Void cut the engines and let his jumpship drift into a cold glide above the city.
Below, Chicago's centre had drowned and then rotted. A lake of stagnant black spread for kilometres, skinning itself with a green film that shivered in the wind and cracked where trapped gas pressed up from the depths. Whole roads sank under it, lamp posts leaned out at hopeless angles, and the shells of tall concrete buildings stuck through like broken ribs.
He transmatted to the edge of the stagnant lake.
The air was wrong. It tasted metallic and sweet at the back of the tongue, a bitter kind of sweet that said poison. He clipped a filter over the mask.
"Obsidian," Void said.
"Scanning," Obsidian replied, iris pulsing. "Methane. Sulphides. Ether traces. The gas mix is bad enough to put a Titan on its knees. No movement on thermal within a kilometre. No birds. Nothing."
«Bad water,» Zamyr murmured, voice cool. «Good place to hide and to be forgotten.»
Void walked the shoreline. Rebar claws stuck out of the muck. A rusted bus lay on its side, half sunken into the mud. His eyes flickered blue. But there was no glow of energy. No tracks.
Then he saw something peculiar.
It sat at the lip of the lake like someone had dragged a half dozen scaffold sections, barely welded them together, and laid a skin of sheet metal on top. The seams were fresh. The braces were clean, whereas every other metal face here wore brown.
Obsidian bobbed closer. "Recent. A day or two. Built in a hurry. Built to launch."
Void clicked his tongue. "Launch what?"
As if the lake heard him, a sparrow engine revved far across the water on the opposite shore.
Void turned and squinted. At first, there was just a haze in the distance, but then, there was movement. A black speck shot through the fog, slowly forming into a rider and a sparrow.
The ramp on the far side rattled as it approached.
The rider didn't falter and put the sparrow's nose dead centre.
"Don't tell me," Void said under his breath.
The sparrow hit the ramp and flung. The frame left the lip with a howl and soared through the sky. For a heartbeat, it hung at the top. Mid-air, the rider kicked free. Light pealed up around him in a thin, precise flare.
The man jumped.
It was not elegant. It was not supposed to be. At most erratic and frenzied. But each stride he took helped him gain distance. He cleared a hundred metres like a runner stepping over a puddle. Then he cleared a thousand.
His body arced, and for a second, Void had the mad thought that this idiot was actually going to make it.
Naturally, he was mistaken.
The curve began to shallow. The body tilted. The last step he took bled thin, and the black lake rippled, as if opening its mouth.
Void ran.
Lightning flicked around his calves. The ground blurred. He hit the ramp and never stopped, boots hammering steel, weight forward, head low. At the lip, he put his foot into nothing, arcs ran through his figure, and he blinked forward.
The jump felt like being fired out of a wire. He crossed the gap on speed and stubbornness.
Void slammed his shoulder into the man mid-air and caught whatever part of him his hands could find.
They tumbled, two bodies welded by panic and gravity. The shore came up hard. They hit stone, scraped, rolled, and stopped in a spray of grit.
The figure came up laughing. Not the nervous kind. Happy. He slapped the dust off his coat and whooped at the dead lake like he had beaten it at a game.
"Did you see that?" he crowed. "It worked. It actually worked."
Void lay on his back for a breath and let the filters clear the spike of gas he had just inhaled. Then he sat up, dragging his hood into place. "Are you entirely insane? You were inches from dying in poison soup. I don't even think your ghost would find your body there."
"Would've been a good story," the man said, grinning. He had a pilot's lean. Hair matted with sweat. Eyes bright.
He stuck a hand out, "Marcus Ren."
Void took the hand, and his eyes widened.
"You're Marcus Ren?" Void's eyes flickered blue, and he peeked at the man's name in his status.
Sure enough, it really was him.
Marcus blinked once, then looked Void up and down with a mechanic's eye that measured gear as much as man. "You....you're Ghostsword, aren't you?"
Void grabbed the hand and got to his feet. He brushed a tide-line of green dust off his knee.
"Yep."
"What!" Marcus shifted and gasped, immediately crouching and eyeing the lakeside, "I knew this lake was hive propaganda."
"Uh...huh?" Void stuttered.
"So what is it? Some heinous plot to lure thrillseekers like me till we fall into the water, and the acolytes drag us all the way down to the depths? Wait no! Is it a Hive Wizard that cursed the water so you go blind and can't swim out of it?"
"Or, wait....Don't tell me." Marcus's eyes narrowed, "The Entire lake's just an illusion. It's a conspiracy. It's actually the mouth of a gargantuan Hive Ogre that wants to swallow us whole!"
Marcus nodded, satisfied with his own ramblings. "That's gotta be it, man. It even explains that weird vibe I've been getting from this place. Something's definitely lurking around here."
"Er..." Void scratched his head.
"So?" Marcus raised his brows, "What are we doing? Gonna blow up the lake? I know just the place to get some cheap stuff. Matter of fact, I got some stuff we can chuck in there, it'll definitely blow."
"Wait...wait." Void sighed, unable to keep pace with Marcus's words.
"Of course!" Marcus shook his head, "Sorry, got ahead of myself, you're the Hive expert. Let me know the plan."
"Relax. There's no Hive conspiracy or some weird Hive Wizard." Void replied.
"What? Then, what did you come here for?" Marcus tilted his head.
"I came to look for you. As it stands, I've heard a few good things about you." Void nodded.
"Wait." Marcus shook his finger at Void, and his eyes narrowed. He pursed his lips and circled Void with suspicion.
"How'd you find me?"
"I've got contacts with the guy who runs the place. Just asked him." Void shrugged.
"You know that guy, huh? That so...that so." Marcus murmured under his breath, still circling Void.
"Why'd you want to meet me anyway?" Marcus quipped.
"You're an inventor, aren't you? I need the skillset for my workshop. I am working on something big right now, and I'll need whoever I can find."
Marcus stopped mid-step and took another glance at him. "Who told you about me?"
"A guy I know. Said he'd....heard of your work in the City a few decades back." Void frowned.
He couldn't exactly tell Marcus about Pahanin, because no one remembered him anymore. Hence, the only thing he could claim was this.
"I know this guy?" Marcus slowly tapped his chin.
"Uh...Don't think you'd kno-." Void frowned, "What the hell are you doing?"
Marcus delicately poked Void's shoulder. "Oh uh..nothing, nothing at all. Continue." But despite his words, Marcus prodded Void's armour a few more times.
Void was flabbergasted, "Are you....are you checking if I'm real?"
"Depends. Can't ever be too careful, what if you're the Hive conspiracy?" Marcus narrowed his eyes and waited for an answer.
"I am...not an illusion." Void slapped his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. For a second, Pahanin's description of Marcus flashed in his mind. He immediately understood why people called him crazy.
"Look, all I want is to ask if you're interested in joining my workshop," Void said again.
"Man, I get that but. Nothing about this makes sense." Marcus pointed at him accusingly.
"I don't know what you are, but you're definitely not Ghostsword."
"And why would that be the case?"
"Well, whatever manner of creature you are, you've made some critical errors in your disguise" Marcus crossed his arms.
Marcus held up a finger, "First. Ghostsword, saying he knows the guy who runs this place? I doubt that. Everyone knows Ghostsword, and that guy have been at odds ever since they met. Heck, Ghostword's first major mission was to hunt him down. Everyone's seen the records."
"Second. There are maybe two other people left who know that I worked for the City at one point. Both have been missing for over a decade. Hence, there's no way you'd know someone who's heard of my work."
"And last." Marcus held up a third finger, " Everyone knows Ghostsword only goes out to hunt down the Hive and occasionally some Fallen. Why would he ever come looking for me?"
"So, for the last time. What are you? Some spectre? A weird illusion made by whatever thing lives here?"
Void was in complete shock. What was he supposed to say? Argue that he wasn't an impostor? Try to deny completely logical claims? His thoughts were jumbled, but at the end of it, there was simply only one way left to prove who he was.
He gently unsheathed the blade, and a pale wisp climbed his fingers, slithering across his arm. The air trembled.
It was a power that illusion could not replicate. A power that seemed to beckon the world.
Marcus felt a chill down his spine. "Holy shi*. You...you're really him! But...but how?"
"Let's not mind the details and just...keep it short. First, what are you doing here?
"Just testing out something." Marcus shrugged.
"So you launched yourself over a toxic lake on a sparrow," Void said.
"Twice," Marcus corrected. "First time I didn't make the lip. Lost a sparrow. Second time got me to that spit there." He jabbed a thumb at a jut of land half a kilometre back. "Today was the third. Third time's the charm."
Obsidian floated between them, gave Marcus a once-over, and made a disapproving little whirr. "You are reckless."
Marcus saluted the Ghost. "You're polite. We're even."
Void looked out over the lake again. The green skin flexed in the wind. Bubbles rose in fat, slow blisters and popped with soft little sighs.
"Why here?" Void asked. "Why the middle of poison?"
Marcus hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked on his heels like he could not hold still if he tried. "I mean, I needed some high stakes," he said. " I picked this spot to test out this new jump feature"
Marcus showed off his boots, and Void immediately recognised them.
'St0mp-EE5'
Or rather stompees. It was an exotic armour piece that one could get to increase their jump height and movement as a hunter. Void knew that Marcus Ren was the creator, but he'd never expected it to start this early.
Void nodded once. "That's...a prototype?"
"Exactly, still a few quirks I gotta work out. But overall, these bad boys do pretty well....Aside from the chance that they'd blow up, of course." Marcus said cheerfully.
"Right." Void nodded softly.
Marcus glanced back at the lake, "You know, thanks for catching me back there. But I'd say with a slightly longer ramp and a better takeoff, I could clear the whole thing next time."
"You won't," Void said.
"I might," Marcus returned.
Void let it go. Because he knew some arguments you didn't win with words.
"Fine. Anyhow, are you interested in joining the workshop?"
"Oh, yeah, I was already on board when you proved who you were. It'd take me some time to pack up, though, so just send me the coordinates and I'll meet you there!" Marcus waved, and before Void could even put in another word, the Hunter transmatted away.
Void facepalmed.
"Did you get his channel contact?" Void murmured.
"Lucky for you, I pinged his ghost." Obsidian chuckled and sent out the message.
"Just..get it over with." Void clicked his wrist and transmatted back to his own ship.
When Pahanin had mentioned that it was the task of a lifetime, he thought there'd be more demands. Or even more resistance.
What he hadn't expected was the conversation itself to take years off his life.
-
A/N: Check out my Patre*n for more!!
patre*n.com/Writers_Ablood
Thank you for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!!!