“Remember the Past!“ — #1 on Greatest Hits, 2071.

Editor’s note: Johann Meringer’s hair is a true color, and not from a bottle.

2090

Martin Soleri placed the bat on the table. Slanted rays of light penetrated through grimy windows, granting the truncheon a sinister appearance, a thing of grey light.

“I can pay,” said the woman. An old refrain, this.

“I know.” Martin grabbed the bat, ever so slowly and pointed it down on the table. He let it rest there, a vertical bar between him and his customer.

“Why…”

Hardbitten lips masticated.

“You know why. I’ve told you.”

I don’t want to do this.

She swallowed. Life hadn’t been easy for her. No parents to care, the most ancient of profession having snuffed out whatever spark she might have had. And she was late, late on payment and Martin Soleri didn’t want to hurt her.

He was fifteen years old, and as the sun set beneath dusty curtains, he grabbed the bat.

_____

Isla Calix kept the story alive, sang its syllables, even though the bed’s occupant was unconscious.

When he woke, whether of his volition, or forced because of the doctors, she wanted to be there for him.

She reached the climax of the story, the empress about to challenge her black knight— when the he woke from uneasy slumber. Sweat had begun to gather on his forehead and his black hair was greasy. Is nobody washing him?!

He opened his eyes and she immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Sis?”

She clasped his hand.” I’m here, Ricardo.”

Unsaid went the fact that their mother was busy at work and that her father…well, he wasn’t in the picture.

“Sis, will you tell me a tale?”

She cleared her throat.”I gotta to work. Maybe later, yes?”

Ricardo’s shaved head bobbed. It almost broke her heart to leave him like this, alone in a hospital-ward. He should be surrounded by family, not strangers. He didn’t complain, though. The children of the Calix family knew better. Had been taught to be…stronger.

She didn’t scratch the scar on her back, the one she could reach only by cradling one hand beneath her armpit.

Isla made to go, hand on the door when her brother spoke once more.

“I’ll never be normal again.”

She saw a blurred image in the white of the door she was about to open; herself, on her way out, a lone figure on a bed, his eyes the now defining feature.

Isla Calix glanced back.

The dark of his eyes had broken, eclipsing both orbs, until the boy that stared back at her were something…other.

A person touched by a Sovereign.

“You’ll always be family, Ricardo.”

_____

The pale blue water was almost translucent. By washing in it, one would become clean, at the expanse of muddying something that was pure. He’d never bath here. He’d don his Chassis, and travel up, to one of the peaks perhaps.

Viktor Solzhenitsyn manifested a feathered gauntlet. He held it at an angle— and the rays of the sun did the job for him. The pile of wood, lain at the bottom of a pit of stones, sizzled.

Oh, he could go back to the arcology proper and order something. Rat or mouse kebab. Or one of the algae substitutes.

Then, they didn’t really taste as he wanted. They didn’t make him drool, for sure. They’d claim that it was all the same, that the old-age question of reformulation — what the molecules changed from and to — was merely philosophical.

Viktor placed a slab of meat on a stone, which he in turn levitated with his gauntlet over the fire. He suspended it there, considering the difference between what was real and what was created. If a person was unable to tell the difference, well, to quote Kari Raskonnen… did it matter?

Bah.

They could say whatever they wanted. There was a difference, but Viktor wouldn’t argue with them.

Not now, not when he could be happy, here, outside.

_____

He climbed, though his body was broken.

He crawled, for his knees were in pieces.

Cameron Westerfield had committed a mistake. Above, against the setting sun, the remnant of the Eiffel Tower listed, a withered flower without water. Its tortured form was covered in shapes like tics, and considering that they could be made out with the human eye from where he lay…they had to be truly vast.

Westerfield rolled beneath an upturned car. Breathing. He’d come here for the exercise. To harden oneself. Paris was no Hold, but all the same, it held one of the greatest concentration of Host on the continent.

Its outskirts were guarded by forerunners, by the Saint Society, by those hooligans who followed Serena Smiler and they had all warned him.

Turn back, they had said.

He’d gone in, guns blazing. And so he lay there, under a car. Considering his arrogance.

I could die here. Then, he had already died in a way.

He summoned his claymore, the comfortable weight an anchor against all that ailed him.

Was this to be the end then?

No. He saw before him a chubby face, gone silent.

No. Dad, his smile gone still, clear grey eyes clouded.

No. Mom, her auburn hair shorn, her waist…just gone.

The claymore went through the car, rotated laterally and the bisected pieces flew apart, careened by grief and rage.

Cameron Westerfield stood there, knight in red, his silhouette lit by the ever-smouldering remains of Paris, twice fallen.

“What are you waiting for?!”

The Host blotted out the horizon, and death came swirling from above.

_____

“Attend!”

The black-clad gathering solemnly awaited the preacher’s benediction.

Alexei, Berenice thought as she held her brother’s hand, was just old enough at five to understand when to be quiet.

The bald priest began.

“Sasha Sonnentag was a Deputy of great renown. He participated in the latter sieges of Seventies, in which he earned several citations for bravery and he was a mentor to many who are here today to honor him.”

Sasha Sonnentag, her uncle, had definitely been a hero. He had also been an alcoholic, pathologically incapable of maintaining anything resembling a relation and his heroism, if you could it that — had been a reckless sort of thing.

“He leaves his brother and extended family to mourn…”

Berenice tuned the monologue out. She really didn’t want to be here. The anxiety was getting to her again, and she tried to quell it, but it wouldn’t—

“Sis.”

She stared down at her brother.

“Dad…Uncle Sasha never came by for Dad’s birthday. That’s not fair, not when Dad went to his all the time. So why is he so sad? I wouldn’t be sad if you never came by for my birthday,” Alexei said with the righteousness of a child.

The urge to bolt warred with a sense of…she didn’t want to look the sentiment too closely in the face.

Berenice got down on a knee.”Sasha…uncle wasn’t always so far away. Once, Dad and Sasha were like you and me.”

He pondered that, her brother.

Alexei’s brow scrunched.”Promise,” he said earnestly,”that you will always be there?”

“Always.”

_____

“You’ve failed.”

Thinnakorn Saolirin’s boots shone in the light of the Undermurk habitat. Bangkok’s Administrator had yielded the habitat without pause, and why not? The man was an acclaimed general, one of the famous few who managed to outthink a Sovereign.

“Yes, father,” Somchai said, careful to moderate his tone. Too little, and he’d earn a demerit. Too much, and he would earn far worse.

Beyond the hardened glass, a gene-modded dragon swam. It drew the eye.

“Have I raised you to lick the boots of better men? Can you only repeat what you’ve heard?”

The lense of his father’s left eye rotated. Green, green like cancer, like a jungle unchecked. Somchai moved his head, away from the fantasy creature, meeting that gaze. Men had wept to meet the Defender of Bangkok viridian stare, but never Somchai. It was a fine balance to walk, to not offer a challenge but not looking away, especially after Naigo’s death.

Without his husband, Thinnakorn Saolirin had become rigid, raw, closer to his old moniker than the man who had taught Somchai to dance.

“No, sir. You’ve not. I failed, and may I adress my failure to successfully score the highest position in the provincial exam?”

His father turned his back on him. The dragon hung in the veiled light, staring back his father. Most people would balk, but his father’s moniker was well-earned.

“Do so.”

“In the light of the Mieazar-Madrid scandal—“

“I know very well the flaws of Spaniards.”

Somchai breathed out.

“The traditional exam, the one you had me study for, it changed. The way I understand it, all of the exams, in all of the arcologies have been changed.”

Why was his lips so dry? He whetted them.”As matter of protocol.”

His father nodded. The dragon was chasing something. An eel?

“So, you were caught unaware?”

A trap.”I failed to anticipate the ways this scandal would change protocol, but to my defense, such a scandal, and such a fundamental change of protocol is unpredecented.”

His father inclined his head, never looking back.

“That is true. Which is why I have secured for you another chance.”

Somchai did not quite startle, but a sound made its way out and through his throat.

“A chance?”

“To show Bangkok arcology that you’re my son.”

His father’s eyes — one borish brown, the other a cyborg green — cut through him.

“Of course, father.”

_____

Raja Sviratham burst through the cloud front with nary a sound. He stayed there, sending his thoughts to the other Proxies. He confirmed his position and marshalled his arnaments. Scepter and sword, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.

Unconscious scans picked up the rest of the force. He was aware of these as he was aware of the back of his hand, an itch on his back.

They hung against the sky, clad in the corpses of the Host. Arrayed in formations. Golden, green, red, blue, white, black and so many other colors. A host to meet the Host.

She — or was an it — rose through what had once been the Thane Creek, its waters now black. The lids on owlish eyes rose and closed. A single beat of cyclopian wings distorted the atmosphere, buffeting lesser Proxies’ flight. In the shadow of that span they came in their myriad hundreds. Regials.

The twilight made the scales, each the size of a bed, shimmer like a rainbow.

Sejra, the Sovereign of Mumbai screamed a challenge and the amassed strike-force of what would later be called the Seventh Siege answered.

_____

Chiyo Moyomoto slammed the spearhoner through the wall of the old supermarket, bouncing it off the pavement of what had once been a parking lot.

Yes!

The spheroid Host levitated itself up in burst of frantic speed, launching a series of projectiles at her. Her mom had referred to these Host as ‘clams with attitude’, which sounded way funnier before you actually had to fight one.

Shit, shit…

Her perceptions accelerated and she moved her shield in a screen, bouncing one, two, three— she blinked.

Why…

Why was she on the ground? Her throat ached, as if struck.

She…

She threw herself, rotating like a dervish, but was still clipped. She leap-teleported, once, twice, three — anything to buy time — and reappeared on top of an old bell tower.

She shifted the spectrum, going transparent.

It had sent her through a wall with just a mere projectile! Without the miraculous metal of a Chassis, and the world-breaking Field, she’d…it didn’t bear thinking on.

She seized her Field and created a mirror-image, on top of the bent light. Sound dopplered. She stopped breathing, absorbing oxygen directly through the metal of her Chassis.

There.

Hovering in an alley, between two dilapidated houses. There was a part of her that still didn’t believe that people had actually lived outside of an arcology. Oh, there were holographic records, casts and enough distilled digital essence to overturn the most ardent denier…but even so. Outside.

She readied her weapon. Hit them once, and hit them hard like mom said.

_____

“Soleri, Martin. Last known location, Camp Sala, Northern Quadrant, Sweden.”

“Calix, Isla. Last known location, Bilbao Arcology, Intermediate Mediterranean Quadrant, Spain.”

“Sonnentag, Berenice. Last known location, Schwarzwald Arcology, Central European Quadrant, Germany.”

“Westerfield, Cameron. Last known location, ??”

“Solzhenitsyn, Viktor. Last known location, Altai Arcology, Western Siberian Section, Russia East Quadrant.”

Other names. Many names. Female names. Male names. Long names and short names. Many were the names mentioned as the two senior Proxies comlinked over vast distances.

They spoke with ease, the discretion of their conversation safeguarded.

Anyone hearing their conversation would die. The viral barriers — both digital and physical — would kill any junior Proxy and some of the lesser Low Regials.

And should anyone survive their precautions…

Indeed, they were both seniors.

Anyone referred to as such, needed no boast, no epithet.

“Do you agree with me?”

“…yes.” The second speaker’s voice was somewhat drier. Almost mechanical.”I still worry.”

“You always do. That’s why we’re the best partners,” the first speaker said, amusement made clear. This was as it had been when they were juniors, and they had enshrined that distinction until it was set in stone. A comfortable habit, turned routine.

“How is that?”

“We balance each other out.”

“Until the day we won’t,” came the reply.

The first speaker halted. Common words — often cited. Yet, this was no second Examination of Worth. They were not competing for a distinguished grade. As the two of them had risen, so had the stakes. The world would hinge on a conflict between the two of them.”I…”

“—I trust that you are still willing to honor our agreement?”

She — and the first speaker was a woman — prepared an endoauric technique that would silence the listener. A crow’s feather, hanging above her head like the sword of Damascus, ready to be teleported. Distance would reduce the efficiency, so she put enough of her Field in it to kill most humans.

A second technique was kindled, high-grade exoauric, which would turn the office of her old comrade into a radioactive blight. They wouldn’t even be able to read the synaptic memories of the corpse for fear of contamination.

If, and when he answered.

“Til death, or the end of the world?”

“Hardly that. And if I have my way, we will never die. As for the end of the world—would it be so bad if this world ended?”

“You are being flippant. I want a better world, but I cannot help but wonder at the price of admission. If we ruin the Earth in this pursuit, what does it matter? What will we be left with”

The first speaker shrugged. No philosopher, was she. “Gotta break some eggs to get an omelett. You know what my opinion about this is. We’ll salvage what can be salvaged, but there needs so be some sort of change. How long has it been since a Sovereign was last slain?”

The second speaker sighed, for that senior was a musing sort.”…I agree, if not in spirit, then practise.”

She dismissed the sphere of incoherent screaming darkness hovering in her hand. Fleck of translucent danced within and already the radiation had begun to seep into the office she now occupied.

The corvid feather above her head faded away, if slower. The black emotions behind it were always close.

“Then! Let the second phase of the Chepri Solution begin. Let’s try to save the world, shall we?”