17.2

  At nightfall, we all head for the rail station, ready to put this nightmare to an end once and for all. When we get there, the place is packed with jeeps, some lightly damaged from bullets, others completely smashed in at the windows.

  Inside, Luck of the Draw’s men are finishing up the last bits and pieces of the chimera. The power core is already inserted into the belly. All that’s left is patching the armour around it so that no bullet can penetrate the shell. After all, this would have been a massive waste of time if Calyx Ward’s goons could blow it up with a single shot.

  Luck of the Draw is sitting on the mezzanine leading up to the office overlook. He has that western hat on, and he’s whistling a pleasant little tune into a harmonica. Dance makes a joke about how the guy is clearly playing into his role too much, and like always none of us react. It’s clear that Luck of the Draw isn’t right in the head, so laughing would just be sad.

  He stops playing, heads down the stairs, and says the same thing I’ve heard a million times at this point: “We need to discuss the plan.” I had expected him to ask about Lucian, and he does, but only when he gets a good luck at us. “He’s new. What’s his story?”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” says Lucian. He never really lost his politeness, despite being nearly seventy years old (and not looking a day over twenty-one). “I’m goin’ to cut to the chase here: my name’s Lucian, and I’m a commanding officer for Calyx Ward’s eastern wing.”

  “Lucian Strider?” Luck of the Draw says. “Also known as ‘Big Striker?’” He doesn’t show much reaction other than a cocked eyebrow, something that catches me off guard completely.

  “Big Striker?” I say.

  Lucian sleeves a bead of sweat from his forehead. “It’s a nickname the underground gave me, on account of my proclivity for baton use.”

  “The deadliest swing in the state,” says Luck of the Draw, a fact I can confirm directly (the side of my jaw still hurts pretty bad). He clears his throat, gives a worried look, and adds, “I know there’re cops out to get Ward—I see them all the time at the church—but I never expected one of her elites to be a backstabber. Does the fire really burn that high, or do my eyes deceive me?”

  Lucian doesn’t look entirely sure on how to answer that question at first, though he finds the words eventually. “Up until today, I didn’t expect it either. Truth be told, she’s kept her plan out of the unit.”

  Luck of the Draw hums. “I suppose she doesn’t need an army of soldiers to do her biddin’ when she has an army of killin’ machines. Still, you have to understand my perspective.”

  “He’s a childhood friend,” I say, placing a hand on Lucian’s shoulder. “He’s many things: a goofball, somewhat messy, but he’s not a liar.”

  “Ah,” says Luck of the Draw casually, “so you know him. Well, I suppose that changes things. I’ve always said that life is about placin’ bets, and your friend here sure is one hell of a card. How much do you know, Big Striker?”

  Lucian stuffs a hand in his pocket. “Rhea brought me up to speed. The main crux of it is, you need access to the Core Manufacturing Node, and while I can’t just hand you a lanyard and call it a day, I can at least somewhat weaken the defenses by relocating units to other areas of Paxson. You’ll still need to deal with the Capital’s elite, but it should relieve some pressure.”

  “I take it you also have a map of this place,” says Luck of the Draw. “More particularly, where Ward and Adam Smoke are going to be holdin’ up?”

  “Smoke is my direct boss,” Lucian says. “Where he goes, I go, and he never really stays in one place. If you want to strike, you’ll want to wait until he’s outside the Capital. The best way to deal with a threat that large is not to deal with it at all. Lucky for you he’s not in the Capital twenty-four/seven. He has annual leave comin’ up a month from now.”

  “Clever,” Luck of the Draw says, though with a questioning tone, “but a month is too far away. By that time, Ward might have already sniffed us out. I was thinkin’ Mono here could keep him busy.”

  “Me?” I stutter. “You want me to fight that thing? He can mould his arm into a spear, for God’s sake.”

  “You won’t be alone, of course,” says Luck of the Draw, though it doesn’t ease my mind one bit. “But you knew what you were gettin’ into before you started this job. Even if we succeed in killin’ Calyx Ward and savin’ Neo Arcadia, the chances of you surviving are slim. That goes for all of us, even me. I don’t pretend to be unkillable, even if luck is in my name.”

  He has a point with that. It’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot. With other jobs there was almost always some failsafe in case something went wrong. Here a significant portion of our approach will involve us going in blind and hoping the firepower from this godlike machine is enough to tear through the security. But if it means avenging my dad and preventing Ward’s debilitating sickness from spreading further out of control, then I don’t really have a choice. I made a promise to myself that I would end her, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do, whether it’s Adam Smoke standing in my way, Isolde Crane, or God Himself.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Dance clears his throat and says, “All of this spoutin’ from a memory hunt for a green-haired lady that showed up at our doorstep with a broken arm. I could be at home cookin’ up Shine, but here I am about to take down the queen of Paxson. Life.”

  “I think your Shine might prove useful, Australian Man,” says Luck of the Draw. “The team could always use a boost.”

  I would have laughed only if the idea weren’t so ridiculous. “And turn everyone into cyberpsychos? ’Sides, it’s not like you’ll find any ingredients to make the stuff in the Capital, and good luck hijacking a truck in the middle of the city.”

  “Oh, won’t we?” Luck of the Draw smirks, and then starts walking towards the exit. “Follow me, boys and girls.”

  Without a moment’s notice, we follow him out the door and around the side of the station warehouse, where the freight containers are shoved up against the wall. I never really gave much thought as to what was inside of these things. I always imagined it was old sheet metal, the kind of stuff I saw on the cargo ship in Neo Arcadia.

  Luck of the Draw inserts a code into a dial-lock, pulls a freight open, and reveals crates upon crates of vials packed in sterile foam, each one filled with cloudy liquid that glows faintly green. Behind them sit reinforced polymer drums stamped with hazard symbols: industrial solvents and neuro-reactive binders. There are sealed coolers humming softly to themselves, preserving cultures that look like nothing more than clear jelly but could fry the human nervous system in seconds if mishandled. Further in, there are sacks of powdered catalyst stacked shoulder high, their labels scratched off but their chemical bloodstink unmistakable. Tubes, syringes, filtration rigs, portable heaters, everything arranged with obsessive care, not like cargo, but like ingredients laid out by a chef who takes pride in his work.

  Then it hits me: this is a miniature lab, all contained within a freight container, though it does look as though it hasn’t been used in years. Dust everywhere, cobwebs cast by some outrageously huge spider, and the sort of rust that only comes from a thousand rainfalls.

  “Whaddya think?” asks Luck of the Draw.

  Vander, who’s been awfully quiet, says: “Looks er like your sert of place, Dernce.”

  “That it does, Big Man,” says Dance, stepping inside, his voice echoing back a little. “That it does.”

  “And about your cyberpsychosis concern,” says Luck of the Draw: “it’s not like Lumina turns you evil. It just heightens your senses and makes you more willing to act on your own inner desires. If you want to kill everyone in sight, then yeah, Lumina is a bad idea. But last I checked, we’re all out for one person here, not every Jane and Johnny walkin’ down the street.”

  I suppose that also explains why Titan the Gigantic Chimp started tearing into everyone in sight, because it was chained up and mistreated.

  “It’s still important not to take too much, though,” a voice perks up from the back. I turn and see that it’s Riven. I forgot she was standing there, again. She has her arms folded. “After a certain point, the drug changes you: you become addicted to the high, and while it might not change your goal in the moment, it will over time. Soon you will end up wanting to hurt people if they prevent you from getting said high. So Rhea is not entirely wrong here.”

  “No one’s debatin’ that much,” says Luck of the Draw, “but yeah. You’re not wrong.”

  While the others are busy talking about the next steps of the plan, and everything involving Lumina, I step back a little with my arm hugging my torso. I look at Riven for a moment before saying: “Thank you.”

  “Oh, I was just sayin’—” she says.

  “No,” I say. “For what you did for Fingers. You donated blood, and you saved her life. Well, I like to think you did, even if she is in a coma. Christ, point is—”

  “Don’t worry,” Riven says. “I get it. And it might not look like it now, but I think she’s going to make it.”

  “Think so?” I say, exhausted.

  “I’ve watched family members pass on their deathbeds,” she says. “As I’m sure you have. Fingers always had this energy about her that’s hard to put into words. It’s like she’s protected.”

  “Protected?” I ask.

  “I’m a spiritual person, a little like the lady at Divine Guidance, though admittedly not as handsy with the deck.” Riven steps over to my opposite shoulder, arms still folded. “And I sort of feel that way about you too, which is why I think you’ll survive this. I always had this vision as a kid where God would send this warrior with a spear into an army of demons. Have you ever seen the statue in Paxson?”

  “Face the Monster, Speak No Name?” I ask.

  Riven nods. “That. In my vision, I saw a lady fight through a battlefield of monsters, things too twisted to describe, until eventually she went up against this extremely big monster with a gaping mouth and multiple arms. It wasn’t really an eldritch creature, so to speak, but it was pretty close.”

  “And what happened?” I ask.

  Riven shrugs. “I never found out. The dream, or vision, always ended right before the warrior reached the monster.” She goes quiet, and then adds, “But the reason I mention it is because you sort of look like the woman in the vision, and Fingers carries her sort of energy. I say she’s protected because the energy, I think, comes from God, as corny as it sounds.”

  I’ve certainly always felt I’ve been lucky when it came to my ability to survive. Even if I did find ways to use my brain to come out on top, the opportunities were always there for me to capitalise on.

  Though on the other hand, I’ve always lived a pretty miserable life following my ‘death’. The fact any of this is happening to me at all is certainly no stroke of good luck.

  As the old saying goes, I suppose there’s no light without darkness, no ying without yang, no one without a zero to come before it.

  In computer science, they call it bitstream.