Jupiter inhales a deep, steadying breath, then steps with a determined stride beneath the tall, heavy arch of thick, gray stone block and rust flecked, twisting steel. As she passes, she glides a single index finger along the age pitted rock, peeling away a thick layer of grime to reveal a hint of cream colored stone. Wiping the dirt clad finger along the fine cloth of her gown, she spares a quick glance over her shoulder where the two heavies and the woman wrapped in silver and gray, rippling folds follow close behind.
Before her, darkness molds itself into the shadowy form of an immense chamber. Multiple thin beams of light point upward to shed a hint of illumination on a distant glittering vault of a ceiling, held aloft with girders of blackened steel baring hints of whorls and curls of scroll work. Her eyes follow the intrusive length of a cable, thick as her own torso, piercing the roof like some passing serpent. As silent as the room is dark, only the soft echo and crunch of her boots on the ample grit scattered across the floor. The sound of her own breathing vies for space with the pounding of her heart.
At once, the lights move, shift, swiveling rapidly downward. Jupiter raises an arm, shielding and squinting against the blinding flash as the lights wash over her, to settle around her like bars of a cage. At the same moment, the echoed silence breaks into a cacophony of howling cries, bringing to her mind that time she had let Vladie talk her into coming with him to a party but was really because he was afraid to go to a wrestling match downtown by himself. Blinking, Jupiter's eyes slowly adjust and indeed, she sees how the floor stretches around her in a broad circle, enclosed by rows of seats rising into the shadows high overhead, and every row is filled with faces rolling and roiling like foam on the river, elephantine, serpentine, wolverine, canine, sargon, and bodies and faces she couldn't even begin to divine their origin, calling and yelling down, at her.
'Maybe I made it to court after all,' she thinks, sensing the heavy weight of impending judgement hanging in the air.
Swallowing hard, she turns away from the excited crowd and notices, to her left, a lone sliver cuts a wide slice from the rings of tiers, expanding to a platform where, just barely in her sight, perches a single upholstered bench, flanked on either side by a twin pair of hunched, hideously jointed pink figures sporting over large, glistening black eyes. Jupiter's skin crawls at the sight of the Keepers. She had almost forgotten the woman behind her, but now that gray swathed figure shoves Jupiter farther into the center of the ring of lights, baring her gently pointed fangs in a sneering grin, as if sensing Jupiter's revulsion, before she lifts her silver and gray wrap in a swirl of cloth and, with inhuman grace and strength, leaps up the sheer wall where the platform joins the level of the floor, then settles herself on one of the low, gilded rolled arms of the chaise. She leans forward, resting one long nailed hand on what Jupiter had, previously distracted by the disturbing presence of the ungainly Keepers, mistaken for a pile of off white cloth.
Now she realizes that pile actually swathes a figure, seated upon that gold and silver chaise. The form is hidden deep within the shadows of a heavily embroidered hood, cream on cream, falling to a long, shimmering cape which flows down the cushions and into milky puddles across the floor. Her breath catches in her throat, and her heart pounds harder. The howls of the crowd beat upon her like storm tossed waves. 'What would Seraphi do? What would Seraphi do?' she chants internally, propping up her failing courage.
"My Lord." The woman in gray lowers her head slightly, the vaulted chamber amplifying her liquid voice. Beside her, the cloth of the hood shivers, the figure turns as it rises, the hood sliding back with a familiar shrug. The hairs on the back of Jupiter's neck prickling with alarm.
Her lips twist into a scowl as she turns to face the pale white, pointed features of Chickanery Night. His eyes pass over Jupiter, but she catches a deeply satisfied gleam before he turns to face those gathered in the room.
Chickanery savors the assemblage with a thin smile. The crowd erupts with crackling cheers and thunder of thumping fists and feet. Eyes riveted on him, the woman in gray rocks slightly, her fingers digging deep into the upholstered chaise. After a moment soaking in the mood of the massive chamber, Night raises his arms slightly, and the deafening din fades to an approving rumble.
"Isn't he adorable?" the woman purrs, running her fingers through the tips of his braid. "I could just eat him up."
"Not now, Felicia," Night mutters sideways under his breath, but makes no move to remove her hand. With a burst of bravado, born somewhat by her hours spent within Seraphi's journals, Jupiter musters a voice as calm and commanding as she dares.
"Where is Balem?"
"Balem?" Night leaps forward from his throne like chaise, bristling with indignation. "Balem?"
"Are you so afraid to face me?" Chickanery hustles to the edge of the dais, scowling down at Jupiter. "Still sending your lackeys to do your dirty work?"
"I am master, here!" Chickanery hisses down.
"Don't be coy. I know that the ships which attacked my company on Earth bore Balem's seal!" Her arms wide, Jupiter turns round and round, calling out into the depths of the chamber. "Show yourself, Balem Abrasax!"
"Balem is dead!" Chickanery leaps from the platform. Even as his cloak flutters f and falling to the ground, and the scene changes so abruptly and so entirely that Jupiter staggers. Fire explodes around her, and she ducks and swiftly raises an arm to protect her face. The landing where she stands tilts into the fiery abyss. And hanging there, eyes wide wide with realization of his impending mortality, Balem reaches out. She falls to her knees and comes face to face with, herself. Clinging to to the edge of the failing platform. She scrabbles back and shuts her eyes tight. All around her, the scene stills, caught in that moment of terror.
"Feeling a bit off balance?" He leans over her, his midnight black tailored jacket briefly blocking the glare of flames.
'Just a recording,' she reminds herself. 'Not really happening.' She opens one eye at a time, forcing her shaking limbs to stand. Chickanery faces the paused image of Balem, his eyes glittering.
"Balem is well and truly dead. No one could survive that fall, those flames." Jupiter is dizzy and fear stabs her heart, yet she also recalls that this was the moment she fought back. When she refused to let Balem control her destiny.
"I did." She speaks softly, looking down with no small amount of awe that she was, indeed, saved from that inferno. She notes the terror on Balem's face as the images inched along, slipping slowly until his fingers no longer found purchase, the cry forcing its way from his lungs. Mr. Night's next words interrupt her morbid reverie.
"Because of me." Her lips curls as she spits her words at Night.
"Because of Caine." Night's response is an unpleasant grin as he leans in closer.
"Because of Caine, because of me."
"You're not making sense."
"Because you are as incapable of following my maze as any other of these entitleds. Balem Abrasax." The name rolled off his tongue with contempt. "My machinations kept your world embroiled in fruitless political turmoil. I managed all operations of the harvesting station. My spy network located your gene print! Mine! Easy enough to garner new loyal subjects when you abandoned them after Balem's demise. They crave a strong leader to guide their miserable little lives."
"Not yours?"
"A select few are allowed renewal. Very few."
"And with Balem dead, your access ran out."
"You clearly would never supply it."
"Morkenin won't oblige? She's down a splice, after all."
"This is my chance to control my own destiny! You can have no concept, ground beneath the heal of others who deem themselves your betters, perpetually hiding who you really are, surrounded by riches you are denied!"
"Actually, I know a great deal about that." Night rants on unheeding of the compassion in Jupiter's voice.
"I have been working towards this end for generations of your inconsequential people. Your intervention merely required I amend my time table for the rebellion. Unfortunately, you have become quite the underground hero, almost a legend. The reincarnated Queen who loved a splice! What a romantic piece of drivel. But I can use every twist to my advantage, and every rebellion rallies around a martyr." From behind his black over jacket, he withdraws a slim, silver weapon, aiming it at Jupiter's head.
"Martyr?" Jupiter takes an involuntary step back.
"Titus is well known to have plotted against you once before." He walks with stealthy steps around her, as if seeking a preferred target. "Perhaps Kalique, destroying the mother she once adored." Jupiter grasps upon the obvious.
"But your troops. They've seen me. They would know the truth." Night shrugs. Behind and below him, Balem's image was slipping farther away. She carefully looked away from the terror written upon her own.
"Truth is malleable. Blanking is effective beyond mere tersies, particularly in hands as skilled as mine. I can blank you. An hour. A day. A month. How about three months? You'd forget everything, Caine, being Queen, all gone." The distress at the thought of losing her memories of Caine must have played across her face, for Chickanery smiles without humour. Jupiter wonders if Seraphi's skills are enough to help her this time. She'd spent so many hours perusing those ledgers, she had begun to feel like she did know her, did understand her. But now, she wonders if maybe, just maybe, she needs to think like someone else, some fast talker, someone who could persuade anyone into anything, someone more like... Valdie?
"You certainly could. You could blank me, or kill me," she replies, more to the gun than to the man, "but, then, you would lose the information I have."
"You have nothing I could use. You know nothing."
"You're almost right. I know next to nothing. But Seraphi, she knew a lot. And what she knew, I know." Night sneers his disbelief. "I have her ledgers."
"She lived near to a hundred thousand years. You could never access that wealth of knowledge."
"I stuck with the good parts. Wouldn't I make a better poster child if I were alive? How an entitled willingly joined your cause?"
Skeptical, yet Night appears to be considering her words when the woman appears, clutching her robes about her, her face wracked with worry.
"My Lord," Felicia interrupts with a hiss, and the fiery images dissolve around them so that Jupiter is once more standing on the floor of the vaulted chamber, surrounded by hungry, angry eyes. "Aegis have landed in the streets." She jerks her head, indicating the levels above. "The lycantant hunts." Her gaze shifts between the gleaming gun and Jupiter, whose heart soars, knowing Caine will find her, then sinks just as quickly, knowing Caine will find her. And the Aegis with him. And her quest will likely come to a screeching halt. She sucks on her cheek, thinking fast. The sounds of the crowd provide her with welcome inspiration.
"What will it be, Mr. Night," Jupiter calls out loudly. "Will you let me join your rebellion?" She pauses to let the question hang in the air. "Will you let me show you the secret to more life for all? More time for everyone!" And she turns, her wide arms encompassing the gathered splices.
"You would do that?" the gray woman asks wide eyed. "You can do that?" Jupiter answers her by answering the row upon row of hopeful faces.
"I can."
Night falters, then leans close to her ear.
"You will be the voice of my rebellion, or your friends will die."
"You will see to mine and my friends survival," she replies equally quietly, "or Caine's revenge will be horrific." She matches his glare with her own.
"We must move, my Lord," the woman plucking at his arm, eyes darting towards the door as if sensing Cain could leap through at any second.
"Get them." He aims a terse nod to the gray woman. "And quickly. And you," he smiles with all his teeth, "will share with me everything you claim to know."
"Not here, not now," she says sidelong with a brief nod at the roars of the crowd. Suddenly, the din lowers as confusion rises, the sound of blasters outside in the streets. Bodies fall over each other, leaping between the tiers, climbing upward and downward, some in panic, some with determination and drawn weapons. Chickanery Night skitters towards the dais, poised as if to clamber up.
Jupiter hesitates, seeking any sight of Kiza, or Gemma or Bob. Night glances at her, frustration, and a hint of fear, wracking his face. He cannot leave, but his instincts will not let him stay. His greed wins the internal struggle, and he rushes back to grab Jupiter by the arm. She jerks free, ready to fight despite the silvery weapon in his hand, but at that moment Felicia and the two guards return with Jupiter's company stumbling ahead of them.
"Up," he hisses. "Get them up," and, with a surprised gasp, the two heavies heave Jupiter up onto the raised platform in a flurry of swishing silk. Night raises his gun at her while she regains her feet. Felicia rushes past them and to the chaise. She crooks one finger into the arm, and a large tile beneath the bench clicks down and out of view, revealing a narrow stair. Kiza glances up, then back at the entrance, a desire to fight back tensing her every muscle.
"This way," Jupiter calls over the cries and the rising spat of fire and smack of debris. Kiza glances between Jupiter and where she points. Her eyes widen with recognition at the man who fought against them only weeks ago. The pair of heavies reach in to grab Kiza by the waist, and she falls to a fighting crouch. "There's no time to explain! Trust me!" Jupiter yells down, ducking as a bit of wall skitters in the air above her. She grabs her skirts to keep from tripping, and disappears down the stairs. Bob with Gemma, then Kiza, confusion twisting her brows, but she allows the thickly muscles man to heave her upward, where she lands with much more grace than Bob and his Gemma burden. With a last glance at the rising chaos, Kiza races after her, and into the waiting dark.