“You are completely insane!” Erol yelled. Faced with the risk of being overtaken by horsemen, the archaeologist and Suzanne did not pause. From that point on, they crossed the forest at full speed. Suzanne galloped backwards, keeping an eye on the technomancer that Erol held in his arms. “What if the gun had jammed?” said Erol, glaring at her. “Or worse! What if the ammunition blew up in your face! They aren’t of the same quality you are used to.” But before the young woman had a chance to answer, he realized that they were now being chased by something other than the Trisstiss guards. The white-eyed wolf ran behind them.

“He’s with her!” Suzanne shouted so she could be heard over the sound of hooves racing on the concrete slabs.

Erol wondered how she could be so sure, but preferred to concentrate on the path ahead that at this point was beginning to turn back into a paved road. This was wonderful news: it would help them hide the horse tracks.

At the first fork in the road, he took them south where the forest became deeper. The trail quickly transformed into a track that disappeared among the rocks. He pointed to an old steel building that stood among them.

“We have been riding for hours with no one on our trail. It’s time to take a break,” he grinned as he headed for the abandoned house. “Otherwise, we will end up killing our steeds.” Weakened by the recent ride, he nearly fell off his horse. The wound on his shoulder had reopened and was bleeding profusely again.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go on?” Suzanne was worried. The wolf’s arrival had made their rides nervous.

“With two of us on my horse, if the guards or the Paladins had wanted to catch us, they would have,” Erol growled, catching his breath. “I think you surprised us all.” Behind him, the young woman nodded, and he felt her gaze fall on his shoulder.

“Your wound—do we have time to treat it before we depart again?”

Erol sponged off the blood as best he could with the back of his left sleeve. After reaching into his pockets, he swallowed one of Sileo’s two remaining gray pills. They numbed his pain immediately. This was not the appropriate time to faint. Besides, he was in no worse shape than the technomancer. “How is she?” he asked.

Suzanne took the young woman’s pulse. She said it was weak, but still beating. The technomancer, however, was motionless. With Suzanne’s help, Erol laid her on a filthy mattress inside the abandoned house.

“And your heroics, in addition to revealing our route to the Inquisition, saddled us up with a new burden.”

“Was I a burden for you too?” asked Suzanne.

“You have no idea, Fräulein!” he mumbled, sitting down.

Erol leaned awkwardly against one of the gnarled roots that emerged from the ground before sliding down onto the black grass that covered what used to be the building’s old floor.

He then cleaned the technomancer’s face using some of the water in his flask. When the trickle of liquid touched her forehead, her eyelids fluttered gently. Her cheeks were puffy with bruises. Her lips had burst under the constant beating and her nose had been broken many times, but she wasn’t bleeding. He couldn’t tell the difference between what was human or mechanical. Nevertheless, the overall picture was a mess.

Poor woman. If she wasn’t dead yet, she would be soon. As the wolf took its place at the entrance, facing the horses and showing no signs of aggression, Erol splashed the rest of the water over his own face. He was so filthy that the drops that ran down his chin were as black as the grass underneath their feet. “That’s not what I meant,” he said at last but Suzanne remained silent, leaning against one of the windows. “I am sorry,” Erol said, as a current of air blew the dust off the grass and covered the technomancer’s body with a thin veil. The woman’s eyes remained closed.

“It’s my fault,” Suzanne apologized. “I put us both in danger by being so thoughtless. I was selfish.”

Erol struggled back on his feet and joined her by the window. “Ja…”

The wolf was now approaching to move closer to his mistress.

“But it was the right thing to do,” Suzanne replied with a gasp.

“It was, in fact, the only thing to do. I remember their faces when you ran into the crowd—they could never have foreseen such madness,” he concluded.

The window looked out onto a weedy garden. The wind half-heartedly moved a swing that creaked in the distance. There were still sun-bleached clothes on the clothesline.

“I used to live here,” a voice suddenly spoke behind them. It was the strangest, most mechanical voice; choppy and punctuated by crackles. No one could tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. Erol and Suzanne turned to face the technomancer who was sitting with her back to the wolf’s belly. Both possessed an identical luminous white gaze. “But I had to run south. Because no one ever goes south. Not even the Inquisition.” Incredible as it may seem, the voice seemed to come from both the wolf and the young woman simultaneously. Erol was unable to determine its exact origin.

“How are you feeling?” Suzanne asked, approaching the cyborg.

She did not seem shocked by the spectacle before them, which surprised Erol. “The Paladins have left quite a mark on you,” he coughed. It was hard to get the words out of his throat.

The technomancer smiled at him. Now that he was this close to her, he could see that what at first had looked like welts covering her body were mostly tattoos. Shades of red, blue, green, and gold reproduced complex patterns resembling electronic circuits. They covered almost every inch of her skin. The tattoos on her shoulders, forearms, and thighs were now glistening, whereas the ones on her pelvis and breasts had been peeled away with blades and appeared duller.

“It was as much a physical ordeal as a mental one. We—I’ll get over it quickly,” articulated the entity who shared the body of the young woman and the wolf. “This is not the first time I have suffered the outrages of men.”

Erol, however, did not wish to linger. The Paladins could emerge at any moment from behind the trees. But he still felt he was owed many answers.

“They burned Master Marian, for he was a proven technomancer. What about you?”

The cyborg seemed surprised at first. Erol thought he had offended her, then quickly realized that it was him referencing Marian that had been the cause of that reaction. “Marian? You knew him?

“So it was him?” Suzanne asked, turning towards Erol.

“He was the Founder in charge of the University. And my mentor although the word does seem a bit strong.” His words were followed by a bout of silence and then various sizzling sounds.

The wolf, looking sad, rubbed his head against the young woman’s shoulder. “They caught him at the gates of the village when he was coming from Renaissance. I had come to greet him.”

“So you are a technomancer,” said Erol. “Do you know what they were hoping to get from Marian? The Judge-Executor seemed to want him alive when we… met him in Renaissance.”

“The white nun and her Paladins are not good at tracking technomancers. We were turned in. They are still turning us in.”

Reinor! Most certainly, Erol thought.

The wolf suddenly stood up, his ears turned towards the door. He remained motionless for a few seconds. The metallic voice of the technomancer and her pet broke the heavy silence. “They are coming.”

“Riders?” Suzanne said, her voice full of concern. “How do you know that?”

Erol wished he had her powers instead of his mechanical arm. “Well, let’s get the hell out of here!” he said, glancing out the window.

Suzanne meanwhile was helping the cyborg get up. “What’s your name?” she asked.

The metal voice this time came entirely from the technomancer: “Byte. My name is Byte.”

“From the south, then?” Erol asked, as he walked through the door towards their mounts.

“Yes. I will guide you through the hillocks. To our home.”

“What do you mean, our home?” The archaeologist invited Byte to climb on the saddle from the top of his steed. But the technomancer declined the invitation, preferring to ride with her companion.

“We should trust them, Erol!” Suzanne implored.

“We know the way,” calmly answered the otherworldly voice of the technomancer.

Guided by Byte and their wolf, Erol and Suzanne left the forest for an equally dark plain. “Guiding” was not the word the archaeologist would have chosen, however, as the technomancer rode with her eyes closed. The beast was leading the way alone.

The remains of what had once been a straight highway, now zigzagged between hills. Fragmented, the road definitely resembled the long and decomposed molt of a snake. The group of riders soon left the concrete road and followed a path that overlooked the valley in the shadow of the mountain. The trail dipped dangerously low, forcing them to continue at a reduced pace for the rest of the day.

The full moon rose in an ink-black sky. The thin veil of ashes no longer hid the stars that evening. The valley was home to thousands of earth mounds bathed in fog. They were all about the size of a hut and were made of stone walls and a roof covered by vegetation.

“I’ve never been around here before. There are literally thousands of them!” Erol exclaimed.

“They host those who fell in one of the great battles of the old days. Men and machines. Together,” replied Byte.

“It’s extremely sad,” Suzanne commented.

Noticing that their companion now seemed ready to talk, Suzanne was eager to inundate her with questions. Erol understood her impatience, but her ardor was quickly cooled when Byte asked for silence once more.

Concealed by the vegetation, the technomancer’s shelter consisted of a mound whose occupants, the archaeologist suspected, had been disposed of by the young woman.

The cyborg invited the two travelers to leave their horses behind the nearby grave. She dismounted from her wolf. The animal climbed to the top of the earth mouth to stand guard, while she entered her house first.

The technomancer’s hideout was a marvel to Erol’s eyes. Relics from another age occupied every corner of the house, neatly arranged on wooden shelves. He recognized touch pads, computer terminals, firearms, and even a heavy droid armor that had been painstakingly butchered by their host. Most of them, however, appeared to be non-operational. “These treasures are incredible!” he exclaimed, grinning broadly at Suzanne who didn’t hide her astonishment either. She had barely made it inside when she began admiring a suspended hydroponic garden that occupied the ceiling. “Of course, for you they are nothing but a collection of old things…” continued the archaeologist.

But, against all odds, a new female voice answered him first. “On this point, I am in complete agreement with you, Herr Monsieur!” A ghost had materialized in the center of the room. The young woman’s skin was pink and she wore her white hair in a bob. She approached Erol who felt like he was about to have a heart attack. “Regardless, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Herr Monsieur!” said this curious speaker.

Behind him, he heard Suzanne stifle a laugh. He remembered that he hated AIs precisely because of this kind of trick. He had never really understood their humor.

“Jinko, this is not the time to bother our visitors,” Byte reprimanded the AI, in a more human voice. It was as if the cyborg’s metallic voice had just dissociated.

Jinko’s hologram vanished, but its incessant cackling still echoed around the mound: “My sensors tell me that your health is more than critical, mon amour.”

“I will be fine,” Byte replied, wrapping her wounds with the same green tape Erol used on his expeditions. “We will look at it later.”

Meanwhile, the woman named Jinko had each brought out tea with a pair of mechanical arms that fell from the ceiling. Erol refused and the AI reprimanded him: “Drink it, Herr Monsieur. It will be better than the amphetamine pills you are ingesting at every turn.”

Crestfallen, Erol grabbed the cup. “How did you know?

“My poor friend. Even our wolf doesn’t have that many ticks.”

The hologram appeared again a few centimeters from Suzanne. The young woman remained motionless. Erol realized that the AI was obviously about to confirm the identity of their guests. They were far more intelligent and perceptive than the average person. But they immediately changed the subject.

“Byte-love? I should point out that my nuclear battery has been at only 3% for 6.31 months. In addition to our servers, I need to remind you that it also powers the farm. This is critical.”

“Do you have a working nuclear battery?” Erol asked, satisfied that the conversation was turning away from Suzanne.

“Why do you ask? Does Herr Archaeologist intend to steal it from us?” Byte taunted him. “I think it would be best if we approached the subject of Marian…” But her voice faded. The young woman’s bandages became smeared with blood and she suddenly lost her balance. Erol was less quickly than Jinko’s bionic appendages, which had already grabbed her in flight.

“I think my wife-love needs a rest. How about you enjoy the warmth of our home and relax and eat to your heart’s content?”

The AI handed them dehydrated food packets with their last able-bodied arm. Erol grabbed one and fell down on a chair.

“Is everything alright?” Suzanne asked, worried.

“Nothing I can’t fix.”

Hitherto secured to the wall, a pair of shelves swung open and Jinko led Byte into a second room.

“Did they say ‘my wife’?” Erol whispered.

“Let’s keep our eyes peeled, I don’t like what’s going on here. I didn’t want you to panic, but from what my implant tells me, the AI just locked down all the exits.”

The archaeologist spent a long-time investigating the door and the only window looking towards the exterior. They had both been well barricaded and it had proven impossible to force them open despite his several attempts.

“And they called me ‘archaeologist.’ I think we have been unmasked.”

The hallway leading to Byte’s retreat had also been sealed off. Once he tried to force it open with his sword, Jinko surprised him by materializing lying on the lintel.

“Herr Monsieur Feuerhammer, you are very rude.”

Erol swore and the door opened.

“Come on in, then. Byte-love is waiting for you.”

The artificial light from the many computer screens covering walls cradled the room. Consoles and cables were spread across the floor in a chaotic tangle. At the far end, two pools shimmered in the ceiling. Inside, Byte was floating in a sweet-smelling and translucent indigo liquid.

“What the—” The unfamiliar scent tickled his nose and nearly made the archaeologist sneeze.

“It smells like strawberries,” Suzanne told him.

A sort of crown was screwed on the young woman’s head and a set of cables and tubes tied the casket back to an imposing electrical cabinet. The biggest cabinet that Erol had ever come across. It took up the entire back of the room.

“What is this?” Erol asked.

“Some implants allow you to receive and transmit information through the cyberspace,” Suzanne replied. “This system, if I am not mistaken, offers you the opportunity to navigate the digital world beneath the net more easily. As if we were on a computer, but without the necessary modules.”

“Exactly,” Jinko affirmed. “Think of it as virtual reality, but within the net itself. You can manipulate the information and travel with it. You don’t browse the internet anymore, but rather are inside the internet.” The indigo fluid bubbled up as if an electric current had run through it. “The bath allows you to relax your body and mind. There were no soothing injection circuits in the early models. The cyberspace can be very taxing with this method. It’s easier to have a specific neuro-module, but they don’t make those anymore…”

The cyborg let out a groan and Erol gasped. The pale bluish glow emanating from the monitors turned yellow, then beige. On the main monitor stood a map bearing too many markings for Erol to decipher. Numbers, letters, and symbols danced and flashed across the screen. It reminded him of Marian’s office, where all his troubles had begun.

Then a man’s face appeared. His forehead and cheeks were covered with implants and his violet eyes were no longer human. Behind him, Suzanne gasped.

The AI’s profile faded to reveal the blueprints of a huge fortress. The symbol of the Inquisition flashed across too. Suzanne was right. White lines flickered until they formed a face. It was Marian’s face. His own appeared afterwards.

The screens then displayed the main desk of a terminal and Byte emerged from the strawberry-scented liquid.

“What are you playing at, Byte?” Erol spit out.

“I had no reason to trust you, I was checking the information I had on you,” the technomancer told them.

“We saved your life,” Suzanne interjected.

“Marian always told me not to believe in anyone. He didn’t believe in anyone either. Except in you, Feuerhammer! And look where that got him.” More of Jinko’s mechanical arms descended from the ceiling. Rubber fingers unfolded and massaged the young woman’s shoulders, who preferred to pull the aching limbs off her chest. “You have no idea what you have set in motion. You have precipitated events that we had spent years preparing for.” The armless body pulled itself out of the pool.

“What do you mean?” Erol asked.

Without taking his eyes off Suzanne, Byte headed for the computer screens. Lines of codes and calculations appeared on them. “You are definitely not very smart, Feuerhammer.”

“This young Madame has a neural implant. A neural add-on with an activation date that predates the catastrophe,” Jinko continued. The date in question was now displayed on the main monitor in the room overlooking the two pools.

“And registered, non-commercially, to the same compound as the Josias,” Byte continued as she moved closer to the monitor.

Jinko’s mechanical limbs had just brought her new arms, equipped with recent prosthetics that she used to type at light speed on her computer keyboard. “This means two things,” Jinko concluded before Byte proceeded to complete their thoughts.

“The first is purely factual: Maev and her henchmen can track you. We know she has access to the technology to do so. We’ve dealt with this mirror-eyed nun before.” With her sixteen fingertips, she tapped on the list of numbers.

“Impossible, my network access is cut off, I can’t get access to anything,” Suzanne added, massaging her temple.

“They are isolating you. This is another clue that they are on your trail.”

One of the robotic arms then came to seize Suzanne’s skull. Erol stepped in, but Jinko immediately released her.

“What are you doing?” Erol shouted.

“It is nothing,” Suzanne reassured him. “Jinko has just repaired the situation. I have access again—access to the whole net.” She remained motionless for an instant, her mind seemed elsewhere.

“The second thing is more of a speculation,” Jinko continued as Erol grabbed Suzanne’s hand.

The technomancer resumed in a calmer voice: “Suzanne? Erol? What do you know about the secret compound under the Dammastock?”

“The only thing I know is that I made it go up in smoke,” the archaeologist answered, remembering the gigantic fire.

“I tried a few days ago to access the compound’s data, but there is nothing interesting about it on the web,” Suzanne explained. “Nothing about the Josiah missiles, if that’s what you two want to talk about?”

“Rightly so,” Byte said.

Jinko had just brought her the strange crown of cables.

“Suzanne? Does Thomas S. Lionheardt mean anything to you?”

“What do you know about Tom?” Suzanne asked, raising her voice. “Do you know where he is?”

Byte smiled. “What do I know? Tell her Jinko.” The technomancer returned to the pool, manually adjusting the crown on her head.

“Are you sure, Byte-love?” the AI replied. “I detect some pretty strong emotional ties.”

Silence followed. Meanwhile, the machine was still hesitating.

“Tell her,” Byte repeated.

Their host pulled several levers and another crown fell from the ceiling. The second indigo pool bubbled up and dozens of fans started up.

Jinko’s pink face appeared on the computer screens. “Mademoiselle Fräulein Suzanne. A thousand years ago, Thomas S. Lionheardt was responsible for the eradication of twelve billion human beings.”