Chapter 48

While the terms ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and ‘The Seven Sacred Virtues’ have been common phrases in the past, they have long since become archaic, harkening back to a time before industry and mystech. During the Age of Industry, the terms sin and virtues were set aside in favor of a lesser number of Avarices and Bonds. The avarices are as follows: The Avarice of Pleasure, The Avarice of Power, and The Avarice of Blood. Each avarice encompasses at least one of the original sins.

Kharmor and I leaped into action. Both of us rushed across the room. As I ran, I activated and extended the Lasher Lines from Nennel’s gloves, which I was borrowing. I wrapped her feet together with an electrically charged line and yanked. Her fit slipped out from beneath her, and the choking drip slipped in the same instant. She hit the ground and rolled over. Even as her hands worked to untangle the cable at her feet, Nel’s eyes looked at me with shame and pleading for help.

Vanderbar pressed himself into the corner he had stood beside, clearly terrified to even walk around Nennel. He also had no idea what was going on. Kharmor and I had just stepped in as his heroes to the surprise assassination attempt. Things might actually work out this time, I thought.

That was when my enhancement ran out. At possibly the worst time. I hit the ground on my knees, hard. My body screamed at me. Everything inside and out felt like it was burning inside the cremation furnace at maximum heat. My head felt light as a balloon, loose as it wobbled on my neck, and… gooy is the best way I can describe the last sensation. My breaths heaved in and out of my lungs like they were the weight of lead, and breathing was agony.

I turned to Kharmor and threw him the other Lasher line, freshly deactivated. “Wrap, her hands, and, hog-tie her.” I wheezed out my words with breath gasps.

“You’ll manage?”

I huffed a sardonic laugh between breaths. “Whether I can or can’t, I have to.”

Kharmor wrapped her wrists with quick motions until something else went wrong. His hands sprang open, releasing the cable, then clamped into fists, refusing to open. Nennel’s arms worked at the cable, dropping my pull slack enough for me to snatch the Data Capture Canister at my hip. I gripped it in both hands from the top and bottom. I was about to capture this damned phantom and stow him somewhere dark, to be forgotten.

Then my own body locked in place. My entire body, from feet to hands, froze as if I had been entombed in liquid stone, freshly hardened.

How did he catch my entire body? My arm and feet would make sense. But everything?

A line of script printed across my HUD. ‘You almost had me there. But a check is not a checkmate. You failed to account for the fact that I can capture and control any device with network connects, including cybernetics. That includes that ANFEN system you have running through your body. Didn’t expect those physical improvements to be your downfall, did you?’

“So, what?” I mocked. “You’ve got, my body, locked.“ I acted unphased by the realization of how I was captured, but I was panicking inwardly, trying to think of an escape. “And, it’s clear, you’ve, got, Kharmor’s hands. But, you don’t, have, the rest, of him. You’re, also, trapped, in Nennel’s, bound body.”

‘Stuck? You are operating on false assumptions. While it's taking the majority of my power to hold her body, I still have enough of myself left to hold you, inhibit your friend… and collect the data.’ As that message rolled across my view, I watched helplessly as the computer the doctor had been using started operating functions on its own.

What could I do? I was trapped within my own body. Unable to move. Unable to act… Or was I? I mentally checked my Mystwell to find it three-fourths full. I could cast something if I could just spill a little blood. Then I remembered that I still had two vials of blood in the gear bag Kharmor had.

“Khar’.” I said. “The blood, in the bag. Spill it.”

He understood my message. Kharmor stood and hurried over to the bag he had dropped when I had fallen to my knees. He pulled free one vial of crimson between two locked fists and pulled the seal off with his teeth before flinging the container at my knees.

‘You think spilling a little blood will save the day? I think you’ve gone mad. Then again, you did just topple the entire top of a mega-scarper tower into a housing district.’

“And, here I thought, you were, keeping, a close eye, on me. I might, be insane. But, I’m sane enough, to stop you.”

With those words, I drew on every single Vell of myst I could with the two vials of catalyst. I could’ve shaped a spell, but I could only think of one way to put all of this insanity, both mine and Weaver's, to an end. I tested my right hand, firmly gripping the bottom of the DCC. There was no way it would move, even a twitch with Weaver’s grip on it. But I could feel and flex the muscles of my left hand, which gripped the handle of the container. Lifting the screaming muscles revealed just how thoroughly and deeply the nano filaments had woven through my muscle and bone. What I was about to do was going to be truly terrible, both for myself and for Kharmor and Nennel to witness. Gods, they were going to lose their minds over this next move.

I took every single Vell I could conjure, converted it into two parts Distortion to one part Morphic. I took the simple energy cocktail and infused it only into my left arm. I supercharge the muscle with a burst of preternatural energy. At the same time, I enhanced the function of only select portions of the muscle where the fibers wouldn’t interfere. I also weakened the muscle around the fibers to break down more easily. Then I moved my arm and hand.

I pulled up. A simple motion, but it felt like I was attempting to rip through adamantine in my veins. Then there was give and a flare of even more pain. A tiny bit more tearing and skin broke. Blood dripped down my arm to pool beneath me, and I used it. I poured more and more myst into my arm as more blood spilled.

I couldn’t see the room anymore, only black with flares of red. My heart pounded in my ears and, very distantly, I could hear someone screaming. It sounded like whoever the person was, they were being brutally murdered. My arm felt wrong. Very wrong. What was going on? Why was everything so… off? But even in this state, I knew that I had to keep straining.

Then I noticed a click. More felt than heard. All I could hear was screaming and wet taring. But something had moved. I needed to do something. I had been holding something. Something important. I was fighting for something. To activate something. I was trying to pull something.

A voice cut through the emptiness and distance from reality. A deep and caring voice. He said, “That’s enough. You’ve done enough.” He sounded so certain. I ended my struggle as there was a sense of something in my hand being twisted until there was another click. Suddenly, whatever had been holding me up and fighting me was gone. I remember falling, then peace. A deep, throbbing peace, floating in an ocean of something thick, warm, and smelling metallic. I could feel something deep inside me pulling, separating from me. That something was me, the very core of me. I was about to go somewhere very far away. Endlessly far away.

Then came the pressure. Something dark and horrible and endless pressed on my core. That something spoke. I couldn’t understand the words from the voice that wasn’t a voice. It sounded like the deepest darkness. While I didn’t understand the words, I could feel their meaning. It felt like snakes of shadow were wrapping me up, binding me in a coil. The whole time, I could feel the idea “Not yet.”

I was shocked awake in the most literal manner. Lightning jumped into my body and through my heart. My body tensed and jumped, and I let out a coughing groan of discomfort.

“He’s alive!” I heard Kharmor shout.

“What, did you not trust my skills?” I heard Ferris say in an accusing tone.

“Ferris, you’re barely a Reaper,” Nennel said, and I could hear the smirk in her voice. “I was certain that soul binding was well beyond you. I don’t know much about soul…stuff. But I do know that it’s delicate and complicated.”

“Well, it did feel like something was helping me. Kinda like his soul was being held in place, but whatever it was, it felt wrong. Very wrong”

I draped my right arm over my eyes. “You’re wrong.” I said in tired, jesting accusation, similar to ‘No, you’re ugly’. My voice was a horse croak. “I was having, the best nap. It was so, warm. It was great, after that, awful nightmare.”

“Nightmare?” Kharmor asked.

“Iver, that wasn’t a nap,” Ferris said. “You were about to move through The Final Keeper’s gates. If I hadn’t completely ignored your instructions, you’d be a corpse. Or at least part corpse, part shredded brisket.”

I gave a dark chuckle, everything from before I blacked out foggy in my memory. “Brisket sounds pretty good.”

“You won’t think so after you see your arm. We’re holding it together with a ton of Quik-Klot and wrapped it up enough… we hope. We also doped you up on enough pain killers to put down an ogre.” I heard Zynna say in a voice that was… was that concerned? Geez, it must’ve been bad if she was concerned about me.

“Don’t move.” Ferris said as I turned my head to the side, away from the searing lab lights. I found a plastic sheet curtain. There was something behind the curtain. Several somethings.

“I-I don’t know who you all are, but thank you greatly for saving my life.” I was vaguely aware that the new voice was Vanderbar, the target we had to rescue. Scratch that. We did save him. “Can I assume you’re here by Mr. Judge’s orders?”

“No,” Nennel spoke that one word in a tone so threatening I thought she might kill him herself.

“You are on the hit list of a cyber phantom,” Kharmor said more calmly. “We’ve been hunting it.”

“You all should be in college. Certainly not hunting ghosts.” Vanderbar said with distaste. “But I do owe you my thanks. I think I might have something that might interest you all.”

My eyes focused on what was behind the plastic sheet. Chairs. Metal chairs; bolted to the floor. The chairs were stained with various mystery fluids, and they were occupied. Then I remembered what Vanderbar had been saying before Weaver tried to crush his throat.

‘Using adolescent subjects has produced much more fruitful results’

Children. He had been testing on children. Despite how weak and tired I was, disgust and hate filled me. Then I thought I recognized one of Vanderbar’s victims. His face was deformed and his body warped, but I still identified him. A memory shot to the front of my mind, unbidden. I had missed a call from Gig. I used hands-free to operate my therra and check my call records. Gig had attempted to call me a dozen times. I must’ve muted his calls as an off-hand thought.
I checked my messages. Sure enough, Gig had sent me a lot of messages.

‘IVER HELP!!!!!! BIT AND BYTE ARE MISSING!!!!’
’PLEASE IVER!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!’
’I THOUGHT YOU SAID WE COULD TRUST YOU TO HELP!!!!’

It only devolved from there. I closed my messages. I had found Byte. This soulless schizo mad doc had snatched him and done things to him. The hate I felt turned darker, deeper, to something that motivates people to do the worst kind of things.

“Ferris, help me sit up,” I asked. My voice was calm, but hollow. Everyone who knew me in the room looked at me for a long moment before Ferris moved to help. I turned to Kharmor. “Hey, Kharmor. You uploaded my PVC to your pet, right? I know I told you I didn’t want it at the time, but…”

“Yes,” he spoke in a level and emotionless tone. Kharmor had picked up that something was very, very wrong.

I turned to Nennel. “We caught the bastard, right? All of him?”

“Yeah,” Nennel muttered. I watched her hold herself and shiver at the memory of her total loss of control.

“Good,” I stated. “Then the game is over.”

“Excuse me? Game?” Vanderbar asked as he turned around with an open-face case full of hypo-jectors with a fluid of a deep yellow color. “I was going to offer you this enhancement drug that someone was going to buy from me.”

I locked my face in place. Otherwise, I would’ve snarled like a rabid beast. “Mister Vanderbar-”

“Doctor.” He corrected.

“Mister Vanderbar,” I to a cutting emphasis on the prefix. “I heard you mention that you had some kind of test subjects that were providing ‘fruitful results’, but I didn’t catch what you said these subjects were.”

“Oh…Well, it's animals, of course. I have a warehouse of pigs not far from here.” I could hear the lie in his words. But I nodded as if accepting it.

“How exactly did you get those pigs? Someone had to have provided them.”

“Well, I ordered them over the LSN, of course. I met this online merchant who calls himself Gear Ghost. Not the most mature title, but he knows what he’s doing.”

So that’s what was going on. Weaver had been working behind the scenes. He had known that I was going to be working against him at the tower. So while I was busy and focused, he did something unforgivable.

I stretched out my functioning right hand in wordless request to Kharmor. He unholstered his Executioner and gently set it in my hand. I gripped the gun and turned it over and back in examination. It was truly a massive murder tool.

“Wait!” Vanderbar’s voice cracked at the sight of the gun. “What’s wrong?!”

“You’ve made three mistakes,” I said, my words frigid and serrated. “First and least: You’ve lied to me. I have seen your test subjects.” I popped the cylinder and made sure the other Stained Glass round was loaded. After making sure the nightmare round was loaded and in the chamber, I pointed the gun at Vanderbar’s chest. “How did you get the kids?” At that realization, everyone in my company looked between me and the doctor in shock and horror. I continued, unfazed, “Gear Ghost was the phantom who just tried to have you killed by using my sister’s body, so you owe him no favors.”

The doctor recoiled in horror and panic. “They were always dropped off! By a gang with a red bird emblem! I don’t know any more about them!”

My eyes flicked over to Nennel to see her jaw clenched and hate fill her eyes at the realization that the Razor Wings were even deeper in this than we had thought.

“Second,” I knocked the hammer of the Executioner with my thumb. “You just tried to poison me and my friends with Zyzivane. Or you were going to test on us.” Zynna, Ferris, and Nennel glanced at me, but Kharmor seemed unconcerned.

“I’m sorry!” I could hear his whine like a cornered rat. “Mr. Judge told me to take every opportunity to test the substance. He said he'd use it on me if I didn’t get the required results.” His eyes jumped between each of us, then to the curtain I had seen under.

“By all rights, the fact that I know you tried that is ground to put you down.” My glare pinning the man darkened. “However, you have done worse. Third, and darkest of your avarices, is that you tested on at least one of three boys I had taken under my wing. If you tell me where the other boy is, I will make this quick.”

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHICH BOY YOU MEAN!” Vanderbar pleaded, falling to his knees. “Please, please! I only did what I had to! Don’t kill me!” he begged.

I lined up the sight of the Executioner with his chest. I wanted this to hurt for as long as he lived. I also needed that guarantee that he would never return to wrong to another child.

“Wait! I-I can help you look for the missing boy! What’s his name?!” I could see the desperation in the wretch’s eyes.

I lowered the gun only slightly. “You have Byte back there.” I nodded my head to the curtain. Nennel hurried to peer behind the plastic. I heard her stifle a gasp of horror, and my hatred spiked. “Where is Bit?” I ground out between clenched teeth.

“I-I can look! Let me check my records!” Vanderbar stood and hurried back to his computer.

I shot him in the back with the single Stained Glass round. The bullet cut through his lower spine and entered his entrails. Good. He fell back, half-gagging, half-screaming as his body seized and spasmed so hard that bones broke.

That was the last bit of energy I could muster. The sidearm dropped from my limp hand, and I went as limp as a noodle. I rolled onto my right side and puked up a mix of water, bile, and blood.

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Ferris said.

“No.” I gurgled. “Lind Dragh’s office. He knows me.” I half-turned my head to Kharmor and weakly pointed behind the curtain with my good hand. “You’ve seen Bit before. Taken him from here.” A string of brutal coughs burst from my lungs before I continued. “He needs better than to rot here.”

I was about to ask Ferris a question. It was important. But I feel unconscious, and to this day, I can’t remember what it was. I drifted into darkness and enjoyed not existing for a while.