Chapter 2: Province 472
The wall of water hung before them like something Bullet had never seen—although to be honest, he wasn't quite sure he'd ever seen anything in the first place.
It was gigantic. A floating slab of water, defying every physical principle he instinctively felt must exist. Miles wide, miles high, its boundaries jagged and defined under the green and purple hues of the auroras. Its surface bubbling like a living glass, reflecting back the unearthly lights in forms that hurt the eyes to see for longer than a few seconds at a time.
Province 472 was not a river. Not an ocean. It was an impossible sheet of liquid just floating there in the air, like gravity had just decided it wasn't going to happen here.
Bullet stood in its shadow, gazing up at the glittering wall of water—or whatever it was—his bare feet still streaked with red dust from the red dunes of Province 618. The mist that streamed off the block was cold and heavy, tasting in his nostrils of salt and rust. It clung to his flesh, combining with the desert dust that crusted his blistered feet.
His scar hurt above his heart, that familiar burning thrum that had led him across the desert and into this new impossibility. The tug pulled on him, further into the block, churning in his chest like a fire he couldn't comprehend or control.
His shoulder was sore—the raider's slash was new against Patch's sewn cloak, worn as a badge of loans he'd never pay back. Shard's breathing mask weighed on his body, straps cinched into his flesh, weight pressing down on his bruised ribs.
A whine hummed into existence in the air, mechanical and comforting. Bullet tensed, seeing the interior of the block through the transparent wall. For a moment, he was sure he saw something flash—wings, maybe, metal reflecting light—but then it vanished, nothing more than shadow and the glint of eyes on moving things in the fluid.
The pull increased, driving him forward. His legs splashed through the muck and fog, every step a burning reminder of the pus-filled blisters.
No turning back. Only ahead, always ahead.
---
Bullet cinched the breathing gear, snapping the straps tight for a final inspection. The equipment was clearly recovered—rust dotted the metal mask, and the tank had a weight that was too great. But Shard had supplied it, and he imagined Shard did not part with items easily.
The slash the raider had cut across his shoulder hurt when he moved, fresh blood seeping indistinctly through the makeshift bandage underneath the cloak. He'd have to attend to it now, but not yet. Not now.
His hand strayed to his pocket, tracing the familiar form of the carved object—that circle halved by a broken line. Warm against his thigh, it beat gently whenever his scar flared up. There could be no denying the connection between them, though he had no idea what it was. Something mysterious tied to a past he couldn't remember.
Spark's shard lay beside it, unmarked and softly glowing even through the fabric of his pocket. Province 618 camp debt. A reminder of people who'd taken him in for no reason they had any cause to believe him.
Shard's resolve. Spark's trusting shining eyes. Patch's firm fingers stitching up wounds and keeping things together.
They haunted his mind like specters, weighed down with the memories of those who had not survived. Cowboy's yell as the jaws of the sand maw closed. Rivet's blood welling up in the sand when the raider's spear bit.
Guilt rested upon his shoulders like something solid, more so than the respirator equipment.
No name other than that strangers had given him. No past. Only the pull and the scar, propelling him through a world intent on killing him.
Had he betrayed them by leaving? Shard's camp, making it in the red wilderness—had he abandoned them to whatever awaited them?
The desire was his sole reality, the one thing that was and could not be denied. But beneath, guilt churned, a force he could not shake no matter how far he went.
---He forced the mask onto his head, the rubber ring sealing tight against his skin. The mouthpiece tasted of metal and cold, with a hint of rust and decay. Air hissed into his lungs— stale, but air.
His scar pulsed under the cloak, that reminder of violence he couldn't recall. Had he really been shot by someone? That bullet wound, or not?
The corner of the block loomed over him, its surface rippling gently, glinting with a sound he could feel, not hear. He reached out slowly, half-expecting the liquid to be hard, to deny his hand.
But it yielded.
Jelly-like and mushy, thicker than water but not quite. It pulled at his fingers, drawing this way, and before one could think of turning this way or that, Bullet moved forward through the block.
The water enveloped him in an instant, against his chest, his arms, all over him. The world outside softened—the auroras, the mist, the stone beneath him—all of them a green and purple haze as the pull drew him under.
---The water wasn't water. Bullet knew it immediately.
It was warmer, thicker, and pulsed with something nearly alive. It parted readily to his passage through the water but stuck to his legs and arms, offering resistance that forced every movement to be deliberate.
And yet he was quick here. Quicker than he ever had moved through Province 618's dunes. He sliced through the fluid with an unnatural smoothness, his muscles crying out but his body somehow accustomed to this alien cosmos.
The wound the raider had inflicted on his shoulder ached as he shifted, blood welling forth in thin red ribbons that tainted the fluid around him. Light twisted and distorted strangely—the auroras beyond the ship curled and snapped into gold and violet strands, casting leaping shadows that coiled like living snakes across his sight.
Things crawled in the fog. Small, glassy creatures with metallic spines that glinted in the strange light. Their eyes blazed like hot coals, and up close, Bullet could see that they were a mesh of flesh and technology, circuits laid bare beneath semi-glassy skin.
They swam off from him mostly, their bodies shaking like afraid fish. But not in time enough for one of them. It touched his arm, spines slicing a thin track in his skin. Red blood trickled behind him, mixing with the violet light.
His scar throbbed with a new fire.
A single question bulled past the pain: Why so fast here? And faster and stronger than Shard's scavengers would have been?
There was no moment to learn it, however. The fluid rushed in all directions around him, and at the periphery of his awareness were faces. Cowboy's terror. Patch's unruffled professionalism. Rivet's mulish determination, snuffed out in a flash.
He descended further, the drag acting as a searing compass, his wound pulsed with each stroke. The thickness of the liquid made each breath through the equipment a struggle. The air was bitter, chemical, and was running out—the tank was not infinite, and he had no concept of time.
Then there was the blackout.
His vision blurred, the purple and green haze quivering like a dying brand. A memory etched itself across his mind—fleeting, intense, refusing to be dislodged.
A clutch in the dark, with a sliver pressed against his heart. His scar pounding, raw and wet. A voice speaking coldly: "To end its torment."
Bullet gasped, the mask hissing with air as he sucked it in greedily. The vision faded as swiftly as it had come, leaving only questions and a dull, marrow-deep fear.
Was he human? Or was he a tool?
The pull dragged him along, not permitting him to stop, not permitting him to think. Remorse clung to him like a shadow—Shard's camp abandoned to the wasteland. Spark's shard, an obligation that he could never even partially repay. Patch's cloak, a trust already being broken in leaving.
---The block trembled.
It had started as a low hum, barely detectable, and swelled all at once into a frantic burst. The liquid churned, waves of power rolling outward from before. The vibration which charged all things suddenly shrieked through Bullet's mask, piercing enough to sting his teeth.
Rocks cascaded from somewhere above—or perhaps below, it was hard to tell in the confusing fluid. They created a vortex, a whirlpool of current that pulled at him, pulling him toward its center.
Creatures churned around him, drawn by the commotion or maybe by the blood which continued to seep from his wounds. The backs of them scraped against his thighs, and shallow lacerations stung in the foreign fluid. Blood trailed behind him in wisps, curling in aurora-tinged water.
His scar pulsed like a brand.
His breath caught. The cut the raider had given him on the shoulder reopened from the exertion, fresh blood trickling out. Every stroke through the water was a fight against the current, against the pain, against his own battered body.
He wrapped his fingers around his pipe—he'd been holding on to this the entire time, though he barely realized he had even taken it from camp—and shoved it into a submerged stone boulder. Sparks flashed where metal scraped stone, harsh and shiny even underwater.
His muscles hurt, burning with effort to hold on as the whirlpool struggled to tear him loose. His arms scraped against rocks. His cloak wound itself around his legs. The red blood mingled with the purple fluid, turning into twisted patterns that would be beautiful if they did not indicate just how badly he was bleeding.
A boulder hit his hurt shoulder and pain exploded through him. White, burning, blinding. The mask dropped over his face, and air was fizzing out all of a sudden, valuable oxygen streaming away in a ribbon of silver bubbles.
He pulled the mask tighter with one hand, using the other to push the pipe further into the crevice. Rocks scraped against rocks, the crevice opening wide enough. He kicked as hard as he could, stroking upwards with all remaining strength.
Water in his tank had fallen to critically low levels now, each breath harder than the last one. His wounds burned in the water. But the tug wouldn't release him, burning in his chest like a sun.
The energy was dissipated gradually, the pace of the block reclaimed its natural rhythm. But his conscience dogged him like a real presence—the faces of Province 618, Shard, Spark, and Patch, somehow more oppressive even than the pipe that still weighed him down.
---
The water grew darker as he swam, colder and thicker. It pressed down on his chest like a heavy, living blanket, flexing the muscles. The raider's wound pounded with each stroke, fresh blood welling into the liquid.
And still the pull was growing stronger, its direction clearer. It was pulling him toward something—a dim glow in the distance before him.
A dome.