home

search

47: Flash Bulletins

  The Radio bellowed, causing me to drop my tools: "FLASH! The Isle of Storm has been RAZED to a burning RUIN! This just in, ladies and gentlemen - Not a BUILDING left standing! We await further details on this SHOCKING development!"

  The Isle of Storm? I remembered passing a place that was under constant siege by a nonexistent hurricane, could that have been it?

  I was working in the dome on Phase Two, which required another addition to the EMP bomb, specifically to its payload.

  It was going okay, with the help of the Aegis, which, despite my anger and nastiness towards it, was quite amiable during this sort of work.

  I was adding a virus.

  But now this. “Radio, why do you go straight for melodrama? Did anyone even live there?.”

  "FLASH BULLETIN! The Sleeping God has been SLAIN! I repeat: the ancient deity lies VANQUISHED—its once-formidable corpus now a SMOKING RUIN! We now return you to our regularly scheduled program!"

  “Dude you’re freaking me out,” I began, but then it started blaring a wistful song:

  When the lights go on again all over the world

  And the boys are home again all over the world

  My heart thumped. I checked my connections, the web between me and everyone here. Between me and Mandy. Everyone was okay. So far. “Broadcast my shit.”

  “The crude and anxious Owen Walsh was on the air!”

  I spoke, and my voice echoed throughout the Observatory, all over the Aegis. “My fellow Fools, if you can hear me, come indoors, take shelter. Something’s going down and if any of you get hurt I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Art Deco and two of his Maker pals had stopped working. All three of them rotated in place to face me: tappity tappity tap. I calmed myself, controlled my markings. The red ones actually helped with greater communication with Makers, or maybe I was just learning how to do this better.

  I struck my poses, spinning and hitting the proper glyph-adjacent marks. BEING ATTACKED. FLEE. GO.

  Over the voice of the singer, the Radio translated Art:

  “Status: remaining at station. Maker group will follow once protection objectives are met. We will NOT leave Owen.”

  “I can’t force you,” I said, but I probably could have. Steward, that’s me.

  But Art made me tear up a little, I won’t lie.

  I spoke to the others: “Schmendrick, Cassiedor, fill me in, are you okay?”

  “What’s going on,” said Cassie sleepily. Then: “Oh crap.”

  “Under attack,” came Schmendrick’s voice. “Magic. Feel it? Do you feel it?”

  And you know what? I did. I felt it: nasty, tickling fingers, probing at the Feast of Fools. Bad Touch fingers.

  Human fingers.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  “I feel it, Schmendrick.”

  “So good at learning. I love you.”

  “I love you too, sweetie.”

  “Having my babies right now. Sorry. Sorry.”

  “Oh CRAP,” said Cassie.

  “Cassie, can you help her? Can you make sure she’s safe?”

  “Better believe it, Owen. Do your thing, it’ll be okay!”

  I didn’t need another tear, but there it was. “Thank you, I’m really glad you’re here.”

  I hurried to the central defense complex, that mass of grinding gears and insane generators that Harrigan/Cassie had been so interested in. I knew it was watching me.

  I’d researched and learned that it needed to see the markings, the ones on my skin, the ones that moved and spun and danced. And they did, I was giving the machine instructions, and it watched and saw.

  “Shields up,” I said, like in Star Trek. I mean, what else could I say?

  A terrible moaning shudder, and the gears slowly ground, spun, faster and faster. The device whined, squealed, sparked here and there. A truck-sized engine of Magic and who-knows-what. It banged and wheezed.

  And then it roared like a hot rod, a cool ride thousands of years old, blasting the various vines and flowers backwards, away from the center of the dome. All business, baby.

  “FOOL!”

  “Get your dudes inside, Gary!”

  He came roaring in through one of the many windows. Upgrades to the Propeller Boxes, apparently; he sounded like a droning, lethal world-war 2 bomber. “Already we prepare,” he said. “Flame and destruction on the horizon! The Crops!”

  “You mean literally, or is this just your usual–forget it, man.” Rather than let him finish, I fled the dome and went to the picnic table, where I could see the whole ocean with my own eyes.

  Pillars of black smoke dotted the distant sea. I counted five, seven of them. The islands the Radio had mentioned, and more. How had I not known? Stealthed, apparently?

  Had I thought I was so cool, so ready? Idiot. Idiot. Me and my little EMP bomb, my phases.

  The Radio, once again: "BREAKING NEWS! The House of Fists has launched a FULL-SCALE ASSAULT on the Feast of Fools! Reports coming in describe a VIOLENT CONFRONTATION unfolding at this very moment!

  “Beautiful Mandy,” I said.

  Her voice came on, strong and clear. Rushed. A little frantic. “What the hell is happening, dude?”

  “Human shit. Harrigan, pretty sure, and he’s burning everything up, and he’s taking his shot and I thought I was ready and I wanted Schmendrick’s big day to so perfect for her–”

  “Easy, easy. You’re a Power, right? Just like him. Just like me. We can handle this. It’ll be bad, but we can deal. He’s outnumbered and we’re better lookin’. You with me?”

  “Yeah.” I looked out at the burning islands, far away. “Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah.” I wiped my eyes. Beautiful, tough, jiggly Mandy.

  “He’s amping it up,” she said. “The pain is increased, it’s megatons, he’s calling all sorts of Lovecraftian bullshit screwups. I…I have to fight them. He’s doing it so I have to fight them.”

  I didn’t understand some of that. “Okay. Okay, you can do it. You always kick ass, you can do it.”

  “So can you. So let’s do it.”

  We simultaneously ended the conversation. Work to do.

  “FLASH BULLETIN! The mighty Undine has ENTERED THE FRAY, ladies and gentlemen, DECIMATING the House of Fists with OVERWHELMING FORCE! But wait—THIS JUST IN! In a STUNNING turn of events, the Iron Conclave has now ENGAGED the Undine in what witnesses describe as a TITANIC CONFRONTATION!”

  I couldn’t see any fighting. But I felt it, vibrating in the ground through bare feet. And heard it, distant thunder. The sun…flickered.

  My little Radio shard around my neck spoke. “Owen, we need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry, Sean, something’s happening and–”

  “I’m not Sean,” he said. “Take a look.”

  I did. I looked through the walls, saw his soul. The messy, snotty mess of Sean the Ghost was no longer there.

  It was a new shape. Confident, brutal, simple. Entitled. Owed.

  “Let’s discuss, yeah?” It was Harrigan’s voice now.

Recommended Popular Novels