Unwillingly, Marcy Wu felt the first stirrings of consciousness returning to her at last; her mind had lain safely dormant, submerged in a warm pool of comforting memories of home and hearth, but now – all too soon – her respite had come to an end. She tried to take a deep breath, and a wave of anxiety flooded over her when she realised that it was impossible to do so.
It was several panicked seconds before she realised that something was attached to her face, and that something was doing a better job of managing her breathing than she ever had; Marcy's deeply-rooted sense of social awkwardness had meant that she'd spent her entire life breathing just a little bit too quickly – especially if someone had happened to so much as glance in her direction – but the oxygen mask clamped over her mouth and nose was regulating her respiratory system at what it considered to be her baseline levels, and Marcy couldn't help but feel she wasn't getting enough air into her lungs.
Get a grip, she told herself, fighting to stop her body from tensing up, to simply allow the alien medical equipment to finish its job of patching her up. If I'm awake, it must mean it's almost done. She realised that she was in one of King Andrias' rejuvenation tanks; they had preserved his life over thousands of years, and now the strange fluid within had been put to work repairing her perforated chest.
Getting a grip was all but impossible when her mind was assaulted by a patchwork of images from … before.
Before Andrias murdered me.
A tapestry of jumbled thoughts slowly assembled themselves into a picture that more or less made sense: King Andrias had revealed the truth to her friends, unveiled his plans for multiversal domination now that the Calamity Box was his again, and then desperate fight against his robot army, Anne's transformation ...
Marcy remembered opening the portal to Earth for the others to escape through, but not much after that. She couldn't recall if Anne or Sasha had made it home.
Before she could dwell on it too much, an insistent but dull beeping pricked its way into her muddied subconscious; some machine on the outside of the tank, she guessed, had noticed the spike in her brain activity and was now alerting someone. Presumably King Andrias would be on his way down shortly. A thought which sent a shiver down Marcy's newly-intact spine.
She heard a dull metallic clanging and watched as the bottom of the tank irised open to drain the fluid away; cables designed to hold her in place, connected to the specially-made form-fitting bodysuit she wore, detached themselves with a sharp snapping sound. Marcy felt herself drop to the floor with a soft plop.
Tired, soaked, nerves shredded, but very much alive.
"Feeling better now?" asked a jovial voice.
A thousand thoughts of the carnage she could perpetrate if she'd only had the strength to do so flashed through Marcy's mind in a single moment. She settled simply for removing the oxygen mask, casting it aside and asking, "Hwlng?"
"I'm sorry?" A giant hand went up to where a human being would've had ears. "I didn't quite catch that."
Marcy coughed, her throat as dry as her skin and hair were wet. The air in the rejuvenation chamber smelled dank and musty, although she conceded that since her sabbatical hadn't included a shower the primary stench could have been her own body. "How long has it been?"
"About two months," replied King Andrias thoughtfully. "We had some trouble adapting the tank to human physiology. I almost thought you weren't going to make it."
Did the bastard actually sound concerned? "Well, maybe next time you'll think twice before you stab me," Marcy said acidly, pulling her weary body into a lotus position on the soggy floor around her.
"I won't bother apologising because I know you wouldn't believe me, anyway," replied Andrias, shifting uncomfortably. "I do wish ... things had gone differently, though."
Despite herself, Marcy almost believed him; even with all that had happened, it was difficult to see the tall, imposing form of Andrias as anything other than that goofy, loveable newt-king with the quick wit and ready smile who had taken her in and given her so much responsibility over Newtopia's affairs.
Maybe that's who he really was, deep down? Or who he had been before the Calamity Box and all its attendant problems? Before eternal life had turned him into a withered husk? "I don't suppose you're going to tell me whether or not Anne and Sasha are okay?"
"You suppose correctly," replied Andrias, though something in his demeanour had Marcy worried. A quiet smugness?
"So. What happens now?" asked Marcy, shakily rising to her feet. She would've felt much better with her armour, with her crossbow, with her … friends. "You've kept me alive for a reason, I assume? Because I'm still valuable to you, somehow?"
A haunted look crossed King Andrias' eyes; it seemed as though, in that moment, his mind was elsewhere. "We've kept you alive because there's something we need you to see." He held out his enormous hand to Marcy. "Follow me, please."
Marcy pointedly ignored the hand as she stalked past Andrias, and she immediately collapsed to the ground with a strangled yelp.
"A lot of nerve damage has been repaired," Andrias said by way of explanation, looking askance. "Lacking a newt's innate regenerative powers, it'll take some time for your brain to adjust to the new tissue, but your motor skills will eventually return. For now, I do suggest you take my hand if you don't wish to walk into every column between here and the catacombs."
"I'd rather not, then, thank you," said Marcy heavily, her words muffled as she continued to lie prostrate on the floor. This, at least, felt familiar: clumsily barging into anything and everything without Anne to guide her. She felt a throbbing pain in her chest and couldn't say if it was simply a ghostly echo of what she'd endured after being stabbed … or if it was a premonition of what was to come should she follow Andrias to the catacombs.
Swallowing a lump in his throat and in a tone of voice that, to Marcy, sounded entirely genuine, Andrias said, "I'm sorry, Marcy, but neither of us have a choice in this any more."
Marcy had almost forgotten how surprisingly gentle Andrias could be; for a newt, his hand was warm, and there was something almost comforting about having his bulk there beside her. It took an effort of will to remember that this was a genocidal madman who had tried to kill her – had killed her – and her friends. Every JRPG cliché in the book told her that he was simply a tortured soul who didn't really want to do any of the horrible things that he'd done. That he'd had no choice in the matter.
No, the kindness was the mask. The mask hid the darkness which lay beneath. He wasn't a well-intentioned extremist, he wasn't being controlled by forces he didn't understand, he was simply … someone who had chosen this path because it was what he wanted to do. Because war, because conquest, made more sense to him, seemed more right, than peace. Whatever was down here so deep beneath the palace wasn't anything good, and Marcy felt her trepidation grow with every step.
Every now and then they would stop to allow Marcy to rest; whenever they did, Andrias – either to fill the awkward silence or because he genuinely thought she'd be interested – would explain some facet of the castle's architecture to her. "These bunkers were actually top-secret research facilities built by my ancestors," he said of a cluster of rooms branching off of the stony corridor they found themselves in. An element of pride crept into his voice all of a sudden. "They performed all sorts of, ahem, experiments on the various creatures they found on other worlds."
As he explained, Marcy had a sickening realisation which brought her up short: the technology which had revived her, the wondrous healing chamber which had pulled her back from the brink of death, had come from here. Her life had been preserved because of the perverse experiments of Andrias' ancestors. As if I didn't have enough psychic trauma, there's another thing to add to the list. Belatedly, she realised that Andrias had been telling the truth before: his ancestors were scientists and explorers, but they were also vicious barbarians who used every new advance as a means to inflict more suffering on others.
Finally, they came to a large stone door inlaid with various Newtopian runes; in her addled state, Marcy couldn't quite make them out, though there was a word that seemed familiar. It could've been crux or root depending on the context, but before she could really think about it Andrias was opening the door to reveal a wide, oval-ish antechamber. The light given off by the machinery cast an inauspicious amber hue across the room.
Despite herself, Marcy was fascinated by the technology; it was, at once, both ancient and beyond anything currently available on Earth. That said, there was something vaguely familiar about the neatly arrayed banks of machinery. A stray memory of a school trip to a science park suddenly sparked to life. "This is a data centre, isn't it?"
"Yes, but unlike anything you'll have seen back home," replied Andrias, impressed as always with just how quickly Marcy grasped things. "Look up."
Marcy did so, not knowing what to expect. Dominating the ceiling was a large, vaguely spherical device adorned with dozens of glowing orange lenses which could've been taken for eyes. Attached to it were various appendages of differing size.
So awestruck was she, Marcy almost failed to notice a cavity in the floor directly below the ominous device opening up and a rather ordinary chair ascending from some secret compartment beneath it. A rather ordinary chair with a very familiar figure sitting bound by the wrists and ankles, half-dazed, in it.
Shock soon gave way to anger as Marcy's mind reeled. "Anne?"
Even if Anne heard her, she gave no response. Marcy guessed that she'd been drugged.
"What are you doing to her?" asked Marcy hotly, turning to Andrias as a volcanic rage rose within her tiny body.
Andrias gestured broadly to the spherical contraption in the ceiling. "The Core. An amalgam of some of the finest minds in Newtopian history. Preserved as a Hive-consciousness thanks to technology developed by my forebears." Marcy could see now that what she had assumed to be cameras were, in fact, very much organic, very much alive, eyes. "They are no longer content to exist like this, locked away as a monstrosity in a basement, when there is so much more they still have to accomplish."
Quick as a flash, Marcy's analytical mind pieced it together. "It needed the Calamity Box to escape from here, to conquer other worlds." If that was the case, Earth was in terrible danger and would need to be warned. "What does that have to do with Anne, though?" And suddenly the realisation hit her like a sucker punch. "Oh, no. No, I won't let you."
"The Core wishes to exist as a being of flesh and blood again after so long trapped in a metal abomination," said Andrias. He turned to her, a resigned smile on his face. "Originally, it had chosen you as a vessel – the only person to ever beat me in a game of Flipwart – but after Anne's display in the throne room it turned its attention to her instead."
"Let her go, please?" Marcy said tearfully, inelegantly begging for her friend's life. Her tiny fists beat on the studded armour of King Andrias' enormous boots. Never in her life, even when her parents had told her that they were moving, had she felt so small and useless.
"The fusion of the Core's awesome intellect with the near-limitless power Anne Boonchuy has at her command," Andrias went on as if Marcy wasn't even there, "well, you don't need to be a genius to see how that makes for a far more appealing alternative, do you?"
"Andrias, please," continued Marcy, "I'll take her place. Maybe I don't have Calamity Powers, but my mind will be a better fit for the Core than hers."
"Why? Because you're so much smarter than she is?" asked Andrias, a cold smile playing on his face.
Marcy wiped futilely at the snot and tears streaming down her face. "Yes." The admission shamed her, but if it saved Anne's life, then what did it matter?
"I'm sorry," Andrias said, "but this was never my choice to make." He sighed softly. "I am glad it won't be you, though. I couldn't stand the thought of losing you again."
Marcy could only watch in fascinated horror, held back as she was by Andrias' enormous hand, as a horned helmet, glinting darkly in the acrid light, descended toward Anne; Anne had come round somewhat from whatever drugs had been given to her, and Marcy felt a brief surge of hope as her brown eyes suddenly lit up with a blue fire. Please!
It was not to be, though.
The helmet locked into place over Anne's head and the girl sagged forward, her body held in place only by the cables attached to the mechanised suit she was encased in.
A stark red light filled the room as a bank of monitors behind the chair suddenly burst into life; data flashed across them far too quickly to read, the combined life experiences of hundreds – maybe thousands – of minds.
And then Marcy heard the scream.
The Core had pushed out everything that made Anne Boonchuy who she was: the selfishness, the hotheadedness, the humour, the love, the empathy … and replaced them with itself.
It wasn't a scream of death.
It was the last, desperate scream of a soul that had been cruelly shorn of its existence.
Marcy covered her eyes, tried to turn away, but Andrias stopped her.
"Watch. And remember. You owe her that at least."
And then, there was a horrid, extended silence and darkness. The monitors had switched off, the Core had gone limp, its eyes had dulled to a muddy grey, and smoke rose from the area around the chair.
The figure in the chair rose slowly, the many eyes on the front fascia of the helmet illuminating in turn as it did so; they were a deep, resonant blue colour. It tilted its head first one way then the other, and a sickening cracking noise echoed around the too-quiet chamber. It took a few steps toward the stunned Marcy, a sinister grin splitting its mouth in two as it did so, its many eyes quietly studying her as if she were a bug under a microscope. "Hello," it said in an unsettling robotic parody of Anne's warm voice, "Mar-Mar."
