Thresholder

Perry moved over the rooftops, hoping that he was cloaked enough that the glamour would help him seem less strange. The rooftops weren’t deserted, not at all, and he’d have waited until later in the night if he hadn’t been constrained by the timing of Cosme’s radio transmission. He wanted to be there when it happened, just in case Cosme showed himself, though without Flora along, Perry didn’t think he had favorable odds.

He’d become well-acquainted with the rooftops of Teaguewater, which were largely overgrown with chimneys. In places where the rooftops were flat, they’d been built upon, with shacks and other makeshift structures, and sometimes places that had been turned into patios. Some increasingly-distant part of Perry’s education wondered when and why flat roofs had come along in his own world, but here, he guessed that it was because of some kind of sufficient waterproofing to prevent the need to slope and spread rain away. The upshot was that there were people out, so many people that it was difficult not to get seen.

The area that Marchand had pinpointed had a fairly large number of people milling around, and Perry wondered whether he should have left the armor home, the better to just blend in. This was meant to be reconnaissance rather than an actual engagement, but treating reconnaissance as though it couldn’t turn hot seemed like a good way to get his face kicked in.

The darkness was doing him favors, making him seem like a hulking hooded figure on the rooftop to the people who saw him, and he waited patiently, watching from a roof that was unoccupied. It was apparently a good night for revelry, because a few men were drinking up on a few roofs around the area. If they saw Perry, they were ignoring him, which he credited the glamour for.

Perry had come early by almost half an hour, hoping to catch Cosme setting something up, even if the radio system really was running on a recording. The world had phonographs, which were actually one of Wesley’s many inventions, though they were the realm of the rich and created no small amount of audio problems. It was difficult to tell if that was what had been done, given that the radio itself was blisteringly new and almost certainly cobbled together, lending interference of its own. March had no particular guesses, given the difficulty the audio had presented.

Time passed slowly. Perry had done almost no skullduggery in the last world; he'd been a knight, always on the move, scouting only as an immediate prelude to battle. He didn’t find himself suited to it, but perhaps that was because of the mindset of fighting he’d developed. He imagined that with time he could learn to be patient and stoic, a figure of the shadows reaching out to strike only at the perfect moment. Prep time, it was called, and he briefly smiled to himself at the thought. With the cloak on, hood up, playing detective, he really was reminding himself of Batman.

Richter’s world hadn’t had Batman, though there’d been something similar to superheroes, minus the spandex and usually with more of a mythological bent. Perry liked that, because some of the touchstones were the same, Zeus and Thor, and he hadn’t been completely lost when watching some of the ‘modern classics’ that Richter had felt compelled to show him.

“Can you get a look inside the house?” Perry asked March.

“Unfortunately not, sir,” replied Marchand. “The city is too noisy to use ambient methods, and you’re too far away. If you were to land on the building, I could do a sonar scan.”

Perry didn’t move. He didn’t smell a trap, but that only meant that it was a good trap. Besides, there were too many people around, and while he thought it was fine to run along the rooftops, it was another thing to leap across the road.

At roughly five minutes before it was scheduled to start, the radio signal came in again. Marchand compared the waveforms, but it was the same speech as before. It was possible that it was a record player on a timer, but if there was a time to inspect, it was now. Perry had recorded his own response, but he wasn’t planning to send it, not until he’d cleared the building and seen what Cosme had set up there.

When the message was half over, Perry decided to take a risk and leap across. He tried to time it with the passage of a train and its shrill whistle.

The building was old and dilapidated, but had obviously once been a place that had cost money, with lots of heavy timbers and elaborate cladding whose colors had been muted by Teaguewater’s pervasive pollution. There had been no upkeep put into the place, and it had the rundown look of a crackhouse, though they didn’t have those in Teaguewaters, something like opium dens being more the flavor of the day.

Once Perry was on the roof, he crouched down and asked for reconnaissance.

“There are eight men in the house,” said March, putting them on the HUD. “Two groups of four. I believe they have rifles, though it’s difficult to tell.”

March had also put up the transmitter on the HUD. It was on the third floor, the top one, whose balcony Perry was standing on. It was dark inside, Perry wouldn’t have landed there if it weren’t. Nothing showed on the HUD, at least not on the top floor. He tested the handle of the balcony door, and found that it opened — almost as though it had been left open for him.

The men with guns were worrying, though not because he was actually worried about their guns. They implied that Cosme had been able to call on them, either hiring them with Wesley’s money — if Wesley was still alive — or possibly calling on the authority of the king. There was something about rifles that screamed military to Perry. A normal rifle’s round would simply deflect off, the energy distributed through the whole of the armor, and any other weapons they had access to would similarly be too weak to do much damage. There were limits to what the power armor could handle. The thing that Perry was most worried about were explosions, not grenades, necessarily, whose shrapnel wouldn’t be much more dangerous than a bullet, but larger explosions. If Cosme had some ability to command the military, then it was entirely possible that the whole place would be rigged with a number of barrels of gunpowder. It was what Perry would have done.

There was nothing from March’s sonar scan though, no suspicious barrels or anything like that, so Perry moved forward with his sword in hand, hoping that he wouldn’t have to make a run for it.

The radio looked the same as it had before, huge and bulky, incredibly primitive, with none of the styling or sense of aesthetic that came from something that had been built for commercial use. It was, as Perry had expected, attached to a phonograph, which had finally gone silent. He couldn’t see any kind of timer attached, but in his mind, he was somehow expecting something like an old-timey alarm clock. He didn’t even really know how those worked.

It didn’t take much snooping around until Perry found Cosme’s note. It was written in a neat hand, not cursive but with a number of loops and whorls to it, as though it was imitating cursive.

To my mysterious adversary,

I wasn’t sure whether you actually did follow the radio signal to get to the manor, but if you’re reading this, that confirms it. The armor you were wearing is tech, isn’t it? In either case, I think it’s good for us to have a way to talk to each other. But if you’re sniffing around trying to find me whenever I send a radio message out, that’s not going to work. It’s one of the things that I was most worried about, sending that message. Of course, I’m not there, but I don’t doubt you’ll tear up the place, and there’s a lot of valuable equipment there.

I know I said that I would like for us to wait some time before coming at each other, and I suppose a month would allow me to do everything I wanted to do in this world. You’ve sunk things with Wesley, but I have other avenues. A month would be just about perfect. If you have a time and place, let me know, either by leaving a note or sending your own transmission on the same frequency.

Cosme

Perry put the note down. He didn’t like the mention of a month, since it made him feel like there was some concrete plan in place. That might have been Cosme’s intent. In a month’s time, Perry didn’t feel like he’d have gained all that much, the process of becoming a vampire was slow, but not that slow.

He wasn’t going to leave a note, and his own transmission would be from as far away as possible, the better not to give anything away. The military men in the lower floors of the house were worrying.

Perry slipped back out of the room and onto the balcony. He wasn’t sure that he’d actually learned anything, except that Cosme wasn’t a complete moron.

“Movement on the rooftops,” said Marchand.

Perry cursed. Some of the men he’d seen before, not too far away, had dispensed with their drinking, instead picking up rifles that had been concealed beneath their tables. They were in civilian clothes, but he took them to be military men, the same as had been inside the house. They’d been disguised, staking the place out, and it had worked.

“In the name of the king, halt and desist!” shouted one of the men. There were a cluster of them, rifles pointed at Perry.

Perry really didn’t want to kill them, especially if they were members of the military, but he certainly wasn’t going to let himself be taken in.

He moved, all at once, a giant bounding leap assisted by the sword, hoping that he would catch the men off-guard. They fired, naturally, but only one of the bullets scored a hit, barely felt through the armor, and then Perry was off through the air, leaving them behind.

To his surprise, they followed.

The rooftops should have been difficult to navigate on foot, with the occasional wider gap needing a tremendous and daring leap. They were doing that though, leaping across, moving faster than men should be able to move. Perry thought that he could outpace them with the sword’s power of flight, and in any case could simply ascend up into the clouds, far out of their reach — but their power was new, and he needed to know what it was that let them move like that.

Perry descended down, turning on them. There were eight of them in total, the same number as had been in the house, which meant that if the house emptied out, there would be sixteen. He hadn’t yet tested the gun, worried about it breaking with a misfire. He’d gone through combat without it before, and as a knight, had faced far worse odds than sixteen-on-one, so he stood with his sword out, waiting for them. He hoped that they realized their rifles were useless.

They met him as a group, coming forward with too-high jumps, and at a word from a man among them, their leader, he supposed, they fired another volley. Again, it was woefully ineffective, and even at a short distance, only a few of the bullets hit, the rest sailing off into the night to find some other home in the city behind Perry.

“Zeus-Killer,” said Perry as one of the men raised a gloved hand, and it was just in time, because a bolt of lightning exploded out from the glove and struck Perry cleanly in the chest. It might have been enough to damage the internals if not for the hardening Richter had put in place — but now the suit was slower, more sluggish, and Perry could feel every inch of its machinery and bulk rather than wearing it like a second skin.

Perry threw his sword, putting the full power of the suit behind it, letting it spin through the air like a scythe. It wasn’t as fast as a bullet, but it whistled through the air, a sharp disc, and cut through one of the men at his midsection. The sword clattered against roof tiles, then rose up and returned to Perry just as another blast of lightning came from one of the gloves. This one missed, but the others were getting ready, and while Perry had confidence in the armor, he didn’t think that confidence extended to a dozen hits. He lurched left and narrowly avoided the lightning strike, then moved forward as the sword returned to his hand.

His plan, such as it was, involved killing all but one of the men and then getting some answers from him. Perry had torn through men before — orcs, typically, the foot soldiers of the enemy, but a few men as well, either turn cloaks or opportunistic bandits, who died in much the same way as orcs.

In Zeus-Killer mode, the suit operated more slowly, and while it wasn’t quite as strong, Perry felt the impact of the hits much more. He swung his sword hard, and cut through unarmored flesh, barreling his way into them as their guns went off again. The helmet protected him from the sound and March corrected the light of the flash, which meant that the men were ruining their own vision and hearing while Perry was still at full awareness.

He killed three of them in the space of a few breaths, pummeling them with his fist and swinging the sword one-handed. It was an undisciplined method of fighting, ignoring the training he’d gotten as a knight — but much of that training had been in the realm of single combat against an opponent who was on equal footing, rather than fighting unarmored men.

Perry didn’t notice until he’d downed a few that something was wrong.

The man whose midsection had been sliced through with that first throw had gotten to his feet.

When he was a knight, Perry had fought with other men, most of them far, far less protected than he was. He’d not only given out mortal wounds, but had seen them on the men fighting with him. He had grim knowledge of what kind of a wound would kill a person, or at least put him out until he could be brought to a cleric, and men did not stand up after having a sword cleave straight through their side.

These weren’t men, Perry realized. His punches hadn’t been cracking bone nearly easily enough, his sword hadn’t been cleaving through cleanly. They were vampires.

Perry tried to back off, but he was in among them, and their hands were on him, trying to grab him at the legs and elbows, to immobilize him. He’d mistaken their strength for the effects of the Zeus-Killer protocol, the meaty way they resisted him because of the suit’s lack of strength.

Still, he was stronger than them, encased in armor, and he shook off one, then another, using his elbows and knees as weapons, scrappy fighting that got him free. He called the sword to him, and it landed in his hand, giving him a brief reprieve as they got to their feet. He’d killed at least one of them, the man unmoving, but had done less damage than he’d thought, giving them injuries that would have killed a normal man. He’d been fighting with some amount of restraint, which was coming back to bite him.

He saw the new arrivals just a moment too late. Extra men weren’t an issue, not when he was already fighting eight — seven now, and a number of them wounded — but their weapons were. They had large guns, slung on their shoulders, so heavy a normal man wouldn’t have been able to carry them or handle the recoil. It was artillery, or something that had been adapted from artillery, and the thoughts went through Perry’s head at just barely the wrong speed. He was immune to rifle fire, more or less, but he wasn’t immune to cannons.

The men holding the miniature cannons fired on him as soon as they were close enough, which in this case meant nearly point-blank range. Perry dodged, holding his sword forward as though he meant to stop the rounds that way.

The rounds screamed through the air, and Perry took one to the chest, which was enough to knock him to his feet. He scrambled back up as March said something, then dove off the side of the building, trying to get away from the artillery. He felt another hit, sharp blossoming pain in his arm, and then he was on the ground, the fall only barely slowed by the sword.

Perry ran through the city until he was well away from the soldiers, keenly feeling the pain in his arm. He ducked down an alley, ran through it past surprised people who the glamour was having no chance to work on, then leapt up to the rooftop, flying up into the sky. He heard gunshots, presumably directed his way, but none of them hit.

He was up in the clouds, breathing hard, holding a tight grip on the sword. He didn’t particularly like heights, especially when he was high up enough that a fall would kill him even inside the armor. The pain from his chest was still there, and if he was lucky he would get a severe bruise, but he couldn’t feel his arm at all.

“Status,” said Perry.

“Systems damage to the chestplate,” said Marchand. “Network connectivity will be virtually impossible until repairs are made. Cognitive capacity is down twenty-eight percent until repairs are made. Structural damage to the left arm will require repairs before further use. Microfusion reactor is intact, but connections have been severed and will require further diagnostics and repair.”

Perry swore. That was a load of bad news to get all at once. “That wasn’t even what I was asking,” said Perry. “I meant what about me.”

“Mmm,” said Marchand. That was worrying. March usually didn’t delay to think about things. “You’ve suffered trauma to your chest and a compound fracture to your left arm. I’ve taken the liberty of applying a tourniquet, and recommend immediate medical attention. Based on the moistness sensors and a sudden drop in your blood pressure, it’s very possible that the brachial artery has been severed. I recommend seeking immediate medical attention, but due to a lack of network connectivity, cannot recommend a place for you to go.”

“How bad is it?” asked Perry. The arm was hanging at his side, useless. He could twitch his fingers, but not feel them, and there was a dull pain down in there somewhere.

“With immediate surgery and therapy, you are likely to retain function of the arm, sir,” said Marchand.

Perry was feeling a little lightheaded, possibly from the blood loss, or the hit he’d taken, or the dawning realization that he was in a very significant amount of trouble.

“Show me the arm, please,” said Perry.

“I don’t have a good view of your internals, sir,” said Marchand. They floated within the clouds, and Perry waited for his robot butler to suggest the obvious thing — but March had no suggestion, nor elaboration.

“You can listen in,” Perry prompted. “Make a determination that way, get some kind of sonar of the body.” He felt pale.

“Ah, yes, sir, just a moment,” said March.

There was a long pause, and Perry worried. He didn’t know what he’d do without March, and wondered whether he should shut the computer down. That was something people did when their phone took some damage, right? The first thing you were supposed to do was to shut the phone off so it didn’t get worse. But Perry needed to know how bad his arm was. March had said medical attention and he might retain function, but Perry thought that probably assumed medicine at the level that had been available in Richter’s world.

“Here, sir,” said March.

An image of Perry’s arm appeared on the HUD, false colored in a way that only a machine would do, the bone in lime green, the flesh in magenta, with yellow veins and arteries. It was a mess, even at first blush, a piece of the armor had broken, pushing in, which must have been what caused the fracture in the first place. The bone was in six pieces, some of them small, the whole thing held together by the hasty internal tourniquet, which was so tight that it was cutting off sensation — or possibly that was severe nerve damage.

Perry was shaking. Cold sweat was beading on his face. He wasn’t sure he could survive this. The thought of going to a hospital here, to be operated on by barbers, was horrifying. They would amputate, if they didn’t kill him outright. He wasn’t even sure that they knew about germs. Perry’s mother used to say ‘well we got along without all this modern stuff for a long time’, but she’d been wrong, people hadn’t gotten along, they’d simply died from their wounds and everyone else had gotten along without them.

“No no no,” Perry moaned.

He flew back into the city. He was on a ticking clock now, and he hoped that Flora had the answer.