Jazz willed an underspace gate to open in the air near her hand. She grabbed the edges of the rainbow, wrapping her fingers around it. Her nanites generated an electromagnetic field that let her fold the light. At the center of the rainbow, a slender black arc thinner than a human hair curved from her grasp like a scimitar.
"Have you ever seen what happens if you hit something with an underspace gate only a few nanometers wide?" Jazz asked.
Cassie clenched her fists. Despite the thinness of her limbs, Cassie's muscles would be finely tuned, and fast. Her nerves had been created cell by cell in absolute perfection, while Jandra's body still clunked along on the nervous system she'd been born with.
"Jazz, you can't seriously be thinking of killing Atlantis. There are six billion people here! Killing the city is the same as killing them. Not even you are that black-hearted."
"I snapped a baby's neck before I came here," said Jazz. "A scaly baby who bit the shit out of me, but still… I wouldn't place bets about my holding onto any moral limits."
"But… why? Why is it so awful to let the city help people? The city takes care of us."
"Atlantis turned mankind into a race of eternal children," said Jazz. "I'm tired of being the world's only grownup."
Cassie lunged forward, her fist aimed for Jazz's nose.
Jazz stepped aside, twirling the underspace blade into her sister's path. Cassie fell past her, landing with a wet smack on the stone floor. Jazz looked down at her sister's hands, which had fallen near her feet, severed by the world's sharpest scalpel.
Cassie twitched on the floor. Her exsanguination became a dark pool before her. Jazz had little appetite for gore.
She went to the black table, picked up the coffee cup, and took another sip. She was braced for the bitterness now. Jandra's tongue was no longer virgin; this time, the liquid washed across her taste buds with a mix of sharpness and heat that was almost pleasant.
Killing Cassie was an act of mercy. The centuries had left her sister soft; she would have been ill-prepared to face the world to come. The risk Atlantis represented was too great. Maybe Cassie had failed to undo her programming over a thousand years, but what of the next thousand years? Jazz had never learned the true origins of Atlantis. It was obviously an alien construct, but who had sent it here, and why? What would happen if they suddenly showed up to fix it? She had no choice but to kill the city.
Of course, Atlantis was probably a more formidable opponent than Cassie had been. If she was serious about doing this, she needed allies. Her long-wyrm riders had been laughably ineffective. Her best angel had been thoroughly trashed by a sour-faced little man with nothing more than a bow, an arrow, tenacity, and brains.
Bitterwood had killed her, true, but she didn't feel angry about this. Instead, she had a grudging admiration. The people of Atlantis were spineless hedonists. They reminded her of the world of her youth, an entire planet full of people with the mentality of locusts, devouring all the pleasures the world could grow, ignoring the wastelands left in their wake. Bitterwood, born and bred in Jazz's new world, was a true man; fearless, clever, and full of conviction. He was living proof that her world was a better environment for humans than this false paradise. There were more important things in the world than being safe and healthy and entertained.
For a man to be truly great, he must struggle against monsters. With the right weapons, Bitterwood would make a valuable ally.
Darkness crept across the ocean, lapping the shore of North America.
The sun was low over the hills to the west as Vulpine walked along the Forge Road, admiring the decaying scarecrows Sawface and his Wasters had placed along the highway. Word of the blockade had apparently spread quickly throughout the human population. In recent days, the stream of humans attempting to reach the fort had ended. This meant that humans were staying on their farms. Now that the earth-dragons that had been raiding them were organized once more into an army, home was the safest place for a human to be. In a few weeks, they would go out and plant their crops. Rebellions were easier to sustain in early winter, when food was plentiful following harvests. Once the crops were in the ground, the rebellion would effectively be finished. Few people would abandon crops to join a hopeless cause. By this time next year, the rebellion would be only a bad memory.
As pleasing as the results of the scarecrows were to Vulpine, the stench of the road was unsettling. He lifted into the air, climbing, climbing, till he was almost a mile high. In the dying light, it was difficult to be certain, but it appeared as if activity within the walls of Dragon Forge had greatly reduced. The streets were empty. Only a few spotters remained along the walls with the wheeled bows that caused such terror among the sun-dragons.
Most importantly, only one of the smokestacks of the foundry was spewing smoke. It was too soon for yellow-mouth to have manifested in many victims yet, but even one or two would be sufficient to spread terror. The foundry was faltering, no doubt because the workers were hiding in their bunks, afraid of encountering anyone with the disease.
Dropping from the sky back toward his camp, he saw the squad of valkyrie engineers still working on the thousands of iron bits spread upon the large tarp near his tent. These were the remnants of the war engine Sawface had destroyed. It was a shame-the machine had looked impressive in its short run. It obviously had design flaws-exploding after the bridge collapsed being chief among them. Still, he could only imagine what the valkyrie engineers and the biologians could accomplish if they'd gotten their talons on a working prototype.
Arifiel was present, speaking with her fellow valkyries. She broke away as she saw Vulpine, flapping her wings for a short flight to his landing target. Arifiel was a veteran of Blasphet's recent attack on the Nest. She still bore a rather unattractive festering burn wound on her shoulder as a reminder. It didn't slow her, however.
"How goes it?" Vulpine asked.
"My engineers are still analyzing the placement of the fragments. We've interviewed the earth-dragons who witnessed it up close, but their capacity for describing a device of this complexity is somewhat limited."
"I value Sawface for his ability to demolish a stone bridge with a hammer blow more than for his verbal prowess," said Vulpine. "Still, the report from Bazanel should be complete any-"
"Bazanel is dead," said Arifiel.
"What?"
"Chapelion's messenger arrived while you were visiting the other checkpoints. I was present when he gave the news to Sagen. A human assassin killed Bazanel and stole the gun. The secret of gunpowder had already been given to a valkyrie. She gave it to Chapelion, who shared the news with his advisors. A few days later, all of his advisors were slain by an assassin too-a young human female. Unfortunately, no copies of the formula survived, and Chapelion didn't bother to memorize the formula."
"Was poison used by the assassins?"
"No. This was my first thought as well. It doesn't appear to be the work of Blasphet."
Vulpine walked over to the tarp. He craned his neck down to see the gears and wheels laid out before him in the dim light that remained. He shook his head as he contemplated this turn of events.
"Why did he delay in sending me the formula?" Vulpine asked, speaking more to himself than Arifiel. "I would have had gunpowder in production within a day."
"The greatest failing of biologians is that they debate all matters endlessly before taking action," said Arifiel. "Chapelion is the ultimate embodiment of this flaw."
Vulpine wanted to scold the female for making such disparaging accusations against his chief employer, yet in his heart, he knew it was true. As well as things were going here, it sounded as if things were in decline at the Dragon Palace. Every few days brought bad news. The Grand Library was burned. A dozen aerial guards and valkyries had abandoned their posts, in contrast to the mere four under his command. Now this.