Book 8 – Chapter 15 – Little Miss Destruction

“She’s in range.” Wrath called out over the comms, “Sending the targeting information I have.”

Journey’s HUD lit up with a three-dimensional beam aiming from further ahead of us, out of the darkness. The blue beam swept through like a searchlight, locking onto Wrath for a moment, before scanning downwards, past the bridge, and then onto me.

Right as I was mid-way unhooking the mirrors off the lantern to start my own sprint.

“Can you tell when she’s about to fire?” I asked, keeping my pace on the bridge consistent and unpanicked. The beams superimposed over me, like a magnifying glass. I felt like I was about to get shot. “Any way to delay her? Or mess with her aim? Wrath…”

She was quiet for a moment. “There is. Are you certain you cannot increase your speed?”

The beams were now superimposing on me. A countdown was triggered.

Wrath tutted. “I am sending her an infohazard over the general channel. Even sprinting, you will not make it to safety in time.”

“Infohazard?”

The beams stayed focused on me as I continued my usual measured sprint down the bridge. Then vanished, as well as the countdown.

Then the rock started howling with laughter.

“I can’t believe you did that.” The rock started. “Hah, Oh and Avalis is pissed, never seen him this upset. Probably blowing a fuse at how stupid and effective that was.”

“To’Sefit has halted her attack.” Wrath said. She sounded annoyed. I could see her across the bridge, arms now crossed over her chest, cheeks puffing out in a deeply conflicted and frustrated look.

“What did you do?” I asked, “Because the angry beam notifications are gone.”

“I supplied her with an alternate idea I was planning on using for myself” Wrath said.

“She means on the group chat, she sent a video file of old human media she’d recovered. Like a ton of it. You know your wizards? Some of them have really long chanting incantations, vague poetry basically, before at the end of their chant they call out FIREBALL. Or something.”

“And this helps how?” Almost to the middle point of the bridge. I was getting ready to use some of my reserve tricks early to stay alive, just waiting on Wrath to give a signal. But Wrath no longer seemed agitated or scared about my survival.

Which meant she’d already calculated I would get to safety in time at my current speed.

“Because To’Sefit’s now chanting to herself before firing a laser.” The rock said. “The delay’s going to let you get to safety before she can open fire so she aborted her attempt, and Avalis is pissed telling her it’s suboptimal. Probably private messaging her how it’s too suspicious Wrath dropped this little bombshell into the chat at the worst possible time. And To’Sefit’s doubling down, digging her heels in, instead of, you know, actually listening to sound advice.”

I could imagine Avalis typing out things in all caps at this point. But what I couldn’t completely understand is how Wrath was even talking to them in the first place. “I can’t believe they haven’t kicked you out of their group chat. Or left the general chat. Having the enemy right there doesn’t sound like the best idea.”

“To’Avalis has left the general channel twenty seven times, and rejoined it twenty eight times.” Wrath said. “Very likely both those numbers will increase by one soon.”

“It also saved your bacon here, so seems like a great idea to me bub.”

“But you’re outright enemies? I wouldn’t want to hang out in a chat channel with people who’s only goal in life is to end mine.” I stopped midsentense, and reassessed. “At least, not for long.”

“Why would they remove themselves permanently from a shared group chat?” Wrath asked. “Discussion there adds additional knowledge and is of interest. There is no reason to avoid it.”

“They’re bored and this is one other source of entertainment.” The rock translated. “Machine blind spots are their names. Human blind spots are their emotions. You’re opposites like that.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one to me in more detail.” I said, reaching the light range of the next lantern. The feeling of the cold outside vanishing was like stepping into a warm bath. As I had done before on other bridges, I slowed my speed here to a jog, as I still needed a quick breather at each bridge to restore my soul.

It was like running from bath to bath. Go out into the chill, dive into the bath, get warm again and then go on to redo it. I’m just a lot faster than machines are at the middle step.

“You humans have one single window open on the monitor and that’s all you work with. Hell, you rarely are able to even run a second window in the background. Machines can have as many as they want and swap between without issue anytime they want to. On the other hand, you don’t care what software version you’re running, you just care about the program’s running and giving info. While machines are built around using the right version number, the wrong one simply can’t be run.” It paused, trying to think of a better analogy. “Wrath and the other Feathers can be out to kill one another, and when the workshift’s over, drop what they’re doing, shake hands and go out to get drinks and talk about how dumb other machines are. They’re a gossipy bunch.”

“We do not gossip, we discuss current events and other items of interest besides our current main missions.” Wrath said. “They are family. Do you not have arguments with your own family during one hour, make attempts to steal or murder each other, and then continue daily routines the next?”

“I am the absolute worst person to ask that kind of question.” I said. “Winterscar traditions are very different from regular families out there.”

She deflated, “Oh. I found them rather familiar and easy to adapt to.”

“That’s exactly why they’re so different from everyone else’s family.”

The rock started laughing again. “Oi, forget all that. Get this, she’s planning on screaming ‘Oblivion!’ right when she fires her lasers now, so before she’s done saying that word, that’s your cue to do something clever.” The rock said. “Everything else she says while she’s locking onto you is just fluff, you can ignore that part.”

…

“Wrath, you mentioned you were saving this to use it yourself.” I said, worried now. “In what way is announcing your own attack a good tactical option?” I asked, slowing my pace now that I’m in lantern range in order to give myself more time to recover.

She frowned, and I could see a bit of heat start floating up from her head, past her halo. She was deep in thought. “The benefits far outweigh the loss of opportunity.” She cryptically said.

“What benefits?”

“The benefits.” She fiddled with her hair, looking away.

“As in it’s too cool to pass up on.” The rock translated again. “She’s probably been vibrating in her shell to use this on her next fight with them ever since she found out, which would have absolutely made them green with envy. Now if she uses it, she’s derivative and it’s no longer original since her sister got to do it first.”

Wrath nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “The choice was… difficult. However, between holding onto this or saving your life, I decided your life was more valuable.”

“I’m going to barf.” The rock said. Then the projected doodle did exactly that. Like a sixth sense, it could sense the confusion radiating from me. “Buddy, you don’t understand. She’s giving you a way bigger compliment than you could imagine, coming from a Feather.”

I finally slid to a stop by the end of the bridge, now in the warm blue light of the mite lanternpost. Honestly, I had no idea what to even say to this. Feather biology and priority systems were… a little different compared to anyone sane.

Sometimes Feathers felt hyper-competent, able to fight in ways I couldn’t even counter. And other times, it felt like I was dealing with semi-rational, questionably caffeinated children bouncing off the hanger wal- “Oh my gods. Is this how Kidra sees me?” I muttered, suddenly having an epiphany.

Then I shook my head clear of the traitorous thoughts, and focused. “Nevermind. We need to start figuring out how to either kill her or convince her to jump off one of these bridges, let’s stay focused on that. Talking plan B’s and C’s here.” I said. “What have we got to work with?”

We debated, discussed, and then came up with an appropriate scheme.

—-

“Sister. There is only so fast I can redeploy the telescopes. The current sight lines I can feed you are likely to be the only ones available. They need to move miles on the circumference in order to get so much as a two degree difference in field of view.” To’Avalis sent on their private chat. “And, as I have explained to you time and time again, this isn’t coincidence. They will constantly choose to find locations where they can obscure the sightlines. Your systems are compromised. They are at the very least tracking your location and are aware when you are aiming at them. To’Wrathh’s media ‘discovery’ was far too perfectly timed to be simple chance.”

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To’Sefit huffed, “I have already removed the viral payload, and I see nothing else within the sections you pointed out. You are being paranoid my poor To’Avalis. My little sister was understandably excited about her discovery and wished to share it.”

“It would be a fairly stupid viral weapon if it remained the exact same as the ones I had to excise. To’Wrathh is many thing, stupid is not one of them.”

“Oh hush. Be a good dog and give me my targeting information without the backtalk, and I’ll see about eliminating the targets you want me to~”

It had been five minutes now, and the group had not yet moved from behind the mountain. They seemed to be speaking to one another, or possibly planning to camp in this location. Perhaps the human was tired.

Slowly, the outer telescopes were being moved around by To’Avalis’s forces, quite manually as well. They were fast, however their vision target was far inside the biome. Unfortunately most of these scouts could not survive past any of the longer bridges. That limited where they could be deployed greatly. She estimated thirty minutes at most before she had vision behind that mountain.

Until To’Avalis sent her another feed. One far closer.

“My, my. Holding out on me I see? How cruel of you.” She licked her lips, looking over the new video feed supplied. This was far closer, and she had no idea how To’Avalis had gotten his forces to come behind the group given the amount of bridges that were too far into the darkness. She considered asking, but knew the paranoid Feather would keep his secrets from her, if he truly suspected she was compromised.

He had, after all, only revealed this new video feed at the last second. She peered through it, and found To’Wrathh and To’Orda, both sitting down by a small campfire. Behind them was a small sconce for one of the mite lanterns, right by their little campfire.

There was food on top of the fire, mushrooms of some kind. And they were feeding the birds on To’Orda’s shoulders. “See, it’s not that they know I’m here.” To’Sefit said, “It’s that they have animals to keep fed. So silly.”

“Where is Keith Winterscar.” To’Avalis sent back, the very first bit of discussion. “I do not have a visual sight on him anywhere.”

“Possibly hunting food within the mountain?” To’Sefit considered, “I will begin operations once I have him in visual sight again.”

“You don’t understand.” To’Avalis hissed. “This is the Winterscar. If we cannot see where he is, we must assume he is already on the offensive. Reposition immediately, the advantage is no longer ours as of this moment.”