Hi, you guys. =) I thank you so much for reading. Tikatu and Bow Echo, you raise some good points, which I've got five days to think about.
36
Much earlier, during a timeline looped and in flux-
The Mechanic stood braced and attached to his dais, feeling Ship flex and grow all around him. Even minerals dissolved in seawater were meat and drink to the living, half-aware vessel. As for her master… that Lord of Machines was wary. Disturbed. Two part-vermin children had entered his life, and now Beech. More society than he'd had to put up with since leaving the Stronghold in Edinburgh. This was not comfortable. To borrow a Typical catch-phrase, Kane "did not play well with others".
Yet, here they were; Ilya cleaning his weapon by the main gun, like one placed in charge of First Artefacts; Katrin coopting detergent to blow bubbles through one tiny fist, then using her mind to alter their path; Beech avoiding his notice… or trying to. The Mechanic had full, three-hundred-sixty-degree situational awareness. He could not be ambushed… so long as he remained online and paid strict attention.
Could have swatted all three of those troublesome pests like the insects they were. Fried them like moths at a microwave tower. Ordered his drones to rip them to shreds. These pictures were momentarily quite satisfying, but… he did not act on the impulse. Back on the Island, that lot had twice leapt to assist him. Also, he'd accepted Beech's request for protection. That somehow made them all his. Made him Central, like the Mother-of-Cyborgs.
Kane shook his head, ignoring Ilya's humming and the chain of rainbow soap-bubbles dancing around Ship's control dais. Turned his back on the chaos-adept, who'd left his rucksack behind on the Island. Tuned in to Ship, instead; receiving torrents of data through the cables that linked him to vessel and swarm. Looked out through her viewport at greenish ocean and ribbons of wavering light.
The seafloor below them had started to slope gently upward. They were approaching the site of his future Stronghold at Pancake Rocks, New Zealand. Vivid corals dotted the uneven sea-bottom, flashing with fish like swooping tropical birds. Trash, as well; some of it metallic enough to be useful. He dispatched a team of collection-drones with a single, sharp gesture, then said, not precisely speaking to Beech,
"There is little accommodation, as yet. It is necessary to camp, while Ship purges her systems, grows and repairs."
None of that bothered the kids, both of whom looked up and smiled. They seemed to enjoy frisking outside in the sunshine and spray, for all that conditions like those could lead to corrosion. The pale-haired chaos-adept shot him a swift, sidelong glance.
"I know how to rough it, Kane," he replied. "We leave home at eleven to see the world and come back… or not. I've slept in my share of doorways, learning to wrestle with entropy."
The massive cyborg snorted derisively, simply not getting it.
"There are no doors, here… and your kind makes no sense. Why crouch in the shadow of vermin, making their females big with your offspring? Take what you want, destroy all the rest. Simple."
Beech stifled what looked like a sardonic grin and eyebrow-quirk, musing,
"Hmm… that enlightened philosophy couldn't be why you're back on the GDF's Public Enemy List, could it?"
In that moment, Cody Beech came about as close to death as he ever had. Fortunately, the Mechanic did have a rudimentary sense of humour (of the crotch-kick and sudden explosion variety, mostly). Rather than breaking the slender young man in half, Kane simply shrugged, grunting,
"Don't give a sh*t what they think of my actions. Who asks cattle their feelings?"
As they were nearly to shore, now, with powerful riptides hauling and slamming at Ship, he ordered,
"Make ready to surface. There is food for your meat parts, a portable recharge station and a few shallow caves with water in filtered barrels. Someday, much more."
The adopted chaos-mage bowed slightly, smiling like Katrin and Ilya.
"My lord, you have opened your home to me, and I'm grateful." Hadn't said that to Jeff Tracy, back on the Island, as the man knew almost nothing of old ways and doings.
The muscular technomancer hesitated. Olive-skinned, dark-haired and tattooed, with a partly-shaved head and masked face, he was still mostly flesh; riddled and strengthened by circuits. Had both amber eyes, yet, and most of his born-with-them body parts. Was still, therefore, young and able to change.
"The Accord makes us brothers," Kane responded grudgingly. "What I have, I will share. My shelter is yours."
Not many words, but old ones and meaningful. He had created his own family, and Beech backed that up.
By this time, Ship had reached harbour; breaking through wild, rolling surf to disgorge her flesh-and-blood ride-alongs. It was high noon, with a brilliant sun overhead, white-capped water and flocks of noisy, clattering birds. Wind from a range of forested hills carried rumour of beasts, distant cities and greenery. Nothing unusual.
The Mechanic jetpacked out of his vessel and into the air, leaving a droning mech-swarm to loft Beech and the laughing kids in his wake. Great towers of angular, striated grey rock stabbed at the skies all around him, looking much like a petrified city; home to birds, nesting reptiles and one errant cyborg.
All seemed well, and yet… Kane delayed touching down. Wasn't certain quite why… until he realized that some of his senses were deadened; repressed by the will of another. To know was to act, and so the Mechanic went higher, bidding his drones not to land. Out at sea, Ship ceased her rolling and broaching to dart for her master's wave-rippled shadow; peering upward with multiple eyes, weapons at ready.
Who…? He cycled rapidly through all of the basic frequencies, sifting the wind and scanning for energy traces. Picked up no mass shifts, but sensed a definite, active suppression field. One meant to blind and disorient.
Rage began building within him, who'd come here expecting peace. A chance to recharge and replenish. Mantis swooped down and hovered nearby, plasma blades sparking.
"Stay," the Mechanic rumbled. "I will go down, alone. There has been no attack." Yet.
Like the jetpack was part of him, Kane adjusted its strength and direction, crossing over a roaring and spuming blowhole, to land hard on a towering pillar of stone.
"Show yourself," he challenged, projecting dark fear and boosting his voice. "I have claimed this place for my own, and I will defend it."
Nesting seabirds and pterosaurs hunkered closely over their downy, wind-scoured young, as if sensing disaster. Kane armed his weapons and target-lock scanner, but…
***blink***distortion***static***
…the Mother-of-Cyborgs was there all at once, descending to land directly before him, her metal-shod feet grinding on spray-dampened rock. With her rode a Kyrano. A female. Not the Tracys' tame psion. Another one.
As the suppression field ebbed, the Mechanic sensed many tens of his sisters somewhere nearby, all of them heavily armed. Like his drones, they hung back for the moment, waiting for orders.
"Evan," demanded the Kane, her voice an amplified, synthesized hum. "You will return with me, now. Your discordant actions will cease."
The cyborg gazed stonily past her, not meeting the Central One's hard, partly mechanical stare. From sheer animosity, he didn't look at that psion, either.
"I do not hear you, Madame," he said, defusing his weapons. "There is noise, but no words."
Her energy-level surged. He sensed a target-lock, and reflexively bent it around to those hidden and waiting sisters.
"You will come home or fight me, Evan," she told him, half of her body shining mirror-bright in the glare of a tropical sun. "I am old. I am ready to hand on position or win it, once more."
Great waves smashed and pounded at uncaring stone. Wind gusted and shoved, making a plume of her smoky-dark hair and long fiber-optics, just now turning bright red.
"I do not hear you," he growled insistently, feeling his muscles bunch, but fighting to keep himself still. Powerpacks flooded his body with charge, but Kane did not move an inch. Would not meet her gaze, either.
When she altered position, maybe to place a cold metal hand on his arm, or attack, he launched himself violently upward, scorching the rock. Gail Kane, his mother, started to follow. Anything might have happened, then, for the Kyrano thrust at his mind with blistering force, attempting to separate conscious awareness and circuitry. Only, a GDF troop ship came hurtling down from above, disrupting that sensor-block; blaring alarms and commands.
"Attention, below: All unregistered, illegally augmented persons are to cease activity, at once. You are under arrest. Repeat, you are… squark… screeeee… breeeep!
Their statement never concluded, because Beech had stepped in. The chaos-adept was dumped on top of a nearby stone pillar by a pair of laboring drones. Meanwhile, the dark-green GDF troop-ship (squarish and ugly and jammed full of Kanni and uniformed vermin) began listing to seaward. Its' force shields collapsed all at once, like they'd been cut right off at the mains. The slender young man stood quietly facing that ship and its occupants, hands at his sides, pale hair blowing around in the wind.
"I've left your microphones working so that you can hear what I say," he told the GDF bridge crew. "Also, a bit of impeller. Listen, because I'm not very patient with idiots. Turn around now and leave. Mark this place on your charts as a no-go zone, or deal with the worst I can do to you."
Kane glanced down at Beech, who stood there doing apparently nothing, yet turning a flood of black, icy chaos onto that ambushing troop ship. The wolf-eyed young man was still talking; voice raised to be heard over wind and ocean.
"That sudden hair-line crack in your engine… the aneurysm starting to swell in your brain… the out-of-control aircar about to crash into your home and family… the glitch that will alter your status from citizen to criminal exile… I am their master. Leave us, or learn what it means to cross an Adept."
In the meantime, Kane landed again. Facing an unwanted challenge from one of his own kind, the technomancer could not afford to strike at that troop-ship. Didn't have to. His army of drones shot over to join him; covering every available surface with shifting, buzzing and shimmering bodies. Ilya was plunked right down at his side, Katrin dropped into his arms, both of them ready to fight.
He got a sudden lip-brush and hug from the girl, while her brother began to methodically pick out and shoot the troop-ship's sensor arrays. The boy's targets popped like firecrackers, sending lines of flame through the hull.
Not far away, that female Kyrano reeled backward. Would have fallen right off of their perch, had the Mother-of-Cyborgs not braced her upright.
A thin film of sweat glistened on Beech's pale forehead and soft upper lip. Kane would have lent him some charge, but he was all meat and couldn't accept it. Did send power to Katrin, whose small face was screwed up in tense concentration, battling hard for the second time in one day.
Led by a pack of shape-changers, the GDF would have caught and collared him, Kane realized; would have waited until he was completely distracted fighting the Mother-of-Cyborgs and captured his ass. Hers, too, probably. Only, Beech had sprung their trap.
Said the chaos-adept, pale eyes narrow and fierce,
"Your guidance system has only one setting available. If you want to live, let it take you out here. If not… get ready to face the worst that could happen, everywhere, all at once, to all that you care for."
No contest. Having gotten a taste of his power… with crewmen dropping like stones all over the bridge… the GDF captain wanted no more. Struggling engines whining aloud, the vessel lifted away. A few bits fell off as it lumbered back to low orbit. Ship snapped at pieces that crashed down into the ocean, increasing her mass and her armament.
Next, an old-fashioned, pre-conflict shuttle de-cloaked, three-point-five klicks away. Adapted tech, of the sort preferred by the Kane and her numerous offspring. The Mother-of-Cyborgs was last to leave. Looking hard at her son, she said/ transmitted,
"You cannot avoid this forever, Evan. The time will come when we have no choice but to face each other. I would choose that time, not have it thrust on us."
But he still didn't look. Not at her, nor the hovering shuttle full of his waiting sisters.
"Empty wind does not move the mountain," he said to the air.
"No," she agreed, turning away and igniting her jetpack; one arm still supporting that half-conscious Kyrano. "It erodes and it scours, until there is nothing left but a shattered, bare hill."
…and with that, the Mother-of-Cyborgs withdrew, arcing unsteadily into the sky with her burden.
Kane watched them go. Once again, he'd been defended by others. By the family he'd somehow stumbled on. As the shuttle and troop-ship dwindled to sparkling dots, then winked out altogether, the Mechanic turned to face Beech. With one metal hand resting on Ilya's head, Katrin fast asleep with her arms 'round his neck, the cyborg said just,
"This is home."