Chapter XXIII: To The Bitter End

I woke up with my face pressed against something. Further examination proved it to be a stone floor, a ragged and unpolished stone floor that hurt like hell to have my entire body pressed against. Wait, no. That was just my entire body hurting like hell. 

I was at the bottom of a ravine or a crevasse, high walls extending up at least twenty feet on either side. There was enough light to see by… and enough sound to hear a fight happening above me. The memories suddenly clarified, of the fight against Nemesis and her machines, of my fall down into this pit. I tried pushing myself off the ground, to be greeted by searing pain running up and down my spine. I tried shifting my feet. They moved, proving that at least my spine wasn’t broken. 

I took a few deep breaths, preparing myself. With an exertion that made me wince, I was able to get myself up into a sitting position. Then I just needed to get out of this pit, and after that, defeat the giant robot spider and its mad scientist master. Everything was going peachy.

I started breaking things down. Step one was getting out of here. That was all I needed to focus on. The walls were almost sheer, though they narrowed from maybe six feet across at the opening down to half that at the bottom. That ruled out pressing myself between the walls. I made it to my feet only with a bit of effort and a few more pulses of pain. The fall had done quite a number on me, and I marveled again at the fact that nothing was broken beyond use.

Going by the sound of fighting, the crevasse was sort of at a diagonal, not quite perpendicular and not quite parallel to the wall of the chamber. I raised my hand above my head, pressing it against the wall in the direction of the noise. I wasn’t as strong as I was before, but I was also a damn bit lighter, and I had been on a few climbing walls in my time. 

“How hard could it be?” I mumbled to myself. 

I pulled myself up, hand over hand, foot over foot. The handholds were more shallow than I had expected, and the footholds were basically nonexistent. I made it about a third of the way up before things got really difficult. My muscles were screaming, begging for me to just drop out and fall back to the bottom. Instead I hugged myself close to the wall, shutting my eyes and trying to fend off fatigue.

I wasn’t going to give up. I had to convince myself of that. I shoved the pain aside, just thinking about what I had to do. Reach up. Grab a hold. Take a step with my foot. Grab another hold. I tried visualizing myself doing that. It didn’t get me more than six inches further up the side of the ravine before my foot slipped. I nearly screamed in fear and sudden pain. I’m not sure it would have made a difference either way, considering the sounds of the ongoing firefight above me.

Everything I had done, all of my hard work and everything I had endured and I was going to be beaten by a long fall. It was ridiculous. Completely absurd, utterly anticlimactic even. What needed to happen was for me to get up out of this bullshit crack in the ground and throttle Nemesis with my bare hands for everything she had done to the Halflances. The desperation faded away, taking the pain and hopelessness along with it. Instead, my heart boiled over with rage, pure and simple. Adrenaline flowed through me, and I redoubled my grip on the stone in front of me. I almost roared, launching myself upwards. I flew up at least a foot, catching myself with one arm, slamming my feet into a long crack on the side of the wall. 

I didn’t take a moment to breathe before I kept climbing up, the adrenaline rush giving the the strength to climb upwards more quickly than I had thought possible, pushing off with my feet and yanking myself upwards with my arms. The only thing on my mind was how much I wanted to make Nemesis pay, and that was all I needed. Before I even knew it, my hand found a 90-degree edge. I dragged myself up onto the shelf, eyes full of vengeance. I had climbed up onto the side of the temple platform, with Lady Halflance, Nemesis, and her Archopolid being up above me. It was then that my arms and legs decided to remind me the meaning of the term “limits”. 

I took one step up the side of the platform, then another. Then I collapsed, my legs giving out below me as soreness shot up my sides. I pushed past that, punching the ground in frustration before getting back up. I wasn’t going to be able to rely on my speed to dodge the Archopolid’s bullets, not as exhausted as I was. I hustled up the side of the platform, trying not to waste energy. Near to the edge, I slowed down to a crawl, silently moving up to the edge on hands and knees. I didn’t want Nemesis or anyone else noticing until I was ready.

The situation wasn’t going very well. I had no idea how long I had spent unconscious on the floor, but it must have been at least a few minutes without me, during which time Nemesis had essentially free reign. There were no more Mechanodrones, at least not active. I counted five of them on the floor, completely out, some riddled with machine rifle rounds and others with shattered receivers. The Archopolid, on the other hand, was in perfect condition. I don’t know if Nemesis had the time to repair it or if my initial plan hadn’t worked as well as I had hoped, but the machine rifle was still attached and firing with wild abandon. Halflance was in cover, just as resolute as she had been when I left the picture. Without warning, she leaned out of cover to fire off another shot at the Archopolid. Crouching low and taking only a moment to aim, she pulled the trigger on her revolver, the hammer clicked shut, and… nothing. She was out of ammo. I couldn’t hear much of anything over the sound, but I could imagine all of the profanities pouring out of her mouth.

Nemesis was on the other side of the platform, looking less like she was in the middle of a fight and more like she was watching a school pep rally. The mask was off, revealing the soft and slightly rounded face of Esther Nettle. She was sitting on top of one of the steel tables, looking utterly bored at the whole affair and gesturing with the flare in her left hand. I did a double-take at the flare. Why is she carrying around a lit road flare?

Still down on all fours, I circled around the side of the platform in Nemesis’s direction. I hoped that by staying low and moving carefully, Nemesis wouldn’t even know I was back until it was too late. The half of my brain that wasn’t imminently focused on not getting shot full of holes was working on a plan. Was it a good plan? No. But it would give me a chance.

I circled around until I was directly behind Nemesis. From here on out, there’s nothing to do but risk your life. Which I then did. I leapt out of cover and crept towards Nemesis. It was only a few steps, and she didn’t notice me. I stood just behind her, on the other side of the table, with my arms wide like I was about to give her a hug. A very violent hug.

I lunged over the table, grabbing her around the neck and yanking her back. Nemesis sputtered and tried to scream. I was still holding on. Her legs kicked, knocking over the table and sending her flying off to land on top of me. I twisted around, trying to flip her onto the ground, but she ripped out of my grip, rolling onto the stone a few feet away. 

Scrabbling across the floor, I slammed into her once again, grabbing at her wrists. She was stronger than me, but the advantage of surprise meant that she wasn’t able to coordinate well. At least, not until she got the idea to ram her forehead into my face. I threw myself back on instinct, landing a few feet away. Totally exhausted. Fuck. Then Nemesis drew a gun on me, from somewhere in the folds of her shirt. Double fuck.

“You tricky bastard,” she muttered, aiming the pistol squarely at my face. It was different from most of the handguns I had seen on Selene, more boxy steel rather than the smooth curves of a revolver. In hindsight, I really should have been focused more on the woman holding a gun at me than on how the gun was kinda weird.

“It’s on my resumé at this point, I think.”

“What did you think you were going to do, exactly?” said Nemesis, shrugging with the gun. “Even if you had managed to strangle me to death, the Archopolid would still kill both you and Lady Halflance.”

Time to do what I did best. “You know, over the last few months, I’ve had a lot of free time. I guess it comes with not having a job or anything. And you know what I did with that free time?”

“Well it wasn’t learning how to fight, that much is certain,” Nemesis deadpanned.

“I was studying,” I continued. “Studying the language of the Archopolids, based on something I… took from the one you sent to attack Lady Halflance. It’s a fascinating field, and you did a really good job converting a construction worker into a killing machine.”

“Thank you. It’s a shame you never learned the fine art of having a point.”

I did my best to ignore the barbs and keep going. I glanced over my shoulder at the Archopolid, which was still focused on finding Halflance. “I picked up a lot of things over the last few weeks, even if I haven’t had the time to absorb it properly. The proprioceptive sense in the limbs is really just fascinating, and I had no idea you could make a membrane that sophisticated with the technology you have here. And of course I have barely begun to understand the programming necessary to convert speech into—“

I was interrupted by a scream from the other side of the platform. I turned around on instinct, glancing this way and that until I caught a glimpse of Lady Halflance. She was still sitting behind cover, clutching her side as dark red liquid began to soak into her shirt. Her other hand was covering her mouth, clamped down to prevent the Archopolid from hearing her pain. Fuck me, I needed to solve this problem sooner rather than later.

“Damn,” said Nemesis. “I was really hoping to finish her off myself. Maybe she’ll live long enough for me to rub some salt in it.”

“Right, yeah, anyway!” I said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “So I learned a whole bunch about Archopolids, is what I was trying to say. But there was one thing that I never quite understood. Archopolids see in the infrared, sensing heat instead of light. What this means is that while they can detect people, they aren’t really good at telling them apart. For construction work, that’s all they really need, of course.”

“It’s a waste of the potential,” Nemesis interjected, rolling her eyes. “Ancient machines with incredible strength and an intelligence far beyond anything we can make, and the best thing that anyone can think to do with them is construction work.” The way she said construction work was the way people mention euphemisms for sex work. If I knew any construction workers, I would have been very offended.

“That raises a question though, the question being how you made sure Ms. Muffet over there doesn’t shoot a bunch of holes in you. Then it hit me; Archopolids see heat. So, you might be able to program the Archopolid to shoot at any human-shaped figure, except for ones who happen to have a source of intense heat on them. And to make a long story short, that’s why I stole this!”

I produced the still-burning flare that I had been holding behind my back, flourishing it while giving Nemesis my best shit-eating grin. The whole plan depended on this moment and how she reacted. For a moment she looked almost confused, before it sank it what exactly I was holding. 

“Give it back!” she yelled, panic flashing across her face, letting the gun drop.

“Hello spider, we’re over here!” I shouted as loudly as I could manage. The Archopolid wheeled around, enormous legs scrambling to get the two of us in the arc of its gun.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Nemesis, a tinge of desperation in her voice. 

“I don’t know, I’m not the one who knows all the commands you programmed into the big metal spider,” I said, shrugging.

Nemesis looked over my shoulder. I smiled slightly. The Archopolid clicked and whirred, readying up another volley. 

“Protocol Zero! Activate Rest Mode!” screamed Nemesis. The Archopolid ground to a halt and settled into a low crouch.

While she wasn’t looking at me I threw the flare at her face.

She fell backwards, sputtering and mildly burnt, giving me the time to shoulder check her as hard as I could. I grabbed her wrist, wrestling the gun out of her hand and pointing it at her head.

“Now I have the gun,” I said, stepping back. My finger wasn’t on the trigger. “Lady Halflance? The spider isn’t an issue, are you alright?”

There was a moment of silence, during which time I began to worry that I had let Halflance bleed out. Then came a groan of pain as she fought her way to her feet. “The bullet might have fractured a rib, but I can still move so it couldn’t possibly be that bad.” Halflance limped over to me, dropping her revolver. I kept Nemesis’s gun aimed at her until Halflance was at my side, at which point I gave the gun to her. 

Halflance gave the unconventional little gun an odd look, then pressed the barrel against Nemesis’s forehead. “You’ve kidnapped my wife. You’ve attempted to kill both of us and our children on multiple occasions. You have harmed countless innocents, ruining their lives with no concern for anything but this reckless pursuit of revenge. Nulla Captivis.”

Not again. That was the thought that coursed through me. No more killing, no more death. Any slight movement of Halflance’s hand would mean Nemesis’s brain splattered across the stone floor. I looked into Halflance’s eyes, saw the hate in them. She glanced my way, though I don’t know what she saw in me.

Lady Halflance raised the gun off of Nemesis’s head. “You will rot in Amrinval Prison for the rest of your days, Esther. And should you escape to try again, I will find you and you will die. Emma, go get Miss Rook. I’ll free my wife and deal with my injury as best as I can.”

…

Everyone was alright. Rook had been forced to deal with a few more Mechanodrones, but Rook being who she is, they weren’t much of a threat. Sir Margaret was beaten to shit, but still lucid enough to sew up her wife’s bullet wound using the materials Nemesis had stored up for her twisted experiments. Within a few hours, the much-vaunted Amrinval emergency services were there, city guard asking questions while doctors did their best to save the Mechanodrones. My understanding is that by the time it was all said and done, Unity was one of three women who’d managed to survive the process. 

I was sitting at the edge of the platform, looking out at the carvings along the wall. They looked… abstract. If I looked hard enough I could almost make out what they were trying to represent, but then it slipped away again. 

“You know, it’s really interesting when you compare these carvings to the context of the culture that created them. We know that the ancient pre-Jaleran peoples who inhabited the area we now know as Bluerose were highly sophisticated and maintained settlements all across Imbrium, and yet they still chose to express themselves in the form of vast carved stoneworks. It really tells you how little we understand about the progress of civilization and the different priorities we assign to—”

“Hello, Margaret. Glad to hear you’re back to being yourself,” I said, smiling slightly. I didn’t even need to look; there’s only one person I know who can talk that long without bothering to listen for a response.

“Hello, Emma! Yes, I’m feeling about as good as can be expected considering the circumstances. I wasn’t exactly conscious before Sarah woke me up after it was all said and done, but…” Margaret sighed. “Thank you, Emma.”

“It was the least I could do,” I said. “Are you going to be alright? You were down here for a while.”

Margaret laughed. “I didn’t get promoted to Colonel for nothing, I can take a few clumsy punches to the face.”

I had completely forgotten that Margaret was a colonel. The idea of Lady Halflance’s bubbly, overexcited wife being a soldier of any kind was dissonant to say the least. 

“How did you and Halflance get together anyway?” I said, hesitating on every word. “A hyperactive soldier and a moody politician, sounds like an interesting story at least.”

“You would be correct,” said Margaret, not quite looking in my direction. “In fact, I’d say it’s much too long of a story to tell here and now, not while the storyteller has a head wound. Speaking of head wounds, have you seen my wife?”

I looked around at all the chaos, the doctors desperately trying to treat fallen Mechanodrones, city guard examining and disassembling Nemesis’s equipment. For a while it looked like Lady Halflance had vanished. It wasn’t until the third pass or so that I noticed her, limping slightly, pacing back and forth in a lonely corner of the temple chamber. I pointed her out to Sir Margaret.

“Mmm, yes,” said Margaret, gazing out at the stones. “I should have seen it coming, Sarah is always the first one to push people away when she needs us the most.”

“Go and talk to her, then,” I said.

“I think that maybe you should do it.”

“What? You’re her wife, you’re the one who should be doing this. I barely know her, we only met a month ago.”

“Yes, but I also have a rather bad head injury at the moment. I’ll talk to her tonight once everything’s been sorted out. She may not act like it, but she really does like you, even if she tries to hide it.”

I didn’t try to argue, even though I was almost certain that Margaret was overstating the degree to which Halflance didn’t hate me. Instead I stood up, made my way down the ramp, and collected everything I had to say.

Halflance was pacing back and forth between the foot of the stone platform and the edge of the chamber, her head hanging down and her expression less than happy. I waited a moment for her to acknowledge my presence, and when she didn’t, I just went for it. “Thank you for not killing Esther. I know she did so, so, so much wrong to you and your family… She was unarmed, and no longer a threat, and I don’t think I can handle any more unnecessary killing after what happened with the Leyrenders. Just… thank you so much.”

Halflance stopped walking. I waited for a response. There was none.

“I don’t get you sometimes, you know that? You’re so… slippery. One second you’re taking me in to no benefit of your own, the next second you’re executing people for no good reason. I don’t get you.” I stopped, frustratedly putting my head in my hands. “Maybe if you freaking talked more people would start liking you.”

Halflance looked at me, eyes softening. “Piss off,” she said, and kept pacing. 

I followed her suggestion and left. I had had more than enough of this stuffy underground hell for one lifetime, and decided it was about time to return to Halflance manor. I hurried over to where the passageway connected to the main chamber, took a right turn, and found myself in completely the wrong place.

It was a short hallway, and more to the point it was a complete dead-end, with the passage having collapsed no more than forty feet down. But it was far from empty. There was a small metal hospital bed in one corner, a cheap desk in the other. Someone had nailed a few shelves to the wall, stocked them with books and food that would keep. This was Nemesis’s personal bedroom.

I tried imagining how many nights she had spent down here, how many days whiled away as she concocted plan after plan to seek her revenge against Lady Halflance. It was… a little bit pathetic, a little bit scary. One item in particular drew my attention: a small phonograph sitting on that desk.

I walked up to the little machine. It looked fairly standard for a phonograph, wood and brass fittings with a big horn sticking out the top and a wax disk sitting in the tray. A pang of curiosity hit me as I wondered what kind of music Nemesis listened to. Having done this a couple of times, I carefully set the needle in the right groove and stepped back.

Instead of music, a voice emerged from the brass horn. “So you’re saying that  this all had to do with the job?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had heard it before.

“It was never just about the job,” spat Esther’s voice. “It was about my sister.”

“Why don’t you tell me that story?  You’ve mentioned bits of it here and there, but never the whole thing.”

“Alright. I had a sister, Rachel. Younger than me by two years. After our second mother died in an accident, I was left as the caretaker for the whole family. I mean, my other mother had a job as well, but it just wasn’t enough. Then things became… worse.  Miasma swept through, the bad kind that kills you slowly. I knew enough medicine even back then to know it was treatable, but… the medicines were just too damn expensive. Even with everything we had, the entire family couldn’t afford more than a single dose of the right drug. Things started looking up when Lady Halflance set out a paper or some such thing looking for a trained doctor to serve her family. I, of course, took the offer.”

“But she turned you away?” asked the other voice. I had heard her in the last couple of months, that I knew.

“The bitch didn’t like my qualifications!” Esther snarled. “She thought I wasn’t skilled enough for her, and then she turned around and hired some Cassandran floozy instead. Fucking Count, what does she know about medicine? Rachel died two days later because of her. By the time I was able to find a position working for Lady Leyrender, it was too late. The only solace Rachel will have now, wherever she has gone, will be in knowing that Lady Halflance has paid for her hubris, no matter the cost!”

There was a silence in the recording just long enough to make me question if it had ended. “That is a very fascinating story,” said the other woman. “But I might be able to help you. My backers have access to a wide array of specialized knowledge which might prove useful in your endeavor. We might even be able to smuggle a few specialized components into the city, though most of the materials would be up to you, of course.”

I remembered where I had heard that voice before. 

“Really? You’d help me, and for what in return?” said Nemesis.

“The satisfaction of knowing Lady Sarah Halflance has been brought to her knees, and nothing more.” The recording cut out there.

I knew that voice, I knew that soft tone and subtle Slavic accent. It was the voice I had heard so long ago, when I was barely alive on a table in a place I had never seen before. It was the first voice I’d heard after being brought to Selene.

SaffronDragon

And that's the end! Thank you to everyone who's made it through to the final chapter, to everyone who's commented or left a rating, all of you are amazing and y'all are the motivation that's let me push through to write all 86 thousand words of this crazy series. I'd like to make a shoutout to Katie-the-Angel-Witch for letting me bounce ideas off of her, as well as TrismigestusShandy for fixing some of my innumerable grammar errors. As for me, I probably won't be posting very much for the next couple of months while I work on side projects (and possibly setting up a Patreon), but fear not, I will return at some point with the next part of Emma's story, Snows of Selene. Until then, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed everything.