Check the Blur page for all previous installments. After last time, our rebels had some pretty steep odds…but what can you throw at appendages from the sky that melt everything their oily liquid touches?
One by one, the city’s buildings and streets collapsed into the sewers and tunnels. The sewers and tunnels ran with greasy liquid, mixed with molten concrete, metal, and anything else which didn’t immediately melt.
Except for one.
Outside, the appendages writhed. Things at the ends of the long tendrils stroked, grasped, moved, and began to shape the city anew beneath the sickly green sky.
Inside the remaining building, crammed, now, with every invading creature that was close enough to escape the massacre, Autax sat alone.
Its rage spent, it allowed its shape to drop into the orb that its miscreators had once formed from an original shape, now long forgotten.
There was no longer a point to looking at all like the beings of this dimension. Easier to drop into the malleable shape it had been given, as it rose through the ranks, distinguishing itself until it had been given this mission, this place, and ordered to begin the conquest.
It wondered briefly what would come for him, then whirled, already knowing.
The Managers would never allow the one who showed it the way to avoid its own punishment: that of destroying its creation, its mentee, its chosen.
There was a flash of light, and there it was. Fanhala.
Once an orb like itself, Fanhala had given its position to Autax and ascended. Now, it was a mass of appendages, held together at the centre by an axis which changed form and function. Now an eye. Now a totem. Now something existing in more dimensions than should ever be possible in a 4 dimensional place like this.
The appendages were not slick like those coming from the sky. Those belonged to the most senior of the Managers. Fanhala, whilst above Autax, was still only halfway up that chain. But they contained multitudes, seeming to writhe not just around, but also through each other, in ways that would have made Autax’s eyes water, of what it now saw with could do so.
Some had what, for want of a better term for what moved at the ends, hands and fingers. Others were sharp or blunt. Some scooped, some suckered. Some seeming to hold objects that were also a part of them. All changed constantly. None were what they seemed. But their purpose was to distract, to disturb, and in that they worked perfectly.
Fanhala’s deep, thrumming toned entered Autax’s consciousness, slamming painfully until its orb shape launched backwards and pinned itself against the wall. There were no words, but the ideas, the concepts, were crystal clear.
Autax had failed.
Not only was this tiny city not taken, it was fighting back.
This was unacceptable.
Fanhala was shamed by Autax’s failure.
There would be punishment for them both. But Fanhala was permitted to act first. To remove some of its shame. To show the Managers above that Fanhala was worth keeping.
Autax would die, and Fanhala would offer such a painful, imaginative death, that Fanhala’s sentence would be lessened. And if good enough, the Managers might even offer eventual redemption.
Autax’s mental scream echoed through the building, but not without purpose. It slammed down, through the building and out below the city, below the flow of the melt, below even the bunkers currently safe from the sky above, and deep into the earth.
The whole city rumbled as two large doors snapped open, and heat pooled out, bursting upwards with belching stone and smoke and lava. And Creatures.
In the bunkers, the lights flickered and flared.
In her control room,Janice gritted her teeth. Now was the time. Now was when she—when they all—discovered if she had made the right choices.
When Dylan had told her of Autax’s offer, she had thought for a long time, before going to see it herself, not telling a soul.
She wanted to test it, to probe for a weakness, but the one she found was most unexpected.
Autax hated the Managers. Hated what they forced the Creatures they enslaved to do, to become. Hated that it had been forced to rise, or become fodder, or a mindless brute. Hated the tightrope it had to walk just to keep living, and keep hoping that the next job would show a way to free itself and the others it knew laboured under the same problem. Hated seeing the rejected be destroyed or wrenched into unrecognisable shapes. Hated seeing the minds of the more unfortunate clobbered entirely into nothing, turned into Things that could do nothing more than their orders.
Autax hated it. But never had it seen an opportunity to act. Until now.
Janice had not spoken to it again, the danger too great. But she had been able to begin building the rebellion, and keep the balancing act until Autax sent the signal that it was time: Vuuk.
Autax had kept Vuuk’s mind intact, knowing that this one was wily, patient, and full of hate for it. Allowing it to be captured, waiting until it was sure it couldn’t escape to send the Control command—and keeping it up until the line broke. That was Janice’s cue to ready her side.
Autax knew the Managers were in their way. It had managed to seed contacts throughout the dimension-gobbling Organisation, and word had reached it that they were coming.
The exact timing was an estimate, but a calculated one. It knew within a day or two of this dimension’s timings, and knew they had to be mobilised before they arrived. And so they did, whilst holding back as long as they could, neither side making the first move to attack.
And now all Janice had was the hope that she hadn’t just doomed them all.
But they were looking to her now, her people. She must be sure. She must be strong. She must lead them.
“Don’t worry,” she assured them with a smile. “These ones are on our side.”
See you in 2 weeks for the next part! Meanwhile if you enjoyed this, check the sidebar on the right to throw a donation or a subscription over. Every penny pretty much helps us pay bills and eat, so they’re truly appreciated.
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