be a bit sluggish and sloppy in its maneuvering. Meaning, the thing could do a flippety flip at any moment. Those tires could give out as the driver of the thing—whatever the driver was—lost control.

Behold, that was exactly what seemed to happen. Gally heard an explosive _ka-pow _of an exploding tire. A big billowing blue-gray cloud of smoke fluffed its way over this truck's windshield.

It was a car tire, not this truck's tires as the car began to go crazily out of control, swerving drunkenly. It took one swooping turn to the left, too far…oh, too damned far… Then the thing began to flip over and over sideways, the way that cars start turning when they are going too fast and have the beginnings of a very, very bad accident. The windows were blasted from the shock, and little bits of debris were fluttering everywhere.

It was the sort of flippety flipping maneuver that was either going to end with the vehicle being a smoking heap on flattened tires, or it would end up upside-down and still a smoking heap. Either way the passengers would end up being meat-dolls thrown clear or squashed flat when the vehicle itself rolled over them. And it was still flipping over and over. In its madcap flipping, there was maybe a glimpse of a few long limbs fluttering out of the driver-side window—limbs too long to be arms.

Gally pretty much expected that to happen and was already swerving this truck. The cyborg-girl had driven large and heavy vehicles before. She knew just how to rapidly turn the steering wheel like _this…_to the left and press the brakes _just enough. _ It was almost like feeling the capabilities of this oversized truck in getting it to veer around the blue vehicle that was flipping over and over.

Anyone who would have thought that a massive behemoth of a truck could not move like this, they would be wrong. That was because it just did move the way it did. Gally was able to make this gigantic truck veer completely over to the left lane in getting past the crashing Cadillac. A glimpse in the rear-view mirror, and Gally saw the thing flipping off into the distance and suddenly out of sight. What happened next would not, not, _not _have made sense if it happened elsewhere.

Whatever, it happened anyway. No sooner had Gally looked away from the rear-view mirror to look ahead—and she saw that very same Cadillac suddenly in front rather than in back. The blue Cadillac was stopped across the road in front of her. _Yes _it was the same vehicle with the blue paint job—now a scratched-up, wrecked paint job. _Yes, _it looked as if it had flipped over more than a few times. And, yes, the thing was blocking up the whole lane. All kinds of little bits and pieces of the Cadillac-that-was-not-a-Cadillac.

Gally was able to re-do the same impossible maneuver that she pulled last time. Instead of veering the vehicle right to left, now the truck veered right to left. She heard this truck's tires squawking just a little bit as they ripped along the road, and she had to lean into the turn. But the truck was doing it—even if there were all kinds of bumpety scrape sounds from running over little bits of Cadillac.

Something _yow-w-wled _outside of this truck, the howl fading off as this truck kept on going. No doubt it was whatever creature that was driving the blue Cadillac. Or it was maybe the strange vehicle itself making that sort of animal noise. Gally was not sure. Gally was also getting to feel more than a little worried about all the kinds of creatures that could maybe put an end to her quest a bit early.

"What I tell ya, baby!" said the truck driver. "When something blue wants to get ya, it's gonna do it's darnedest. Ya think that gettin' away is possible. Maybe it is. But they'll come back from the dead to get ya. Then again, bein' dead ain't really the end, like some people maybe wanna believe…" His voice lowered as a sly smile came to his face. "It's just like yer not gonna believe what the Hell is gonna happen next."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Gally. And that was when explosive sounds blew out from both sides of the truck. _Not again, _went her thoughts in struggling to maintain control of this vehicle. Trouble was, it was getting to be out of control.


	16. Chapter 16

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 16

Gally was doing her damned best to keep control of this vehicle. Trouble was, there was almost no way of doing _that _at the moment—an eighteen-wheeler when _all eighteen wheels seemed to have exploded at the same time. _All eighteen wheels were now nothing but metal rims with slapping scraps of rubber on them. As such, they were all less than useless. The tires were downright detrimental to the operation of this particular means of transportation.

The cyborg-girl had existed a very long time, longer than a few human lifetimes—even having changed bodies at more than a few points. Such a series of lifetimes included enough experience to sort of know when certain tires of a vehicle explode while one is driving the before-mentioned. Right now, that sense of knowing was telling her that all tires were done deals. That sense of knowing was also telling her that there was _no way in Hell _that this ought to be happening.

Whatever… It _was _happening. At the least, Gally knew how to handle the situation as best as possible—or thought so. Nope, stomping on the brakes—which is the sort of thing that most panic-ridden folks would do—was the opposite of a good idea. That would only send the vehicle into a prolonged screech and perhaps an overturning of the vehicle. The best thing to do was keep the steering aimed straight ahead and _lightly _apply brakes a little at a time. If her skills failed to keep this thing going the right way, this thing would start flipping.

Vehicles in this world had a terrible tendency to do that sort of thing, too: flipping. When vehicles flip, terrible things happen to passengers. Sometimes they get around like toys. Sometimes they are beaten up within the vehicle itself as it turns over and over and over…. And there are those times when passengers are thrown forward, only to have the vehicle squash them flat against the road when it catches up: making people into meat pancakes.

Why did vehicles in this world flip so damned often? And why, oh _why, _were there no seatbelts? Well, that's what happens when there is no such thing as government regulations. Unregulated vehicle manufacturers will make any damned vehicle any damned way they want—even if such vehicles end up flipping more often than whore-fried hamburgers in road house frying pans. This vehicle felt just about to do exactly that—go flipping over, if not make one of its passengers get flipped like whore-fried hamburgers at a road house.

But Gally wasn't the meat in this situation. Her skills and reflexes would allow her to survive anything this vehicle could do. It was the truck driver that ought to be truly worried. The truck driver was a fleshie.

The cyborg-girl quickly swiveled her head to the right to look at the man in the passenger seat. That truck driver in the shotgun seat had a real human body, real human meat and skin. Such a body was all full of soft vulnerable organs within an easily breakable skeleton, covered over with a layer of muscle tissue and flimsy epidermis. If this vehicle so much as shrugged in the wrong direction and did a flippety flop, the truck driver was going to be mutilated and obliterated.

"_I don't think so!_" shouted the truck driver above the rattling noise of tires, somehow responding to Gally's train of thought. "_See ya in the breeze!_" He put both arms out and up—reaching for the top part of the passenger-side window. Or he was reaching for something out there, something Gally did not see… Then he was gone, having gone right out the window. It was hard to tell if the truck driver was accidentally blown out if he _jumped _out.

Whichever the case, the truck driver was no longer in this situation. There was no way and no time to see if he was okay because maybe this truck was not going to be okay. This thing was taking far too long to slow down. Gally's driving skills were made excellent over those lifetimes of experience, but even her skills could go only go so far in keeping this rig from doing vehicular cartwheels.

Then some kind of mechanical part beneath the truck failed and made other parts fail right along with it. And from the feel of things, it was probably part of the suspension system. Now the shuddering of the vehicle was getting worse. Now the whole truck was shimmying and shaking. It filled the air with a nightmarish sound of insanely shuddering metal and crazy broken tires. The steering wheel was vibrating so hard at this point that it looked like a blur. And somewhere in the chaos, the windshield began to crack and dials on the dashboard exploded. It was getting to be too much.

Yes, Gally's body was armored and made of an alloy capable of withstanding plenty of damage. Also true was how a small and self-rejuvenating supply of nanobots flowed within her, repairing her completely if it came to dying—even if her body's nanobots would repair her more slowly than Kyrie's nanobots.

But few people truly wish to die. Gally had already died once before, and it was a frightfully long time before coming out of it. It was her still-conscious mind trapped in her own broken body, unable to speak or move, unable to do anything but barely hear and see weakly. And like Gally, Kyrie had undergone a similar experience—spoken about in whispered and troubled words. For those with synthetic bodies and infused nanotechnology, such a thing was a price to be paid—though it left one wishing to be unconscious while it happened.

_No death this time, _thought Gally before _ca-a-refully_ applied the brakes in one final risky maneuver. This produced a truly awful sound of metal wheel rims squealing and rattling on the roadway. If the vibration of the vehicle was bad before, it was getting to be worse—eighteen tortured metal tire rims squealing along the roadway. Gally let out a quick shriek of fright as the last of the dials on the truck's dashboard popped, bursts of broken dial-glass tossed at her torso and face. It had to end…

And it was ending. The vehicle…began to slow down. Gray smoke from flayed tires—all eighteen tires—and bits of the highway were kicked up all around this massive truck. But it _was _stopping…

…

This truck did stop, no doubt. Everything was almost quiet save the hissing of a cooling engine and settling parts. But it would not start again and likely not be of any use: eighteen blown tires, blasted suspension system, and probably a wrecked drive-train. _This atrocious vehicle has failed me, _thought Gally, herself fuming at the wheel. The cyborg-girl knew better than to yell at the truck or hit steering wheel. Hitting the steering wheel would be a futile and wasteful gesture that would surely damage it. As for yelling, vehicle engines were notorious for their bad attitudes.

Nope, this thing was not going anywhere any time soon. It was most likely that running over the debris from that blue Cadillac kicked up from the road. The debris must have then evenly spread in exactly the sort of way that all eighteen tires of this truck were obliterated at once.

_Think, girl… _Gally did think, keeping her head resting against the steering wheel. Obviously true was how this vehicle was not going to be of use to her any damned more. That was getting to be too true of most vehicles. But without a vehicle, it meant traveling on foot with a weak sense of direction. Only when with the party of three could Gally feel the pull of that lost artifact, the true direction to take. Kyrie could feel it strongest since it was most attuned to her. But the party was broken, and Kyrie was taken.

Maybe the truck driver could help. But he jumped ship when the truck was going damned swiftly. The road must have skinned him alive when he landed at such a high speed. Make that _if _he landed. There was something not normal about that truck driver—just as there was nothing right about that blue Cadillac.

Came the realization, something not right about this whole setup. A _setup _was exactly what this felt like. It was something pre-planned. This had the feeling of an elaborate scheme or trap. And Gally was the gullible sucker pulled into it.

That was the way things seemed to be when pursuing the Golden Hope: Things happened that _seemed _to be pre-planned. It was like some kind of fate. And when Gally sat up to look at where she was now, it seemed even more coincidental.

The smoke around the vehicle was clearing up. But something about the smoke itself made the air seem to ripple before there was a clear view. Gally looked around, looked left, ahead and right before she saw something roadside.

It was a small settlement—one without a wall. There were one-story buildings and small houses all squared together. And from what was visible, all the buildings were intact. That ought not be the case since anything not protected by walls and armed settlers was wrecked by muties. Herds and waves of muties ought to have obliterated everything unprotected in the wastelands by now. This settlement was not… _How curious, _thought Gally. _It also may be inhabited. _The cyborg-girl opened up the driver-side door and climbed down from the high position in the vehicle's cab section.

…

This was the cyborg-girl on foot again. Her boots were on the ground—on the hard asphalt of the highway. And it was her boots that tapped out a slow sound in getting off the asphalt and onto the hard sandy ground, getting over to the small settlement while her eyes were in a curious gaze. _This is all so very strange, _went her thinking

Getting away from the highway, her steps took her to the center street that ran between the houses and buildings. It really was a very small settlement: merely three blocks long. All of the houses were simple, one-story affairs with front doors and front stoops, bricks for walls and gabled roofs. The buildings were also plain and looked to be just functional enough to serve their purposes—probably for electricity or goods manufacturing.

Smoke was billowing out from one of the house chimneys even though it was a very warm sort of day. And was that _gold-colored _smoke coming from that chimney? Or maybe it was just a trick of the light, sunlight being the color it always was. The door to the house opened just as the cyborg-girl came within steps of the front stoop.

It was a tall, hard-looking man standing there. He was dressed in a neatly buttoned work-shirt and faded blue jeans. Thick, boot-like work-shoes were his footwear. He was dressed in such a way that only his face and hands were exposed, swarthy skin that looked resistant to harsh weather. As lean and tough as he looked, his thick dark hair framed a calm face, one with dark brown eyes that seemed tired somehow.

"You have arrived. It is good that you have," said the tall swarthy man, a calm man. "I hope that you have remained calm in your travels. The path that leads here is one of peace. It is also sometimes a path of trouble." He had an ever-so-faint smile. "You are welcome to our small village."

_The man knows more than what he is saying, _thought Gally—not responding immediately. _He speaks with double meanings, saying things with larger truths behind them. _

So she decided to be just as subtle. "Things can be said to happen for many reasons. Such things can seem to be more or less coincidental. Circumstances grow out of such necessities regardless of who experiences them."

The calm man nodded, his smile widening. "Ah! Such is said by a person who is beginning to understand." He stood aside and gestured within. "Please come this way. I will try to help you. Or you may try to help me."

…

2.

…

It was a sort of living room—as plainly furnished and austere as it was. The floor was made of polished wood, a rectangular carpet atop it. Two lightly-padded beige couches were set left and right of a stone fireplace, in front of which was a low circular table—a kind of coffee table. Gally took particular interest in the zig-zag red-and-yellow patterning on the carpet beneath the circular coffee table. Both windows were made of some kind of powered glass that amplified the light, so there was no need for indoor lighting during daylight hours.

The very calm man closed the door and moved to stand next to Gally. "Please do make yourself comfortable. It is important for us to talk about certain things." He gestured towards the beige couches. Both looked equally suitable for sitting or lounging.

Walking gently, Gally tried not to make her boots click too loudly in going across the wooden floor. There was no chatter of other people or sound of activity outside—which was common to most human settlements during daylight ours. Human settlements tended to have some kind of bustling busy sound outside since people lived in close-together houses—the settlements surrounded by four town walls. But this small settlement had no town wall. It also had none of that bustling sound.

Gally walked carefully in the quiet before sitting primly upon the padded couch—with knees together and hands resting lightly upon thighs. Her gaze wandered over to miscellaneous items in this living room as the calm man sat down. There was a bookshelf, books with maroon and beige covers. A blue radio or music player sat on a middle shelf. Her eyes saw a blue telephone before looking to the man sitting down on the opposite couch.

The very calm man looked at Gally. "Now that we are more properly seated for this conversation, there is time to look at you. You have the look of a young huntress. I welcome you. This, even if the land is less than welcoming to strangers… Something of your nature gives the idea that you are not of this place." He tilted his head slightly to the right, eyes glancing in that direction. "There are questions. We all need our answers."

Gally tried to be polite in demurring her eyes somewhat rather than directly meeting the calm man's gaze. Yet…something kept her eyes focused upon those of the very calm man. His eyes were also dark, very dark. It was not just the slanting light, either. It was the same way in which the truck driver's eyes were so infinitely steeped in the color of darkness. _Darker than the darkness of the universe, _went a thought in Gally's mind. Someone told her that.

Then the cyborg-girl saw the very calm man nod twice. His very calm voice also sounded out. "The questions might be inside of you already. It is just a matter of simply relying upon those answers. No answer is so strange as to not be believed."

And with just that statement, all kinds of questions came springing out from within her mind. Trouble was, there was no way all those questions could be asked at the same time. Or it would come out sounding like a blurted mess.

What was the meaning of that blue luxury vehicle that came zooming out of nowhere, wrecking the wheels and underside of her borrowed truck? And of all the abandoned and broken highways, why was it that this one happened to lead here? Gally opened her mouth, lips parted—but found it quite impossible to ask even one of those questions floating through her mind. Any one of those questions was a hum-dinger worth all kinds of information if answered.

"Such is some kind of confusion," said the very calm man. "Confusion can come about to those who do not heed the ways of things. Things are different. You know that very well by now, huntress."

"It has something to do with the artifact?" asked Gally. "We were told that the ways of it led others to it. Do we make decisions, or are they made for us?"

"I need not answer that," said the very calm man. "The answer lies within the breeze. Can you feel the breeze as you move about? Or does it _seem _to move as you do? It is just as one can feel the breeze across the skin of the face—if nowhere else."

A random gust of air swished through this place. Gally put her right hand to a side of her face. _Something touched me, _went her thought. It was a gentle touch, a caring one. It was enough to make her give pause.

Gally had been fighting for so long that it had been a very long time since anyone touched her gently—her face being the most sensitive part of her. Only her face and scalp were covered with synthetic flesh. From the neck and down, the rest of her body was sections of metal.

If her face was made of real flesh instead of elastic polymer and myogel substrate, the cyborg-girl would have blushed. It was also embarrassment that led her to quickly lowering her hand. Simply sitting here with a hand to her own face made her feel ridiculous. But _what _touched her? How did something touch her? The cyborg-girl looked left and right, her head of silken dark hair swishing.

There was no one. And there was no immediate cause. Such a gentle hand must have belonged to someone who was caring. As for the breeze, it must have been a sort of fan—those circular powered things that made for artificial indoor winds… But her eyes could see no such thing.

But it was not what Gally saw with her eyes, but with her mind. The cyborg-girl looked around, looked in the direction of the breeze and was somehow able to see…_through the right-side wall. It was a view of a wasted and terrible landscape. It was terrible enough to make her want to look away. But her gaze was held. Her mind was held…_

…

_A deep orange-red sky hung over a city—or a place of machines. The streets were made of ferro-ceramics, a hard surface able to withstand the chemical rains that fell from the contaminated sky. Flanking the streets were gigantic machines that continually churned and thrummed. They were machines the sizes of buildings, but there were things living in them—machines with pipes going into the metal-covered ground. Screams came from within the machine-buildings._

_The view entered a dark metal hatches at a side of one such machine. A breeze of sound accompanied movement down and down, into a metal hallway. Metal, because the walls were made of steel bricks—or a metal that resembled steel. Industrial-looking doors were left and right. Behind those closed doors came sounds of grotesque grunting sounds mixed in with more sounds of working machinery. _

_Instead of continuing deeper into the industrial nightmare, the view went up. The viewpoint began to move upwards and into one of the light fixtures. It went _into _the brightness of the light, becoming brighter and going out of here… _

…

_Things jolted _sharply into focus. Gally gasped, fingertips to her sternum, just beneath her neck. Her eyes, eyes bigger than human ones, seemed even larger—wide open with surprise. Things were just remained in sharp focus. Then her eyes came to rest upon the very calm man. "I may know something now," came her careful words.

The very calm man nodded twice as he crossed his arms, leaning back against the couch he was sitting upon. "It is important that you believe that you know. Some truths are more beliefs than reality. Maybe some kinds of truth are so _big _that they cannot be known by just the minds of people. We can only _try _to understand the ways of things."

"But they need not be the way things must go, is that right?" asked Gally. "There is no reason to fight on if the ways of things seem to slant towards chaos and some kind of darkness over the people."

"I agree," said the very calm man. "The people need light and hope. It is exactly why those of the settlements continue to do what it is that they do. They have a sense of the larger truth even if Dahlia does not."

That would be Princess Dahlia. Dahlia was only doing what her sense of morality was telling her—getting her to do the right thing by at least one definition of it. What _was _right? But in truth, Princess Dahlia did not have that larger sense of truth. That was because the plague of muties that roamed the land was not merely some kind of larger pest-control issue—if one considered muties to be pests. The muties were just a symptom of something else.

Said the very calm man, "The land is sick. There was a great War that struck the health of the world. Much death followed. All the big places of the city people fell to ruin, which was the point of the War. What the city people refused to understand was that they killed the land just as they were killing each other. Even after the killing, much of the land remained full of sickness. It is a sickness that can only be detected a little bit by the machines of the city people."

Gally said, "I have felt the sickness in places. There are some places where things do not feel right." Her thoughts went to her dizzying experience in the abandoned research facility. Some places in the building made her feel disoriented. Those places were not right, places were wrong and terrible things happened. But it was not just the research facility. "A form of contamination, I think. The fabric of reality, of time and space, in some places…" began her voice, unable to finish.

"City people would have many names for the sickness," said the very calm man. "It is nevertheless what it is. It is a bad thing. The city people have dealt the fatal blow to this world. And though much death happened before, the final death of the world shall follow. That will be unless the city people find the very strong medicine"

"But did you not say…?" _Did you not say that the world is like a terminally ill patient? _Gally did not express that aloud. Whatever the very calm man said had more than one meaning. His words were like a crystalline sculpture; a person could walk around it, see it from different angles, and it would seem to change. But the very calm man did say that some truths were too big for just people to understand. All that Gally could do was try to understand.

The very calm man got up from the couch just enough to step towards the low coffee table. "Would you like some hot chocolate? There is not much left at this time. But I can always get more. Why have it at all if we cannot enjoy it?"

Gally wanted to ask where the Hell that hot chocolate just suddenly came from. It was not there a second ago. Yet there it was—sitting warm and tasty atop the coffee table. Nobody brought the thing to the table, and the very calm man didn't get up from that couch for even a second. This whole damned settlement did not even look as if it had seen _any _kind of sweet drinkable stuff in a very, very long time.

Never mind that. There was no use in arguing against reality. The cyborg-girl just went to kneel at the coffee table, knees on the floor and left hand upon a thigh as her right hand reached for a cup of the hot chocolate. The liquid seemed to blur in the cup. Something was telling her that the stuff was not just hot chocolate. Before doubt fell in, Gally brought the cup of flowing warm sweetness to her lips and began to drink, the fluid filling her body. The warmth flowed to her mind, setting her…_to feel very sleepy. The cyborg-girl had some worries about the cup having been drugged, a chemical going through the sophisticated nutrition processing systems of her body that would have filtered out potentially harmful substances. But thoughts like those thoughts drifted away, sideways into unconsciousness. _


	17. Chapter 17

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

"Questions In A World Of Blue"

Vocal by Julee Cruise

Music by David Lynch

Chapter 17

_Some kind of floating disorientation made it difficult for her to wake herself up. Things did not feel quite right, feeling floaty and far too light, like trying to fight a pillow: Use all the strength you want, but that pillow is just going to take the struggles and soften the blows to the point of luxury. The sense of disorientation did not help at all. Even so, the girl struggled._

_Something was not normal about all of this, something about her current location. It was also something about herself. Still straining against the floaty blurriness, trying to force herself awake, the girl sat up in the bed and…_opened her eyes to the well-lit bedroom, the indoor illumination augmented by golden sunlight from the windows. It was the beautiful golden illumination of late day cascading through grand windows at the left side of the room—sunset light worthy of any number of warm spring days. Gally took in this sight and could not believe it.

A bedroom? For somebody to just call this place a _bedroom _was like calling a slum-side newsstand a university library--even if some could put those two locations in roughly the same social class. There was no way that just the word _bedroom _would do. This place was not just luxurious, it was _exquisite. _

It was easily large enough to serve as a hotel suite, a wide-open space going towards the tall wooden doors. The windows went up to the ceiling—which had an honest-to-goodness _diamond chandelier _ hanging from it. Gally knew the difference between glass and diamonds, and that sparkly, million-dollar light fixture was the real deal; you'd best believe it. The way it lit up this bedroom with a low and comfortable glow, it made the silk carpet look extra silky. Close to the gigantic bed itself was an expensively stocked platinum-metal bookshelf, a silver-metal music player that had gold buttons, and several kinds of luxury items that Gally could not immediately identify. Every single thing in this room was easily the price of someone's head.

There was certainly something _very _wrong with this situation—because it was the complete opposite of what was expected. One minute, she fell asleep in a sad little human settlement. The next, it was her being in this crazy rich bedroom suite. It was a bedroom worthy of being in a palace. And to Gally, there was only one place known in which there still was a palace: the capital city.

Now was the time to act. Gally slid herself sideways along the silk cover. Doing so made for a feeling of silk against legs and under her fingers… Yes, she could _feel _the warm sleek smoothness of the material. And _that _gave her pause as well.

If her sudden apportation into this exquisite bedroom suite was one surprise, then looking down at her own self was worth at least two more surprises. Her skin…. More than that. Her body was _changed_. Gally was still of petite stature, her physique with the lithe proportions worthy of a dancer. But now her body was one of flesh—looking perfectly human, _very _human. And since her body was clad in a cocktail dress, the smooth perfection of her body was all the .

And there so happened to be a full-length mirror to the left of the bed—next to a series of dresser-drawers. Her body feeling _too_ light and agile, Gally regretfully moved off of the silky softness to set bare feet upon the oh-so-silky carpet.

Such steps brought her to the mirror—seeing herself dressed in a clinging, revealing garment. The sleek, black dress she had on was nothing short of controversial. The skirted portion went to mid-thigh and had slits left and right, revealing the legs almost to the hips when one walked. As for the bodice, there almost was none: two diagonal strips of cloth that crossed diagonally over one breast each and looping around her neck before meeting wide at her hips, leaving her back totally bare and much of her torso exposed.

As revealing as it was, it did not show everything. Her fingers went around to the wrap-around part of the silk dress that went behind her neck. There, a snap of fingers undid the hook. There was a zipper at one side—just above the right-side slit in the skirting portion. The garment came off with the greatest of ease. There was nothing on underneath.

Now naked, Gally was able to see all of herself. All over, her body was a smooth marble tone. Small feet were at the ends of slender calves and long thighs, flowing into the curves of hips and a flat abdomen beneath ribs with small high breasts, her torso flanked with shoulders with slender arms and graceful fingers on neat hands, a slender neck and her face, her silken dark hair framing her visage. Her large, dark eyes stared out from the reflection in looking—eyes that were still larger than typically human. Having been a cyborg all of her life, Gally could tell the difference between electronic eyes and real human ones.

Then Gally understood this. Her body was a synthetic flesh one. Fingers to her smooth, flat abdomen, the skin was _too _smooth. She turned around just enough to see herself from behind in the reflection, turning her head, then faced forward again. Indeed, her skin was flawless--perhaps inhumanly so. There was not a single blemish on the skin of this body. Her skin-tone was slightly different from that of Princess Kyrie, but the effect was still the same. Beneath her too-flawless skin, there was the movement of myogel muscle tissue—artificial muscles—over an alloy skeleton. Inside of her abdomen would be components powered by a heart-sized microfusion sphere.

It was nevertheless a very real-looking body, an exquisitely beautiful one at that--all the proportions of her metal physique, except rendered in synthetic flesh. Synthetic skin may be much more resilient than real flesh, but it still felt like skin and just as vulnerable. And for the first time in her life, Gally truly felt _naked. _

The girl quickly crouched down to gather up the garment. The girl was able to zip up the bottom part, but it took just a bit longer to get the bodice right—crossing the strips and looping it behind her neck, then making sure that her breasts were fitted back behind parts of the crossed strips and that the slits at the sides did not reveal _too _much. Her fingers then smoothed down the front of the skirted portion.

There was the thick clacking of the door opening. Gally turned to see Princess Kyrie—who was dressed in a white-silk version of the same dress. The skirted portion went to mid-thigh and was slit at the sides to reveal much of legs when one moved. Two crossing strips formed the bodice—twin strips fastened to the waist and crossing over breasts to loop behind the neck. Unlike Gally, though, Kyrie's more complete with small high-heeled bootlets on feet and some jewelry: dangly diamond earrings. Her head of pale-blonde hair was combed straight back, the sides tucked behind ears…that were slightly pointed. It was the first time that Gally had actually seen all of Princess Kyrie's ears--rather unusual ears.

"Though incredibly successful at so much else, you are not so adept at preparing for this ball!" said Princess Kyrie, a smile on her face. "In such an event, I have summoned handmaidens to be of assistance." The princess then stood aside as half a dozen women came in, all of them with baskets full of fashion fix-up paraphernalia.

…

When one speaks of the Grand Hall, one had better believe it is deliberately said with capitalizations. The Grand Hall was easily the size of a small museum or large theater—a vaulted ceiling that was three stories above the floor with painted, romanticized scenes of grand kingdom battles gone by—partially illuminated by the three chandeliers. And the windows along one side were just as tall. Statues of past kings and heroes flanked the walls, next to gold-gilded Doric columns that went way up. The marble floor was one of a polished stone similar to marble—black and white polished checkerboard patterning squared off by gold beneath the hard-laquered shiny surface. A carpeted walkway went all around close to the ceiling to look down at the scene from which one could look down at the party in full swing with all of its nobles and important people. Golden summertime light of late afternoon shone slantingly from the windows, showing this all.

_And what people they were_. All the assembled gentlemen were tall and dressed in gray or white tuxedos, various sashes and medals adding some variety to their very similar clothing—all of the gentlemen being tall and broad-shouldered. Yet the ladies were dressed in various clinging shimmering gowns, gowns that bared legs while clinging to torsos and bosoms, ballerina-slender bodies—jeweled necklaces at their throats and circlets at wrists. What they wore was softer and better than silk. Just as the kingdom had technology enough to flatten tops of mountains and build palaces atop them, there was certainly wisdom and skill enough to craft such seemingly impossible materials.

The assembled ladies and the gentlemen were all having a good time even while not dancing at the moment. There were plenty of seats at tablecloth-draped circular tables along the walls, but no one sat there, either. The several-dozen high-classed folks invited to this particular shindig, they were standing up and milling about in the rectangular area. A low din of cocktail-party conversation pervaded it all much as the golden light of late summer afternoon gleamed down from windows—supplementing the soft light from the chandeliers high overhead… Then everyone shut up.

Whatever they were gossiping about before, any and all miscellaneous conversations ceased. Eyes all turned to look in the same direction. That direction was towards the grand staircase, at the top of it. Apparently the guests of honor had arrived.

Gally and Kyrie stood hand-in-hand atop the staircase. While Kyrie had a gentle and refined smile upon her face, Gally was clearly and unabashedly wide-eyed in awe at the scene spread out before her. From the head of the grand staircase, one could see _everything—_the way the tall windows slanted in golden light, that light gleaming off of the columns and parts of the gold-squared polished floor, gleaming statuary and columns at the tall walls and windows, along with the small crowd of ladies and gentlemen that were waiting. They were all waiting for Princess Kyrie to make her descent… _They were also waiting for Gally_.

A glance from Princess Kyrie, and the two girls made their way down the stairs—clearly the center of attention. Of all the people, they were the most beautiful. Both were petite and with graceful beauty. Sunset-toned lighting gleamed on skin and bodies, also on the material of their gowns. Moving the way they did, the slits at the sides of skirts revealed glimpses of legs while the cross-strip bodices straddled a thin line between exquisite beauty and sheer sexiness. It was difficult to tell which of the two was more beautiful—both of them slender and pretty, in the same style of gown. Was it not for the contrasting tones, they could have been twin sisters: the beautiful princess in white silky gown and with a head of moonsilk-pale hair; the huntress dressed in a dark sleek gown, her dark hair head of hair the color of night and framing a delicate face.

Gally and Kyrie were at the foot of the stairs too soon—at least by Gally's view of things. This was happening too fast, this moment of adoring people and attention. As their ankle-length bootlets touched the marble flooring, the assemblage of ladies and gentlemen parted down the center to form two crowds, showing the gleaming black-and-white checkerboard flooring. They formed a clear way for wherever on the floor these two wished to go.

No one spoke. They all stood looking and waiting…until Princess Kyrie leaned towards Gally to whisper something in her left ear. "_This day is marked by the arrival of someone dear to yourself,_" came her words. "_He has come from a world away simply to be in your presence._"

When the princess leaned away again, Gally looked at her close friend, seeing her smile and nod once. But this said almost nothing about who the princess was speaking about. Almost nothing was not the same as nothing at all. There was the faint idea…

Then _he _stepped out from the throngs of well-dressed people. And when he did, Gally was surprised at not seeing him before—the big man and his strong shoulders, that confident smirk on his tan-toned handsome face. He was dressed in an expensively tailored suit and his headband was gone, but it was still _him. _

_Fogia, _thought Gally. And the girl was moving before realizing it—the skirted portion of her gown fluttering to show almost all of her legs, her arms outstretched in reaching for him. He was here. And before anything could take him away again, Gally wanted to make sure that he was still real. In this wonderful and dreamlike place, _Fogia was here. _

That broad-shouldered man in the tuxedo had to bend over slightly to meet Gally's unabashed embrace—her head meeting just the bottom of his solid chest. It was real muscle that made for his strength, not the robotic hardness of a cyborg body. Though a man of flesh, he had been strong enough for Gally, strong companionship in a broken world and its rule by Zalem. Now that he was here, things could truly be perfect.

Then Gally remembered herself—this extensive display of emotion in the presence of so many people. They were also people who were culturally refined in all kinds of ways. This was probably a very unladylike way to act. It was no doubt embarrassing to both herself and others.

Yet such was not the case.. After a pause, the ladies and gentlemen were clapping. There were murmurs of approval for this meeting of once-lost lovers. All the ladies and gentlemen of the crowd knew ahead of time about the huntress and her man Fogia—who had arrived some days ago and was well cared for. Princess Kyrie told her associates and confidants about Fogia—a man once loved by the huntress, how he was said to look. They in turn recognized him upon his appearance in the industrial area of the capital city, summarily hustling him up to the palace.

Now here he was. And here Gally was. Gally eventually forced herself to part from the embrace but still moved to hold his hands. Her hands were of synthetic flesh, but it felt real. Fogia felt real. Gally could feel everything about FogiaAnd it was wonderful.

Somewhere behind her, Princess Kyrie raised both arms, her hands looking upwards at the chandeliers. The air heated a bit, indicating that the princess was summoning energy. A slight breeze swished through the grand hall…as a glowing ripple of summoned energy passed from her fingertips to one of the chandeliers high overhead. The glowing mass flowed into the chandelier, then dissipated to spread to the other two chandeliers… All three chandeliers lit up, their crystals glowing brightly with a golden yellow-white light—like candles.

Then the music began to play. Some kind of soft chorus was playing—a mixture of gentle streaming violins chords. Mixed in were gentle tappings of a gentle beat. The melody flowed to fill the air. Somewhere in the instrumental flow, a gentle female voice began to chime out.

_Why…did…you go?_

_Why did you tu-u-u-urn_

…_a-way from me?_

_Whe-e-en all the world seemed to sing_

…_Why?_

…_Why did you go?_

_Was it me?_

_Was it you?_

_Que-stions in a world…of blue…_

Gally looked up at Fogia, seeing that grin of his turn to something slightly goofy and…a little embarrassed. Yes, it could only be Fogia that had _that _particular look to him. "They taught me how to dance," he said. As if he needed to ask, he did anyway. "You want to try?" They did, beginning a slow movement together in the midst of the music.

_How can a heart…_

_That's filled with love…_

…_start to cry?_

_When all the world seemed so right._

_How? Ho-o-ow can love die? _

_Was it me?_

_Was it you?_

_Que-stions in a world of blue…_

Gally danced in Fogia's embrace and felt as if floating. There was something vaguely troubling about the lyrics. Something about the singer sounded lost and forlorn, something sad and broken. Everything else felt perfect. Everyone else was so happy and in bliss. It was just something about what the singer sang about had an undercurrent of darkest wrong, about something going very wrong…_as that feeling began to drift away. Everything was drifting off and away…_

…

2.

…

_ Getting up and waking up was difficult still, struggling to reach the surface of consciousness from the thick waves of sleepiness. But it was easier as there was incentive to shake and wake. Someone was goading her, saying something to her. It was a woman's voice. Make that…an annoying female's voice—the sort of young woman a person one would call a bitch. The bitch, whoever the Hell she was, had an impatient and insulting tone of voice that prompted one to try and wake up just to get her to shut up. And once up, there ought to be a chance to slap her a good one or do something especially violent for the sake of silence._

_There was the hardness of a living room floor beneath her, as solid as the reality to which the cyborg-girl was awakening. And her eyes…_opened to look up at the living room ceiling, a ceiling with peeling paint that revealed the burnt-brown plaster beneath. Weak morning light shone slantingly through the windows at the right side, making Gally blink as some machinery within her eyes adjusted to the light source.

A feeling of deep and forlorn loss filled Gally, sitting straight up and looking down at herself, at her own body sheathed in close-fitting bodysuit. Her body was electromechanical: the slender shape of a female body of in shaped metal alloy, fitted sections resembling major muscle groups. Boots sheathed her legs to near the knees, and her body was covered to neck and wrists in synthetic leather. But her hands were exposed—metal hands that flexed and moved just like real hands just as the rest of her body could move exactly like a real one. This was her body, not one of delicate and beautiful synthetic flesh.

Clenching those metal hands of hers, the cyborg-girl leaned over and curled up on the floor as sobs shook her. The dream felt _so real. _Now it was her waking up to the nightmare of this reality—its fallen cities and prolonged wastelands, all of it lit by a dying sun while herds and hordes of muties roamed just for the sake of destroying everything. They would eventually win by conquering all the land, just as surely as the sun was getting ever dimmer with every passing decade. Fallen cities, dying light, why were things ending like this?

And here _Gally _was, a body that always felt and looked armored—the body of a cyborg-girl and not the body of a real girl, not even one of synthetic fleshYet a metal-type body would be very suitable to a dangerous and troubled world. In fact, her body was one that generated pleasure in dealing with conflict and strife. This body was made for obliteration and destruction. _The muties also existed for destruction, _thought Gally_. And perhaps the muties and I share that similarity in psychological drive_…

_No!_ Gally clenched her fists and eyes when that thought came to pass. Such could _not _be true. Her brain was _not at all _similar to that of the grotesque muties. Even if her body was robotic, her brain was still human. Her brain was one that strove for _human _progress and _human _desires. It was simply true that fighting and killing was _necessary. _Besides, she _liked _fighting—not just because of how fighting made her feel, but also because _it was right._

_I do what is right in a world going wrong, _insisted Gally from the depths of her sadness. Her sobs stopped coming as the realization dawned. Her eyes opened from the squinting. Then the cyborg-girl unclenched her body to once again sit up on the floor. It was little effort to stand up from there to look around.

What had once been a neatly kept and simple living room was now an abandoned room. Left and right of the fireplace, the cushions upon the sofas were being consumed by some kind of red mold. Dust and fine grit covered the floor, that thin grit from the sandy ground outside. All the walls were also with peeling paint, like the ceiling—no decorations. Maybe the table was the only thing in decent condition.

No doubt the rest of this house was also just as abandoned. Gally also suspected that, upon stepping outside, the rest of this small settlement would look to be just as lost. Something happened here to make it seem as if everything was fine and inhabited—at least on the surface. It was something fleeting and temporary, something powerful. It was gone now. Now it revealed the rotting, fading reality of everything.

Reality was malleable and can be changed. If there was power enough, yes… Anything could be made to happen in this land. Even dreams could be made solid. The truth of that was what gave Gally the confidence to turn to face the wooden door that led outside. Though things were weak and crumbling now, things could be made almost as wonderful and beautiful as that dream.


	18. Chapter 18

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 18

_I know you will come for me, _thought Princess Kyrie, her head turned to the left, pale-blonde hair curtaining a side of her face. If one stepped around to look at her eyes, one would see that they had temporarily turned gold in color. _You must. It is your purpose, is it not? If not, all is lost then… Everything will be gone._

There were doors made of blue crystal at floor level allowing one to step out onto a balcony when unlocked. Of course the windows and blue-crystal doors were reinforced with a tensor field: invincible against anything in the universe--projectile weapons, energy attacks or any other sort of murderous tomfoolery that would-be assassins would try.

The view beyond the window was partially obscured by curtains about thirty feet up. Yet the view was out there. A few more seconds, and her eye-color changed from reflective gold to a very dark blue before going back to reading a book of legends in front of her. No doubt, looking up from this book for too long would result in her sister forcing her to read one of those hard-hearted books about how people ought to be controlled. In fact, a few more books were being taken to this table right now--brought by gynoids.

In fact, a few more books were being brought to this table right now by such entities. A primly dressed gynoid in traditional pleated black skirt--stopping at mid-thigh--and sleeveless white blouse carried three books that looked as if they ought to weigh down those slender arms of hers. But like the princesses, the artificial girl had a synthetic flesh-type body over alloyed skeleton--though the gynoid's brain was simply a set of circular computer chips. And even if it was heavy, the gynoid did not mind at all. It was mind over matter: If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. But in this case, there was not really a mind to care at all--the gynoids being very simply programmed. They only existed to serve the royal family and bureaucrats of the government whenever they visited this place, immortal machine-girls with one purpose to their collective existence.

Even the lower floors of the palace had an exceptional view of the capital city, even from one of the grand side-rooms reserved for part of the royal library. The ceiling two stories up, bookcases and shelves that went just as high: bookcases of volumes about history, politics and science all throughout. There were walkways to access the texts. And since Princess Dahlia was most always interested in maintaining ever-more control over the people, maintaining and exploiting the knowledge found in the books was important.

And such was what Princess Dahlia was doing over at the far right side of the long table. Across the way was Princess Kyrie. Right now, both the pale-haired princesses were sitting at a long table set in front of some grand curtained sliding windows--both of them dressed traditionally. That would be the pleated skirt going to mid-thigh, the white silken top, bootlets worn on feet. Such was tradition, and no other female in all the land was allowed to wear exactly that kind of outfit.

In front of Dahlia was a hardcover text: a collection of political essays allegedly written by madmen from another world. Right now, Princess Dahlia's blood-colored eyes roamed over the words that described how a despotic ruler should rule by the ideal of _the iron fist in the velvet glove. _It was important to appear kind and caring. But the thing to do was have that iron-fisted control beneath that.

_The velvet glove, _thought Dahlia in looking across the table at her sister--reading one of _those_ books, tales of high-flying adventure and lost legends…like those about floating cities and invincible cyborg heroes. With her soft demeanor and silly little stories, Kyrie was more the velvet type and with no real fist to underlie her attitude. At the least, having Kyrie around bolstered the people's morale somewhat: Tales of the gentle princess who roamed the land in searching for some kind of long-lost legendary artifact of allegedly magical value added to the mystique of things.

Yet the people of the capital city were still downright depressed since getting word that Princess Kyrie's party was disbanded. Disbanded but not dead was their status. Those damned tale-tellers gossip-mongers and other assorted freaks of lore were talking too much. They spread word about that big strange man in green clothes was made deader than what one found on a butcher's block. Yet also true was how that _Gally_ person was still running about out there.

Princess Dahlia went back to reading the political essay… At the end of it, the lesson learned, it was all the more obvious as to why it would be _wonderful _to have Gally on her side instead of being opposed to it. Gally would _truly _be the iron fist of the velvet glove: her right-hand woman in building up the military while further efforts went into restoring the industrial strength and other infrastructure. Instead, here was just her flighty sister whose mind was thoroughly engrossed in tales best told to children and peons. Princess Dahlia put a thin red bookmark in the book before her before standing. Ah, there was still something to be done today, some additional mental conditioning to impose upon Kyrie.

Sounds of Dahlia's bootlets were softened by the carpeting, her open robe fluttering behind her in approaching Kyrie--who looked up from her own book to look wide-eyed at her sister. It was the sort of wide-eyed look that asked, _What do you want of me now?_

"Dearest sister," began Dahlia, "do you yet still pine away for that huntress of yours?" Dahlia took a step closer to Kyrie and reached out with her left hand. The hand went under Kyrie's chin, then widened to clasp her delicate jawline--a hand with fingernails at the edges. The fingernails began to bite…

It was a tight hold. Of course, Kyrie's metal bones could not be broken by the grip, no real potential for a broken mouth at the hands of her sister, but her synthetic flesh could nevertheless feel the pain. And though the fingernails did not pierce the synthetic skin, it hurt very much, nevertheless. Kyrie fought back the urge to gasp or make any other sound of physical distress. Instead, there was her standing up under the compulsion of Dahlia's lifting up. Some tears did threaten to come as the pain was intensifying.

Dahlia relented her hold on her sister. Yet her blood-colored stare meant that some form of corporal persuasion would come about if Kyrie fretted or tried to walk away. Said Dahlia, "Your will is weak, sister. How is it that you expect to partake of rulership if you lack the strength of heart to act for the good of the people?"

A swish of her own pale hair, and Kyrie turned to look out the window. "I _did _act for the good of the people. This kingdom is not at all well. Something once lost could restore glory. It was something of the old days and could easily bring back glory."

"Such foolish thinking as _that _has no place in these times," declared Dahlia, her voice cold. "Such talk belongs in those foolish stories of yours." Staring at Kyrie, Dahlia swung out her right arm to gesture towards the tall curtained windows--the curtains _swishing _aside to reveal the view of this mountain-top capital city. "Behold the land!"

Kyrie saw beyond the grand windows. It was a view all to familiar to her: a vast sweeping view of land hundreds of miles around--mountain-top city below. Below were the infinite stretches of the flat wastelands beyond, going off into a faded and slightly hazed horizon. Below was the genetically engineered forest immediately around the palace--yellow-orange tones of light cast over everything. Beyond that were the short square buildings and bigger square industrial structures. Just from here, a person could look over much of the city. And looking farther, one could see the grassy land spread out below and far, far away into the vast distance--the vast wastelands beyond. It was midday and the sun's position was almost overhead. Still, the low daylight cast everything in orange-reddish tones that would have been perceived as near sunset tones to someone from another world.

In the city were the people. And out there in the wastelands were more people--scattered settlements. Also out there was the slow destruction of everything. This land was dying. Along with it, the people were dying. "You fail to understand," said Kyrie. "You simply hope to use control and fury to bring about changes…"

"Yet again and again still we come about to the same argument," seethed Dahlia, making a swirling gesture with her right hand. "It gives the impression that your thoughts are as dizzy and as confused as you are. Do you yet fail to comprehend?" Her voice went up in pitch and intensity. "_I seek to rebuild!_" Kyrie winced, but that mattered little. "In place of weakness, we require power--power and control. Weakness is merely a debilitating symptom that can be overcome with the fire of willpower and discipline."

"While _fire _was exactly the sort of thing that obliterated the land in the first place," countered Kyrie. Though not turning her entire self to face her sister, Kyrie did turn her head enough to make eye contact. "Will you bring about a return of the fire? We are burning away what little healing there has been."

Dahlia clenched her fists and stomped her right foot. "_No! _It is _you _that yet fails to comprehend. We have stability. We also have prosperity. And it is control that brings about both of those very things. The settlements nearest the capital city are prospering. They have strong walls and have not been threatened by muties for over eighteen months. And at the heart of it, the municipal workers have ways of _controlling _the muties themselves." Then Dahlia lowered her voice. "At the least, it would be a more humane usage of muties rather than exterminating them from existence."

"Muties are living rubbish to be destroyed!" quickly yelled Kyrie…before realizing her verbal misstep. In confronting her sister, Kyrie sought to prove herself to be the more caring and benevolent one. While Dahlia's way was one of intense rulership combined with more subtle manipulation of the masses, Kyrie thought herself to be the one to bring benefit and hope to the people. But that last point reaffirmed how even Dahlia found use for the existence of muties--altering their behavior with training and medicines to serve the city in some simple capacities—such as using them for sanitation and maintaining the curfew. Muties were living rubbish, thought Kyrie, but Dahlia had found a way to re-use them. That could perhaps be seen as being less harsh than exterminating them all as one would do for pests.

"Ah, I can see the doubt growing in you eyes," said Dahlia. "Your opposition is not so fortified now, is it? Who is the more benevolent one? You would wish to slaughter wholesale all the muties while _I _have found uses for them—other uses besides wholesale slaughter and heaping their bodies into piles to be burned. Hmm…" Dahlia then turned to start walking across the library. "Come with me, sister."

…

2.

…

Kyrie followed. Outside the royal library, the twin princesses entered a side corridor of the palace--more light gleaming diagonally down from high windows. The sounds of their bootlets went from the periodic thudding along carpeted flooring to the hard and polished surface, echoing off of the gleaming walls. Not that Kyrie noticed, but the pace of her footsteps exactly matched those of Dahlia.

And they came to a familiar door. Kyrie stopped as Dahlia raised her hand to gesture that next door open. "As you recall, this is the insane scientist's laboratory," went her low-spoken comment. The last time Kyrie was here, the mad scientist and his assistants had inserted…things into her body merely for the sake of some kind of distorted scientific analysis. The pain took a day to fade. Her eyes were wide with worry, troubled with what awaited her now.

"Oh, do _come _now to reason!" complained Dahlia. "Such was merely a one-off event. It was true that Doctor Nova utilized a rather analog approach. Yet the results yielded were highly satisfactory… And was it not _you _who sought progress? The progress in science translates into progress for the people. Besides that, did you not suffer greater pains out in the wastelands? Hmm…" That said, Dahlia raised her right hand and made a left-sweeping gesture. The superconducting magnets inside her right hand generated the appropriate magnetic fields, pulling the door open. Dahlia walked into there with that confident, leggy stride of hers. Kyrie went in as well, timid and chastised.

…

Dr. Nova's laboratory was slightly different now. Plenty of square-tiled floor space was in the center. Along the periphery, at the walls, was that array of equipment. The equipment was polished and restored, but it seemed out of place here: large blocky and square-edged contraptions on carts that resembled things of some bygone age. Next to one of the blocky machines was a sad-looking mutie in coveralls—a mutie with the top of its head sawed off and wires stuck all in the soft convolutions of the slimy brain-matter, wires going to one of the computer terminals at a desk. Of course, Dr. Nova himself was midway between consuming a heaping bowl of flan and tapping keys on the keyboard. Every so often the mutie twitched whenever Dr. Nova's desktop computer terminal required extra processing.

The mutie…was staring at her. Such a thought ought not be possible since the mutie's brain was no doubt thoroughly taken over by whatever computer-oriented processes programmed into it: a brain wiped clean of anything else and emptied for usage as a terabit-sized hard drive. Kyrie thought that the mutie must have looked sad because of a general slackening of facial muscles, probably a side-effect of whatever surgical processes used to connect its brain to the computer. There was no way that a mutie could have emotions other than those geared for vicious destruction.

And all this time, the doctor failed to notice two princesses entering here. "His lack of sensibility can be amusing at times," said Dahlia, smiling at Kyrie. Her smile darkened, eyes taking on a mean sort of gleam. "Behold the vulnerability of those who lack awareness." Dahlia took some steps over to where Doctor Nova was staring at the computer screen before taking in a deep breath… "_Doctor Nova!_"

"_Wha-a-at!_" squawked the rugged-faced, wild-haired scientist. Shocked and confused, he then tumble-bumbled off of his office-style chair. He swayed and stumbled this way and that while that bowl of flan still in his left hand swayed and stumbled along with him... And…he…_fell. _He fell right on his butt. But the flan did not—still held in his left hand. He looked up at Dahlia with a look that matched his hairstyle. He also wished that he would have fallen on his back as so he would have had a view up the skirt…

Ah, but that sort of mis-step would have earned him a trip to the contaminated dungeons beneath the palace. Those dungeons so happened to be where pipes ran to and from centuries-old nuclear fusion reactors and a host of machinery at which he could only guess their purposes. Besides, Dahlia's servants saw to his needs for female companionship—for now. Still true was how both Dahlia and Kyrie were slender and petite visions of delicate and exquisite beauty—irresistible.  
_Ahem! _"Good evening, Princess Dahlia… he said, his face reddening as he sought to control his base urges—which was damned hard to do since there were _two _too-sexy females. With their slender and petite appearances, he was very much reminded of a certain metal-type female cyborg—one that sought to decapitate him on more than one occasion. "How may I continue to assist you? I would have assumed that you would not have required my expertise beyond locating your sister. That is not the case. Am I correct?"

"Such is true…to an inexact extent," declared Princess Dahlia. "Yet bear in mind that you seem to exhibit continued knowledge and expertise. I require expertise in these times of need for the kingdom." That said, Dahlia openly looked at her sister as if to communicate, _See, I too care for the greater good of the kingdom._

Kyrie noticed the stare of her sister in the left periphery of her vision while still looking at the mad scientist. Mad scientist was exactly what was seen in the man--an insane sort that had dealings with science. In that Dr. Nova dealt with dangerous types of science at all, it may as well have made him the sort of person one could not safely turn away from. What kind of science was it that used exposed brains connected to computers to locate people? He even had the sort of hair that declared his state of mind. Thought Kyrie, _Now why am I concerned with his hair at a time like this? The madness must be catching. _In which case, Kyrie glanced at her sister and at the door. There was a chance of walking out of this room without angering Dahlia…

Well, Dahlia's anger was temporary, but madness could very well be forever. "I shall return to my cell," declared Kyrie. "To be merely in the presence of this out-and-out _madman _is detrimental to my equilibrium. Good day, sister." With that, Kyrie turned and walked out of the laboratory--leaving the flan addict of a scientist. The door was just a touch heavier than expected, but it opened easily enough.

And Kyrie was half a dozen impatient strides away through the corridor when there was a familiar and sickening _yank--_pulling her entire body backwards, skirt and head of hair fluttering… Then the girl crash-landing onto the carpeting. The girl gave a shake of her head to get strands of hair out of her eyes but laid there, legs together and arms at her sides, listening and waiting for something else to happen.

Of course it did. A _swish _of air all around her, and Kyrie was lifted _up _into the air above the height of the door. A sickening feeling closed over her. It was not because of these sudden motions up and down. It was because of the intense electromagnetic forces used in tossing her about like a life-sized toy. That intense magnetic force could do quite a bit to trouble the inner components of her synthetic body.

At the least, that dizziness was not as annoying as _falling several meters through the air to land on her buttocks, hitting her back and the back of her head…_thump!The girl even bounced a little. "_Ah…_" whimpered Kyrie in sitting up, left hand rubbing her posterior and right hand to the back of her head while those dazzling pinpoints of pain played through her vision.

Dahlia's impatient voice sounded out from behind. "Must it constantly come to the crudeness of corporal corrections to your wayward behavior, dear sister? Apparently, it is so." Not that Kyrie saw it, but it was felt nevertheless--Dahlia making a reaching gesture in Kyrie's direction. Once more, Kyrie was lifted into the air…_and dropped--_falling in much the same way as before in that her skirt-covered butt hit before her head did.

Still, Kyrie _did_ hit her head--the back of her pretty noggin bouncing off of the carpet. This time, Kyrie could not sit up and was barely conscious as…_a haze of pain closing over. _Two taps to the brain-case ought to be enough for anyone. And it was getting to be too much.

"Oh, dear goodness…!" said Dahlia, her voice mocking and sarcastic. "Have you injured your brain?" The still-standing princess put hands to hips. "Damage to your brain would be the solitary explanation as to why you continue these foolish actions of yours. Things could be improved if we removed your current brain and put something else more…_amenable _to things? Perhaps a gynoid's thought processor? It would still be your body walking around, seeing with your eyes. The people would not know the difference from a distance. And even if they did, such would not matter terribly much so long as there was the notion that the _other _princess was still alive--in some way."

The shock of such a thought was enough…_to push Kyrie over too much. Kyrie tried sitting up…and promptly laid back down again. __Feelings of fear and trouble closed over as that dazzling darkness of pain made things far too much. It was too much, her mind falling into unconsciousness. _


	19. Chapter 19

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 19

As it always had, the wind blew gently swiftly across the flat grassy landscape, the dying sun casting orange-reddish tones light over this land. Then came the sound of something coming--a rapid-fire pattering of sounds that grew more audible… That pattering was from blurring boots and legs that speeded along--moving fast as if in defiance to the sedating qualities of the dying light.

Her body was leaned forward, wind whipping over the synthetic leather of her bodysuit to make her more aerodynamic. The slender metal arms were barely moving, though: left arm forward and right arm back in a martial arts stance. At the head, her elegant face was calm and with dark eyes looking forward, scalp of dark hair fluttering outward and back.

Behind those eyes was desperation. Running on foot was the last thing the cyborg-girl wanted to do, borne of final alternatives. Traveling on foot was especially dangerous in the wastelands in that a traveler could never know what would appear, or if the traveler would disappear. Reality was thin in places--a result of the War. Just the act of moving through the wastelands always seemed to produce random results as one could never be sure of even traveling in a straight line. Distances and directions were not what they seemed.

Still, Gally was running regardless of the danger. Most every other form of motorized transportation had failed her in some way. And most every settlement between here and there would likely be more a source of ever-more trouble and interference rather than assistance. _This _was surely to be the most reliable means of reaching the destination even if there was the possibility of overheating her body. As things were, the heat was growing within her.

_I shall be there, _thought Gally with her eyes to the horizon ahead. It had to be the correct direction as this was the last direction in which vehicular tracks were headed--tracks from vehicles of the capital city. Gally had followed the tracks as far as they went, before those tracks veered to a side and faded off.

The tracks had gone far enough in bringing her into sight of the landscape in the vicinity of the castle. Now there was a jagged horizon, a faint and low mountain range in the distance. The cyborg-girl knew for certain that of the mountain range in which the capital city was located. It was far off now. Yet it should not be long before her rapid movement brought her there. _Should anyone or anything make attempts at stopping me… _Her eyes narrowed. _It shall be met with destruction._

Lo and behold, the very same sort of thing Gally was thinking about so happened to appear ahead of her. _Trouble _appeared, that is. Trouble currently came in the form of six freaks—all of them in dusty business and with wild hair, rot-skinned things that had once been human. And they could have passed for human from a distance—two arms and two legs on a torso, topped with a head—if one ignored the fact that their fingers were just about as long as their legs. No telling what the Hell they could do with those fingers.

And guess what? Gally was not even going to give them chance enough to put those nasty fingers to work. Still dashing along, Gally's arms quickly went into the rapid blur of her own legs and came back out, both blades drawn. Ah yes… Drawing the twin blades from their sheaths made for a good and now-familiar feeling of _power_ filling her, a good and invigorating feeling of energy resonating within both daggers. Her dashing speed began to take on a glow—like the trail of a plasma rocket.

"_Snort!_" exclaimed one of the green-skinned freaks. Yes, it really did say that word: _Snort._ Then it made a questioning sound, something like _orp,_ just before its head was lopped off so fast that it took a half-second for the body to realize that it suddenly did not have a head anymore. The body stood upright for a moment and jetting a geyser of dark fluid into the air. It was not too different in appearance from a "gusher" oil well. Except in this case, the stuff coming from the mutie's neck was something most people would stay far away from lest they become contaminated as well.

Even while the mutie's head was a-swirl in mid-air, the rest of its nasty comrades had all been chopped down—if not their heads lopped off, their arms and legs done. Gally was well away before the various limbs of muties fell to the ground.

A quick movement of both arms moving to the blur of her legs, and the cyborg-girl had once again sheathed both blades. The trailing glow behind her went away. Her movement also slowed back to its previous speed--no longer enhanced with the power of the twin daggers.

It was true that the blades could give her a far-out boost to her speed. Trouble was, holding onto those things made her anxious for a fight. Gally was not again going to learn the lesson of what happened to one who was distracted by the random sorts of stupidity that usually came in the form of once-human creatures.

_Not again, _went a thought. _It shall not happen again…and again._ So thinking, Gally thought her ears picked up a laugh somewhere behind her—far behind her by now. It was the faint and far-off sonorous soprano staccato of a young woman's laugh. For just a moment, just a glance of time, the cyborg-girl thought about turning around to have a look-see—just a moment. The laugh was familiar, a familiar voice. It was the voice of trouble that Gally had perhaps heard in a dream—or a nightmare. And just maybe it was the same laugh hears when waking up in that previous settlement.

Whatever the Hell it was, it was still the fickle and destructive thing that everyone knows: _Trouble. Trouble _could be something like a loose boot while one was driving a vehicle—in whatever world one existed in. _Trouble_ could also be a popped blood vessel in the nose or in the brain. Then there also were times when _Trouble_ came in the form of two-fisted idiots who were looking to prove their physical tenacity--such artificial courage being well-lubricated with one too many alcoholic beverages. Compound that with how _Trouble _could come in the form of world-wrecking machines, and one could take a particular hating to that bitch—the cute and mischievous bitch whose two-syllable name began with the letter _T_.

…

Meanwhile, something else was happening. A person should not ask _how_ it came to pass, just understand that it happened. It would be best to try to not make too much sense of it. It happened anyway regardless of whatever or not it made sense to something so limited as human sensibilities. _It_ was something coming into the head, something that just came out of nowhere and leapt right on in, popping in there the same way that pregnant women get a random taste for anchovy-flavored ice-cream on top of oatmeal. Of good or bad appeal, _it _was an idea.

What was the idea? It was the notion that some way, some how, Gally was coming to the capital city. The idea was an image. The idea was that of the sleek, petite cyborg-girl dashing along the grassy ground of the wastelands.

The head into which the thoughts came was one still attached to a body. Head and body were both still alive, of course—the head and body currently belonging to someone soused and somnambulant in the downtown area of the capital city. That someone was at this place just an hour after quitting time at places of work and several hours before city-wide curfew. This place in which the attached head and body was currently located, it was a favorite drinking spot for water utility workers—such workers being those who worked underneath paved city streets to make sure that pipes stayed doing what they were supposed to do. Some of the workers were the clean-water sort, their duty being that of maintaining the clean-water pipes. Some were the not-clean-water workers.

Of course, the clean-water folks stayed on one side to drink while the not-clean-water folks got sauced on the other side of the main room--round tables throughout the middle of the room while one side was dominated by the nattily dressed bald male bartender. One such sewer worker was lazing about the table and nearly tipped over. He was sloshed after going several rounds with a particularly potent alcoholic beverage. The beverage was winning, by the way. And he did not care in the least. Then something _did _make him care.

_Erp! _The sewer worker-man in gray coveralls suddenly sat up as if a yellow-colored electric pocket rat-monster goosed his spine with about five hundred volts or so. His face had a similar appearance. Hell yes, something had him up.

"The Huntress is comin' to town," said someone else sitting nearby, another table. The sewer worker wanted to say it first, but that other man beat him to it. And he kept beating him to saying other things. "And I tell ya, the girl ain't here to eat fish-flavored ice cream…tasty as it is!" He punctuated the statement with a bright _hiccup. _

That someone said it. Then another someone else said it. That was because it felt like the truth. So people kept talking about it. Word of this would get around soon enough… Of course, this sort of talk could be considered dangerous in that Princess Dahlia would hear--her informants and gossip-mongers and talk merchants and word-swappers among the people. However, whatever the Hell her spies heard, Princess Dahlia was always glad to let the people talk all the trash-talk they wanted. It was just that _acting _against the royal family was subject to the worst kinds of torture--some forms of torture which seemed made up at random. Now there was getting to be all kinds of talk.

In fact, torture was exactly the sort of thing was getting ready to happen right now. It was going to happen way up at that gigantic palace deep within and above the capital city, that place that was as large as a small mountain itself. Though the gigantic palace was grand and calm as seen from the outside, what was happening inside was something approaching pain and insanity--in the throne room. Someone was about to catch the wrath.

…

Within the palace, the throne room itself was a gigantic room near the top floors of the palace, a grand space the size of a cathedral--yet lacking in pews. Black-and-white checkered flooring gleamed while grand statues of past leaders were next to the fluted columns that went way up to the ceiling above--gigantic diamond chandeliers making for lighting that was just a tad brighter glow than sunlight. The object of worship here were dual thrones at the far end, two thrones flanked by palace guards in powered armor.

Once upon a time, things were set as so there was just one throne for the current monarch--no seating place for a spouse at the side. Now a second throne had been brought in and set next to the first--the twin thrones set side by side, left and right. Both thrones resembled expensively religious armchairs, the bodies of such furniture made of precious metals, pricey cloth making for cushions, the cloth interwoven with platinum and the fluffy frills of the cushions made of gold thread. Rubies and diamonds gleamed along edges.

Yet the size of the priceless furniture made them comic in effect because they were so large: Because the thrones were made for taller people, it made both petite princesses look somewhat like children playing grown-up games in their parents' armchairs. Except this was one of the biggest games in all the land—that of ruling the kingdom.

Though twins, both girls were posed in especially different ways. On the left, Princess Kyrie sat primly in the middle of her throne--sitting with legs together and hands lightly upon her thighs. The girl was trying to keep her too-short skirt from showing too much, even if most of her legs were exposed anyway.

On the right, Princess Dahlia was lounging to a side, leaning against one of the arm-rests--one thigh crossed over the other and with an elbow at the armrest itself. So sitting, one leg was exposed well up one side of her buttocks. Dahlia knew that her body was high-cool, beautiful and sexy—figure, face and everything. Yes indeed, the traditional outfits of princesses were designed from the start to show off the figures of the females that wore them.

Princess Dahlia turned her head to address her sister, a sweep of pale hair curtaining a side of her face. "I took to having a present prepared for your satisfaction, my dear sister. It shall arrive in moments. And upon its arrival, I take it that you shall _not _take to one of your…fits?"

To that, Princess Kyrie nodded, her own eyes looking down at her own lap. By _fits, _her sister meant reacting negatively to whatever shockingly amazing thing her sister did next. There seemed to be no limits to what Princess Dahlia would do—be it acts of punishment upon the people or even to Kyrie herself. Thus far, the acts ranged from imposing insane work quotas and imprisonment in dungeons to sponsoring _orgies_ in downtown pubs. Worse still, Dahlia _kissed _her…_open-mouthed. _Kyrie would _never _forget that act of obscenity, done to her _twice_.

It was nothing but a succession of random acts interspaced with acts of rulership that Kyrie witnessed ever since returning to this palace. There was no way that Father, the king himself, would have tolerated this immensely wayward behavior by Dahlia.

There was no telling what Dahlia would do next--be it acts of obscenity or acts of violence. Kyrie had seen such things done to random people and had been victimized herself. Her imagination whirled with troubled worries. What elsecould Dahlia do that had not been done thus far? Kyrie was to soon find out because then came the next set of victims.

…

2.

…

At the far end of this grand space, the throne-room doors _clack-swished _open. This revealed some kind of large frame setup on a car-sized platform with wheels. The frame atop the platform was that was about six meters wide and three meters up. Mannequins in antique clothes were nailed to the front of the thing, their heads bobbling on loose necks, barbed wire looped around the fronts of their heads to keep them from slumping too much.

No, that was misperception. Kyrie had only _wished _that those were mannequins. They were actually peopleTheir faces were too well-detailed to be store-front dolls. That, and they were very loose-limbed. Being wheeled closer still, one could see that the two men cruelly nailed and lashed to the frame were dressed in odd foreign clothing. The cut of their dark business suits was not of this land.

To those from another world, such clothing would have been recognized as being Victorian-era clothing: black business jackets of conservative cut and black slacks, worn with starched white button-down shirts and dark ties. Polished black shoes completing the outfits They had lean but wrinkled faces, looking elderly. They seemed so much like just a very set of unfortunate, old-looking men, seemingly too steeped in pain to be fully conscious… Princess Kyrie looked away as a pang of sympathy took hold.

"No fits, sister! No fits at all!" declared Dahlia upon seeing Kyrie's reaction. Kyrie nodded and met her sister's stare. "They are a gift to you, a show of your faith and acceptance to the purpose of our benign despotism. These two beings only resemble elderly gentlemen. In fact they are not at all human, both of them created by way of scientific efforts and technologies salvaged from before the War." Her words darkened. "I sent them to find you_, and they failed. _For that they shall be destroyed"

One of the elderly gentlemen suddenly popped up his head. "Oh, _erm_… If I may be so bold as to vent a statement, dear Princess Dahlia," he began, "I dare say that your words are not so subtle as you may be led to believe. Your words, my dear, are quite audible to those with enhanced hearing. Perhaps at future dates, you may attempt communication by way of hand-written small notes--_petit mots--_ passed hand-to-hand…if I may humbly and dearly say, your majesty… Your exquisite majesty."

Oh, the fact that his hands and feet were _nailed _to the frame with _spikes _seemed not to matter. And the fact that talking made the barbed wire _cut into his face _seemed not to matter. He had the tone of voice belonging to someone sitting at a tea-table and sipping some Earl Grey tea, the sort of person who held tea-cup handles with the pinkies sticking out before later dabbing the mouth with a silk napkin. Those _red-metal stakes_ in his _hands_, in his _feet _and _in his neck _may as well have not been there at all. Or even if there was pain, he seemed not to mind at all. No, indeed--that man was not human.

"Such is especially well-said a thing, my dear Mr. Tibbs," chimed in the other elderly gentleman, even if he was on the very same frame of torture. The red-metal nails were nailed into him in the same way, and barbed wire was also looped around his face. "We beg your pardon, your royal majesty, my princess. I do agree, however, with the latter analysis borne by my companion. He is quite a hero of observations, if my lowly opinion is of any worth to your majesty."

At this point, Princess Dahlia sighed and looked away, looking away for a reason differing from her sister's. During this tiresome tirade from those two, Dahlia's fingernails started tapping an impatient staccato on the edge of the precious throne. Those two old men were just talking and talking and _talking some more, _as if an unseen cosmic joker was paying them by the word.

And the bastards with the flowery language just…kept…talking… "My dear kind sir! I thank you from the bottom of my heart, thoroughly humbled as it is by the brightness of your words!" exclaimed the elderly being known as Mr. Pluck. "Good heavens above, I dare say that such a statement from yourself is a highly prized thing. In all of my centuries of association with and under the glow of your beacon of excellence, my most praiseworthy sir, I am thoroughly humbled by the praise issued forth by you. It was a highly prized privilege to have existed within the beacon of such a glorious thing. If my praise seems all the more dim and weak, it is due to the severity of emotion which is felt by me at this time, my words shadowed by the illumination with which your soul provides…if you and I may be said to have souls."

Finally, Dahlia's tolerance for these verbal antics ran out. "_Do spare me the dramatics!_ For the sake of all assembled, we shall make this a summarily completed event." Turning her head to address her sister, Dahlia observed, "Such a thing as their oral fiascoes must be partially why they failed to locate you: utilizing their mouths when they should have been utilizing their eyes…" Then her eye-color turned red--going from sky-diamond blue to blood-ruby red while a smile coming to her lips. Her right hand came up…and then down in a slow slapping gesture. This made for things…_beginning to happen._

The throne room…_ dimmed. Everything in here fell into shadows as something in the air seemed to filter the light, as if draining the light itself. But everything was visible… Oh goodness, everything was still especially visible--especially what was to be a frightfully troubling death of the beings that resembled two elderly gentlemen. _

_Kyrie found herself staring all the while. Even if the elderly gentlemen were enemies, things that resembled elderly gentlemen at least, the girl was unsure if anyone deserved what was going to happen to them now. Then the girl felt…a sickening, dizzying feeling beginning to grow…as the lights flick-flickered…_

_If anyone said that they saw exactly what happened to Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck, they would be lying through their ivories. That was because what was happening to those two was not perfectly visible. There was a sound of ripping air as something invisible whipped through the air to strike at one of the elderly gentlemen spiked to the frame atop the platform. A loud, wet crunchy sound came about when the front of Mr. Tibbs' torso was ripped away to expose what he had inside—dull and moist lumps of things that were simplified parodies of human organs. Something was blurring the air in front of them, like how heat will blur light above a heated road. But this blurriness was standing upright. _

_Through the patch of blurriness, one could see inside Mr. Tibbs mutilated chest. There was a baglike organ to pump air into a windpipe for the sake of speech, and there was something to circulate the dark fluid that kept the inhuman body alive, but that was almost about it. _

_"Why, this so happened to be a very capital suit of clothing indeed! Tearing away my jacket and the front of my chest with it is an especially rude thing to do!" complained Mr. Tibb…before he was silenced. The big organ for talking was plucked away and disappeared with a slurp of sound. It was like someone was plucking an apple or something and eating the darned thing whole. Then went the big organ of fluid circulation. _

_Speaking of plucking, Mr. Pluck was to meet a fate similar to that of his own name. Away went the front of his chest—front of the suit and all. He tried saying something, but the invisible presence was having none of that verbal nonsense. There were some blurry motions and things as Mr. Pluck had his insides consumed and blurred away. Even more crunchy wet sounds came about when he was being consumed limb by limb, as was Mr. Tibbs. _

_That was just before…_the lights returned to normal. Where there had been a frame with two beings nailed to it, there was now just a platform with dark greasy marks, loose loops of barbed wire where faces had been. Those two were completely gone.

Some of the palace guards looked as if ready to make a run for it. But they stayed put. No way did they want that sort of thing to happen to them. Ironically, such a thing would have happened to them if they _did _give into that fear and run away. The invisible entity would have been more than glad to chase down and gobble up anything running—because the act of running was behavior befitting something that deserved to be hunted.

Princess Kyrie's large eyes seemed even larger now with here eyes so wide open. There was no way that what was seen by her should have been possible. Yet it happened anyway. That sort of event would have been expected to happen in the wastelands, _not _within the palace. Even then, such reality distorting anomalous events were thankfully rare… Now Dahlia seemed to have been able to cause one such event to occur at will. "They have been _framed,_" explained Princess Dahlia.

_Ya-a-a-h…! _A distant sound took Kyrie's attention--even after what was just witnessed. "_Hmm?_" went this other princess, looking away and trying to see the direction from which the sound had come. That sound had been far off and outside of the palace—a very loud and distant cheering. It was the muffled sound of a far-off crowd or something. Something just made a very large group of people very happy. The sound faded off again. Whatever it was, Kyrie did not know. Something must have happened.

…

Outside the palace and beyond of the private forest around it were the tall gates of the wall. Two male guards in powered armor were manning their posts at the outer gates--the guards in armor that made them twenty feet tall and thirty times stronger. Behind these huge figures were the mountainous height of the massive palace that reached up for the deep, sunset-toned sky above--a sky stretching into night. Their job was not to stare up at the astoundingly gigantic architecture and its multiple towers. No indeed. Their role was that of staring outward at the city streets, screening trucks and other vehicles going to and from the royal residence.

Right now, their job was simplified in that _nobody _was supposed to go in or out for the next hour. Even if a crutch-limping, broken-legged, hunch-backed elderly old man was bleeding to death, his head nearly falling off and he was being chased by a pack of muties, they _still _would not let the poor bastard in. Yes indeed, the guards would just stand here and watch the muties have their way with the hypothetical old guy. In fact, maybe seeing that would be worth a chuckle or two. But even letting anyone into the gates would do more harm than good, because there was the forest behind these gates--a private set of woods around the palace which was stocked with dangerous and malformed creatures--the distorted by-products of radioactive poisons from the by-gone War.

The palace guard on the left asked, "Now…_why _are we on lockdown? The last time this happened, Princess Kyrie made a run for it. And since I don't see one of two members of royalty dashing away from here, I need a good reason."

"So what you're telling me is, you didn't hear the latest in back-room gossip," said the palace guard on the right. Even while talking, he kept his eyes ahead. "Rumor has it that the psychotic scientist used his psychotic machinery to predict some kind of trouble coming today."

"Doc Nova?" asked the palace guard on the left, looking over the windows of the office buildings. "If you're telling me that he can predict things with machines, you're telling me that he's more than psychotic: He's flat out _whacked_. Yeah, a man would have to _be _that way to think he's from another universe. Maybe I ought to start making crap up to gain Princess Dahlia's favor."

Said the palace guard on the right, "I said the scientist was insane, but I didn't say he was stupid. Whatever the Hell he's doing with all of that karmatronics talk and machinery, it's working. He was able to find _exactly _the location of Princess Kyrie and her party of three. And that was _beforehand. _So if that flan-scarfing madman was to say something, I'd be inclined to believe it."

"Hmmph…_ Ha-ha…!_ You know what? If he said it was going to rain cinnamon-flavored soda-pop, you'd believe him?" went the palace guard on the left before he heard the cheering of a crowd off in the distance--an inarticulate ocean of cheering sound. It was far away enough as so it was just a moderate sound instead of a roar. "Damn! There it goes _again. _I know we're not hearing things. What's going on today? Can't be some kind of official celebration. Haven't had one of those since the days of the king."

"Yes, it is true," said the guard on the right. He smirked. "By the way, do you amuse yourself by stating everything obvious? Maybe things would be a little bit more amusing if you just started spouting gibberish."

"What?" went the palace guard on the left. He would have shrugged if such a gesture did not make for a massive clattering of armored noise as powered shoulders moved. "Oh, right. I suppose you're the king of conversations, huh? The emperor of empty talk? The monarch of meanderings? We've been doing this duty for the past eighteen years, and there's not too much new under the sun. Admit it, it's the same-old, lame-old talk about who wasted the most wayward muties and who's got the hotter girlfriend…"

"You think so?" asked the palace guard on the right. "I said gibberish, and I meant it. Try this one." He stared off into the distance. A breeze swished along before his words came forth.

His voice changed, sounding as if…_part of the wind itself. _"_We live in the shadows of broken dreams. Phantom winds dream things into screams… We grope around and about in the dark truths as the pressing madness oppresses, stifling minds. In the end, the end is the beginning, ending in. The truth of this, see the unseeable, the darkness below_."

He blinked. His facial expression returned to normal, and his voice no longer sounded as if he was half-asleep. "Yeah, like that."

"Wa-hey! What the Hell was that! Are you sure you didn't knock anything loose there, buddy?" asked the palace guard on the left. "Tell you what. You talk like that, and they'd probably take your brain outta your noggin to make sure nothing's gone wrong."


	20. Chapter 20

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 20

Sitting in one of the precious thrones, Kyrie watched as the large frames were wheeled away--evidence of two people's existence being taken away with it. Mr. Tibbs and Mr. Pluck did not have blood, but they did have some kind of dark life-fluid in them--the remains of the substance spattered on the square of the frame. No doubt, the whole thing would be scrubbed and hosed down with an extremely caustic cleaning substance before it was prepared for the next victims. Were there to be any more victims?

_ A-h-h-h… _There was the sound of that distant crowd again. Kyrie wondered exactly what the Hell it was going on here. It was that distant sound, like an ocean of long ago, rising and falling, like waves of noise. Something was happening, and the dual royalty was not being informed of it.

Annoyance went with slight confusion as Princess Dahlia looked around as well. Of course there was no such massive crowd in sight. The crowd, it sounded as if it numbered in the thousands and somewhere down in the city. Yet there was not supposed to be any crowd, anywhere. Massive assemblies of citizens were officially banned in that they were said to be counterproductive. Unofficially, such massive meetings were banned because they could be a catalyst for stupid civil action: no telling what a few thousand idiots would do when crowded together. It was at that moment that the throne-room door _exploded_.

That was impossible--until now. _Nothing_ in the universe was supposed to break through a door that was reinforced with a tensor field. Tensor fields will make any object--be it armor, walls or entire buildings--invincible against any material or energy impact so long as electrical energy was supplied. Ah, but there always is a catch to everything. Every gadget of intelligent contrivance, from the humble wheel to humongous supercomputers, only works _when it is being utilized._ Some idiot forgot to turn back on the tensor field of the doors after wheeling out the bloody frames. Or perhaps they had some kind of technical difficulty in doing so.

Well, whatever. _Whatever_ the case, those two Victorian-era jokers had the last laugh: their means of dying made way for an intruder. Their entire existence could likely justified in the end if they only lived to die, just as so the means of their death would leave the door unshielded. If their existence only went to creating an opening--a _vulnerability--_for Gally to break in, so be it. Such was the depth and subtlety by which the Golden Hope made things happen.

Oh yes, and Gally _was _here. When the dust and smoke from the obliterated doors began to clear up, everyone could see a petite, lithe female figure in tight-fitting synthetic leather outfit--the outline of someone beautiful and dangerous. Body in a half-crouching position, twin blades in both hands, the petite cyborg-girl was kneeling amidst the wreckage of the gigantic doors.

And when the last of the smoke cleared, there was sight of her large dark eyes staring towards the two thrones. The smoke clearing also gave her full visibility of what lie ahead, a problem. The princesses were twins. They were exact physical doubles, both of them having the same kind of synth-flesh body, both dressed in the short-skirted traditional outfit of princesses. Now which princess was the correct one for Gally to attack and the one to rescue?

"_Gally,_" said the princess on the left. And it had to be Kyrie because of the gentleness of her voice. "You have come for me as I knew you would…" Her thoughts went to the Golden Hope, the idea that it had not forsaken them after all.

Princess Dahlia had a hint of what Princess Kyrie was thinking. It made her all the more angrier--anger and fury from a beautiful girl. "_No! _Such a thing as _this _is impossible! You should have been _incapable _of defeating the platoon of palace guards standing between _here _and the front gates. And it should have been beyond your means to overwhelm them, pass the gates _and _infiltrate the forest." Or was that supposed to be, pass the gates, infiltrate the forest and defeat the guards? There was an impatient stomp of her right foot—sending a shimmering ripple through long pale-blonde hair. "Your very existence is _impossible_."

"You argue against reality," countered Gally, standing up. Then came her approach to the twin thrones, her boots clacking out the cadence of her walk. "Whatever that reality may be, there shall be hope again." Her eye-focus flickered over to Princess Kyrie. "We all exist for reasons."

"Your presence…! _I shall not_ _allow it!_" shrieked Princess Dahlia. And since most everything in this huge place was of the hard-shiny sort, her shriek was extra-piercing in that there was almost nothing to soften the pitch. It echoed sharply around for a bit and hurt more than a few sets of ears—the ears of the still-human palace guards—the guards standing at the sides of this room all this time.

Then again, Princess Dahlia had certain abilities as so there was not truly a need for bodyguards. A dark smile came to her lips, her fingers flexing. Was it not true that Gally's body was electromechanical—the articulated metal of her physique generally hidden beneath a synthetic leather bodysuit? Metal was the key here. Dahlia began to raise her left hand, summoning intense electromagnetic control…and made a throwing gesture.

Gally felt the beginnings of a tugging at her body and made a quick move to the left…to suddenly vanish from sight. The cyborg-girl had flickered into disappearing. Before Dahlia could say anything, the dark-haired female intruder was standing about a yard's distance to the right.

Once more, Dahlia made her gesture summoning electromagnetic control--only to have Gally do a quick step to the right and…_flick-flicker_ temporarily out of existence again…to reappear two steps to the left. It was then that Princess Dahlia realized certain rumors concerning Kyrie's party were more truth than gossip.

"Cease, you product of insanity! Flickering in and out of existence in such a way!" shrieked Dahlia. "In fact, I shall see to it that you _cease to exist!_" Both Dahlia's hands went up, raising at her sides. Two of her palace guards in powered armor found themselves raised up into the air.

They started screaming their heads off knowing full well that they were being lifted bodily up into the air for the sole purpose of being hurled at just about a thousand miles per hour. It would feel like a roller coaster for just about a tenth of a second before the final impact, when they would be made splotches of smashed human meat inside of their squashed powered armor--sort of like canned ravioli thrown from a very tall building…. The word _splat _came to mind.

It never happened. Maybe the yelling and what-not from the guards sank into the reasoning of Princess Dahlia. Maybe the idea of what throwing palace guards would do to her reputation--her reputation being not in the best and liveliest of conditions. Executing a set of humanoid creatures for failing to find her sister was one thing. Throwing palace guards was another.

Dahlia slowly lowered slender arms, realizing what smashing her own elite palace guard would do to her reputation as savior of the people. Her purpose was that of rebuilding her kingdom and its people, not destroying them. If this intruder was to be challenged, it would be by way of direct confrontation without further loss of her people.

Now the palace guards were floating oh-so-gently to the ground, powered armor and all. They were still yelling their heads off, but at least they were not electromagnetically tossed in the direction of a certain cyborg-girl. In that a certain cyborg-girl kept doing damnably creepy things by flick-flickering in and out of reality did not make things any better.

And those two palace guards were still yelling screaming and what-not as they hastily disengaged their powered armor—making the twenty-feet-tall suits kneel before they themselves climbed out of them. Freed of their armor, their skinny selves were revealed--thin men in thin shirts ant tights. They then did their best to _get the Hell out of here, _slip-sliding on the shiny hard floor and waving their arms.

When their echoing screams faded off, Princess Dahlia raised both arms again and brought them forward. Gally stood there, both blades ready. Dahlia said, "Tell me why you have come, Huntress. If you have come to slay me, you shall find the effort pointless in that my body shall simply restore itself despite whatever damage you have done to it." That princess slowly sat down on her throne to cross those legs of hers, hands resting upon a thigh. Her head tilted to the right. "A princess cannot be killed in the throne room."

"Is that so?" asked Gally, returning to her almost-crouched position--one leg forward and both blades held ready. The heat of the twin blades filled her body with a desire to do _something _to _someone. _And the original intent was that of doing _something _to Princess Dahlia—which would perhaps not be a good thing in that Princess Kyrie was sitting right there. To just kill Kyrie's sister outright would not be especially beneficial…no matter how _good _it would feel to make these blades go through Dahlia.

A double _swish _of sound, a catlike hiss of frustration… Gally had quickly sheathed the blades into her thigh-holsters. The heat began to dissipate from her body. With it was a reduction of the desire to kill. A _reduction, _it was—even if there were still lingering bits of desire to do _something very violent. _The cyborg-girl pointed to Princess Dahlia. Said, "I have arrived for the sake of rescuing Princess Kyrie. Many of your warriors have tried to stop me before. Many have also been defeated as a result." Her articulate armored hand lowered. "Kyrie comes with me."

"Is such the truth of the matter?" asked Dahlia. Her head turned to the right, looking to Kyrie. "Dearest sister, would it be your heart's desire to continue your quest for that legendary bauble? Why seek legends when truth and progress are being made in reality?

Truth is within the power and control that we have consolidated over the years. It is evident with how stable the kingdom has become. Rather, it should be said that the remnants of the kingdom have become stable. Even while the surrounding settlements of the wastelands have crumbled and suffered, the capital city and the closer settlements have remained free of the scourges found within the wastelands. Such is truth above and beyond what a mere legend—if not an out-and-out _myth. _So, what is your response?"

At this point in the game, Gally was not going to just stand around like yesterday's news and wait for something to happen against her favor. The last few years of her existence in this wayward world were not going to be just tossed out and wasted. It would just mean that all of her efforts were for nothing, that Padraig and other people died for no good reasons, and heaps more muties were killed by the thousands--obliterated, mutilated, and disintegrated… Princess Kyrie was not going to do a disservice to every-damned-body by just changing her mind about the quest.

So Gally made the decision for Kyrie. The cyborg-girl dashed forward, leaning ahead into the speed, then _flick-flickered… _Reappearing, there were already the sounds of her rapid-fire footsteps and a sideways blur in grabbing Princess Kyrie by her left hand. And if the fair princess did not wish for one of her slender shoulders dislocated, the thing to do was keep up as Gally pulled her along.

For goodness' sakes, they were _moving _alright. Princess Kyrie felt herself being pulled along and did the best possible in moving her legs as swiftly as Gally's. Both were of the same slender figure, both petite and lithe. Yet Princess Kyrie was not as crazy as Gally, and crazy people can move very quickly. Not only were they moving at a crazy speed, Princess Kyrie experienced first-hand the questionably sane way in which Gally was able to do what was done earlier—just doing it without warning.

One sliver of a second, Princess Kyrie felt herself being pulled along the hard floor and having the air whipping over her, her short pleated skirt fluttering and no doubt showing too much, head of hair fluttering madly behind her. Another sliver of a second, and then everything…_flickered a dark-red tone for a little while. The surrounding reality was suddenly lost in very dim red_ _tones, a shadow of reality while things floated…_before snapping back. .

And they were instantly at the door—having crossed something like eighteen yards of flooring in a single reality distorted step. "What?" asked Princess Kyrie as the disorientation faded off.

"You become acclimated to it," explained Gally, already getting one of the throne-room doors open, fingers reaching for the handle and yanking this big sucker wide open. The door must be six times taller than both Kyrie and Gally combined. All the same, the cyborg-girl handled the door as if it was made out of the lightest and fluffiest stuff in the world. "We go," came her declaration.

Princess Kyrie felt herself yanked by an arm and then was shoved unceremoniously through the blasted-open throne room entrance. Of course Princess Dahlia was not at all pleased by this—not by the gesture and not by the gratingly obnoxious explosion of sound.

…

All of this happened so swiftly that it took too long for Dahlia to reactTo Gally and Kyrie, what they did seemed to take some prolonged time, too much time. Yet those two were moving faster than what ought to be allowable. It was _not _allowable. That was the thing. Rudeness upon rudeness, Gally had gotten away with insult _and abducting a member of royaltye_. Hotly heaped upon that offense was that it happened in full sight of all the palace guards. It was far too much.

Princess Dahlia's left arm swiftly went up, her hand flicking in an angry _throwing _gesture—making one of the palace guards go _flying _back…to _slam _into one of the marble-bricked walls. Small cracks appeared in the wall—which was not tensor-fielded. It had all happened in sudden anger—Dahlia feeling too angry to realize what was her own left hand had done. "_Return me my sister!_" came her shriek.

…

2.

…

"Please do cease a moment, Huntress!" exclaimed Kyrie while still being pulled along at an unbelievable speed. The two girls were probably a handful of seconds in getting towards the warrens of back-rooms and corridors of this gigantic structure when the princess began to voice her protests. "We run. Yet _to where?_"

"We move to escape!" declared Gally even while getting to the end of this corridor and reaching for a door. A _click-swish _of motion, and the cyborg-girl had pulled the next door open in a second. It wasoncelocked, but with those articulated robotic hands of hers, closed doors were not really closed to Gally at all unless they were tensor-shielded. Well, the thing was open now.

Kyrie's voice took on a pleading tone. One could almost hear the tears in her voice. "There is a more efficient venue of escape to be had! We need not flee to the wastelands, for the way forward has been recently secured! If you truly do care for the artifact, heed my message!"

When a princess pleads with someone, there is some kind of power in it. No one in this world can resist such a sound--both deeply saddening and disarmingly beautiful. The fact that a princess sadly begs for something at all instead of issuing a command is something else on top of that. There would be no way for Gally to resist--stopping totally and listening.

Princess Kyrie's eyes were wide open and grateful--large green eyes that shone with happiness. "I thank you, Huntress. In our absence, my sibling's technicians have taken to experimenting with basic forces of reality. Such experiments led to our party being located…as well as a way out of this reality… It may perhaps be the way directly to The Golden Hope itself"

Something in Gally wanted to shout a great big gigantic exclamation of flaming anger. _Why in all the names of Hell did you not tell me of this! _But those great big sad eyes of Kyrie's kept her from doing so--those eyes that said, _Please help me. _The fact that Kyrie was so very similar to Gally--save the synthetic flesh and hair color--further kept her in that sway of sympathy. The frustration was instead cooled to a hot and breathy sigh… "_Ah… _Do tell me of this potential location."

"The Golden Hope, it was discovered to be of other-worldly origin, much like yourself," said Kyrie, leaning closer to Gally and lowering her voice. Though there ought to be stomp-tromping footsteps coming in at any darned second, it was very quiet in this back corridor. Things were quiet enough for Kyrie's intimate words to be expressed.

"The basements just above the dungeons contain the latest in Dr. Nova's experiments…" added Kyrie. Gally put on a look of questioning confounded confusion before Kyrie continued. "It is because the fusion reactors needed for his machines are located deeper within the mountain upon which this entire capital city rests. Dr. Nova wished to have his machinery closer to the sources of power—requiring the entire output of one fusion reactor facility for his experiments."

"It is explanation enough! Please do lead the way, Princess!" curtly stated Gally. Just then there were distant tromping sounds of many footsteps coming from along the corridors. They were not close yet, but they certainly would be in, say…about six seconds. And from the multiple myriad of sounds ranging from light pattering to heavy stomping, they must have called out everyone from the highest ranking infantry of the Palace Guard to the lowest-paid stupid chefs.

This time it was Princess Kyrie who took Gally by a hand. Now the two were off in the running again, their footsteps thankfully lightened by the better-than-silk carpeting. Though there was no doubt that Gally could keep up with the swift princess—her agility granted by way of the myogel muscle tissue in her legs—there was something important about keeping physical contact in this time of running and escape. Some of it was for the sake of psychological security, the idea that they did not want to be separated again any time soon—the last two members of the party. There was also the thought that there was a bond between herself and this beautiful princess, something that grew beyond merely being a member of her party. Gally had the realization that her feelings were the same, having been with someone so undeniably beautiful for so long and so similar and sympathetic to herself.

It was enough to make her slow down. Princess Kyrie glanced back to see what was wrong. Had the synthetic flesh of Gally's face been capable, there would certainly have been a blush on those delicate cheeks of hers--Kyrie looking at her. Instead, the glance back was enough to get Gally zooming again. It would not do to fail the princess simply because of emotion-induced hesitancy—_especially _not at this time.

Very good, then. Princess Kyrie eyed the various single doors of various abandoned royal bureaucracy—back rooms of the palace that once housed offices that handled paperwork for the departments that handled the business of the kingdom. Some of the office-holding bureaucrats had been killed during the crazed years of the War. Some were killed in political purges carried out by Princess Dahlia…

And eventually, the girls came to a great big set of heavy looking double doors. The doors looked to be made of carved wood—just like all the other doors. Yet these double doors had cores of dense radiation-blocking alloy and were tensor-fielded. These were some very serious doors, not the ornate and high-classed things just put up to be pretty.

Gally kept looking around and was ready to kill anyone trying to get in their way and keep them from doing what they wanted to do. Not that the double blades were drawn yet, it would be a real-life instance of the expression _cut and run_. Gally would slice up any of those palace people into pieces worthy of a butcher's shop. Just they try it…

Things did not come to that. Those serious and industrial-strength double doors clicked open, the elevator arriving at this floor. Kyrie grabbed a handle and _yanked_. Those lithe arms of hers did not look especially strong and were not really so compared to Gally's armored limbs. Yet they did have the advantage of synthetic strength. Kyrie quickly stepped in and turned while Gally entered as well--pulling that door shut while Kyrie pressed the circular metal button with _B6 _next to it. Another set of thick metal doors slid shut over the front of this elevator--and they started going down.

Passengers inside, this elevator began the descent. Thick humming sounds came from beyond the walls of the elevator car--the sort of sound made by really powerful industrial contraptions when they moved. No doubt this elevator was one of several used by the royal technicians to wheel machinery--and live test subjects--down to the basement levels. While Kyrie kept standing in that worried little way of hers, Gally looked up the sliding front wall of this elevator and saw the universal symbol for _radiation--_a dark circle with those three golden triangles pointing towards the center. Such technicians would more than likely be dressed in nuclear-biological-chemical suits: NBC, it was called.

Words like _radiation _and _contamination _played through Gally's mind and contemplated that trip to the underground train station--Padraig having to worry because his human body was vulnerable to radiation sickness in the short term and cancer in the long term. Even if he could have somehow survived it this far into the quest, he would probably have been a goner in getting down to these sub-basement laboratories deep beneath the palace.

A bounce, and this elevator stopped at the appropriate floor--the front wall sliding up while a secondary set of double doors slid open left and right. This revealed the red-illuminated halls of the basement laboratories, square metal tiles along floor and ceiling.

…

Both Kyrie and Gally were immune to the effects of the sort of intense nuclear _radiation _that would be found in a place like a nuclear reactor--such _radiation _being invisible form of energy that could kill a human in a jiffy with radiation sickness or do so eventually with cancer. A person could not feel nuclear radiation, and a person could not see it. Even if Gally's armored feminine physique would never be vulnerable to such things, there was some kind of dread to be felt down here.

It could have been the décor, however: blood-colored lights glowing along a hall of metal-tiled walls, a floor of strange ceramics. The ceramic-tiled floor could have been white in color, but the lights made it seem just as oddly colored--lights from a dark ceiling. A feeling of things going wrong and going down began to fill Gally's mind. Something simply felt very, very wrong. It was the sort of feeling one gets when perhaps in a place of mass execution, or perhaps a quarantined hospital in which all the patients were soon to be dead, bodies dumped by the dozens to fill up dumpsters.

"_Back to where we belo-o-ong,_" moaned a man's voice from behind and _too closely near_. Gally whipped herself around, hands to her thigh-holsters where the dual blades were strapped. When her scanning eyes saw no one there, the cyborg-girl cautiously turned and kept walking with Kyrie.

Said this princess, still walking, "Doctor Nova continues his great works. He has made success with manipulating not simply karma, yet also with aspects of reality itself. Gally's eyes went wide at the thought, her mouth open in an _o _of shock as Kyrie just kept calmly talking. "We may be better served in continuing to walk--ignoring the various effects of such manipulation. Of course material manifestations of trouble may make themselves known…" The princess stopped.

Gally did as well. Someone or something hairy and furry faded into existence--a creature easily nine feet tall. It could have once been human or something pre-human, maybe even a distorted distant evolutionary relative of the species _homo sapiens. _Its shaggy head looked down at the girls, eyes glittering in an overhead red light.

It was too damned late in the quest to take any damned chances. The thing was maybe friendly, maybe not. Gally just did not give a damn. It was better to kill it and worry about it later.

Her blades did the work. The left-hand blade flickered through the legs of the creature . The right-hand blade was not fully charged and barely glowed a green blur, but it still managed to blast the creature when used. Now, some dark ashes fluttering to the floor and a thick smell of burnt meat hung in the air.

"_Down, down, down…_" whispered a woman's voice from near a left-side door. Gally looked around but could not see any-damned-body. "_Stars sing down, down, down… Airplanes fall, we fall. Sing down the misery as it darkens the way._"

The woman's voice started making sad sobbing sounds and faded away, the source of the voice still invisible. _Never mind that, _thought Gally. It took a severe effort for her to turn herself away from the sound and stay going, Kyrie still going, having to keep going. Kyrie reassured Gally, saying, "We are merely steps from where we shall be. Doctor Nova's latest experiment is but a few doors along the right side."

Speak of the devil…! _Whip-swish! _A right-side door whipped open, and out came a big floppy figure in an even floppier NBC suit that made him look like something out of a cheesy science fiction movie pertaining to time-traveling sports cars. "_I have done it!_" came his tinny, shallow voice through the voder--the little analog speaker on the front of his suit.

Seeing and hearing that flan-eating bastard was all the prompting that Gally needed. A rapid dash forward, both blades drawn, and Gally _kept _going after her left arm blurred, a shiny arc of blade. This made Dr. Nova's helmet-encased head go up to bounce off the ceiling and _plop _to the floor.

Yet the mad scientist's body was still standing upright. There was a brief jet of colored fluid from the neck-stump. It should have been blood, but there was no way of telling since the light itself was red. In fact, the red lighting made the wet stuff look like strawberry syrup. The body remained standing while the fluid spurted and gushed a few more times.

Strawberry syrup or not, his body was still standing as if it wondered what a person was supposed to do when one's head was suddenly not attached anymore. No head? Realizing this, new state of decapitation, his body began to act. Thick whistling breathing sounds came from the severed neck-stump while carefully and drunkenly crouching down and feeling around. What else would one expect? A body has no senses other than that of feeling: no sight, no hearing, no taste, no smell and sure as Hell no balance. Balance was handled by little inner parts of the ear--which are _in the head. _

Gally snatched the head out of the helmet and _kicked_ that sucker away--the thing going farther along the corridor like a grotesque, white-haired soccer ball. And it felt _good _to see that madman's noggin go far, _far _away. Of course Doctor Nova was still _alive_ in some kind of way. That was because he had a sort of backup brain deeper within his body, close to his stomach no less. No doubt this was related to his gluttonous obsessions, one of which was a certain citrus-flavored desert. Then came a glow from the open doorway, something…_beautiful_.

_It was a warm and golden light, coming from beyond the door. Such light was worth a thousand beautiful sunsets, that of a land where the sun was still a vivacious golden color and not the orange-red tone of a dying star. Just being here, just standing here, it made for a feeling that everything was going to be made good. And if not in this world, then things could be made alright again. Kyrie waited for Gally, arm out and hand open. And Gally accepted, knowing that the warm and beautiful glow could only be from one thing. Hand in hand, the girls entered the place where the golden glow suffused the hall. Some kind of machinery was gently humming in the place. The effects of the machine could also be felt. It was taking them…somewhere else. They were walking out of this reality…_


	21. Chapter 21

_The Golden Hope _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 21

_There was so much light from the glow that it was just a bit difficult to see even what was in front of them. Gally and Kyrie moved forward, going forward before something blocked their way. They tried pushing and found that hard to do. There were handles to doors—a perfectly ordinary set of pull-open doors. They pulled, the way opening for them both. When they stepped through the glass-and-steel doors, the glow faded enough them to…_see where they were.

They had stepped upon green carpeting in a vast indoor place, like that of a small aircraft hangar. Even a small aircraft hangar was still large. Way up, two stories above, was a slightly arced ceiling made of a white substance that seemed to be colored fiberglass or some substance that resembled it. Whatever it was, it let in sunset-colored sunlight, added to the florescent illumination.

Here at ground level, things were more mundane. In front was a circular desk, some casually dressed professionals working at computers behind there. Beyond them were sets of bookshelves… There were probably thousands of books on those shelves, all of them looking new. At the far end was floor-to-ceiling annealed glass windows let in even more of that sunset-colored light outside, sunlight filtering through evergreen trees, a copse of trees outside.

Gally could barely believe the sight of this. Having gone a world away and traveling hundreds of miles, why end up in a place that looked ripped from Zalem? But Zalem was in a different universe, and this place did not _feel _like the right universe for that place. Also true was how the people at the circular desk--all of them adults--had no marks impressed their foreheads as all adults of Zalem do.

There was also the feeling that something was not entirely real about this place--as if it was an elaborate cosmic stage-set. Having traveled this far could give a person a sort of other-worldly sense of things, a sort of feeling when reality was or was not quite what it ought to be. Gally looked to Kyrie.

Kyrie was still looking straight ahead, said to Gally, "This bears a great deal of similarity to the royal library--save the lack of a mezzanine-style second floor. Another dissimilarity would be how there are no servant gynoids. Or it may be that those over at the desk may be humanoid robots that serve the purpose. In referring to purpose, we must have come to this place for a reason." The princess turned to look into the eyes of her companion. "Are you able to sense it as well?"

Gally noticed that Princess Kyrie's eyes had taken on a bright sunrise sort of color--as if her irises had been replaced with a gold mechanism. They also looked very shiny and had a subtle brightness to them. True, Kyrie's eyes changed colors seemingly at random, but Gally was never able to find out whatever it was that caused her eyes to do so. Now came the impression it had something to do with their proximity to where they were supposed to be going.

And here they were--a place that looked so normal and yet felt abnormal. Something was here. Or something had brought them here. Across the way, the handful of people--if that was what they were--present were simply going about their business in tapping at a computer and organizing books brought in. But overall, it felt as if that _something _was waiting for them.

Obviously, the thing to do now was get over there and ask some questions. Side by side, the girls went across carpeting to get over to that circular desk over there. The seemingly human entities were still doing whatever they were doing right up to when both the girls were just a step away from the circular desk itself.

The nearest of the seemingly human entities was an elegant-looking, tan-skinned young woman dressed in blue jeans and close-fitting sweater, her tan-toned face framed with long dark hair. Almond-shaped hazel eyes regarded the newcomers—almost catlike eyes. An ever-so-slight smile came to her delicate lips. "We welcome you to this place. What may we do for you?" Her head tilted sympathetically to the right, that dark sweep of hair shifting slightly.

What was it in that smile? Gally did not think it to be an especially malicious one. Since the cyborg-girl had several hundred years of existence and just about that much experience in dealing with human beings, it meant being able to read into that expression. It was the sort of understanding smile that adults gave to young children who did not understand things.

Despite not being an especially tall girl, Gally was _not _one to be patronized. Perhaps the seemingly human being was perhaps trying to assess abilities and weaknesses based upon appearances—as one would do prior to attacking. Just in case, Gally's hands went to her hips and then down to the sides of her thighs to where her daggers were strapped to her thighs even if they were not there anymore, her fingertips instead touching the smooth skin of her thighs.

Skin, yes Gally had _skin. _Looking down with undisguised wide-eyed surprise, the cyborg-girl saw that her body did not seem to be that of a cyborg at this time. It now had an appearance more befitting a young woman—a young _flesh_-bodied person—than that of a fighting cyborg. Her clothes had changed as well: shorts that went well up to show much of her bare legs, a sleeveless black silk blouse that clung to her torso—especially around the flatness of her abdomen, leaving her slim arms bare. The outfit was complete with small dark shoes on her feet worn with little white footie socks, a purse slung over her left shoulder—a purse that was just so light that it barely felt there at all.

Regardless of what was now there, the blades were _not._ No blades, no exoskeletal alloy over a fighting cyborg huntress' body, the only similarity left was that of her physique having the same slender and feminine proportions. And now Gally could feel _everything_—the small air currents that fluttered through the air, playing against her legs and arms, the way strands of her own dark hair touched her own cheeks, the way her clothes fit to her body _of vulnerable skin_.

Yet something gave Gally the impression that this body was not really a human one—merely one matching Kyrie's: a synthetic-flesh type body, human in appearance. Inside of her was still some kind of machinery inside—synthetic skin over artificial muscle tissue. In that her body was different now, this was very much like that dream, though her outfit was far from being scandalous.

Kyrie gave Gally a certain look, eyes wide while giving a nod. Yes, Kyrie had noted the obvious change in Gally's appearance. But it was also true that the pale-haired princess did not wish to raise a stir. That was easier said than done, since it wasn't Kyrie who underwent the radical transformation.

Could this body keep her brain alive for long? Gally did her best to keep from making any verbal outbreaks of fear, closing her own hands over her mouth. To have one's entire physiology transform in a second was not something to be taken lightly. The cyborg-girl had changed bodies before, but all of those past bodies had been of the reliable metal-type. Such metal-type bodies were made with technologies that had been in existence for centuries, at least in her universe…. Was this at all her universe--only set in the past?

Kyrie spoke to the seemingly human entity, knowing full well that the entity was no more human than a synthetic body being real. "We have come in search of something deeply desired. It is of such need as to resolve an entire world of problems, so to speak. Would such a thing be available?"

The beautiful female entity gently answered. "We have everything that you could ever want when it comes to answers. It is just a matter of knowing specifically whatever it is you really need. For example, one who seeks solutions could want an entire thousand-page volume on the history of mammals…when all one truly needs is just a solitary page."

Meanwhile, Gally could still feel the panic rising within her mind—a brain that maybe was not in the best of situations. Was this place set in a far-distant past? Or was this a radically different future? Where or when the Hell were they? And was there ever a chance of Gally ever getting back home?

This whole place, this _library_,itcould be just another one of those dream places created by some kind of trans-dimensional anomaly. The entire place could flicker out of existence. Gally could exactly imagine that sort of thing happening, the entire place disappearing, leaving them to go tumbling into an infinitely dark void between the universes. Human beings in such circumstances would starve to death. Since falling into Kyrie's party, however, something had happened to Gally to make her not need to consume food or water to feed her still-living brain. If this place was to flicker out of existence and send them tumbling through an infinite void, how long could a person retain sanity—never starving to death, never dying since swarms of nanobots within her body would revert any affects of suicide? Yes, indeed, the huntress' sense of reality was going faster downhill than a nuclear-powered sports car with the brake lines cut.

"I accept what must be given to me," said Kyrie very carefully, staying in the role of speaking ambiguously. To just come out and ask for that lost artifact would be stepping outside the façade presented by these entities. They had their reasons for generating this place. They also had very good reasons for what they were doing. Continuing with the illusion, Kyrie asked, "Where would one find, shall we say…texts and information on resolving fundamental issues?"

Poor Gally… Yup, those brake lines were cut, lines of sanity going _whoops…!_ Her delicate hands firmly over her own mouth could just barely keep little worried sounds of psychotic panic from escaping. All the strong lines of logic and progress were going _twang-g-g-g, _one strand at a time. And her mind was on that downhill road, not too far from the bottom. At the bottom was a metaphorical cliff—like the sort found in Western animated cartoons--those damned cliffs seemingly everywhere, where hapless characters fell off the screen to make person-shaped craters in the ground. Guard rails would help, but those things were gone with the wind, baby!

"_Ah-h-h_… That would be 'philosophy' or 'metaphysics,' in the nonfiction section," said the female entity. "Looking there should give you what you need. Simply go around this desk…" Turning halfway to the left, one of her arms outstretched, left hand pointing to some of the bookshelves stretching off deeper into this huge and museum-like place. "There would be anything someone in your position requires."

_Someone in my position, _thought Kyrie. A normal librarian would not make such a cryptic statement, a statement somewhat outside the role played by the entity. It was like a windowshade opened just enough for a slit of sight to pass by. But if one looked carefully enough, one could see through. Kyrie did see through, seeing and understanding that the long-sought artifact was indeed here. It was all the confirmation needed. "I thank you," said Kyrie.

"You're welcome!" smiled the entity in the shape of a human female. "It's what we are here for… Oh, speaking of _help_, this may come as a bit nosy… But is your friend alright? Perhaps a fear of impending darkness?"

When the entity said _darkness, _Gally's eyes snapped to stare. _I never said anything out loud, _went a thought. _Yet the librarian somehow knows exactly what is playing through my brain right this moment. _Still shaking with shades of panic, Gally lowered her hands from her mouth and stared at the female entity—the one pretending to be a human librarian.

The beautiful entity smiled and pointed to some place behind Gally. _Turn around… Behind you, _meant the gesture. Gally carefully did so, knowing full well that something dark and terrible was behind her…

Standing behind them all this time was _her. _It was indeed the dark-haired harbinger of trouble--the nameless girl only seen in glimpses and fits during the journey. Except, every time they saw them, it was around moments of the worst sort of trouble. The worst sort of things happened when there was the idea of her simply being present. The girl was barely there all of this time. Now her presence was real and definite--the source of so much trouble. The only difference was how her black leather jacket was gone, her half open blouse, putting more of her body on display. A darkly beautiful smile on her red lips, and the dark-haired nameless girl began to walk deeper into this library—an exaggeratedly seductive strut in her walk, her leather skirt barely long enough to cover her buttocks, a sway in her hips as her legs seemed to stroke along in her moving. And as the nameless girl walked away, so went Gally's sense of panic.

That panic was replaced with anger. Kyrie nodded. "We must follow her," came the gentle pronouncement of the princess. "There is more to her presence in this place than we understand at this moment."

…

2.

…

The girls did so, following where the nameless girl went. Deeper within this well-lit and spacious library, near the window, there were circular wooden tables of a sort that Gally had seen before. Except these circular wooden tables did not look as if they were sitting around for a few centuries for the next set of people to sit at them. These tables were new, all polishd and shiny, the wood itself of a light golden tone.

There was only one person around here to enjoy the space. That would be _her, _the dark-haired girl in black leather mini-skirt and white blouse. Yes indeed, the nameless girl was just sitting down pretty as can be, a book in front of her. The nameless one was looking perfectly innocent.

Gally's lips flexed into a frown while her eyes angry. Gally wondered what would happen if someone was killed in this place. Rather, what would happen if someone tried to kill the nameless girl and all the damned trouble that came from her? Then no one would ever have to worry about her causing trouble ever again.

The nameless girl put a bookmark in the dark book being read—a bookmark with a cute anime character on it—before looking up to stare at Gally. Now one could see that the nameless girl's eyes were infinitely dark, darker than the depths of the universe itself. There was not even a reflection. It was as if the nameless girl had two miniature black holes where her eyes ought to be. One could not take one's eye-focus away from them.

When the nameless girl spoke, it was in a manner of speaking somewhat similar to Kyrie's: delicate, refined and with a slight undertaste of sharpness. "I take it that you shall comport yourself in a refined manner, hmm?"

_Kill you _thought Gally. And the moment that Gally thought that, the girl's lips flexed into a smile, though her eyes did not match the expression. Then a tinge of headache preceded…_the worst sort of coursing fear that Gally_ _ever felt before. It made her stagger once, her legs suddenly too weak._

_The anger at this insane entity, whatever her nature was, kept Gally standing upright even while it seemed as if all kinds of things were going wrong inside of her own body. To bow down to that sinister girl and her intents would be surrendering. Yet Gally knew that the nameless girl was winning without even moving to attack. It must be an especially powerful fighting technique: fighting without even moving. _

_Once upon a time, in Gally's world, there was a radically powerful fighting technique called hertza haeon--used by flesh-bodied human beings to hold their own against cyborgs. This allowed human beings to attack from a distance. Even then, the hertza haeon technique required immense control and actual movement on the part of the user. _

_Yet the nameless girl was not moving at all. There was just her body being posed, sitting down and looking, her eyes staring. As Gally's body began to go numb and her vision fade into darkness, things began to slip away. _

_The synthetic-bodied huntress did not wish to be defeated by the nameless girl and her unknowable abilities. If Gally's body and mind failed now, then there would be no one left to stand by Kyrie's side. "I…surrender…"_

A gentle shake of her head, dark hair rippling, the nameless girl kept her lips stretched in a smile. "It is not so much surrendering as yielding." That smile went away. "Your quest will go on."

_And the sense of draining energy…_went away as it did before. Now everything felt as fine as nothing happened at all. It could have just been any old typical day and moment, nothing out of the ordinary other than being in some kind of alternate universe set up by cryptic entities. No, there was nothing bizarre about this in the least.

"Feel free to be seated any moment you so please," said the nameless girl in putting her book to a side. Gally and Kyrie moved to sit at two chairs that so happened to be there at the circular wooden table. Kyrie performed a curtsey before sitting—fingers at the sides of her skirt and one leg behind the other, dipping once before being seated. Gally simply sat down before anything else happened to her.

"I could begin by asking if you deserve it. Both your hands are especially soiled with the blood of thousands. In some worlds, even the killing of just one alone is worth death. Does this mean that you both deserve to be killed thousands of times over?" Her lips flexed into that smile again. "So red, your hands…"

A deep crimson took Gally's attention away from the amazingly dark eyes of the one sitting across the table. Looking down, it was sight of her hands coated with the red liquid of mammals. It looked so incredibly out of place in this environment—everything else so neat and professional. This, even her hands had the look of someone trying to use the famous red fluid like chemical hand-wash.

"Just kidding," said the nameless girl, those infinitely dark eyes of her looking shiny for just a moment. Gally looked down at her hands once more. Once again, her hands were a clean and perfectly white-cream tone that matched her face. "Seriously… Did you mindlessly believe that the prize would just give itself up easily to just _any _haphazard and motley party of three? It is an object of civilization progressIt can turn any subject into a super-hero. The Golden Hope can turn a princess into an empress. In short, _it is an ultimate power._ I mean, _really…_"

Gally was trying to understand the nameless girl--such a person of contradictions. Here was the nameless girl claiming to be someone who said to be about hope and progress, yet her presence only brought about the worst of circumstances. Her talk was that of being all things good, and yet her actions were in all things evil.

"I deny and refute that accusation," said the nameless girl, those dark eyes of hers angry--seeing but not caring for the look of surprise on Gally's face. "Of note, I was merely present during certain eventualities. Yet let it be known that my presence was more indicative of red trouble to be had--as opposed to being a catalyst for the latter. Your attitude is the equivalent of certain messengers in a fallen world ."

A sound of wind picked up, howling just outside the grand floor-to-ceiling windows. Sunset light still shone through trees beyond the grand windows, the trees fluttering furiously in the swift-moving natural air-currents, shining through trees being shuffled in the breeze. The nameless girl continued. Saying, "Once upon a time, the rulers of a certain world had the habit of executing messengers of unfavorable tidings--even if heeding such messengers would have been immensely beneficial. The truth would disappoint, but the truth could be used to bring about success even if there was none. Was I not beneficial in some way, being a potential bearer of your success?"

Gally noticed in the periphery of her sight that Kyrie was staring. Not that Gally could read minds like that entity across the table, but the way Kyrie stared was her way of telling somebody to be careful.. In this scenario it was the huntress being told to be damned careful. But how could one keeps one's own mind from going off on deranged tangents? Her mind could drift to wayward thoughts like cherry-flavored rocks on a highway made of glass or burning buses being driven by teams of gophers in little flame-retardant suits. Things happened to one's own thinking exactly when one did not want them to do so.

Also true was that Kyrie was largely staying quiet throughout this conversation. It was probably the same reason why the nameless girl was not giving her a Hell of a hard time. There was something to this nameless girl that made her an antagonist rather than an ally. Was that a _sparkle_ of something in those orbs of sight, something like amusement? It was hard to tell.

Or perhaps… Gally smiled and tried thinking something. Could that nameless girl _really _read minds? On that, Gally tried thinking of something nice and sweet--like dark chocolate candy bars of long ago, or hot chocolate. It was once a time of her being with friends and talking about anything. That was back in Scrap Iron City--so far away, too far away and a lifetime ago. Yet it was so beautiful in that moment, everything seeming to be fine and well in the world . That was so even if things were okay for just a little while.

"You are beginning to understand," said the nameless girl. "A phrase goes, _Be careful for what you wish. It just may come true._" The nameless girl's fingertips tapped the table a few times. "The artifact which you seek may be the object of your heart's desire. When I say the word _your_, however, whose heart's desire shall be fulfilled?

Just then, another one of those haphazard images just popped into Gally's mind for seemingly no good reason at all. It was…._one of a naked androgynous patient atop a hospital table--a tube stuck in his or her chest. By androgynous, it really was impossible to tell if the patient was male or female. But there was no doubt that the tube in the chest was trouble. _

_It was not a professional-looking medical sort of tube, either. That sucker was a grimy, nasty sort of thing that looked as if it was used to pump motor oil or something--the sorts of tubes used by big hairy coveralls-wearing mechanics, the sorts of guys with names like Gus or Joe who worked on great big machines. _

_Somehow, Gally's mind was taken there…which now became here to her. What would happen if…? Before being able to stop herself, her hands wrapped round the nasty rubber tube before giving that thing a nice yank. _

_The obvious began to happen. The patient atop the table began bucking and jerking all around… All the dark fluid inside was beginning to come outside--spurting and spattering all over the damned floor and the table and--by golly--some of that wet red stuff f actually plopped wetly against the ceiling sort of like the way an old-time freshly drilled petroleum bursts with the fluid … Hot damn, we've got a gusher!_

Something snapped Gally out of that scene—bringing her mind into here and now. Kyrie was staring at her. The nameless girl was doing so as well. Kyrie was sympathizing, but Gally knew that the nameless girl was fully responsible for that hallucination.

A pout came to the nameless girl's lips. It was exactly the mocking sort of gesture of one in a position of dominance; the nameless girl could afford to be mocking. No, there was more to it than that… "Why do you condemn me so?" asked the nameless girl. Her left hand came up open--showing a palm. "I merely serve that which fate serves." The nameless girl then closed that left hand, index finger out to emphasize a point in the conversation. "Did you _truly _believe that the path of your quest was wholly of your own free will and doing? Did you not think that there were others in service of your trials? I say again: Hate not the messenger…for the messenger bears hope." Her eyes gently turned down, focused on the surface of the table. And what it faded into view could only be one thing.

A wonderful glittering glow came from the wonderful object--illuminating the table better than any lamp ever made for this glow was one of the most beautiful things ever. Though the sunset-toned light outside shone beautifully between boughs of evergreen trees and through the picture windows, it was not so bright and beautiful as what appeared. Suddenly everything felt good and wonderful in the presence of this precious golden object.

What did it look like? It was an object placed upon a gleaming golden circular base about the size of a person's palm, a hemispherical globe of polished diamond-glass over it. Inside was a glittering mechanism beneath a circular device that looked a great deal like a clock. And though it glittered and glowed, it was a nice and soft sort of glittering and glowing--through which one could read the engraving set in front of the object's mechanisms as set in the base: _Hope and Time._

Even though Gally had never exactly _seen _the Golden Hope before, there was no doubt in her whole brain that the thing atop the table could only be that. That gentle, wonderful feeling was somewhat like how Gally felt when first meeting Kyrie years ago--that feeling of _goodness_. Except now it did not even feel as if this happened over the course of years. It felt as if this all began yesterday.

All the wrongness could be made to be over now, all the troubles, all the hurt and the suffering of a world… With the Golden Hope in their possession, they could probably even figure out a way to restore the sun of Kyrie's world. There was no doubt at all about that.

Also true was how bringing it back to Gally's own world would have probably done a great deal more—especially since the situation seemed so damned helpless. That object, in the right hands, it could probably turn the cyborg-girl's world back to one before all the environmental catastrophes and interplanetary warfare wrecked things. Why did Princess Kyrie's world deserve it? So thinking, Gally felt herself reaching for the beauty of the artifact…

Yet…no. This quest was not about saving her world. The Golden Hope did not belong in any old scrap yard. Gally suspected that there was maybe a way back home with that object in her possession. Yet then the object would fail to serve its own purpose. It was _meant _to be for the sake of Kyrie's world. Also true was how it could maybe cease being what it was--or maybe just vanish. The rules are different in these other worlds. _Not for me, not for us, _thought Gally sadly. _It is not for us at all._

_It is not for me… _As Gally sadly lowered her hands, Princess Kyrie reached for the object atop the table and carefully lifted it by its base. The glow brightened, also_…making Kyrie become bright in some way. It was suddenly as if the princess had no shadows at all, everything about her being illuminated. If Kyrie was beautiful before, now this was her being radiantly and amazingly so._

"_We shall return," said Kyrie, the words simultaneously forming in Gally's mind. Even the way Kyrie spoke was even more beautiful now. Gally could not help but agree. Those in possession of the Golden Hope were almost totally irresistible. _No_ could have been an answer, but Gally did not even want to think about that. _

_When Kyrie stood, Gally did the same. With a slight soft sunset glow covering everything, they began walking away from this table to approach the glass-and-steel doors. It was getting dark out there, but they were bringing the light… _

…

3.

…  
_The two girls were walking in a place between worlds--neither here nor there. Everything was in a faint and wonderful glow, hard to see anything. One could not be sure if there was really anything here at all. There was some kind of solid flooring underneath their feet, at the least. It was a hard shiny floor of a black and white squared pattern, hard and polished, yet very comfortable to walk on. How could something be both hard and comfortable at the same time? Beyond that, everything else was lost in some sort of golden glow. Some kind of distant thrumming hum permeated everything. Something was familiar about this place _

_Gally took in a breath, inhaling something warm. It was not air but something else. That was because there was no real air in this place. Instead, there was something else to breathe--more of that wonderful glow. The cyborg-girl had some kind of worry since even her own electromechanical body needed to take in air for the sake of her human brain--not as much as a flesh bodied human being and all that, but something with oxygen in it. Even that smog-ridden airborne chemical swill known as smog would do in that it contained at least some level of the big-o. The cyborg-girl raised her left hand…and saw that it was still the synthetic-flesh type--and also bare. _

_Looking down, Gally saw that her body really was of a synthetic flesh type. That was apparently easy to see in that her physique was barely clad in the same gown of that dream--two silken straps that crossed diagonally over the fronts of her breasts, meeting at her hips where there was a skirt of two slits at the sides to expose much of her legs. Instead of being dark, this outfit was one of gold._

_It ought to be a downright embarrassingly indecent dress, exposing so much of her body But here, it felt good. On her exposed skin was a feeling of the soft and air-like glowing substance. If someone could make sunset-light into matter, store it in a chemical of gaseous form and pump it around, this would be what it felt like. _

_Princess Kyrie was still there at her side. Her outfit was very much like Gally's, though of a different color. Her outfit was more of a deeper orange, a contrast to her creamy paper-pale and glowingly moonsilk-white hair. Held gently within her hands, close to her navel, the artifact was a bright glow. It was hard to tell what it looked like at this point because the thing looked like a hand-sized blazing sun--like looking into the sun, too bright to look at. _

_They were going back. Princess Kyrie began to take steps to the left, small bare feet stepping on that strange flooring. Gally followed the princess. It was like following that glow. There was nowhere else to go. Not yet at the least, was the thinking…_

…

_They faded back into…_the throne room of the palace--this grand indoor place with the high-up ceiling and vast marble floor, twin thrones at one far end. In returning, the girls also reverted to the same physical form as before. Gally could _feel _her physique revert to the armored metal-type form, the black synthetic leather bodysuit clinging to her body, calf-length boots on her legs. Princess Kyrie's outfit was again the short-skirted traditional outfit of a princess in this land. Of course her body was still the synth-flesh type, disarmingly and inhumanly beautiful. No real-bodied human could probably be _that _beautiful. In her hands, the Golden Hope had gone from that sunset orb of light back to that glittering golden clock-like object in the little glass case.

"My dearest sister!" came the call of Princess Dahlia over by the twin thrones. This time, Dahlia was on her knees and head bowed. "The glow of it is far too much for me. I beg of you, be careful with the glow of it."

Upon hearing that bitch'svoice, Gally's hands went to the sides of her thighs where the left and right blades…should have been. There was nothing there but the straight smoothness of synthetic leather over armored legs. A look down only showed that the dual blades were in fact gone.

"_What is this?_" was her whispered reaction. The precious and powerful dual blades that had served the party of three for so long, in their presence since the beginning of the quest…were just _gone. _It wasjust like the morning after a dream in which a child reaches for a toy, only to find that it only existed _in the dream. _Even the thigh holsters to contain the blades power were gone.

Only after that momentary shock did Gally understand. The blades were with the party during the quest. That was, they existed…_for the sake of the quest, the party of three. _Therefore there was no further need for them to exist--just as there was no longer a reason for the party of three to exist. Yet just because the cyborg-girl understood did not mean that there was some kind of _emotional _acceptance of what the Hell just happened to those ultimately powerful blades. The weapons had served their purpose, and now they were gone, just gone…

Switching the Golden Hope to her left hand, Princess Kyrie approached her sister. "Indeed, my sister, I have returned victorious in attaining this most precious of artifacts. It is that which was lost and has been again returned. Behold an ultimate power!" That said, Kyrie raised the artifact above her head.

…

The effects were far-ranging and well beyond this palace, beyond the city, even beyond the mountain atop which the capital city was built. Out here in the wastelands, the mountain range was off in the distance. One of those mountains was cut flat at the top and had the capital city built right on it… The muties did not care much. Whenever their random stupidity prompted them brought their eyes close to there, they much preferred to _not _look. Right now, though, the dumb-assed once-human creatures were running along their merry way…when something felt very, very wrong.

"_Erp?_" voiced one such creature--something that could have been a business manager at one point in its existence but was now just as mutated as the rest of its crew. Then came…_a flare of energy that washed over the land. The muties felt an electric tingling all over themselves just as those looking in that direction began dropping dead. _

_"Orp-porple! Egglesplorkle!_" declared a humanoid creature in janitor's clothing. It then turned to run out and away from the capital city. Even though it would eventually die…again, it still ran. So did all the other muties.

They started running fast, and they planned on running far, _far _away. They decided that it would best to not be anywhere close to the capital city any damned more, not even close to the isolated human settlements. That was because all settlements associated with the kingdom were also giving off aspects of that glow. And this was only a beginning. No more mindless destruction _for them! _Their hijinks were at an end, probably forever.

…

Back here, though there was no overt physical change in the appearance of things—something had changed. And something else was going to change. Gally looked on as Kyrie took the final few steps towards Dahlia--the kneeling princess looking up at the approach of her twin. Kyrie knelt down as well. With her left hand still bearing that artifact, her right hand went beneath Dahlia's chin. Both girls moved to slowly stand together, eyes locked in focus. It was Kyrie that initiated the next move--leaning forward with lips parted to give an open-mouthed expression of deepest affection.

"We rule together, sister," said one to the other. If Kyrie or Dahlia, it was now impossible to tell. The voice heard was neither the delicate tones of Kyrie's voice nor the deceptively poisonous suprano of Dahlia's.

Gally suddenly could not tell the difference between the two. There was such a feeling of shock and _betrayal _at this development. Of all things, of all that had been caused by Dahlia, how was it to come to this? "_No…_" whispered Gally before realizing her thoughts were said aloud. It was too late to not say it aloud. It was also too late for everything.

"It is so," said one princess. "So comes the realization that rulership together is vastly preferable to division. It is best for all the land for those of the royal family to be united in purpose."

"And we are one and the same in our purpose," declared the other princess, her voice sounding exactly like the one on the left. "Would anyone have it any other way? This land has been far too divided for _far _too long. It is deserving of cohesion--be it by any means necessary."

"That said, will you stand by us, Huntress?" asked the princess on the left. "Continue to ally yourself with us. You will be rewarded and blessed by way of the artifact. Otherwise, you could be viewed as an opponent Be with us…forever."

_Forever… _Too many people before said that to others without really meaning it. Cities fall, people die, and whole damned planets eventually fall to ruin. In Gally's homeworld, all of that happened prior to her existence. Back there, _forever _really only meant so long as people's lifetime extended. But in this land, the rules of reality are different. There could very well be _forever. _

Being forever here would mean dealing with dark strangeness of haphazard holes in reality and a degree of unpredictability. One minute, a person could be traipsing along and minding one's own business. Then something would slip out of a gap in reality to raise some Hell. The War of long ago was terrible to the point of permanently infecting and weakening the very fabric of reality. And to _forever _deal with that.

There are other worlds. Just the existence of this one was proof enough of it. Maybe some other worlds would be just as darkened and ruined. Maybe they would be even more infested with monstrous grotesqueries than this one. Wherever they were, they would be better than this one of betrayal.

"No, thank you. I refuse what you offer," said Gally, getting up from her kneeling position. The sickening and dizzying feeling of betrayal still stayed with her in standing up to approach the place where the throne-room doors were blasted earlier. It hurt even more, emotionally, to turn her back to both princesses--whichever one was Kyrie.

Gally had been with Kyrie, so close in company. So much had been done and sacrificed. Now neither princess was distinguishable from the other, neither rescuing. And from the way Kyrie had just locked lips with Dahlia, _rescuing _would be the farthest thing from her mind for quite some time.

It was therefore time for Gally to be gone. Her own footsteps brought her to this palace. And it would be her own footsteps that took her away from it. Those two could do what they wished. As for her, it would just be a matter of leaving. Just walk away from it all before the hurt of betrayal grows too deep. The cyborg-girl almost expected something to strike her in the back or something else to happen. Both princesses had abilities to strike from a distance—be it with electromagnetic telekinesis or by way of summoned energy. Either one could be used to temporarily kill her, prior to being resurrected by her body's nanotech swarm and deal with the problems again…

Just walk away. They let her walk away, leaving this grand place, stepping outside the grand open way where the throne-room doors once stood. Her slow footsteps made for passing through the corridors that led to the sub-basements and radioactive dungeons. And the elevator doors opened to let her in.

In the sub-basement _B6,_there was that red-lit corridor and the room with light pouring out of it. That would be the place where Doctor Nova had turned on that machine, the one allowing a person to step out of this reality and into the place where the Golden Hope once was. The light was no longer that of the golden glow but was another tone altogether. Stepping into that other-colored glow, Gally let it take her away from this place. Wherever it would take her, it would be better than being in this place—anywhere but here.


End file.
