The Human Experience

Two P, Day 4, 3405

How can Orcadis trust his Helms like he does? These are people society rejected, people that, for one reason or another, even their own families didn’t want. People like me. Maybe, like me, they are loyal to Orcadis because it’s the best option at the moment.

But what happens when loyalty is no longer convenient?

It looked like half the ship’s occupants had funnelled into the hangar to see the little craft that the cables had pulled in, now sitting atop the landing platform. As Del descended the platform’s ramp alongside Jesreal, she scanned the sea of faces. Helms in their maroon-threaded brown robes, soldiers in olive-and-black uniforms.

No nobility.

The false king stood at the front of the crowd, licking his lipless mouth nervously. Del looked past him, straining her eyes until she found Hector.

Stubble shaded Hector’s face, his long raven hair hanging free. He wore a trench-coat with its collar popped against the cold. For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to meet those slanting eyes.

So she turned to the taller, bulkier figure next to him. Her stomach twisted. Orcadis? Fresh burns gleamed down the right side of his face and neck. His mop of golden hair hung over his forehead and around his left ear, but on the right she assumed parts of it had burned, because he’d hacked it off unevenly. Sure, the man could trim a hedge impeccably, but he hadn’t bothered to even out his hair? Classic. He wore slacks and, despite the death-chill that made her steamy breath puff from her lips, only a sleeveless vest to accommodate the wrappings around his right arm. His face showed nothing as he watched them.

“We’ve brought everything we thought you’d need to fix the engines,” Jesreal announced, her voice carrying loudly through the hangar. Del caught the slight quaver in it. Orcadis’s state had shaken her. She was trying not to look at him. “New parts, tools, whatever we could find at the Radiant Thinkers’ base. And,” she dug into her pocket and pulled out a hunk of silver-and-black rock, braving a smile, “food for the Voices, so you won’t have to be.”

Confusion was reflected on a hundred faces. Some looked angry. Murmurs washed through the crowd. “We want answers!” one of the Helms yelled. “The Iron Fist has made us live on rumours and uncertainty. The Voices say he’s to blame. Someone give us the truth!”

The words left Del reeling. Helms? Speaking like this about their heavenly father? That doesn’t sound like ‘baa.’

“The truth!” echoed another. “Did the Greathelm’s son blow the engines?”

“Did the Greathelm create the Voices?”

“How’d the Voices get on the ship?”

Jesreal held up her hands. The angry grumbles quieted almost instantly. Rather commanding for a woman who lived in Orcadis’s shadow for turns. Maybe it was that Jesreal had inspired confidence by offering her aid, or maybe the sheep simply needed a new shepherd. The Helms gazed at her with displaced hope and trust, practically holding their leashes out to her, begging her to accept responsibility for them.

But those things didn’t bother Del anymore. She listened to Jesreal relate the entire history to her audience, from the Amaris moon’s radiation to the thought-energy detector and how it made the thoughts of every Helm come to life. Even Kaed’s elaborate betrayal. And Del watched the group’s changing expressions, the shockwaves passing through some faces like earthquakes, the horror on others. Quite a few were blank. The younger ones still looked confused, and every third face was twisted with pain and fury.

Above that, though, a general hush gripped the hangar. Orcadis stood resigned, a statue, staring opaquely at Jesreal.

“So we...we all created the Voices?” someone choked. “We’re creating more right now? By thinking?”

“Every Helm releases loose strings of thought that, if they combine with enough others, will eventually turn into a Voice, yes,” Jesreal said.

The king’s soldiers instantly gravitated away from the Helms, packing together on one side of the room. Enver was swiping at the air over his head like he thought he could disperse the Helms’ thoughts or something. Tension built in the following moments, and then everyone was talking at once.

“Wait, we have a plan,” Del yelled over the general alarm. Nobody paid her any attention. She took a step back up the ramp so everyone could see her. “Calm down! Everyone shut the hell up!”

Jesreal lifted her hands and everyone shut up. Del ignored the pang of annoyance. “It’s really hard for the Voices to get through physical barriers,” she explained. “That’s why we need to keep all the radiation-filled rocks piled together, like bait, to draw the Voices in one place. When we stop hearing Voices in other parts of the ship, we can barricade the room with the stones. We’ll lock all the Voices inside, understand? We can’t guarantee that every single Voice will be drawn into the trap, but meeting one Voice in the hall is better than passing through Swarms every time we need to use the bathrooms.”

“What about the Infected?”

“When they go catatonic, their Voices will leave their minds and look for new hosts. That’s why the Infected will have to be separated from the rest of us.”

A soldier sneered. “And the Helms? All this will be for nothing if they’ll only make more Voices! They will overrun the ship with parasites! My Leige, give the word, I beg you, and your men will cast those Metal Heads into space.”

A glimmer of interest lit Enver’s bulbous eye, but when Orcadis clasped his shoulder he remained silent. Del didn’t bother reminding them that fighting people who could sense your thoughts was practically impossible. “We can segregate the Helms, too,” she said. “All Helms and Infected people will be separated from those who can’t create Voices – people like soldiers and the aristocracy.”

“Easy enough,” Hector said. His voice caught Del off guard – it was the first time he’d spoken. “The nobility has hijacked the ship’s eastern wing. They won’t let anyone inside and are casting out everyone who gets Infected. Their Infected family members sneak into the kitchens to take food and water for them. We had to post soldiers at every kitchen entrance to make them obey the ration rule.”

“Okay, so the nobility is already segregated. That’s good,” Del said. “The, uh, king and his soldiers can take the northern wing, the Infected and the Helms can have the southern wing, and the western wing is rubble, so...it works out?”

Of course it didn’t. Almost every Helm bristled with protests. As one they started bellowing at her. “I’ll die before staying with the Infected!” and “We’ll get Infected faster if you cram us into a smaller area!” and “We’re just collateral damage, then?”

Even Jesreal lifting her hands couldn’t pacify them. Finally Enver limped over to the ramp and motioned for them to fall silent. “I have a better plan,” he said, voice carrying all the way to the back. “The thtones and toolth are all very nyth, very helpful, I’m thure, but the motht important thing you brought ith thith thip. Ath king, ith my rethponthibility to thave my people. I will fly back to earth to get aid. I’ll thend a hundred thipth to come get the retht of you.”

Del leaned to whisper into what remained of his ear. “There are riots in Vangarde. People say their king abandoned them. You can’t go get help – they’ve already implemented a new government.”

“Thut up, you little bitch, I’ll fucking gut you,” he growled back, loud enough for her ears only. Very nice, Del thought. Very regal.

“It will take too long,” Jesreal said. “By then the Voices will have overrun us. Left unchecked, they will have all of us catatonic within days.”

Enver’s fists clenched by his sides. He looked like he was barely keeping himself from stamping his foot. “I’ll thend my fathtetht thipth.”

“Even so – ”

“Enough! Your king hath thpoken! Orry, get in the thip. We’re leaving.”

Del blocked the ramp. “You’re not going to get help,” she said, letting her words ring clearly through the hall. “You’re going to flee and abandon everyone, and live the rest of your miserable days in some cave – ”

“Thut her up! Guardth! Take her away!”

“ – hoping your brother is merciful enough not to hunt you down – ”

“Get her! Kill her! Men!”

A dozen soldiers advanced like a wave to crash over Del. She barely had time to throw her hands up in defence, could barely screw her eyes shut in anticipation of the first blow, before–

Nothing. Del opened her eyes. She found herself staring at the taut, rope-like muscles in Orcadis’s shoulders. He stood in front of her, having caught the sword-wielding arm of a soldier as it’d come down to swipe her head from her shoulders. The man struggled. Orcadis’s fingers tightened around his forearm. Del heard the harrowing sound of snapping bones, and the soldier gave a blood-curdling scream, his sword clattering to the floor, as Orcadis cast him to the side.

Ten more rushed at him. He bobbed flying fists and cut off half-formed attacks, threw powerful arms into two or three soldiers at a time, knocking them over like bowling pins.

Enver bellowed at him to stand aside. All the while, more and more soldiers flooded up the ramp, trying to overwhelm Orcadis. The narrowness didn’t allow more than three men abreast, and the Greathelm was so huge not a single man managed to slip behind him to where Del stood. Men fell from the ramp left and right, new ones rushing up to meet the same fate. Slowly they pushed him back up the ramp, until Del was sandwiched between Orcadis and the ship’s open doorway.

“Don’t thoot him!” Enver was roaring. “Kill her! Jutht her!”

Orcadis had one hand clamped around a flailing soldier’s throat. He head-butted another so hard the man flipped backwards off the ramp. Metal Head indeed. Del looked down and weighed her options. Jumping from the ramp would have her landing in a sea of soldiers waiting for her like sharks.

A flash of metal. Nobody fired shots from the front; Orcadis was blocking her, and Enver had given clear instructions that he wasn’t to be hurt. But one soldier had gotten beneath the ramp and was crouching with his back against the ship’s side. He had a hydraulic gun angled around the ramp, pointed at Del.

She froze in the doorway. It would be simple, so simple, to slip inside the ship. But if she did, the pressurized water jet would tear a hole through Orcadis’s back instead.

She had a split second to make the decision. Del’s mind went fuzzy, but she didn’t move from the shooter’s range.

And then the gunman let the nozzle drop. Through the blood pounding in her brain, it took Del a while to realize that everyone had fallen silent. Soldiers were no longer rushing Orcadis, and the Greathelm himself had frozen with his fist pulled back mid-punch, seeming to forget about the bloody soldier he held up by the shirtfront. He was staring over Del’s shoulder.

So she turned, too. Behind her stood King Serasta, grabbing the doorframe with shaking arms to keep upright. His head sagged slightly to one side, though his features were rigid. Del moved to help him but he stopped her with a grave shake of his head.

By the low end of the ramp, Enver sobbed quietly.

“Orcadis.” Star-King Serasta pushed the name through lips still half-numbed. He extended a shaking arm. “Come.”

The soldier Orcadis held suspended by the shirtfront slipped to the ground with a yelp as the Iron Fist’s fingers slackened. Orcadis climbed the remaining two paces up the ramp toward the king. Del moved sideways to let him pass. As he did, she emanated encouraging wavelengths that didn’t reach her heart. Her reassurances felt shallow after she’d been the one to condemn him, but she couldn’t be sorry. Freeing the Star-King had been the right thing to do – even if she no longer liked the consequences. Orcadis brushed her hand as he moved past, a silent truce in their seven-turn feud.

For a moment Orcadis and the Star-King just looked at one another. Then the king’s hand lashed out, catching Orcadis across the face in a backhanded slap that snapped his head to the side. He had to have sensed it coming, but he hadn’t moved.

Orcadis closed his eyes as if savouring the pain. When he opened them, he gazed dully at his former admirers before turning his head back to Serasta.

“That was for your treason,” Serasta said. He drew himself up to his full height, his voice projecting through the hangar despite his difficulty moving his lips. “For the attempted assassination of the Vangardian Star-King, you deserve to die.”

A wave of palpable tension swept through the crowd, gasps and murmurs erupting like a uniform buzz in the hangar. Del swallowed the lump in her throat. She tried to catch Serasta’s eye, but his gaze was for Orcadis only. “For abandoning my empire – my people – on the brink of what you presumed to be an apocalypse, you do not deserve such a merciful fate. You, Orcadis Durant, Iron Fist and holy diviner, have single-handedly created the apocalypse you so feared. What punishment can possibly befit a man such as yourself? What death?”

“Your Grace,” Del objected, stepping up behind Orcadis.

Serasta whipped his head to Del, dark eyes so penetrating that she drew back like a rebuked child. Was this the same man she had spoon-fed only a few days ago? “Delia Alister. You have asked for clemency on this man’s behalf. You are my rescuer, and you shall be rewarded as such. But do not think you are entitled to solicit favours from me. What you did was valiant, yes, but it was also your duty as a Vangardian citizen – your duty to the crown, to the empire, and to yourself.”

The finality of his tone moved through her like vibrations down a plucked harp-string, making her very bones reverberate. When the shock stilled it left only hollowness in its wake. Del inclined her head, casting her eyes to the metal plates beneath her feet. “I submit myself to Your Grace’s justice.”

“Where is my brother?” Serasta said, louder this time. “Where is Enver? I need to speak with him.”

That reignited the whispers, fermented the crowd again. Del looked up in time to see Serasta’s eyes roaming the crowd and landing on the twisted weeping thing at the end of the ramp.

Serasta staggered back, hitting the doorframe. “Enver?”

The false king lifted his hideous mask from his claw-hands with a growl. “Thtop calling me that! You impothter! You fake! I’m Therathta! Me!” He grabbed at the soldiers around him, flinging them toward the ramp. “Go get him, you foolth! Take him away. Alive, mind you!”

Flustered, exchanging glances, the soldiers started toward the ship. Serasta held out an imposing arm. They hesitated.

Chaos flared in the next heartbeat. Some soldiers went for Serasta, others held them back, and some stood transfixed as their comrades shouldered past them. The ring and clatter of swords echoed in the hangar as the soldiers fought amongst themselves. Those with vendettas against the imposter would be standing with the real Serasta, and whomever the false king had treated well probably fought to get up the ramp and bring the real king down. The rest squinted hard at Serasta, honest fools trying to determine if he really was the true king.

Orcadis stalked down the ramp to break up the brawl, but he was quickly hooked by a group of rowdy Helms. One woman pounded her fists on his chest as she wailed about betrayal.

Gods, was that how I was, too?

“Inegrede, please,” Orcadis was saying, gently taking her wrists. “I know I’ve wronged you all, but I’ll fix it. I can revive the catatonic. My thought-energy detector can make the catatonics start producing thoughts again. I will bring back every catatonic man, woman, and child on this ship, I promise you.”

“What about the Helms?” another man yelled, grabbing Orcadis’s arm. “We’ll keep creating Voices!”

“You will not like the solution, but it is the only one. The Helms must get themselves deliberately Infected. The sooner, the better, for fewer stray thoughts will be released.”

Cries of protest rang over the clamour, hands grappling at Orcadis. He raised his voice to be heard over his Iron Helms. “I promise you, I will not let you die! I will pull you out of the catatonia!”

“We trusted you once! Never again!”

He didn’t defend himself when they handled him roughly, pulling him in various directions, clawing and shaking and yanking at his clothes and hair. The Greathelm didn’t lift a finger against his people. He let himself carried on the wave of their frustration.

Del set her jaw. She started down the ramp toward him.

A fist burst Orcadis’s lip, squirting blood into the air. He didn’t react beyond bringing a hand to his bloody mouth. Someone buried a fist into his stomach. His muscles absorbed the shock and he barely folded forward.

Del picked up momentum, using the ramp’s downward slant to give herself speed.

People clung to Orcadis, weeping. Others still bludgeoned him. The tankard of a hydraulic shooter cracked over his back, doubling him over. A booted heel rammed into the back of his knee and he went down.

She bowled into the people between herself and Orcadis, scattering them. Move aside, vengeful maniacs. Here comes reformed vengeful maniac to the rescue.

Her forearm intercepted the next strike. Del cried out as the metal rod – where the fuck had this asshole found a metal rod? – crunched her bone, sending shocks of pain up and down her arm.

She swallowed the pain as only a Helm could. Rage fuelling her, she used her uninjured arm to jam a fist into the Helm’s jaw, feeling him clamp down on his tongue, and kicked him in the shins as blood filled his mouth. He dropped.

The thought-energy around her centred on vengeance. She struggled to pick the individual threads apart, but it was like unravelling a woven tapestry. Instinct kicked in when she sensed a dangerous thread waft over her from behind. Del ducked and a fist came flying where her head had been. She grabbed the arm from the air, using the attacker’s thrusting momentum to pull him forward. He lost his balance, landing sprawled on his belly, and when he tried to scramble up Del sent her heel into his face, making blood spurt from his nose.

Pain bloomed in the back of her head. Del lost her footing, her head whiplashing from the unexpected blow. Suddenly only the cold solidity of the metal floor beneath her cheek oriented her. Pyrrhus’s blood, what was that? Blinking away the sticky warmth trickling into her eyes, she could only curl into a ball to avoid the kicking feet assailing her body.

Huge arms wrapped around her waist. Orcadis pulled her toward him and crouched over her, shielding her from blows that rained down on him instead. He still didn’t fight his Helms.

Del struggled to unlock his arms. “What is wrong with you?” she screamed at him. “Get up and fight!”

“Why are you helping me?”

She broke from his protective embrace and lunged for the metal rod, bringing it around in a double-handed arc that caught the faces of two Helms poised to deliver blows. Del scrambled to her feet. She wiped the blood from her eyes. “I haven’t lost my taste for saving weak, helpless things,” she said with a smirk, knowing she must look insane. “Never will.”

And she fought in whichever way she could, sucking in her wavelengths so she wouldn’t give herself away to her opponents. A small crowd of loyalists or just plain humanists had joined her, and more were muscling their way in from the front. Solmay and Belred had Orcadis’s back. They fought, Del noticed in her spared glances, way more effectively than she did with her flailing metal rod, but she hadn’t been trained in combat. Her advantage was her unnatural knack for hiding her thoughts from the other Helms.

After all, Helms were clueless when they weren’t told what to do.

A huge man came out of nowhere, waving a stolen sword over his head. Del redirected herself, trying to move out of the sword’s trajectory, but she’d seen him too late –

He jerked like he’d hit an invisible wall, and then the Helm fell beneath the stamping feet of comrades and soldiers.

Del turned. Hector stood behind her, smoke sifting from the barrel of his pistol. She looked to the bullet hole smouldering in the fallen man’s forehead. In his forehead.

Lykus.

Lykus gave her a wolfish grin. He fired into a line of Helms without blinking, until Orcadis charged him with a roar and brought him down, thundering, “No! Stop!”

It seemed Lykus had done what Del hadn’t been able to: motivate Orcadis into action. The Greathelm wrenched the gun from Lykus’s hand and climbed to his feet, dappled with bruises, the healing skin atop his burnt cheek cracked and seeping blood. “Punish me after! Now you need me to operate the thought-energy detector! Only I can handle the excess radiation it gives off. Only I know the perfect amount to pump into the brain – too little and the person won’t revive, too much and a Helm will be born.”

The Helms around Orcadis stilled somewhat. Del got her first glimpse of the battle beyond. Jesreal had been standing on the ramp, waving her arms and screaming things nobody heard. Now she ushered a protesting Serasta into his wheelchair and spearheaded her way toward the hangar’s exit with him.

Del squinted after her. What had she been saying?

A ripple of Voices disturbed the air over their heads.

Oh. A warning. That they had to get out of the hangar before the Voices were drawn to their cargo and came flocking here.

Shit.

A chorus of screams went up at the same time the mass retreat for the doors began. Bodies pressed against Del on every side, battering her in a steady wave that pushed her to the front of the hangar.

And through it all, Orcadis pushed against the current.

Lykus grabbed his elbow. “Where in Pyrrhus’s Pits are you going?”

“To the ship. If I don’t get a radiation-filled stone for the energy compartment of my detector, I can’t save the catatonic.”

“You’ll be going straight where the Voices are headed!” Del protested.

Orcadis met her eyes for a moment. Then he pulled free from Lykus and disappeared into the mess of flailing limbs.

The Voices grew thicker, drowning out the screams, leaving only the rank stench of fear, blood, and sweat. Del choked. The world constricted around her and she couldn’t feel the bodies pummelling her anymore. There was just the cold. The terror. The daggers punching into her mind.

Neria...murderer...murderer!

Soldiers wielded swords, their training forgotten as they hacked their way to the front. Bodies lay scattered, writhing with the burden of Voices eating their minds or cut down by desperate soldiers. Blood flew from weapons like they were spitting fountains.

Del tried to shove her way through the retreating wave of people, but flailing limbs cut her off. A stray elbow clipped her ear and she stumbled only to trip over the rush of stampeding feet. Her hands slapped on cold metal, chin rebounding off the floor and sending burning lances through her jaw. People rushed past in a haze. A foot crushed her hand in passing, but she didn’t hear her own cry through the Voices.

You thought you could get rid of the voices in your head that plagued your childhood? Fool. You will never have autonomy. You will never be your own master.

Evil bastards. Voices were supposed to gain entry into your mind through love, weren’t they? Fear worked too, but...damn! She’d never encountered such a malicious bunch.

Booted feet sauntered toward her and halted before her nose. She tilted her face up to find Lykus looking curiously down at her, impervious to the surrounding chaos.

He grabbed her by her shirtfront and hauled her to her feet, then looked around. “They all look so absurd, don’t they?”

Del clutched her head, eyes streaming through the agony. “Lykus!” she gagged through clenched teeth. “Stop observing human behaviour and get me the hell out of here!”

He frowned. “I’m upset with you. You really slept with other men while we were together?”

“Gah! Fuck you!”

“Alright, alright. What are you willing to risk to get out of here?”

Del seized the lapels of Lykus’s trench-coat, her eyes burning into his. “I don’t care what it takes, just get me out!”

Lykus turned serious. “If you say so.”

He padlocked her throat in both hands.

Terror spiked through Del, hot and then cold. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“There’s no way we can push to the front in time. Don’t worry, I’ll stop as soon as you pass out.” He gave his wolf grin. “Even though I am mad at you.”

Del countered his grip with clammy fingers. “No, wait!”

Lykus squeezed and her breath caught. She gagged, but then his grip tightened and she couldn’t even choke anymore. Del wrenched, kicking, clawing at his hands, forgetting even the Voices as pressure built in her head until her eyes threatened to pop. The hall darkened. She felt only her chest ripping open and her pulse slamming against the walls of her neck.

And the life slowly, agonizingly, leaving her.

The Voices quieted.