The lone sun on the floor dimmed in the far west, flooding Nadia’s mind with memories of her children playing hide and seek. They hadn’t quite understood how sight worked and thought if they couldn’t see her, she couldn’t see them. They’d poke their heads and fingers over counters and tables, and they’d try and fail to restrain their giggles when she missed them, revealing themselves more. Watch over me, please, Nadia thought to herself before she continued her trek to the staging area of their new friends. The stimulated winds chilled Nadia, not enough so that her synth skin couldn’t handle it, but enough that she would have liked a coat.
Far in the distance, the silhouettes of the forts loomed ominously in the early morning, shadows draped over the mountain like funeral shrouds. From the center of each fort rose a massive statue of Fried, nearly scraping the floor of the level above them, the one closest to her being made in the model of Fried the Slayer. It was just like the one she had had at the dinner table when her family was murdered, except Fried now stepped on three snake heads and raised his hammer and sword triumphantly. Nadia tried not to look at it for too long, lest she have a breakdown. Not the place, she told herself.
Drones buzzed through the cold expanse like passing birds, and the reminder that her image would be displayed across the empire without any context eased Nadia’s spirits none. Was it not enough to serve her lord and do the job she had been given? Must she also be a piece of meat, recruiting young girls like her own daughter to pick up a gun? Her heart fell into her stomach; it was one thing for the girls to see a roided-out woman like her and be steered toward steel, but how she would be marketed to the boys was another thing. A shiver traced over her spine like a cold, dead finger and her stomach groaned in disgust. She kept her feet moving, lest she hurl.
Her group of six was not the only group to commandeer a truck and Nadia chided herself for considering her group unique. A ring of more than 200 trucks had formed on a snow plateau a matrix of crates forming in the center, food pouches piled up at the bases like…turds.
At the heart of the crate matrix stood a black man whom Nadia had only managed a glimpse at during the runs to carry food from the truck to the growing pile for redistribution. He was easily the largest mutant she had seen, with the distant sun's orange glow adding two feet to his height and 40 pounds of muscle to his silhouette. A heavy, red slab of metal had been grafted to his front, and plates of the same material extended from his clavicle. Whether or not he had an engine, underneath, Nadia couldn’t tell, but the fact that he synched the other mechanically augmented initiates to him with a shred radio signal pointed to such an augment being more likely than not. His eyes locked onto Nadia, and his face contorted into that of a bulldog, making Nadia quickly avert her gaze lest she be mauled. From her glances however, Nadia determined he had slicked black hair and a tight clustering of scars that ran from his left eye to his chin.
“Oh man,” Brannon said as he saddled up alongside Nadia on their final food run, his voice giddy like a school girl who had seen a boy from a band they liked. “It’s him. It’s really, really him.”
Nadia raised a brow. “Should I know who he is?”
“Damn straight you should.” Brannon nodded at the man as he walked. “That is Ernst the exterminator Kelvin. His unit has been as close to the front out east as anybody can get.”
Explains the scars, Nadia reasoned as she scrounged her memory for some news reel she might have seen of the man. The Volkswaffen would definitely talk about a man like that.
“Legend has it he stabbed an eight-foot, saber-toothed Beast-man to death with his own tooth,” Brannon said. “Volkswaffen command wanted to keep him and his crew back, but they just kept cutting a swath deeper into the east. He’s the closest thing we have to an icon out there.”
Certainly looks like he could do that, Nadia thought dismally, not at all ready to see just what kind of hangups this initiate had under the hood; she had enough of those to deal with just in her own squad. “Do you and Natalia know him?”
Brannon nodded as he dropped his food and Nadia did the same. “Her family won’t put her at the absolute front lines, but we have met a few times.”
Nadia looked over the initiates in charge of the food. Five squads were taking Ernst’s orders, three auditing the convoy’s food supply, two defending their trucks. Unlike the rest of the trucks, their had guns, sleek Karabine rifles packed two at a time into sleek, black crates.
As a lecture formed in Nadia’s mind, Ernst extended his hand into the air, stopping everyone like he had fired a gun. "Finish up and gather around," Ernst called out. When one of the initiates dared to sit on a crate, Ernst glared at them, and they scurried back into the crowd. “I’ll keep the introductions short. My name is Ernst Kelvin, a captain in the 2,131,786th battalion on the eastern front. I know some of you, but that really doesn’t matter. What does matter”—Ernst pulled a red card from his pocket—“is this,” he said, eliciting gasps and murmurs from the crowd.
“Where did he get that?”
“Did he buy it?”
“Is he with the game makers?”
Ernst began to speak again, but each time a new murmur would interrupt him.
“Where did he get the guns?”
“Is he sponsored?”
His face grew redder with each interruption, and Nadia prepared for him to pounce.
“Is he really that Ernst Kelvin?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Quiet, you fucks!” Natalia yelled, stopping the conversation once again. “Continue,” she said after a moment of silence.
Ernst nodded at Natalia. “Thanks Nat,” he said quietly. “This was obtained by opening crates in the bunker at random before we were detected by game makers and the mech inside the bunker was activated. What’s inside the other crates, we do not know. That’s where you come in.”
The brute sat atop one of the crates and patted the lid. “These were carried around by some of the trucks that joined my group and these”—Ernst picked up a food pack—“were carried by other game makers. We can assume the Volkswaffen is going to keep them supplied, which means the game will have a steady supply of food and guns. What I am proposing is we use these supplies”—Ernst waved his hands over the stockpiled gear—“to make a hit against one of the small bunkers and get red cards.”
“How do we know there are still red cards?” a voice called out.
“You got one, but what if there’s only one per bunker?”
Ernst furrowed his brown in anger, the shadows on his face tightening. “Because,” he said through his teeth. “I only took one because my team only needed one. On the topic of things we need, there is the matter of the other cards. We are all blacks here, correct?” Ernst asked, drawing several nods. “Good. If we want to succeed this phase, we will need white cards. If you join us”—Ernst stood up—“you WILL help us in obtaining white cards on the other side of the stadium. If I see ANYONE”—Ernst pointed his hand over the crowd—“not pulling their weight or refusing to shoot, I will kill them and I expect you all to do the same.” He pointed down the plateau. “This is non-negotiable. If you have a problem, leave now.”
Brannon leaned into Nadia. “That is why they call him the exterminator.”
Nadia went rigid as Ernst let the silence hang in the air, wanting to kick herself for not considering this would happen. Did I think I could get by without killing anyone? As a knight, no less. by Fried, Nadia could you have been any more blind?
It was not supposed to be Atlasians. Just Marcus, Vogel, and Weber. All of that training, and I never considered I would have to shoot another Atlasian. They do not broadcast the first phase for a reason. It is nothing but Atlasian blood. How could I have been such an idiot? Nadia’s breath swelled in her chest like shuttles at a red light. How could I not have guessed this? By Fried, I will be no better than the knights whose death I seek, Nadia thought, feeling the need to scream and relieve the pressure in her lungs.
No. I am a hand of Lord Fried, and I am doing hand business. Yes, I am a hand, doing--
Natalia stepped forward, drawing everyone’s attention. “Ernst.”
“Nat.”
“How many of these”—Natalia waved her hand around the ring of initiates—“are from out east with you?”
Ernst crossed his arms and scoffed. “I could ask you the same thing. How many did you infiltrate?”
“Only one,” Natalia said, smiling. “But I followed him here, not the other way around.”
Ernst nodded. “I see, I see. I also came alone, but I will not shy away from what my name brings to bare.” He whispered something to Natalia. When he was finished, Natalia scoffed and stomped back to Brannon.
“What did he say?” Brannon asked.
“Many things,” Natalia said, “and the one thing that would make me fry him if I had my hands.”
“Are we staying? Are we fighting? Say the word and I’ll fuck him up.”
Natalia shook her head. “No. We are staying for now, if only because I don’t trust him not to follow me,” she said before turning to Nadia. “You are not to talk to him. None of you are. Once he’s done talking, we’ll make a plan.“
Brannon broke to find the others. “What did he say?” Nadia asked.
Natalia rapped her knuckles against Nadia’s thigh. “Not here,” she hissed. The ring of initiates had formed six lines, each pointing inward to Ernst or another initiate who were handing out guns from the crates, much like the ones that Nadia had used the day prior. “Remember their faces,” Natalia whispered. “I think Ernst infiltrated them as his personal squad.”
“Do you know—”
Natalia rapped her knuckles against Nadia’s thigh again, hard enough to bruise. “I will tell you when I tell all of the others. For now, just get a gun,” she hissed before striding to grab her own. “Get the others and meet me by that tree that looks like a tuning fork,” the alterist added after they had gotten Karabine-model rifles and three magazines each, nodding towards a tree with a bloated center and thick, tumorous branches. “Should provide us some cover.”
What are you planning Krugg? Nadia wondered as she scanned over the initiates. I should find Haydn first before he gets into trouble. Thankfully, she found Haydn’s slim form curled against a tree and clutching a rifle—thicker than his arms—to his body. He kicked lazily at the snow on the ground like it was a pebble down a road, and he was in desperate need of any other friend.
For a moment, Nadia saw an image of Konrad leaning against the other side of the tree, doing the same thing. Nadia could see the bruise that Konrad had on his knee from some bully or other. I spent that recess walking with him, Nadia thought reminiscently. He would be losing his shit at all of these weapons and kriegers and soldiers. “Hey,” Nadia said softly as she put a hand on Haydn’s shoulder. Haydn turned to Nadia and the woman was relieved to see no bruises on his face. “Need a friend?”
Haydn smiled weakly before removing Nadia’s hand. “No. Just”—Haydn sighed—“just gathering myself. Not every day you get told you’re going mech hunting.”
Or your countrymen, Nadia thought dismally. “Yea. It is not everyday. I will keep you safe, I promise.”
Haydn shook his head and lifted his rifle to chest height. “I can barely shoot this,” he admitted before his arms dropped until the rifle was level with his waist. “It will blow my arms off before I get the first reload in and they might just shoot me because I’m so skinny, just six feet of dead weight.” He looked up at Nadia, tears breaking over the dam of his eyelids. “I don’t want to die, Nadia. I didn’t come here to die, I came here to be a—"
Nadia ran her hand through Haydn’s mohawk. “You are not going to die, Haydn. You are not going to die. I am not going to die. None of our group is going to die. You and me are bound by Fried in deed and until he sees fit, I will not let anything happen to you. Nadia ran her hand over Haydn’s shoulders—”Fried has not seen fit to call us back to him, and until then we can only move forward.”
“Nadia”—Haydn removed her hand—“my forward is straight into a bullet.”
Nadia put her hands on Haydn again, making his shoulders shoot up like mountains around his head. “Haydn, we will get through this. I will make sure of it, hell or high water, I will not let you die. Do you trust me?”
“Yea,” Haydn muttered as his shoulders relaxed. “I trust you, I’m just”—he sighed—“scared.”
“I am too,” Nadia said. “But we are going to make it.” With another pass of her hand over his bony shoulders, she was able to coax him to his feet. “Natalia is gathering us, and we will figure this out as a team. After you,” she said, holding her hand out like a chauffeur.
Nadia led the boy to the tree, the rest of the group already hidden behind its bulk. “Ernst has to go,” Natalia said quickly. “He told me that the mechs are from my family”—Natalia pointed at herself—”and that my family is supplying the game makers with drones to find us. Absurdities, all of it, but he said that he’d tell the others that I’m getting a cut of all this.”
“Krugg makes guns, not drones. Everyone knows this,” Nadia pointed out. “They always have since”—Nadia paused, realizing the company had been a part of Atlas since as long as she or anyone she knew could remember—“forever, basically.”
“Unless”—Brannon stretched the word like putty—“Franz decided to expand the portfolio after granpa K croaked.” He put a hand over his throat and somehow his one eye narrowed like a choked man.
“My father?” Natalia scoffed. “You and I both know he can’t design his way out of a shuttle with both doors open.”
Brannon wagged a finger. “But he’s the shrewd bastard pay someone else to do it,” he pointed out. “I mean, he paid for you—”
Natalia held up a hand. “Fine,” she said through her teeth. “I get it. Maybe Franz is expanding the family business for the first time in centuries. Regardless of what my lazy father is doing, Ernst is holding it over me and by extension, all of you, and that’s not the worst of it. He said he would say that I was a mess out east, a ticking time-bomb with heresy in my gut that would lash out at the smallest provocation, only kept for my utility against the beasts. Add the fact that Brannon is a loose cannon at the best of times, it won’t take much to light the torches and sharpen the pitchforks.”
Alterists were useful at best, and Nadia had lost track of how many holo-movies had an alterist villain who rebelled against the Volkswaffen, Reichstag, or the Orders. Sixth Order’s entire job is to hunt rogue alterists, Nadia reasoned, never having quite considered that a rogue alterist could actually exist. Until six months ago, I did not believe the knights could go astray either. The headline formed in Nadia’s mind without issue, letters stamping themselves into her brain. Krugg sells mech for use in krieger trials, alterists daughter uses initiates to unload frustrations, killing several.
“What does he want?” Samuel asked.
Natalia shrugged. “Me, I guess, unless he wants one of you which”—Natalia shook her head—“no, he wants me, mind, body, soul, body, all that sort of thing, if I had to wager.”
Brannon ground his teeth like a rope about to snap. “Give the word Nat, and I’ll put his ass in the ground,” he said icily.
Nadia peeked out from behind the cover of the tree and found Ernst surrounded by the people who had handed out guns. “I do not think that is wise, not now at least,” she said. “You were right, Natalia. If he infiltrated those, it will be a gunfight and that can turn to rust quick, and we have another problem.” Nadia sighed gathering the strength for the words on her tongue. “They are going to kill Haydn.”
Brannon scoffed. “Has he already pissed someone off?”
“No!” Haydn exclaimed as he shot to his feet. “I’ve literally only talked to Nadia since I’ve been here. It’s just”—Haydn waved his arms like battle ropes—“I can’t fire the guns. They’ll shred my arms to bits.”
“How did you get here, then? Didn’t you have to get a certain score to get into the flag games?” Brannon asked, drawing nods from all.
“I could take time and wait between shots during those,” Haydn fell into his shoulders, “and I paid a game maker to boost my score by 10.”
All but Gershwin’s eyes widened, but Nadia spoke first. “You what?”
“I paid, to raise my score, ten points,” Haydn reiterated, slower.
Brannon shot to his feet and tried to use his wider figure to loom over Haydn, pointless since they were nearly equal in height. “You came to these trials not wanting to fire a gun?”
“It’s my right!” Haydn hissed. “Once I’m a knight, I can get augments for these wishbones.’
“You did what?” Nadia reiterated before her gaze shot to Gershwin. “You are awfully quiet, priest.”
Gershwin didn’t bite. “Fried did not make me a proctor. He made me first a broken man, later, a priest, and, should he will it, a knight,” he said. “I will not speak ill of Haydn for doing something to even his chances when I did the same,” he rolled up his sleeves to show his black arms, “and when you did, and Natalia as well. As far as I’m concerned, the Ironclad rewards cunning as much he does strength. Discernment and body, virtues third and second, need not remain separate.”
“You cannot be comparing—”
“I am!” Gershwin shouted, sending whatever words Nadia wanted to say into retreat. “Have you learned nothing from your readings, girl? That by the strength of the Ironclad, the most bent and rusted scrap can be formed into the hardest steel? What do you think that entails?”
Nadia flinched at the words. Are these not tests of strength at all? Then what are they tests of? Piety? Nadia’s eyes went to the sky where the orange ring of the sun’s light had crept higher. Have I not been pious, my lord? Have I not served you and done as you asked? Do you now wish for blood from my hands?
“In our pursuit of our lord and his will, we have changed who we are and how we act,” Gershwin continued. “Such change is needed, the book tells us this much, but we are still on the path he has set for us. Until we commit such heresy—“his eyes lingered on Nadia”—that that is no longer the case, I will stand with you as the Ironclad calls me too. I only ask that you stand with me.”
Samuel raised a hand, drawing all eyes to him. “And tell me, priest, what are these heresies, now that we are instructed to hunt our own?”
Gershwin raised a finger. “We have been instructed to obtain cards,” Gershwin clarified. “Will this likely mean killing? Yes, I will not deny this, but the Ironclad still frowns on needless bloodshed. And our lord still despises cruelty and—”
Samuel threw his head back. “Get to the point old man,” he groaned.
Gershwin glared a dagger at Samuel. “From these, we can assume that the sins of cruelty, and a bias towards violence are heresies. Further, leaving the trials at this state can also be assumed to be a heresy.”
Samuel stroked his chin for a moment before shrugging. “Works for me.”
Haydn shot his bony arms into the air. “Great. We know what rules we can and can’t break, that’s cool. So what are we going to do about the sabretooth in the room? Ernst is gonna spill the beans, eventually, and he’ll shoot me through the head before that and probably before I can commit any of these hairy seas.”
“Hair-eh-sees,” Nadia interjected through her teeth.
Haydn waved his hand dismissively. “And I’d like for that not to happen.”
Natalia nodded. “The child”—Nadia glared a zweihander at Natalia—“Haydn, is right. Ernst will need to be dealt with. Can I count on you to assist me in this?”
Gershwin nodded. “You know my rules. Until you break them, you have my support.”
Samuel nodded. “I’m with him.”
Haydn nodded as well. “If I don’t, he’ll kill me. I hope you have a plan.”
Natalia nodded. “I have an idea to keep you alive long enough for him to die, yes,” Natalia said before sighing. “Do I have your support?”
I will need her alterism if I want to take out Vogel here, if he is still even here at all, Nadia reasoned, hoping that Vogel had lingered to take notes on the initiates for his order. “You have it,” Nadia said with a nod.
“Lovely,” Natalia said softly before turning to Brannon. “And you, my loyal knight? Can I count on you once again?”
Brannon rolled his eyes. “Do you even need to ask? You have brought me battle, and I will bring us victory.”