SUBTLER THAN LIGHT
Episode 8
[Hidden Hearts, Part Eight]
"Skeleton Warriors Just Happen"
by
Gary W. Olson
"I feel the cutting of your cheekbones
On the temple of my skull
The empty space of unlocked ribcage
Once our hearts had made so full"
- The Forgetmenauts,
"An Interlace of Bones"
***
The science lab of the _Subtler Than Light_ wasn't usually this packed, Bonnie Rydell knew. Usually it was just Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle (the bovine chief scientists), Dr. Giuseppe Gigawatt (the terribly brilliant, mildly insane, unnecessarily aromatic human they collaborated with), and assistants such as Shelby d'Rodang (human-size pterodactylish kaiju in a well-tailored lab coat) making the beakers full of colorful liquids bubble and causing the coily apparatus lining the walls to pop and sparkle with electrical surges. And all of them were present, currently clustered around a circular console displaying something inscrutably yet emphatically scientific.
Tonight they were joined by several others. Among them were Zia Azad, a contractor specializing in things conspiratorial and occult, currently pacing the length of the lab and arguing with someone on her phone about who-knew-what. Kid Gothic, the local superguy who'd received a minor injury in a battle that afternoon and had come to the ship to get treated, was hanging out in a corner between a scalar superliminalating dynatron and a suspiciously-overpowered espresso machine, talking at great length about something to Jolene Godziller, another human-sized zilla-ish kaiju who'd been brought in to have injuries treated, and who responded to Kid Gothic's monologuing by passing out. Other STL personnel steadily entered and exited the lab, carrying in lab reports, battery packs, and pizza, then carrying out empty boxes, drained cells, and experiments in need of a quick but thorough defusing.
Bonnie Rydell rubbed her eyes, sighed, and returned her attention to what had been occupying her attention for the past few hours: the massively magnified lines and shapes on the object that was now Hers To Study, on account of the fact that no one else had time, what with the crisis going on and all.
They were either circuits, pictoglyphs, sigils, or maps, depending on the filter setting, she thought. A slight angle change made them look like runes, but only until she looked at them *as* runes, at which point they immediately began resembling an overhead picture of Los Angeles freeways, before looking like circuits again. It was exhausting just trying to get a handle on them.
"What kind of tractor does that go to, Miss Rydell?" asked a sharp young voice.
Bonnie bit her lip to keep from groaning, recalling there was one more person in the lab, with nothing better to do than ask questions. She lowered her smartphone and stared at the surface of the Damn Thing, considering her answer. Most people, if they recognized the dark grey, foot-long, two-and-a-half-inch wide cylindrical object as anything at all, recognized it as a worm gear from an old tractor. (A 1962 diesel tractor stripped for parts in 1989, her mind insisted for no identifiable reason.) What it actually was... the unanswerable question of the many things it serially 'actually' was... was a more complicated matter. She looked up at Camila Veracruz's furry and inquisitive face.
"A tractor of unimaginable cosmic import, I expect," Bonnie answered, "And you can just call me 'Bonnie.'"
"But Dad said..."
"I think surviving demon monkey scrimmages and a sentient Utahraptor on the run entitles us to be on a first-name basis, Camila."
Camila nodded. "Have they found the dinosaur lady yet?"
The 'dinosaur lady' was ki Kazza Malissk, the red-feathered Utahraptor who was the equivalent of a superguy in the underground city she came from, whose theft of the Heart of Mu from the perma-crashed _Subtler Than Light_ had kicked off the day's insanity. After a moment's tired thought, Bonnie decided that wasn't enough to be on a first name basis with her.
"I was only half-paying attention when your mom gave her last update," said Bonnie. "She's on her way to Point Fermin to join her advance team. Thinks this *Sunken City*..." She winced at the inexplicable reverb before continuing. "...she's looking for is out there, and that's where the... ah... dino lady was going. Beyond that..."
"I know," Camila said, supporting her cheeks with her hands and her elbows on the counter where the Damn Thing rested. "Dad said I had to stay here while he and the rest of the pack took jetpacks out there to support them. Which *totally* isn't fair, because I'm part of the pack, too!"
"He wants you to stay safe," Bonnie said, as she leaned in to look at the Damn Thing again. There were inscriptions on one section of the heavy screw section that had looked maddeningly familiar through her technomagical phone's thaumaturgical filtering. If she combined trans-enochian decyphering with an old-timey sepia filter, it was possible...
"He said it was because mom grounded me!" Camila interrupted.
"That never stopped me before," Bonnie distractedly replied. It never had, to the loud chagrin of her mother, who'd grounded her often, or to the intense disapproval of her often-absent father, who rarely grounded her but had his lieutenants watch her as well as they could--which, most of the time, was not well enough. "Now let me focus, please. I'm on the edge of figuring out... well, not what this Damn Thing *is*, but what this new Galaxy Hunter needs it for, and if it's something we want her to have."
She looked up in time to see Camila disappear through the lab's door, barely avoiding knocking over Psywave, who'd just walked in. The red-haired, black-and-red-costumed superguy raised a masked eyebrow-muscle at the running werewolf, then shrugged.
Bonnie sighed. She'd been in the lab for more than half the day, trying to make sense of the strange, ancient-feeling object that had--according to a cranky and slowly-dying Shadebeam Moroboshi--'chosen' her as the one who would... what, exactly? Was she just meant to be a courier for getting it back to Galaxy Hunter, who needed it for reasons no one saw fit to tell her about? Was it more of a free-floating, general-purpose 'choosing' that would see her taking on some sort of empire and maybe blowing up a thing of theirs by chucking it in their garbage disposal? Was it just bored?
Dr. Gigawatt, who'd joined her at the start of her examinations, had been moderately helpful in telling her what he knew of the Damn Thing's history, at least so far as it had intersected with Vice President Quayle's ambitions and the Awesome Force's, the Defense Squad's, and Team Cynical's heroics in the late twentieth century. No less a scientific genius than Andy Awesome had led efforts to understand what it 'really' was and what it could do. That explanation had been couched in terms of something called 'Quantum Absurdity,' which Gigawatt glossed over as if Bonnie knew what the hell he was talking about. But he had to admit that investigations of the Damn Thing as a potential occult object had never been conducted--unless Team Cynical had done so and just never bothered to make notes about it.
As her phone's ScrySpy Pro app scanned the Damn Thing for known magical artifacts, including but not limited to sigils, signs, portents, nano-sized Old Crones, and portals to nether dimensions, she felt the weariness in her bones. She wasn't a superguy, damn it all. Just a part-time technomage and full-time bookstore owner who'd gotten roped into the day's drama by a Utahraptor who'd inconsiderately made her bookstore the meeting place between her and Bonnie's brother, Lemon, a nu-M.I.B. agent who's sudden return to her life was only contributing to the churn in her head. She didn't owe Galaxy Hunter *anything*. She didn't own *these people* anything. She didn't even owe Miguel Veracruz anything, though he was at least her friend.
So why had she volunteered to go to Malaga, she asked herself. Why had she accepted responsibility for getting something, anything, out of the Damn Thing, as Cendra Seconds had charged her to do before leaving for the 'Sunken City?' If Miguel had asked, she could at least point to that, since true friends were everything to her, but he hadn't. Cendra, meanwhile, would probably have been happy to see her go away, given that it had been Miguel's cheating on her with Bonnie that led to their divorce. And she hadn't known anyone else on the _Subtler Than Light_ before today.
"Skipping out is Lemon's game," she decided under her breath, as she switched to an ultraviolet filter that also added jaunty top hats to some of the more arch microscopic engravings her phone was reading. "Maybe I'm not gonna save a city, but I can do *this*, at least... so I'm gonna."
"Glad to hear it," said Psywave, from over her left shoulder. "What've you found so far?"
Bonnie gritted her teeth, exhaled, and looked up at Psywave's face as she moved around to get a better look at the Damn Thing. Settling in roughly the same place where Camila had been only a few minutes before, Psywave frowned thoughtfully at the Thing before looking up at Bonnie.
"It's... complicated," Bonnie said. "By which I mean, I'm getting roughly several dozen indications of extreme age, extreme inscrutability, and extreme mutability. *All* of which are deeply contradictory and suspect."
She stared at her phone screen blankly for a moment before shutting down the app.
"Or maybe you could just *tell* me what it's about."
Psywave looked momentarily taken aback. Though her eyes were hidden by the mask over the top half of her face, the way her skin flexed beneath its clinging fabric suggested she'd been startled.
A sensation tickled the back of Bonnie's neck. She felt as if she *knew* Psywave from somewhere. But... how?
"The woman inside that armor needs it," said Psywave, as she brushed back a strand of her artificially-red hair. "The armor she's got on... comes from the metal in that elevator that crashed outside of Malaga thirty-three years ago. The one that Burning M00se centers around now."
"I *know* what it is," Bonnie snapped. "I grew *up* there. Ancient elevator from the dawn of time, used by insanity-inducing entities for unfathomable purposes, etcetera, etcetera. I used a less-advanced, cheaper technomagic screen then to look at the metal for funsies, and got nothing like what I see on this Damn Thing... at least in the three seconds before my screen crumbled to glass dust and my phone made a sound like it was making a 9600-baud phone connection with Cthulhu's porn server before bricking."
Psywave's eyes narrowed. At least, her covered eyebrows made 'my eyes just narrowed' flexes.
"You take a new look at Hunter's armor," Psywave said, "you *will* see things." She paused, weighing her words. "Things Shadebeam wrote on it, to make it... work... with this."
"What... why didn't she just tell us this?"
"Don't know," Psywave admitted. "Wasn't there today. Had her reasons, I'm sure." She shook her head, and Bonnie had a feeling she was at least as exhausted as Bonnie felt. But she wasn't about to stop. "Look... would it be okay if I took it to her? I may not understand it, but I know she needs it, and it'll go really badly for her if she doesn't get it tonight. *Soon,* tonight."
Bonnie closed her eyes. She couldn't *think*, for crying out loud.
A loud scrape accompanied by a sad trombone sound snapped her eyes open.
Psywave stood still, her hand still over the area where the Damn Thing had been. The Thing itself was no longer there.
"What did you *do*?" Bonnie asked, angrily, drawing looks from everyone else in the vicinity. She looked around and saw the Damn Thing hovering next to the transparent tank that housed the flesh-eating spore cloud named Tony. Tony said nothing... at least nothing she could hear, but she could see its amorphous form pressing against the side of the tank farthest from the Thing, vibrating with what Bonnie could only guess was fear.
"Hey," said Gigawatt, breaking away from where he'd been with Bhossi and coming over. "Since when could that Thing fly around on its own?"
"Stay," Bonnie said. Gigawatt stopped moving forward, though she'd actually directed the word toward the Damn Thing itself. She didn't know why... but she was sure it, or something within it, understood her. "We need you. This... this Galaxy Hunter... needs you."
She advanced to within a step of where it hovered. It was twisting-without-moving in her sight again, but unlike the first time in Malaga, it didn't hurt inside her head so much as give her shivers. When she wrapped her fingers around it, its weight suddenly returned, as if it abruptly relaxed. This time, she was ready for it, and kept it from hitting the ground.
"Are you... can you talk to it?" Psywave asked.
"I think I just did," Bonnie replied. "I'm not sure if it understood, or..."
"Can you get it back into the case you brought it in with?" Psywave went on. "If it won't let me touch it, maybe if I get it to Hunter that way, she can handle the rest."
Bonnie considered the Damn Thing. It was making a small sound. Not quite humming...
"I appreciate it," said Bonnie. "But no. It chose me... and I *have* to see this through. Which means getting it to Hunter myself."
"Er..."
"With a little help," Bonnie admitted. "I don't have a car, much less any other way of getting to Point Fermin. Tuber went down earlier tonight, don't know why, but they say they won't be up 'till morning..."
"I can get you there," said Psywave. "You... sure you want to do this? It's gonna be dangerous, and that's just me flying with a passenger. What's waiting for us... could be *really* bad."
"What friends I have, I don't let down," said Bonnie. "Ever."
She realized she was looking down at the Damn Thing as she spoke. Something tingled again on the back of her neck.
"Before you go," said Gigawatt, as he partially turned and waved to the group at Bhossi's desk. "There's something you should take with you."
Zia Azad broke away from Bhossi's group and came over. Bonnie saw there was a bottle in her hand.
"They're heading out to Point Fermin," said Gigawatt without preamble. "They can get it to China for you."
Zia blinked. "But Cendra told us to focus on..."
"...and you can focus *better* by not being distracted by that bottle," Gigawatt finished. "You said yourself she was the only one who could confirm... and that she would when she sees what was under that label that came off."
"Right," said Zia, though she was clearly skeptical. She looked back and forth from Psywave to Bonnie. "So, who wants it?"
"I had Sindal and Mec bring my jacket over after they locked up my store," said Bonnie, gesturing to a brown jacket with a surprising number of zippers. "It looks cheap, I know, but it keeps my stuff safe and unbroken."
Zia handed Bonnie the bottle.
"Good luck," Zia said, as she turned to go back to Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle. "When you see China, tell her the portents are more portentous than ever."
Bonnie blinked.
"Never mind," Zia sighed.
"You ready?" Psywave asked.
"Aren't we going to the top deck?" asked Bonnie, as she stowed her phone and the bottle in the jacket she put on.
"Doctor?" asked Psywave. "You... must have a quick exit from here. I mean... it stands to... reason?"
Gigawatt's eyes narrowed.
"How... never mind," he said. He dashed through the door that led to his private sanctum. A few seconds later, the window next to Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle's group retracted into the wall, startling everyone there.
"Doctor!" Bhossi yelled through the speaker on her bovine neck. "Now is not the time to launch a yarn raid on Hobby Lobby again!"
"Not for me!" Gigawatt exclaimed, as he rushed back into the room. "For them!"
"Thanks, Doc!" said Psywave, who then looked at Bonnie. "Again... you ready?"
"As I'll ever be," said Bonnie, as she closed her jacket over her front. The weight of the Damn Thing pressed against her chest and belly. She whispered a word, and the jacket abruptly tightened about her waist. When she released her hands, the Thing sagged a bit, but was held firm at belt level. A ping sound came from the pocket she'd stuffed her phone in. "So do I climb on your back, or are we doing that 'take my hand and dreamily fly through the open air over the city' thing, or... hrrrrrruuuuUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
They were through the open lab window before Bonnie's scream trailed off. Bonnie watched the night-lit _Subtler Than Light_ recede under Psywave's shoulder as they gained altitude and speed. The Damn Thing dug hard into her front as the arm beneath it held her firm. The other arm, hooked under one thigh, dug someplace where she wasn't fond of things digging.
"This is *not* how you carry someone in your arms!" she yelled, as Psywave banked left and brought the rising moon into view. "*Not* upside down! Haven't you ever--"
"You were angled wrong and I was in a hurry!" Psywave interrupted. "Now hang on, I can get us to the *Sunken City* in minutes if I go all out!"
"Just turn me oveeeeerrrrrrraaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
***
*It's about *time* you got here.*
China Moroboshi looked down at the ten-year-old blonde-haired girl in the pink sun dress and white sun hat with all the exasperation she felt, plus some extra because the occasion demanded it. She stepped off the fluttering chain-link ladder and onto the sand without a word to the apparition. She gave the pilot a wave, indicating she was clear and he could depart.
As the black-and-red Harxxon transport chopper ascended into the near-dark sky, China heard a familiar rasp.
*I don't think she's happy to see us, Kyoko,* said young China.
Adult China spotted the immaterial image of the ten-year-old bone white girl she had once been, crouched in the sand next to Kyoko, fashioning the image of a sand castle. It was a surprisingly complex castle, one that apparently held together due to how much blood Kyoko was letting drip from her apparently-bear-mauled arm onto it.
"This is the right place," China said. "Those two little fuckers started right in on me already. The Heart of Mu must be in the vicinity."
"Great," answered Cendra Seconds, her tone implying some degree of less-than-greatness in the news. "Remember they're not really you, and act accordingly."
*What does that mean?* asked young China, as she shaped another gore-glittery sand turret.
*I don't see how you can act accordingly,* Kyoko said, looking up at adult China. *You can't stab us at all.*
"And you can't stab me," adult China noted.
*Says you.*
China fought down a chill, and turned away from her invisible-to-everyone-else visitors to the others who had disembarked from Harxxon's transport.
Trice Maddox, the _Subtler Than Light's_ Chief Engineer, was directing her staff in setting up several dark metallic rods in various points around a section of warped air twenty yards wide. It wasn't aetheric tech--that tended not to work too far away from the STL--but it was the product of the STL science crew's collective tech genius-slash-madness, and Maddox had become proficient out of necessity at getting their equipment to work in the real world. Her assistant, Hector Marcowicz, waved to them from the far end of the boundary being set up.
"The force field should be good to go in six minutes," Trice said as China approached. "It should keep out the curiousity-seekers for as long as you need." She gestured to the half-dozen scuzzy onlookers watching from the nearby rocks, and the others looking down from higher up the cliffside. "The terrain really isn't great for this sort of thing, but it'll hold."
"Thanks, Trice," said China. "Sorry to keep you all day and night on this..."
"Are you kidding?" Trice asked, giving her a wink. "For the triple-overtime pay Harxxon agreed to, this is all right." She waved to the hazy air within the boundary they were setting up. "Cendra just went in. Probably should scoot in yourself before we switch it on."
*Ladies don't scoot,* said Kyoko.
*We're not ladies,* young China rasped.
Adult China bit back her sigh, nodded to Trice, and waved to Marty Steinmetz, the black-furred werepanther, and Moon Moon, the buff, blond-furred werewolf, whose imposing presences kept the onlookers from attempting more than onlooking. Then she stepped through the warped air... and saw the statue.
In many respects, it was identical to the version that could still be found in a park in Hamilton, Ohio--the only version known, if barely, to the general public. Twelve feet tall, square and two feet to a side at the base, narrowing to one foot to a side about halfway up, where it met a spherical shape with a large hole through it. It even had plaques, though the language of the inscriptions wasn't English here, rather an ancient script that caused China to again shudder.
So far as China knew, unlike the one in Ohio, which had been a grave marker for Hollow Earth theory expounder John Cleeve Symmes Jr, this statue wasn't a marker for anything. It also pulsed ominously, which the version in Ohio never did, so far as anyone noticed.
"Is this the monument you saw?" she asked Johnny Clark, who was standing only a couple feet away. The midnight-blue-haired young man nodded, still looking a bit out-of-it.
"And the rocks and lighthouse," said Johnny. "Not sure how you found the location from just that."
China watched Kyoko saunter up to Johnny and attempt to slap his thigh. She suppressed a grin when her hand passed through him.
*Just my luck,* Kyoko said. *Find a stack of mighty beef like this and I'm put on a strict non-corporeality diet.*
"We had it down to the coast south of Los Angeles," Cendra Seconds noted, as she emerged from behind the statue. "'Lighthouse' helped... but when we found something about a lighthouse next to a Sunken City... well, there it was."
"Yeah," said Miguel Veracruz, who emerged with her. "Who knew the *Sunken City* was... well... the Sunken City?"
*Am I the only one who did the assigned reading?* young China asked.
On the trip from the _Subtler Than Light_ in Venice Beach and the place they were in now, a place on the San Pedro coast called Point Fermin, Cendra gave the shortest version she could of the story. A landslide in 1929 sent several wood frame homes crashing down to sea level. Remains of the concrete foundations, sanitation systems, piping, and curbs were still visible, though coated in layers of spray paint visited upon them by explorers of abandoned places through the years, despite the area having been fenced off and the threat of heavy fines for sneaking in. Its safety was questionable, its trespassing enforcement was spotty, and its bizarre beauty, both natural and artistic, had led to it becoming a minor--albeit illegal--tourist attraction that came to be known as the Sunken City. Even though the 'City' part was doing some heavy lifting.
"Maybe I should have," said Manny Seconds, who China realized had been standing quietly to her left, alongside Karina Selanova. "In Cartier's journal, the path to the Charnel House came into being in East Gothopolis's Sailortown, years after a sinkhole wrecked the docks and forced shipping to go... well. It was a hard-to-get-to place like this, on a shore, where only people who had nothing else tried to live."
As he spoke, Manny's two Secret Service agents skittered (as well as their tailored suits allowed) to flank him and Karina. Their impassive faces regarded China and everyone else in the vicinity with professional concern. Their gold compound eyes caught the l.e.d. glow from lights set up at the camp's perimeter. One chittered at another, who twitched.
"Not to hurry along the discussion," Karina interrupted, "but I got word from ops that there was unusual activity in this area in the last few hours. And I found one of these." She held up a small necktie, of the kind China recognized from that morning, having seen them around the necks of some of the Demon Monkeys trying to obtain the Heart of Mu. "The nu-M.I.B. made it here ahead of us."
"Is that really what we're calling it?" asked Dr. Erin McCavish, who broke away from a small group of people (three human, one Megaloon) in medical-looking white garments to join them. "New Mibbies?"
"Noobs," Manny observed.
"Or noobies," China suggested.
*Tubular noobulars,* Kyoko tried.
"Shouldn't Esteban and your pack-mates be back already, Miguel?" Manny asked, after not hearing Kyoko at all, and giving China's suggestion a polite wince.
"Esteban should be back any minute to report on what Apples and Miko and he found," Miguel confirmed, looking back at something behind the statue. "Then we can go in... if you're sure you want to, Un... Manny."
"I've got to go in," Manny said, "at least part way. There's something personal Chal wants me to confirm."
"And we'll be guarding him," Karina noted, indicating herself and the Secret Service agents, "while I confirm some other things regarding the composition of these... Noobs... who I expect are already within."
"Gonna be a bit awkward if we have to explain to people what the active Secretary of Defense is doing on an op like this," said Cendra.
"They won't know," said Karina. "It's not like I'm putting it in a Signal chat."
*I bet *we* know why,* said young China, nodding up at Adult China.
Adult China nodded back, as she gave Karina Selanova a studying look. Though decades had passed since Karina had been an M.I.B. Special Special Agent charged with pursuing the notorious fugitives, Radian and Shadebeam (and China, then an immaterial entity in Radian's bloodstream), across the world, and though Karina had, in the end, come through as an ally against both her former employers and the manipulative, would-be-universe-remaking sentience known as ARCANA, they had never worked easily together after China acquired a physical adult body and they both went to work for Chalandra Harkness at Harxxon. Less still after China stepped down as V.P. and joined Cendra on the _Subtler Than Light._
Karina didn't react to China's appraising look, anymore than she'd heard China's suggestion of a hidden motive, but China felt sure she'd noticed. Not that the motive was especially hidden--Karina's antipathy toward the secretive group that was claiming to be the revival of her former espionage organization was nothing new.
"Two minutes!" called Trice from the other side of the wall of haze. "Anyone in that should be out, or vice versa, get yourselves sorted now!"
"Here comes Esteban now!" Johnny yelled.
A second later, Esteban Veracruz, his lower half propelled by the much-too-big armored battle-pants known as Los Pantalones, soared out from behind the statue. He landed before Miguel, already rushing his words.
"It's freaky in there," Esteban said. "There's werewolves and skeleton warriors with cutlasses running around and demon monkeys 'porting around and it's so easy to lose track of where you are and..." he shook his head and looked at Miguel. "Apples says she smelled August Rydell. Says to follow her and she'll lead you to him."
Miguel grimly smiled. "Then let's..."
"The Heart of Mu is the priority," Cendra interrupted.
*That and great savings at Menard's,* young China noted.
"If getting to August gets us that, great," Cendra went on, "but we've got to lock that down first. Otherwise--"
"Incoming!" yelled Marty, from the other side of the hazy air boundary.
"--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAuuuuuuuuuiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."
It took China a moment to realize that the strange, multi-limbed being that set down between her and the statue was in fact two separate humanoid beings. One of them, Psywave, was trying to set down her passenger, Bonnie Rydell, a task made more difficult by the fact that Bonnie had a leg curled beneath Psywave's armpit, and had somehow contorted the rest of her body so that her arms were around Psywave's neck from the back and her chin was hooked over Psywave's shoulder.
Bonnie dropped from the staggering Psywave and wobbled a few moments before standing upright and accepting Johnny's steadying hand. She ignored the warning chirps and chitters from the Agents.
"Hiya!" Bonnie said, her chipper tone wavering in time with her knees. She unzipped a jacket pocket, pulled out a brown glass bottle, and unsteadily tossed it at China. "This is for you... I think? Your lady Zia said you needed to see it." She wobbled once more, then firmly stood.
China caught the bottle, but kept her eyes on Bonnie and Psywave.
"Oh, and your portents are totes portentous or something," Bonnie added. "But I'm sure you get that all the time."
China briefly smiled.
"Sorry, everyone," said Psywave, as she glared at Bonnie. "Had to get here before... sorry, my ears are still ringing..."
"Then learn how to carry a passenger!" Bonnie shouted at her.
Suddenly, her jacket bulged.
*Saaay,* Kyoko saaayed.
"Okay, okay!" Bonnie said, looking down at the cylindrical form threatening to ruin her jacket's zipper. "We're here, now what--"
"You guys okay in here?" asked Moon Moon, as he bounded through the haze barrier. He paused on seeing Bonnie. "Oh, hi, Bourbon!" he exclaimed, a dopey grin breaking across his blond-furred canine features. "Was that you screaming? Who's your friend?"
"Psywave," said Psywave, essaying a tired (non-Psy) wave.
*Hey, cuz,* said young China.
Adult China frowned. 'Cuz?' she thought, as she considered Psywave.
"Great, everyone's here," Cendra said, sounding like someone keeping her patience in a chokehold to keep it from escaping. "Bonnie, is that the Damn Thing in your jacket, or are you just happy to see us? Did you get the answers I told you to get?"
"A few answers and a lot more questions," said Bonnie. "But Galaxy Hunter's life's at stake without it, and I'm the only one who can get it to her. So--"
"Fifteen seconds!" Trice called from outside the barrier. "Moon Moon, get back he--"
"Incoming again!" Marty yelled.
"--eeeeeeoooooOOOOOOEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAeeeeeeeee!"
This time, the yell was higher-pitched and continuous. A jet pack at full thrust streaked down from the night sky, carrying a brown-furred girl who looked to be about half the size the jet pack was made for. She corkscrewed around the statue, scattering Manny, Karina, Cendra, Miguel, China, Moon Moon, and everyone else, before plunging into the cavernous entrance to the Path of Bone.
Cendra looked up, alarmed. "Was that--?"
"It was!" Miguel answered. "Camila... I told her to stay in the Science Lab with the Mu'kaos! I even locked down her fitted jetpack!"
With a *thrum* sound, the force field snapped into existence, coating the sky around the encampment with a bluish light.
"So she got one that didn't fit," said Cendra, as she got to her feet. "But how did she get all the way here?"
*Practice!* young China and Kyoko chorused.
Psywave and Bonnie looked at one another. Cendra looked at them, and groaned.
"She followed you two," China said, before Cendra could. "And now she's in..."
Miguel snarled, then bounded through the opening to the Path. Cendra sprinted after him. Esteban flew in as well, immediately followed by a loping Moon Moon.
"Sorry!" Bonnie called after them. "We didn't... hey! Down, boy!"
The Damn Thing pulled at Bonnie's jacket so hard it forced Bonnie to stumble toward the entrance. Psywave grabbed her jacket just before Bonnie's feet left the ground, and both flew into the Path entrance at an increasing speed. Johnny Clark muttered something under his breath and ran after them.
"Go on!" Erin called. "I'll follow when the medpacks are ready!"
"Got a feeling we'll need them," said Manny. He looked up at Karina. "Shall we, my dear?"
Karina took his arm and escorted him into the Path as fast as Manny could hobble, followed by his skittering service detail. The sound of his cane on the rock vanished the instant he was out of sight.
*Hey, lady we used to be!* young China called to adult China. *Are we going to join this badly-thought-out bumrush of danger or what?*
*Yeah!* Kyoko added. *All the best decapitations will be over if we wait!*
China eyed the youthful apparitions with a mix of annoyance and suspicion, before sighing and starting for the entrance. She stopped on realizing she was still holding the bottle Bonnie had tossed to her. Reluctantly, she stopped and lifted it to her eyes.
Before, she remembered, the bottles had all had a label showing the eleven-step antlered pyramid that was the calling card of the supposedly-destroyed M00se Illuminati. The label on this bottle, however, was mostly gone, having evidently been soaked off. China spun the bottle in her hands, trying to see whatever it was Zia wanted her to see.
Her last turn brought up something etched directly into the bottle glass.
It was a hieroglyph of a cow exploding.
China felt her heart freeze and her neck tingle.
*And let's not even get into what her spleen's doing,* Kyoko added.
"Not *these* guys again," China groaned.
*Which guys?* China asked.
*You know, *these* guys,* said Kyoko. *Pay attention, twerp.*
"I thought the Dis/Order was..." adult China went on. "...no, they weren't destroyed, they just... vanished... after Mom and Aunt Shade and I went into the TransDemense for the first time. And things got so crazy after we never stopped to figure out what happened to them."
*Gee,* rasped young China. *It's almost like the Author forgot about them all those years ago.*
[Young China, Kyoko, and Adult China paused and gave an exasperated look through the fourth wall to you, the reader.]
"Gotta let Cendra know about this," said China, as she sprinted for the entrance. "Erin, you're in charge till I or Cendra get back!"
"Wait!" called Erin, who had no idea what China had just figured out. "Where--"
But then China was through--
--and immediately found herself staring into her own empty eye sockets.
Episode 8
[Hidden Hearts, Part Eight]
"Skeleton Warriors Just Happen"
by
Gary W. Olson
"I feel the cutting of your cheekbones
On the temple of my skull
The empty space of unlocked ribcage
Once our hearts had made so full"
- The Forgetmenauts,
"An Interlace of Bones"
***
The science lab of the _Subtler Than Light_ wasn't usually this packed, Bonnie Rydell knew. Usually it was just Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle (the bovine chief scientists), Dr. Giuseppe Gigawatt (the terribly brilliant, mildly insane, unnecessarily aromatic human they collaborated with), and assistants such as Shelby d'Rodang (human-size pterodactylish kaiju in a well-tailored lab coat) making the beakers full of colorful liquids bubble and causing the coily apparatus lining the walls to pop and sparkle with electrical surges. And all of them were present, currently clustered around a circular console displaying something inscrutably yet emphatically scientific.
Tonight they were joined by several others. Among them were Zia Azad, a contractor specializing in things conspiratorial and occult, currently pacing the length of the lab and arguing with someone on her phone about who-knew-what. Kid Gothic, the local superguy who'd received a minor injury in a battle that afternoon and had come to the ship to get treated, was hanging out in a corner between a scalar superliminalating dynatron and a suspiciously-overpowered espresso machine, talking at great length about something to Jolene Godziller, another human-sized zilla-ish kaiju who'd been brought in to have injuries treated, and who responded to Kid Gothic's monologuing by passing out. Other STL personnel steadily entered and exited the lab, carrying in lab reports, battery packs, and pizza, then carrying out empty boxes, drained cells, and experiments in need of a quick but thorough defusing.
Bonnie Rydell rubbed her eyes, sighed, and returned her attention to what had been occupying her attention for the past few hours: the massively magnified lines and shapes on the object that was now Hers To Study, on account of the fact that no one else had time, what with the crisis going on and all.
They were either circuits, pictoglyphs, sigils, or maps, depending on the filter setting, she thought. A slight angle change made them look like runes, but only until she looked at them *as* runes, at which point they immediately began resembling an overhead picture of Los Angeles freeways, before looking like circuits again. It was exhausting just trying to get a handle on them.
"What kind of tractor does that go to, Miss Rydell?" asked a sharp young voice.
Bonnie bit her lip to keep from groaning, recalling there was one more person in the lab, with nothing better to do than ask questions. She lowered her smartphone and stared at the surface of the Damn Thing, considering her answer. Most people, if they recognized the dark grey, foot-long, two-and-a-half-inch wide cylindrical object as anything at all, recognized it as a worm gear from an old tractor. (A 1962 diesel tractor stripped for parts in 1989, her mind insisted for no identifiable reason.) What it actually was... the unanswerable question of the many things it serially 'actually' was... was a more complicated matter. She looked up at Camila Veracruz's furry and inquisitive face.
"A tractor of unimaginable cosmic import, I expect," Bonnie answered, "And you can just call me 'Bonnie.'"
"But Dad said..."
"I think surviving demon monkey scrimmages and a sentient Utahraptor on the run entitles us to be on a first-name basis, Camila."
Camila nodded. "Have they found the dinosaur lady yet?"
The 'dinosaur lady' was ki Kazza Malissk, the red-feathered Utahraptor who was the equivalent of a superguy in the underground city she came from, whose theft of the Heart of Mu from the perma-crashed _Subtler Than Light_ had kicked off the day's insanity. After a moment's tired thought, Bonnie decided that wasn't enough to be on a first name basis with her.
"I was only half-paying attention when your mom gave her last update," said Bonnie. "She's on her way to Point Fermin to join her advance team. Thinks this *Sunken City*..." She winced at the inexplicable reverb before continuing. "...she's looking for is out there, and that's where the... ah... dino lady was going. Beyond that..."
"I know," Camila said, supporting her cheeks with her hands and her elbows on the counter where the Damn Thing rested. "Dad said I had to stay here while he and the rest of the pack took jetpacks out there to support them. Which *totally* isn't fair, because I'm part of the pack, too!"
"He wants you to stay safe," Bonnie said, as she leaned in to look at the Damn Thing again. There were inscriptions on one section of the heavy screw section that had looked maddeningly familiar through her technomagical phone's thaumaturgical filtering. If she combined trans-enochian decyphering with an old-timey sepia filter, it was possible...
"He said it was because mom grounded me!" Camila interrupted.
"That never stopped me before," Bonnie distractedly replied. It never had, to the loud chagrin of her mother, who'd grounded her often, or to the intense disapproval of her often-absent father, who rarely grounded her but had his lieutenants watch her as well as they could--which, most of the time, was not well enough. "Now let me focus, please. I'm on the edge of figuring out... well, not what this Damn Thing *is*, but what this new Galaxy Hunter needs it for, and if it's something we want her to have."
She looked up in time to see Camila disappear through the lab's door, barely avoiding knocking over Psywave, who'd just walked in. The red-haired, black-and-red-costumed superguy raised a masked eyebrow-muscle at the running werewolf, then shrugged.
Bonnie sighed. She'd been in the lab for more than half the day, trying to make sense of the strange, ancient-feeling object that had--according to a cranky and slowly-dying Shadebeam Moroboshi--'chosen' her as the one who would... what, exactly? Was she just meant to be a courier for getting it back to Galaxy Hunter, who needed it for reasons no one saw fit to tell her about? Was it more of a free-floating, general-purpose 'choosing' that would see her taking on some sort of empire and maybe blowing up a thing of theirs by chucking it in their garbage disposal? Was it just bored?
Dr. Gigawatt, who'd joined her at the start of her examinations, had been moderately helpful in telling her what he knew of the Damn Thing's history, at least so far as it had intersected with Vice President Quayle's ambitions and the Awesome Force's, the Defense Squad's, and Team Cynical's heroics in the late twentieth century. No less a scientific genius than Andy Awesome had led efforts to understand what it 'really' was and what it could do. That explanation had been couched in terms of something called 'Quantum Absurdity,' which Gigawatt glossed over as if Bonnie knew what the hell he was talking about. But he had to admit that investigations of the Damn Thing as a potential occult object had never been conducted--unless Team Cynical had done so and just never bothered to make notes about it.
As her phone's ScrySpy Pro app scanned the Damn Thing for known magical artifacts, including but not limited to sigils, signs, portents, nano-sized Old Crones, and portals to nether dimensions, she felt the weariness in her bones. She wasn't a superguy, damn it all. Just a part-time technomage and full-time bookstore owner who'd gotten roped into the day's drama by a Utahraptor who'd inconsiderately made her bookstore the meeting place between her and Bonnie's brother, Lemon, a nu-M.I.B. agent who's sudden return to her life was only contributing to the churn in her head. She didn't owe Galaxy Hunter *anything*. She didn't own *these people* anything. She didn't even owe Miguel Veracruz anything, though he was at least her friend.
So why had she volunteered to go to Malaga, she asked herself. Why had she accepted responsibility for getting something, anything, out of the Damn Thing, as Cendra Seconds had charged her to do before leaving for the 'Sunken City?' If Miguel had asked, she could at least point to that, since true friends were everything to her, but he hadn't. Cendra, meanwhile, would probably have been happy to see her go away, given that it had been Miguel's cheating on her with Bonnie that led to their divorce. And she hadn't known anyone else on the _Subtler Than Light_ before today.
"Skipping out is Lemon's game," she decided under her breath, as she switched to an ultraviolet filter that also added jaunty top hats to some of the more arch microscopic engravings her phone was reading. "Maybe I'm not gonna save a city, but I can do *this*, at least... so I'm gonna."
"Glad to hear it," said Psywave, from over her left shoulder. "What've you found so far?"
Bonnie gritted her teeth, exhaled, and looked up at Psywave's face as she moved around to get a better look at the Damn Thing. Settling in roughly the same place where Camila had been only a few minutes before, Psywave frowned thoughtfully at the Thing before looking up at Bonnie.
"It's... complicated," Bonnie said. "By which I mean, I'm getting roughly several dozen indications of extreme age, extreme inscrutability, and extreme mutability. *All* of which are deeply contradictory and suspect."
She stared at her phone screen blankly for a moment before shutting down the app.
"Or maybe you could just *tell* me what it's about."
Psywave looked momentarily taken aback. Though her eyes were hidden by the mask over the top half of her face, the way her skin flexed beneath its clinging fabric suggested she'd been startled.
A sensation tickled the back of Bonnie's neck. She felt as if she *knew* Psywave from somewhere. But... how?
"The woman inside that armor needs it," said Psywave, as she brushed back a strand of her artificially-red hair. "The armor she's got on... comes from the metal in that elevator that crashed outside of Malaga thirty-three years ago. The one that Burning M00se centers around now."
"I *know* what it is," Bonnie snapped. "I grew *up* there. Ancient elevator from the dawn of time, used by insanity-inducing entities for unfathomable purposes, etcetera, etcetera. I used a less-advanced, cheaper technomagic screen then to look at the metal for funsies, and got nothing like what I see on this Damn Thing... at least in the three seconds before my screen crumbled to glass dust and my phone made a sound like it was making a 9600-baud phone connection with Cthulhu's porn server before bricking."
Psywave's eyes narrowed. At least, her covered eyebrows made 'my eyes just narrowed' flexes.
"You take a new look at Hunter's armor," Psywave said, "you *will* see things." She paused, weighing her words. "Things Shadebeam wrote on it, to make it... work... with this."
"What... why didn't she just tell us this?"
"Don't know," Psywave admitted. "Wasn't there today. Had her reasons, I'm sure." She shook her head, and Bonnie had a feeling she was at least as exhausted as Bonnie felt. But she wasn't about to stop. "Look... would it be okay if I took it to her? I may not understand it, but I know she needs it, and it'll go really badly for her if she doesn't get it tonight. *Soon,* tonight."
Bonnie closed her eyes. She couldn't *think*, for crying out loud.
A loud scrape accompanied by a sad trombone sound snapped her eyes open.
Psywave stood still, her hand still over the area where the Damn Thing had been. The Thing itself was no longer there.
"What did you *do*?" Bonnie asked, angrily, drawing looks from everyone else in the vicinity. She looked around and saw the Damn Thing hovering next to the transparent tank that housed the flesh-eating spore cloud named Tony. Tony said nothing... at least nothing she could hear, but she could see its amorphous form pressing against the side of the tank farthest from the Thing, vibrating with what Bonnie could only guess was fear.
"Hey," said Gigawatt, breaking away from where he'd been with Bhossi and coming over. "Since when could that Thing fly around on its own?"
"Stay," Bonnie said. Gigawatt stopped moving forward, though she'd actually directed the word toward the Damn Thing itself. She didn't know why... but she was sure it, or something within it, understood her. "We need you. This... this Galaxy Hunter... needs you."
She advanced to within a step of where it hovered. It was twisting-without-moving in her sight again, but unlike the first time in Malaga, it didn't hurt inside her head so much as give her shivers. When she wrapped her fingers around it, its weight suddenly returned, as if it abruptly relaxed. This time, she was ready for it, and kept it from hitting the ground.
"Are you... can you talk to it?" Psywave asked.
"I think I just did," Bonnie replied. "I'm not sure if it understood, or..."
"Can you get it back into the case you brought it in with?" Psywave went on. "If it won't let me touch it, maybe if I get it to Hunter that way, she can handle the rest."
Bonnie considered the Damn Thing. It was making a small sound. Not quite humming...
"I appreciate it," said Bonnie. "But no. It chose me... and I *have* to see this through. Which means getting it to Hunter myself."
"Er..."
"With a little help," Bonnie admitted. "I don't have a car, much less any other way of getting to Point Fermin. Tuber went down earlier tonight, don't know why, but they say they won't be up 'till morning..."
"I can get you there," said Psywave. "You... sure you want to do this? It's gonna be dangerous, and that's just me flying with a passenger. What's waiting for us... could be *really* bad."
"What friends I have, I don't let down," said Bonnie. "Ever."
She realized she was looking down at the Damn Thing as she spoke. Something tingled again on the back of her neck.
"Before you go," said Gigawatt, as he partially turned and waved to the group at Bhossi's desk. "There's something you should take with you."
Zia Azad broke away from Bhossi's group and came over. Bonnie saw there was a bottle in her hand.
"They're heading out to Point Fermin," said Gigawatt without preamble. "They can get it to China for you."
Zia blinked. "But Cendra told us to focus on..."
"...and you can focus *better* by not being distracted by that bottle," Gigawatt finished. "You said yourself she was the only one who could confirm... and that she would when she sees what was under that label that came off."
"Right," said Zia, though she was clearly skeptical. She looked back and forth from Psywave to Bonnie. "So, who wants it?"
"I had Sindal and Mec bring my jacket over after they locked up my store," said Bonnie, gesturing to a brown jacket with a surprising number of zippers. "It looks cheap, I know, but it keeps my stuff safe and unbroken."
Zia handed Bonnie the bottle.
"Good luck," Zia said, as she turned to go back to Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle. "When you see China, tell her the portents are more portentous than ever."
Bonnie blinked.
"Never mind," Zia sighed.
"You ready?" Psywave asked.
"Aren't we going to the top deck?" asked Bonnie, as she stowed her phone and the bottle in the jacket she put on.
"Doctor?" asked Psywave. "You... must have a quick exit from here. I mean... it stands to... reason?"
Gigawatt's eyes narrowed.
"How... never mind," he said. He dashed through the door that led to his private sanctum. A few seconds later, the window next to Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle's group retracted into the wall, startling everyone there.
"Doctor!" Bhossi yelled through the speaker on her bovine neck. "Now is not the time to launch a yarn raid on Hobby Lobby again!"
"Not for me!" Gigawatt exclaimed, as he rushed back into the room. "For them!"
"Thanks, Doc!" said Psywave, who then looked at Bonnie. "Again... you ready?"
"As I'll ever be," said Bonnie, as she closed her jacket over her front. The weight of the Damn Thing pressed against her chest and belly. She whispered a word, and the jacket abruptly tightened about her waist. When she released her hands, the Thing sagged a bit, but was held firm at belt level. A ping sound came from the pocket she'd stuffed her phone in. "So do I climb on your back, or are we doing that 'take my hand and dreamily fly through the open air over the city' thing, or... hrrrrrruuuuUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
They were through the open lab window before Bonnie's scream trailed off. Bonnie watched the night-lit _Subtler Than Light_ recede under Psywave's shoulder as they gained altitude and speed. The Damn Thing dug hard into her front as the arm beneath it held her firm. The other arm, hooked under one thigh, dug someplace where she wasn't fond of things digging.
"This is *not* how you carry someone in your arms!" she yelled, as Psywave banked left and brought the rising moon into view. "*Not* upside down! Haven't you ever--"
"You were angled wrong and I was in a hurry!" Psywave interrupted. "Now hang on, I can get us to the *Sunken City* in minutes if I go all out!"
"Just turn me oveeeeerrrrrrraaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"
***
*It's about *time* you got here.*
China Moroboshi looked down at the ten-year-old blonde-haired girl in the pink sun dress and white sun hat with all the exasperation she felt, plus some extra because the occasion demanded it. She stepped off the fluttering chain-link ladder and onto the sand without a word to the apparition. She gave the pilot a wave, indicating she was clear and he could depart.
As the black-and-red Harxxon transport chopper ascended into the near-dark sky, China heard a familiar rasp.
*I don't think she's happy to see us, Kyoko,* said young China.
Adult China spotted the immaterial image of the ten-year-old bone white girl she had once been, crouched in the sand next to Kyoko, fashioning the image of a sand castle. It was a surprisingly complex castle, one that apparently held together due to how much blood Kyoko was letting drip from her apparently-bear-mauled arm onto it.
"This is the right place," China said. "Those two little fuckers started right in on me already. The Heart of Mu must be in the vicinity."
"Great," answered Cendra Seconds, her tone implying some degree of less-than-greatness in the news. "Remember they're not really you, and act accordingly."
*What does that mean?* asked young China, as she shaped another gore-glittery sand turret.
*I don't see how you can act accordingly,* Kyoko said, looking up at adult China. *You can't stab us at all.*
"And you can't stab me," adult China noted.
*Says you.*
China fought down a chill, and turned away from her invisible-to-everyone-else visitors to the others who had disembarked from Harxxon's transport.
Trice Maddox, the _Subtler Than Light's_ Chief Engineer, was directing her staff in setting up several dark metallic rods in various points around a section of warped air twenty yards wide. It wasn't aetheric tech--that tended not to work too far away from the STL--but it was the product of the STL science crew's collective tech genius-slash-madness, and Maddox had become proficient out of necessity at getting their equipment to work in the real world. Her assistant, Hector Marcowicz, waved to them from the far end of the boundary being set up.
"The force field should be good to go in six minutes," Trice said as China approached. "It should keep out the curiousity-seekers for as long as you need." She gestured to the half-dozen scuzzy onlookers watching from the nearby rocks, and the others looking down from higher up the cliffside. "The terrain really isn't great for this sort of thing, but it'll hold."
"Thanks, Trice," said China. "Sorry to keep you all day and night on this..."
"Are you kidding?" Trice asked, giving her a wink. "For the triple-overtime pay Harxxon agreed to, this is all right." She waved to the hazy air within the boundary they were setting up. "Cendra just went in. Probably should scoot in yourself before we switch it on."
*Ladies don't scoot,* said Kyoko.
*We're not ladies,* young China rasped.
Adult China bit back her sigh, nodded to Trice, and waved to Marty Steinmetz, the black-furred werepanther, and Moon Moon, the buff, blond-furred werewolf, whose imposing presences kept the onlookers from attempting more than onlooking. Then she stepped through the warped air... and saw the statue.
In many respects, it was identical to the version that could still be found in a park in Hamilton, Ohio--the only version known, if barely, to the general public. Twelve feet tall, square and two feet to a side at the base, narrowing to one foot to a side about halfway up, where it met a spherical shape with a large hole through it. It even had plaques, though the language of the inscriptions wasn't English here, rather an ancient script that caused China to again shudder.
So far as China knew, unlike the one in Ohio, which had been a grave marker for Hollow Earth theory expounder John Cleeve Symmes Jr, this statue wasn't a marker for anything. It also pulsed ominously, which the version in Ohio never did, so far as anyone noticed.
"Is this the monument you saw?" she asked Johnny Clark, who was standing only a couple feet away. The midnight-blue-haired young man nodded, still looking a bit out-of-it.
"And the rocks and lighthouse," said Johnny. "Not sure how you found the location from just that."
China watched Kyoko saunter up to Johnny and attempt to slap his thigh. She suppressed a grin when her hand passed through him.
*Just my luck,* Kyoko said. *Find a stack of mighty beef like this and I'm put on a strict non-corporeality diet.*
"We had it down to the coast south of Los Angeles," Cendra Seconds noted, as she emerged from behind the statue. "'Lighthouse' helped... but when we found something about a lighthouse next to a Sunken City... well, there it was."
"Yeah," said Miguel Veracruz, who emerged with her. "Who knew the *Sunken City* was... well... the Sunken City?"
*Am I the only one who did the assigned reading?* young China asked.
On the trip from the _Subtler Than Light_ in Venice Beach and the place they were in now, a place on the San Pedro coast called Point Fermin, Cendra gave the shortest version she could of the story. A landslide in 1929 sent several wood frame homes crashing down to sea level. Remains of the concrete foundations, sanitation systems, piping, and curbs were still visible, though coated in layers of spray paint visited upon them by explorers of abandoned places through the years, despite the area having been fenced off and the threat of heavy fines for sneaking in. Its safety was questionable, its trespassing enforcement was spotty, and its bizarre beauty, both natural and artistic, had led to it becoming a minor--albeit illegal--tourist attraction that came to be known as the Sunken City. Even though the 'City' part was doing some heavy lifting.
"Maybe I should have," said Manny Seconds, who China realized had been standing quietly to her left, alongside Karina Selanova. "In Cartier's journal, the path to the Charnel House came into being in East Gothopolis's Sailortown, years after a sinkhole wrecked the docks and forced shipping to go... well. It was a hard-to-get-to place like this, on a shore, where only people who had nothing else tried to live."
As he spoke, Manny's two Secret Service agents skittered (as well as their tailored suits allowed) to flank him and Karina. Their impassive faces regarded China and everyone else in the vicinity with professional concern. Their gold compound eyes caught the l.e.d. glow from lights set up at the camp's perimeter. One chittered at another, who twitched.
"Not to hurry along the discussion," Karina interrupted, "but I got word from ops that there was unusual activity in this area in the last few hours. And I found one of these." She held up a small necktie, of the kind China recognized from that morning, having seen them around the necks of some of the Demon Monkeys trying to obtain the Heart of Mu. "The nu-M.I.B. made it here ahead of us."
"Is that really what we're calling it?" asked Dr. Erin McCavish, who broke away from a small group of people (three human, one Megaloon) in medical-looking white garments to join them. "New Mibbies?"
"Noobs," Manny observed.
"Or noobies," China suggested.
*Tubular noobulars,* Kyoko tried.
"Shouldn't Esteban and your pack-mates be back already, Miguel?" Manny asked, after not hearing Kyoko at all, and giving China's suggestion a polite wince.
"Esteban should be back any minute to report on what Apples and Miko and he found," Miguel confirmed, looking back at something behind the statue. "Then we can go in... if you're sure you want to, Un... Manny."
"I've got to go in," Manny said, "at least part way. There's something personal Chal wants me to confirm."
"And we'll be guarding him," Karina noted, indicating herself and the Secret Service agents, "while I confirm some other things regarding the composition of these... Noobs... who I expect are already within."
"Gonna be a bit awkward if we have to explain to people what the active Secretary of Defense is doing on an op like this," said Cendra.
"They won't know," said Karina. "It's not like I'm putting it in a Signal chat."
*I bet *we* know why,* said young China, nodding up at Adult China.
Adult China nodded back, as she gave Karina Selanova a studying look. Though decades had passed since Karina had been an M.I.B. Special Special Agent charged with pursuing the notorious fugitives, Radian and Shadebeam (and China, then an immaterial entity in Radian's bloodstream), across the world, and though Karina had, in the end, come through as an ally against both her former employers and the manipulative, would-be-universe-remaking sentience known as ARCANA, they had never worked easily together after China acquired a physical adult body and they both went to work for Chalandra Harkness at Harxxon. Less still after China stepped down as V.P. and joined Cendra on the _Subtler Than Light._
Karina didn't react to China's appraising look, anymore than she'd heard China's suggestion of a hidden motive, but China felt sure she'd noticed. Not that the motive was especially hidden--Karina's antipathy toward the secretive group that was claiming to be the revival of her former espionage organization was nothing new.
"Two minutes!" called Trice from the other side of the wall of haze. "Anyone in that should be out, or vice versa, get yourselves sorted now!"
"Here comes Esteban now!" Johnny yelled.
A second later, Esteban Veracruz, his lower half propelled by the much-too-big armored battle-pants known as Los Pantalones, soared out from behind the statue. He landed before Miguel, already rushing his words.
"It's freaky in there," Esteban said. "There's werewolves and skeleton warriors with cutlasses running around and demon monkeys 'porting around and it's so easy to lose track of where you are and..." he shook his head and looked at Miguel. "Apples says she smelled August Rydell. Says to follow her and she'll lead you to him."
Miguel grimly smiled. "Then let's..."
"The Heart of Mu is the priority," Cendra interrupted.
*That and great savings at Menard's,* young China noted.
"If getting to August gets us that, great," Cendra went on, "but we've got to lock that down first. Otherwise--"
"Incoming!" yelled Marty, from the other side of the hazy air boundary.
"--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAuuuuuuuuuiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."
It took China a moment to realize that the strange, multi-limbed being that set down between her and the statue was in fact two separate humanoid beings. One of them, Psywave, was trying to set down her passenger, Bonnie Rydell, a task made more difficult by the fact that Bonnie had a leg curled beneath Psywave's armpit, and had somehow contorted the rest of her body so that her arms were around Psywave's neck from the back and her chin was hooked over Psywave's shoulder.
Bonnie dropped from the staggering Psywave and wobbled a few moments before standing upright and accepting Johnny's steadying hand. She ignored the warning chirps and chitters from the Agents.
"Hiya!" Bonnie said, her chipper tone wavering in time with her knees. She unzipped a jacket pocket, pulled out a brown glass bottle, and unsteadily tossed it at China. "This is for you... I think? Your lady Zia said you needed to see it." She wobbled once more, then firmly stood.
China caught the bottle, but kept her eyes on Bonnie and Psywave.
"Oh, and your portents are totes portentous or something," Bonnie added. "But I'm sure you get that all the time."
China briefly smiled.
"Sorry, everyone," said Psywave, as she glared at Bonnie. "Had to get here before... sorry, my ears are still ringing..."
"Then learn how to carry a passenger!" Bonnie shouted at her.
Suddenly, her jacket bulged.
*Saaay,* Kyoko saaayed.
"Okay, okay!" Bonnie said, looking down at the cylindrical form threatening to ruin her jacket's zipper. "We're here, now what--"
"You guys okay in here?" asked Moon Moon, as he bounded through the haze barrier. He paused on seeing Bonnie. "Oh, hi, Bourbon!" he exclaimed, a dopey grin breaking across his blond-furred canine features. "Was that you screaming? Who's your friend?"
"Psywave," said Psywave, essaying a tired (non-Psy) wave.
*Hey, cuz,* said young China.
Adult China frowned. 'Cuz?' she thought, as she considered Psywave.
"Great, everyone's here," Cendra said, sounding like someone keeping her patience in a chokehold to keep it from escaping. "Bonnie, is that the Damn Thing in your jacket, or are you just happy to see us? Did you get the answers I told you to get?"
"A few answers and a lot more questions," said Bonnie. "But Galaxy Hunter's life's at stake without it, and I'm the only one who can get it to her. So--"
"Fifteen seconds!" Trice called from outside the barrier. "Moon Moon, get back he--"
"Incoming again!" Marty yelled.
"--eeeeeeoooooOOOOOOEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAeeeeeeeee!"
This time, the yell was higher-pitched and continuous. A jet pack at full thrust streaked down from the night sky, carrying a brown-furred girl who looked to be about half the size the jet pack was made for. She corkscrewed around the statue, scattering Manny, Karina, Cendra, Miguel, China, Moon Moon, and everyone else, before plunging into the cavernous entrance to the Path of Bone.
Cendra looked up, alarmed. "Was that--?"
"It was!" Miguel answered. "Camila... I told her to stay in the Science Lab with the Mu'kaos! I even locked down her fitted jetpack!"
With a *thrum* sound, the force field snapped into existence, coating the sky around the encampment with a bluish light.
"So she got one that didn't fit," said Cendra, as she got to her feet. "But how did she get all the way here?"
*Practice!* young China and Kyoko chorused.
Psywave and Bonnie looked at one another. Cendra looked at them, and groaned.
"She followed you two," China said, before Cendra could. "And now she's in..."
Miguel snarled, then bounded through the opening to the Path. Cendra sprinted after him. Esteban flew in as well, immediately followed by a loping Moon Moon.
"Sorry!" Bonnie called after them. "We didn't... hey! Down, boy!"
The Damn Thing pulled at Bonnie's jacket so hard it forced Bonnie to stumble toward the entrance. Psywave grabbed her jacket just before Bonnie's feet left the ground, and both flew into the Path entrance at an increasing speed. Johnny Clark muttered something under his breath and ran after them.
"Go on!" Erin called. "I'll follow when the medpacks are ready!"
"Got a feeling we'll need them," said Manny. He looked up at Karina. "Shall we, my dear?"
Karina took his arm and escorted him into the Path as fast as Manny could hobble, followed by his skittering service detail. The sound of his cane on the rock vanished the instant he was out of sight.
*Hey, lady we used to be!* young China called to adult China. *Are we going to join this badly-thought-out bumrush of danger or what?*
*Yeah!* Kyoko added. *All the best decapitations will be over if we wait!*
China eyed the youthful apparitions with a mix of annoyance and suspicion, before sighing and starting for the entrance. She stopped on realizing she was still holding the bottle Bonnie had tossed to her. Reluctantly, she stopped and lifted it to her eyes.
Before, she remembered, the bottles had all had a label showing the eleven-step antlered pyramid that was the calling card of the supposedly-destroyed M00se Illuminati. The label on this bottle, however, was mostly gone, having evidently been soaked off. China spun the bottle in her hands, trying to see whatever it was Zia wanted her to see.
Her last turn brought up something etched directly into the bottle glass.
It was a hieroglyph of a cow exploding.
China felt her heart freeze and her neck tingle.
*And let's not even get into what her spleen's doing,* Kyoko added.
"Not *these* guys again," China groaned.
*Which guys?* China asked.
*You know, *these* guys,* said Kyoko. *Pay attention, twerp.*
"I thought the Dis/Order was..." adult China went on. "...no, they weren't destroyed, they just... vanished... after Mom and Aunt Shade and I went into the TransDemense for the first time. And things got so crazy after we never stopped to figure out what happened to them."
*Gee,* rasped young China. *It's almost like the Author forgot about them all those years ago.*
[Young China, Kyoko, and Adult China paused and gave an exasperated look through the fourth wall to you, the reader.]
"Gotta let Cendra know about this," said China, as she sprinted for the entrance. "Erin, you're in charge till I or Cendra get back!"
"Wait!" called Erin, who had no idea what China had just figured out. "Where--"
But then China was through--
--and immediately found herself staring into her own empty eye sockets.
(continued in part two, following...)
--
Subtler Than Light #8 (c) 2025 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory
Subtler Than Light #8 (c) 2025 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory