The Formspace

Bianca

The surface she lay upon was flat and hard, and for a long while she thought it was a table of some sort, so perfect was its plane. She’d tortured men on tables this flat, gorgeous slabs of panthricite calved and shivered out of boulders deep in the mountains of Nekane. For a thrilling moment of quickened pulse, she gave herself over to believing that she was on one of the question tables in Redoubt Majeur, the Imperial prison whose garrison and prisoners she held a lawful Marque of Dominion over. What an intriguing idea. She idly wondered how long she would last, before the inevitable degeneration into obscenities, spitting like a madman, and the defecation. Always the defecation. Such a cloying scent, human piss and shit. 

Bianca flexed her wrists and discovered they were not bound. She traced an arc with her arms and legs on the surface. No edges. Perhaps an overly large table, then. She’d once seen a banquet table in the wilds of the southern horse tribes, on a purification campaign, when she was a wide-eyed, freshly minted officer of the Imperium. Under the cover of an evening thunderstorm, they’d caught the horse folk amid their summer orgy- some sort of a superstitious offering of their bodies to their gods. After they won the battle, her company sergeant gestured to the entrance to the communal tent. Ma’am, you must see, he’d said. He’d emphasized the word see, as was his habit when he wanted to convey a particular lesson to her. Good man perished in the north when they finally persuaded the Pyris Isles to come to terms. She’d walked inside the massive main peekto- the temporary dwellings the horse folk erected when they found a hospitable piece of terrain. Her men noted her presence with a curt nod here and there, taking care of the last of the Ashani with the grim efficiency of butchers. A lesson to the other Tribes in what disobedience to the Sovereign brought. 

But the table. An enormous piece of stone that dominated the torch lit interior, loaded with fresh meat and fruits from the surrounding forest. The table was enormous enough to perform the Fetula Argans on- the perfectly timed dance she’d had to learn as a girl, before she got into the Academy, when her mother still had designs of court life for her. Two hand spans wide at the least, and at least a secada long- the distance gladiators sprinted to weapons after opening gong in the games. They must build the peekto around the table every time they returned to this spot, she had mused.

 So, perhaps a table, perhaps a floor. She stood, toed around hesitantly, like a walker on an icy river in winter. All was inky blackness, save a pinprick of light at the far edge of her vision; more a suggestion of light. Or the absence of dark. She started walking towards it- toe heel, toe heel- if she got to the edge she could stop her movement in time to avoid a fall. She gave up after a forty count or so- if this was a table; it was the biggest table in all of Arteria. She felt no grooves, no gaps to denote tiles or slabs. Strange. She kept walking. 

Rongo

Rongo felt the lick of a dry tongue on his stubbled cheek. Savril. Fucking Savril. Try as he might, he could not rid himself of this Joka-forsaken cat. He’d tried everything- water, fire, throwing glassware at the thing. Sometimes combinations of all three. She kept coming back, like an ill-omened totem that showed up to sow mayhem and disorder. He pushed her away with a hand and opened his eyes to blackness. Where in the seven hills was he? No stars met his gaze, no comforting candlelight to show that he was among friends. Or whores, at the least. His mouth felt dry, but not the normal, desiccated corpse dry after a night of hard drinking, just the dryness he expected from- Wait. He wasn’t in the arid north; he was in muggy Kasmira. Curious. 

Savril (That bitch) mewled softly, from off to his right, and he sat up. There was little to see, but he felt a slight breeze, carrying the scent of wood smoke, and something else, a faint tang that he couldn’t quickly identify. He felt nothing nearby with his oversense, no objects at all, just a perfectly flat landscape.  He could see Savril with it, but he knew that throwing her around was futile.  He’d tried that several times to no avail.  He extended his awareness outward, tendrils of willpower that he spent in vain to unlock what his other senses couldn’t fathom, but found only emptiness. 

Savril meowed again (Quiet, Jokaspawn), and he stood up.  He walked toward her, arms out like a blind beggar, and nearly tripped when his foot met a soft obstacle.  He knelt down and touched it.  Soft material, a carpet.  He could dimly see it stretching before him, leading to Savril, and a light on the horizon.  Rongo started walking, and Savril matched his pace with the silent grace only the feline species can produce, moving down the carpet towards the light. 

Sarah

Sarah opened her eyes.  From the vibrations coming through her web harness, she could tell that the Suit was locked in auto transit mode, its massive legs thudding forward at a leisurely five miles and hour.  No telling how long she had been out.  There was nothing but blackness outside the cockpit window, and her heads up display read “Error 627/Fixed emplacement unknown” in Garamond font.  She hated Garamond, hated its curvy little arrogance— normally the readouts were in comforting Calibri.  The Plater Suit only defaulted to Garamond when the system encountered severely anomalous situations, the rarest of the rare.  She’d only seen Garamond twice before- once on an insertion when the C-17 had miscalculated the drop parameters and deposited her and her Claw into a lake, and again in a blizzard, right after an EMP blast from some shithead Carolinian militia tech jockey.   The fault codes must have been written into the software later on, by a different programmer.  Sarah made a mental note to ask her mother when she got back to Station.  She flicked the toggle on her night vision, held close to her face with catcher’s mask style straps.  Her fingers flew over the touchscreen in front of her, eyes looking underneath the goggles at the display, and in response the suit sent wisps of low frequency feelers in every direction.  Nothing was transmitting, nothing was airborne in a two-mile radius.  She stretched her body, flexed it as far as the harness would allow her to move.  Frowning, she initiated a full systems diagnostic while she flipped on infrared lamps to survey the immediate area.  Thermal was a wash, wait- just as the diagnostic check dinged complete, five separate humanoid signatures lit up on her display, with little red vector triangles above each.  The closest was over a kilometer away, the farthest 2.7 clicks.  Besides the five, a large pale bloom showed up around 1.6 kilometers away.  Her compass function was disabled for some reason, the instrument in her display grayed out.  Unusual.  The IR floods revealed nothing in her immediate vicinity, a flat expanse utterly devoid of objects.  Besides the compass failure, she had no data link to commsats, nothing was broadcasting on any of the allied frequencies in her radio.  The suit had a full charge at least, and all ammunition counters were green- fifty cal, missiles, and her flame cannon.  She shut down the lamps- why broadcast her position to anyone with night vision?

Tasha 

Tasha awoke with a start and a shiver, lurching to her feet unsteadily in a darkness so complete she thought she was blind for a moment.  Belatedly, in the moments of shuddering confusion that followed her return to wakefulness, she realized it was the cold stone beneath her stockinged feet that had roused her, sapping the heat from her body while she lay prone.  She felt her tug of her handbag on her shoulder, and rummaged around inside until she found her phone.  She hit up the flashlight, and she found her shoes at her feet- Coach pumps.  She used the light to look further, but found nothing but a flat, granite-like surface.  And no cell service to boot.  Fucking shit.  The black ground appeared to be some sort of granite, with no visible seams.  Perhaps poured and later hardened?  She wondered. 

Tasha did not recall dressing in this particular ensemble- a black pencil skirt and a charcoal gray silk blouse top (matching the shoes, natch), but whoever did it had a fairly good idea of what she liked to wear.  She felt the bulge of her North American Arms Black Widow, nestled in a thigh holster on her left stocking top.  Five rounds of .22 caliber, ready for all comers in a nice, concealable package.  The light of her phone had also revealed a line of red and black carpet to her immediate left, which she walked over to examine.  She could see that it was exquisite- intricately weaved designs of a kind she had never seen in a fashion oddly pleasing to the eye.  She aimed her phone back and forth down the carpet- it was a long strip, about five feet wide, and seemed to be leading toward a far off light in the distance.  The other direction held only more inky darkness.  She sat down on the rug and took stock of the situation, checked the contents of her purse. 

It had to be Victor.  He must have seen through all the misdirection and the oblique approach she’d employed, despite all the care and layers of backstopping.  As to what kind of twisted game he was playing now, she couldn’t fathom it.  A simple bullet to the head would have ended her quest for retribution before it even really got rolling.  Tasha stood up and started walking on the carpet.  Rolling out the red carpet for me, eh, boys? She thought, and smirked to herself.

Hafez

Hafez Shaker returned to consciousness and made no movement- his breathing didn’t change in the slightest.  Always assume that you’re under surveillance, one of the simple maxims of his life that had kept him breathing for over five decades of hard living- nearly all of it spent in zones of conflict where misreading a situation would quickly lead to things going pear-shaped, lickety split. 

He took stock of the situation.  Not his bed.  His bed, although hard, was not this hard.  It felt like a mortuary slab, and he repressed a shiver at its cool temperature.  Not a dream- his dreams were always full of noise and fire.  The silence was deep, like a sensory deprivation tank.  No breeze stirred his skin, no smells tickled his nostrils.  With a great gyration he kipped to his feet and lifted his arms to block easy access to his head.  Eyes open, he could see no more than he had when laying down, save a dim glow off to the right.  Maybe two kilometers away he could see a brightening of the darkness.  Hard to tell, and easy to misjudge. 

A quick pat down of his attire, and found he wore his normal ensemble- rough civvies, pistol belt and all the everyday carry items were in their normal spots.  The cheap watch with the anti-kidnapping tools attached with inner tube rubber, his picks, several knives and his trusty .45.  The ivory grip felt cool and comforting, like the touch of an old friend.  A press check in the darkness yielded a full load, and the two spares on the left side were filled with the hollow points he favored.  He didn’t try his surefire, but instead quickly felt the ground near where he had lain.  Nothing.  He had no electronics save the watch.  With nothing else to do, he started walking toward the light.  

The Structure

Rongo was the first to arrive, and he strode up to the fire pit to examine it.  The line of carpet had led directly up to a larger, deeper carpet that covered the entirety of the- he didn’t know what to call it.  Some sort of open-aired oasis from the featureless stone terrain all around.  Up close, the fire was good-sized, about an arm span wide, and banked at knee level within a smooth square of obsidian material, same as the ground below.  A supply of what looked to be oak and maple wood, nicely dried and neatly chopped, sat off to one side.  Several thickly cushioned divans that looked more at home in some fat merchant’s Shakeweek revelry tent were spread here and there in all directions around the fire.  He had just noticed a tray of bottles and cups, and was walking over when he noticed the woman.  She stood at the edge of the fire light, watching him from a different carpet path.  She wore strange attire, and had brown hair cascading down past her shoulders.  Rongo called out to her a greeting, but she didn’t answer.  She walked in with a sort of haughty arrogance he found endearing, an examined the set of liquors with a cursory glance. 

“Whiskey?”  She asked, watching him with a sort of detached intensity, the kind you’d have in the presence of a lazy Nekanese tiger.  Everything is peaceful until it’s not.  She dropped a pair of strange looking shoes with sharp angles onto the carpet and reached for one of the decanters. 

“Whiskey,” he agreed.  Savril insinuated herself into the exchange, coiling up against the woman’s leg.  She smiled and gave her a little pat while she opened one of the bottles.  She took a whiff, and satisfied, she poured it into two nearby glasses. 

She handed him a glass with a grin, then turned to regard the entrance of another man to their midst.  An old, stocky man stood at the edge of the firelight, watching the exchange. 

“I too enjoy this spirit,” he offered, walking in and looking around.  “Does anyone else find this turn of events, rather unusual?”  He warmed his hands by the fire.  They were callused and hard, cracked and dry, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

The women paused a moment, but then smoothly flipped a third cup over and poured a finger into it, and handed it to the man.

“Unusual is putting it mildly.  I’m reminded of an old song,

-there must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief.”

“Too much confusion, can’t get no relief”, the bald man finished.  Their eyes met in mutual mirth.

Rongo grunted.  “I don’t know this song, but it does seem to reflect our current state of affairs well.”  At the sound of a whirring gyration all eyes turned, to behold the sight of a giant leviathan lumbering to a stop, at the edge of the firelight.  The bald man dropped his drink, which landed without a sound in the thick carpet, staining it dark in the firelight. 

“Get out of sight,” he hissed as he drew a weapon of some sort and crouched behind the divan.  The large creature, stood motionless, firelight twinkling over portions of its dark body. 

“Drop it old man,” a voice called from the shadows behind them.  When Rongo looked, he beheld a vision in grey.  A red haired woman squatted behind a black wicker chair, leaning over a wicked looking weapon.  The bald man remained motionless, a coil of tense potential wait for release. 

“You sound like your mother,” he said a length, setting the weapon carefully down and swiveling to face her.  “Sarah. Well played and well met.”  He held his hand up carefully and gazed at the woman expressionlessly.  “Mind if I refresh my drink?” 

She stood at length and walked further into the firelight. “Your funeral, Hafez.  That shit is bad for your health.”  She kept the weapon pointed close to him as she slowed to a halt.

“Damn Mormon tendencies getting up into CoSprings, I see.”   He shook his head and made a motion with his left hand.  “I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in House Coburn.”  He yawned and snorted, biting off a laugh.  “So boring, Jessica.  What do you do for fun, organize your sock drawer?” 

“My socks are doing just fine.  I kill UN scum for fun, that’s high sport in my parts.  I’d love to bring back your head for the Sunday service.”

Hafez snorted, turned his back to her, and busied himself with refilling his glass.  “That’s some weird shit.  I thought I was a strange bird, but even I don’t advocate stuffing and mounting my enemies on a wall.  Twisted, Sarah.  What would your mother think of that?” 

Sarah flipped her weapon up, and it slid smoothly onto her back.  She moved closer, and turned her gaze to the other two. 

“There’s tea.  Do you take tea?”  Tasha asked her.  “Look, there’s a kettle boiling here.”

Sarah made a face.  “Contrary to what the fat man said, I do like wine.  Any wine there?” 

“Wine!  Now there’s a woman I can talk to.  I’m sure we can find some wine here, what hosts would strand us here without wine?  That’s savagery, pure and simple.  There must be wine here.”  Rongo rummaged around the mass of bottles.  “Here!  Found one.  A nice red, reminiscent of trees and leather, that’s all I can smell.  My palate is rather primitive.”  He paused, looked off into the darkness. “Another traveller approaches.” 

Sarah frowned, looked where Rongo was gazing and saw nothing.  “Yes, I did detect another heat signature on the walk over here.”

“I see him- her” Hafez amended as she approached, materializing out of the inky dark like a mirage, slowly coming into focus.  Since they were all looking at her, Bianca walked right in, appraising the group with the air of command she had honed over a decade in the Imperium.  After an interval, she spoke.  “Is that whiskey?” 

“It’s not half bad, either,”  Hafez replied.  “I can’t place the brand, it smells American but tastes Japanese.” 

“I don’t know those places, but I recognize Harnish whisky anywhere- you can feel the wentwood cask on the back of your tongue.”  Rongo said. 

“Are you Harnish, then?”  Bianca asked offhandedly, as Hafez handed her a glass. 

“Joka no, Umelas born and raised.”  Rongo replied.    

To be continued…..