The Void 7 - Steel (Patreon)

My brain is being bad due to oversocialising for several weeks in a row, but I managed to wrestle it into finally finishing this. Steel was hard to write, he turned out third person. Wouldn't let me in his head.

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The Green Sky compound, lit up by floodlights, everything covered by a thin layer of dust and sand. Wei Chen is standing in the courtyard, Sergeant Steel armor securely sealed, scanning the area. The interference is a staticky buzz on his HUD, a common occurrence when Ashfall is involved. Neither he nor Sentinel is good for electronics, though Sentinel's ever-present dust can be dealt with by changing filters. Not so Ashfall's 'ash.' It is odd, though. Normally the interference disappears once Ashfall reforms. 

Not so now.

Could it be something inside the compound? Most likely, the Void had always had an odd effect on machinery. One of the reasons he was not one of the first on the scene. A reason he did not agree with. He should have been. Maybe then it would have been less of a clusterfuck.

"Now, what the hell happened here?" Chen looks around, but everybody is suspiciously busy with their own tasks. Ashfall has pulled on the spare skinsuit they bring for these occasions and is not meeting his gaze. Instead, he's assiduously checking the restraints on the row of Green Sky cultists that are still conscious. Anathema is still below, checking for holdouts and Sentinel... Sentinel finishes the bottle of sugary electrolytes he jokingly calls his 'recovery juice' and walks over, face grim.

"They're gone. We think." His calm demeanor is a mask; the dust rises in lazy spirals around him.

"And by 'they,' you mean Charge and Sidestep." Not a question. Out of the range of the comms too. Unless they were taken or broken. The latter is not new when Charge is involved, but that doesn't stop the sick feeling in his stomach.

"And the Void. Among others." Sentinel sighs. "We don't have a clear headcount, but there are some heavy hitters we assumed would be here that aren't."

"What is the current assumption?" He's afraid to ask, but he needs a sitrep before he can make any decisions. His armor is still almost fully loaded; mopping up the remaining cultists hadn't been hard. Charge and Ashfall had been through, and what they hadn't taken down, Sentinel had.

"The best one? That the Void ran, and Charge wouldn't wait for backup and followed. You know Ortega..." The sigh is heavy but fond. "And Sidestep would follow them through Hell if they had to."

"You're not wrong." Chen echoes the sigh. Had Charge tried to call in, but the comms had broken in the fight? It was almost certain they wouldn't have lasted, not with the Ashfall trick they had planned. "And the worst one?"

"That they have been captured, and Void took them elsewhere." Sentinel's eyes shift briefly to Ashfall, who has straightened up but still avoids his eyes. That is not a good sign. "It wasn't looking good last Ashfall saw them."

"Took them where?" His voice is hard, even to his own ears. "And why aren't we following?"

"Anathema is down below looking for alternative exits. I'll be in the air again as soon as I've caught my breath. Need to refuel before I can fly if I don't want to risk going splat if my energy runs out a mile up." Sentinel's smile is pained. "I'm only human."

"Some would say otherwise." Chen sighs again. "Sorry, that was unfair."

"It was." Short. Hard.

"And what about calling in help?" As they should have from the start. The Void was too much of an unknown. The plan was good and accounted for all they knew. But what of the things that they didn't?

"Go check with Anathema. If they haven't found anything down there, I'll swallow my pride and call in Thunderhead."

"You think she will answer, considering what happened last time?" Not that Chen didn't understand; telepaths made him uneasy. Nobody liked being undressed in front of strangers. "Not to mention the fact that this could be argued to be her turf."

"She's going to answer if I'm the one asking." Sentinel looked uncomfortable. "We're just going to have to be ready for the lectures."

"She'll have to stand in line behind me for that." Chen looked over at Ashfall, but that was a discussion for later. "I'll go find Anathema."

"Let me know if they've found anything. I'll be in the air." Sentinel pulled down the visual array over his face once more. It made him look inhuman, almost insectoid. A small price to pay for the scanning capabilities. 

"Good luck." Chen braced himself as Sentinel took off, the winds causing even his heavy armor to stumble. Once the dust settled, he looked at Ashfall. "Can you handle things up here?"

"I can." Ashfall looked pale, almost haunted in the floodlights. "You go find the others."

"Keep your communicator close if anything happens." With those warning words, Chen turned and headed into the compound.

Chen didn't like this one bit. Ashfall looked cracked. He had seen fellow soldiers with shoulders like that, eyes flickering everywhere but forward. Something had happened. Something he wouldn't like. But the site was not secured; he had to trust that Ashfall could keep things together if given the trust to do so. Sometimes that was all that was necessary to help someone through a tough situation. Trust. The feeling of being needed. He hoped that would be enough.

The compound was scoured from the inside out, and the furniture turned to wreckage in the wake of Sentinel's fury. It was pushed up in piled against the walls, but there were no heat signatures, so he didn't think anybody was left buried. It wouldn't have been long enough to let them grow cold. The door at the back gaped open, wide enough that he could step through if he edged sideways. 

Hopefully, the stairs would hold his weight.

Stone steps. Wide. Not built in an excavated shaft, they felt more cut from the sandstone itself. Smooth. He activated the full range of lights and banished the shadows surrounding him. The walls were covered in garish paintings of recognizable individuals. Half graffiti, half icons, standing tall and proud, surrounded by the symbols of their stations. Religion. He had always hated dealing with cults. So many people hung their self-worth on being a part of something that it easily turned sour in the wrong hands.

But was he any different? 

He scanned the flames, the water, and the jagged metal barbs as he descended into the black and the green. Not a good feeling; he felt out of his depths. Like when he had signed up for the army and ended up sitting in a bus heading southwest together with others who knew just as little as he did. The knowledge that he could disappear, and nobody would ask. 

Or care.

"Anathema?" He spoke quietly into the communicator, not out loud into the room he had entered. Scorched walls. A stench of fire and ozone, more imagined than real. There was no answer, but the reach was not good underground. Thick walls blocked not only screams. Not a good thought and Chen dismissed it, weapon ready as he searched the place. Room by room. Empty. Wrecked. There were marks in the walls, deep handprints where Anathema had reached in, seeking hidden doors. The edges were smooth and worn down until the acid was neutralized. Not unlike the stairs.

An unbidden thought.

"Anathema?" he repeated, louder this time, through the external speakers. The words echoed strangely in the tunnels. How big was this place? His descent was automatically tracked, but it felt longer than it had been. Like he had walked in curves where the HUD said a straight line. Could he even trust the maps? Or his screen? 

Or himself?

Chen shook his head and then made the decision to open his faceplate. It slid back easily, and he could smell the chill air, faintly tinged with oil and soot. The shadows were deeper without computerized assistance, but he turned up the lights of his armor to compensate. In the distance, he heard a faint sound. Footsteps? "Anathema?"

No answer.

He couldn't sneak but tried to be quiet as he walked towards the sound. It echoed strangely, and the directional acoustics of his armor couldn't pinpoint from where they came. He had to trust his hearing. 

And himself.

The footsteps turned to sobs that turned to heavy breaths, and Chen turned the corner to see Anathema standing in the middle of a large room where his lights barely reached the ceiling. Unlike all the other rounded surfaces, this one had straight walls and a flat ceiling, strangely mundane in the organic. It was painted in jagged lines that seemed to twist when he tried to focus on him. The effect was strangely unearthly. "Anathema?" 

"Yeah." Anathema pulled back their hands from their face but didn't turn around. They looked strangely vulnerable, bare feet on stone, warm and organic in contrast to the strict lines. "I'm okay. I'm not sure Charge and Sidestep are."

"What do you mean?" Chen didn't lower his weapon, but he had no idea when he had drawn it. There was no trace of anybody else.

"They're not here." Anathema stepped forward, then ran both hands through their curly hair. "So they're probably with Void."

"Why would the Void take captives?" He activated one of the scanners, but it only echoed what he already knew. The room was empty. So why was he feeling nervous? "Or do you think they're dead?"

"No." Anathema looked grim, their face bereft of its usual smile. "I think Void is going to try to turn them."

"Turn them." Chen scoffed; the notion seemed absurd. Two of the most stubborn people he had met didn't seem like good recruiting material. 

"Don't laugh." Anathema gestured to the room. "We need to find them before it's too late."

"We will. What is this place?" He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong here. The light bounced weirdly, and he was starting to feel nauseous.

"The Tesseract." Anathema turned and walked two steps into the room, and for a moment, they felt impossibly distant. "I tried to get it to work for me. But I can't. Not anymore."

"You've been here before." It wasn't a question, not with that look on their face. Chen had suspected but had been reluctant to bring it up. It had seemed so far-fetched.

"Yes." A soft sigh. "I suppose Sentinel has told you by now?"

"No. Sentinel hasn't told me anything." With anything other than looks. "I was hoping you would."

"I grew up here." Anathema smiled, then shook their head. "Not in this exact place, but with the Green Sky. They took me in when..." A twitch. "Anyway, Marshal Hood got me out. Or, well, he attacked one of the compounds, and I decided to help him. I wanted out. But sometimes you don't have the strength to start walking on your own."

"Nobody could have stopped you." Invulnerable. Dripping steel-eating acid.

"You don't understand." Anathema came closer, rubbing their hands together. "You've always been strong like that. Doing what you need to. I wouldn't have known where to start. Where to go. Whether things were better out there. Hood helped."

"Hood recruited you into the Rangers." Not a question, pieces adding up.

"It was my suggestion. I wanted to help. It's not like anything could hurt me." They laughed. "And maybe I could help others. I was already used to working in teams."

"So why didn't you let us know?" Did he feel betrayed?

"He faked my identity. Hood knew how to bend the rules like that. Sentinel knew, but I don't think he wanted it to spread. Said I deserved a fresh start."

"I meant right now. Before this operation." It would have changed things. "We deserved to know."

"I said as much as I could." Anathema grimaced and looked up at Chen. Confrontational. Hiding guilt? "Where do you think the maps came from? The intel that Sentinel 'found?'"

"So what went wrong?" Something did. And he was one step behind. 

"I was supposed to go in with Sidestep." Anathema looked like they were about to start crying, so Chen looked away. "I think they felt how nervous I was and offered to go alone. Faster. Quieter. You know they lobbied for that from the start."

"I do." Chen sighed. "And I said that wasn't wise because things could get hairy without backup."

"I don't know if they were discovered." Anathema's voice was shaky. "But the lights went out, so they did their job at least. I think Ortega must have run into trouble."

"Not the first time." If Charge was in trouble, Sidestep would move in. And likewise. He wished either of them would take a moment to think first. "Ashfall looked sick. I don't think he was prepared."

"Nobody can be." A tap on Chen's armor and Anathema was there, looking up. "Nobody knows how they'll react meeting Void. Don't blame him."

"I'll blame myself for agreeing to be rearguard." It was a relief to see Anathema pulling themselves together. "We should have gone in force."

"Maybe." A pregnant pause. "Or we'll have more people lost. At least now we can try to find them."

"Do you have any idea where they've gone?" That was the big question. 

"I thought..." Anathema gestures to the room. "I thought I could find answers here. But I can't. It's been too long."

"Any other hideouts close by?" If they had a teleporter, there was a range. Nothing was infinite, even the power of boosts.

"Not sure. Some we only got to by traveling the walkways." A shiver.

"The walkways?"

"By following Void. This is one of the starting points. To get us into the right mindset." A helpless laugh. "I can't do it anymore. The lines won't unfold. I can't see the path."

"Maybe that's a good thing." Chen couldn't say he understood what was going through Anathema's mind, but he knew desperation and guilt when he saw it.

"Maybe. Not for Charge and Sidestep."

"We'll find them." Chen hoped he sounded more sure than he was. "Do you think we could find them if we could find this 'path?'"

"At least we would know a direction even if we couldn't walk it." Anathema rubbed their arm again. "It's hard. I don't know how many that's not me or Void would survive."

"They had acolytes. How did they?"

"If you ingest Void's blood, you'll be able to."

"I had forgotten about that." Chen grimaced. Blood drinking. Rumors of cannibalism. Things he would not ask Anathema about. "Well, there's nothing down here anyway, let's get up. Sentinel is scanning the skies, he might have found something."

"A needle in a haystack." But Anathema followed anyway.

"Not so hard if you're equipped with a magnet. Sidestep might be hard to find, but Charge's mods will light up like a Christmas tree in a wilderness like this."

"And where Charge is, Sidestep will be." A lighter tone of voice, almost a smile.

"Exactly. And we can have a talk with Ashfall. I've given him enough time to collect himself. Time to cough up exactly what happened down there."

Chen walked with purpose, doing his  best to banish any doubts and bad thoughts. They could wait until this was over and Ortega was patched up in the hospital, another close escape to their name. You didn't think about worst case scenarios in the field. You focused on what you could do. How you could stay alive. How you could keep your friends alive.

Ortega, he muttered to himself as he made his way up the stairs. Where the hell are you?