Page 1 of Godslayer
PART I
The Augment’s Creed
I am the executioner and the death.
I am the dark soldier, standing in the blood of the fallen.
The spool of Source, the thread of Spark—I am the machine made flesh.
I walk the hush that follows ruin.
I am not the response. I am the overwrite.
A weapon of the sandy sea.
In the image I am made and, in the image, I will unmake.
For thine is the kingdom made in sand.
And thy rule was made in wind.
And in the wind, as in the days of dark imprisonment, the new gods rose as tall as the hollow towers.
And in this rising, they conquered.
Swept the land of everything and left it clean like a bone.
And on that bone, was born I.
The executioner and the death.
—From the Field Operations Manual: Sweep-Class Augments (declassified fragment, p. 1)
1 - TYSE
The sweet scent of orangesdrifts up from the black sand as Clara’s fingers swirl it around, making designs that look a lot like the ones that light up on her skin when she’s in the mood to show her spark.
She’s sitting in between my legs and I’ve got her captured in my arms, hugging her shoulders so I can keep her as close to me as possible.
We’re just chilling on the beach, looking at the moons.
Our last night here in Delta City.
Clara tips her head back, tilting to the side so she can see me. “I will never get over this smell. And I know,I know. It’s dead crabs, or whatever.”
“Cretions,” I say. “Microscopic?—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ya told me. It just smells good. I can’t believe this is how you grew up. It’s like living in a fairy tale. A black-sand beach, a fantasy city on the edge of the ocean, and a god in a tower you can actually talk to!” She laughs. “What a concept.” Then she sighs. “I’m gonna miss this place.”
I don’t say anything, just stare out at the sea, watching the cyan-blue spark float around in the air like embers comin’ off a fire. She can’t see the spark floatin’ all around us. No one can,apparently. Not even Anneeta. I went to see her yesterday, just to say goodbye, really. She talked non-stop for like ten minutes straight about absolutely nothin’ I was interested in.
I’m really glad she’s stuck here and not on the team for ‘Mission Kill Finn Scott’ because ten minutes was my limit.
I had three questions, though. Did she see the spark that clogs the air like ash all around us, which was a no. The second one was about dreamin’. She says she doesn’t dream, but she admitted that she doesn’t really sleep, either. And the third was how often she needed to eat back in Tau City.
She gave me a weird look for that one. Not because she was suspicious about my particular appetite for spark, but because she didn’t want to talk about it. The answer was what I figured. Clara told me how many Spark Maidens were sent into her tower—she was number nine. And Anneeta is like seven years old, or around there, so it averages out to a little more than one a year.
Clara says there were long stretches between Extractions, so eating the Spark Maidens wasn’t a plan—it was aneed.
