Ankaran Immersion

2

2

Ono pulled up his walker on a ridge overlooking the Gwyer Plain. Below, strand covered the flat ground. At the center of the plain, a tavern rested on stilts. Though its structure was made of wood, it was bound and covered by the same cords of metal that surrounded it, not so much rising above the plain as forming a raised nub within. Ono knew the place well, one of several gathering spots on the road between Jolon and the coast, catering to merchants and fishers on their way inland—and the less savory types looking to prey on them.

With a mental command through his implant, he urged the walker forward, jerking him back as they began their descent. Before he reached the bottom of the hill, a slight tingle arose in the bottom of his skull. Ono knew that feeling well. It meant Aunio was aware again, listening, waiting, growing stronger.

Not good timing. But then again, unwanted guests were rarely appreciated, especially inside one’s own head.

Ono spurred the walker again, and it accelerated across the plain, rocking him gently, its six legs darting back and forth with mechanical precision. A few drops of rain struck the strand of his right wrist, beading on the oiled surface. Sunlight still shone in patches of sky, but not for long; he had been traveling ahead of a storm all day.

When they neared the tavern he bid the walker to halt, and it flattened to the ground, spreading the strand of its body to take in as much sunlight as it could. Ono dismounted and headed up the stairs, then pushed aside the strand hanging over the doorway.

The tavern’s long wooden struts ran through into its interior, and more like them were laid at right angles, running overhead as rafters, with a flatter piece along the side of the room functioning as a bar. Its builder had used strand to tie the joints together, which had since grown and burrowed into the adjacent wood, so that the place looked as if it were being eaten from within by long, metallic caterpillars. A dozen locals sat at half as many tables, mostly silent, their eyelids twitching—playing games on the strand, or else letting it shock their brain into a near-catatonic state of inebriation.

Ono kept his hood up and his coat closed as he entered, though he couldn’t hide his uneven gait, tap, clank, tap, clank. Everyone present had at least a little strand in their bodies, but the sight of a man with nearly his entire right side replaced with metal would still be intimidating, and Ono wanted to keep a low profile. He took a seat at the bar, by far the classiest thing in the tavern, old and polished to a sheen, with hardly any strand in it. The bartender wandered over, a tall man named Tokkan with a shock of gray through his long hair.

“Hello…” Tokkan looked up and his eyes went wide. “You! That is…good to see you.” He made a quick check of the tavern’s other occupants. “You here on business?”

“Just sniffing around,” Ono mumbled. “I’m not looking to drag one of your customers back to Jolon this time.” He avoided mentioning who exactly he was looking for. A few patrons had no doubt taken note of Tokkan’s reaction to him, and if he uttered Fesso’s name aloud, he’d lose what was left of his low profile.

Down the bar, a gray-haired man slammed down his empty glass and glared. Ono couldn’t recall having met him before, though that didn’t mean he hadn’t come across Aunio. But whatever his grievance, silence might resolve it better than words. Save for a tiny wire of strand that ran across his eyeball to his iris, the old man appeared clean. Ono, itching down his centerline where the implants joined his skin, shifted his weight until his stool creaked under the heavy lengths of metal. That was enough; after a grumble, the man took his glass and moved to a table in the far corner.

“Need anything?” Tokkan asked.

“Some gluce would be fine.” Sugar water, produced from specially tailored strand. Ono’s body could synthesize it using the wireless power it pulled from the grid, but he had turned that system off to help keep Aunio at bay. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked—in the time since he had entered the bar, the buzz in his head had only grown louder. “And the local news, if any.”

“Strand’s moving early this year.”

Ono scowled at his clinking ice. “I ask for news, you give me the weather.”

Tokkan shrugged. “Folks are worried, is all. The roads will be dangerous, and The Mystic of Tumsiever died last week. We asked the church for a replacement, but in the meantime we have no one to pass our prayers to the Ints.”

“Mmm.” Typical frontier griping. “Anything else?”

Tokkan shrugged, and turned to the endless supply of bottles, glasses, taps and other paraphernalia that bartenders could clean when they wanted to look busy.

So be it; time to risk a direct approach.

Ono said under his breath, “Have any of Fesso’s Children been through lately?”

Tokkan’s hand tightened on the glass he had been wiping. He set it down slowly on the bar, eyes narrowed. “Now that’s bad business. Did Serr really send you to take one of Fesso’s lieutenants? Didn’t think he wanted to stir up those hornets again.”

“Something like that.” Serr was the City of Jolon’s autocratic ruler, and Ono could hardly think of a better way to attract attention than mentioning him and Fesso the same sentence. He checked the bar to see if anyone had heard. A few of the larger patrons looked back his way. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re right.” Tokkan walked away.

Ono sat back and swirled his drink, imagining Tokkan’s reaction if he knew the whole truth. Tracking down Fesso’s lackeys was one thing—most of the wrongdoing in the plains could be traced back to her one way or another. But actually finding the old gangster herself, bringing her back to Jolon alive—that was a suicide run. He would never have accepted a job like it before he had grown so desperate. Before Aunio.

As if responding to his name, Aunio’s buzzing rattled behind Ono’s teeth, pressing on his thoughts.

“Tokkan.”

“Hmm?”

“I was at the Church the other day. You know, the big one in Jolon.”

“Uh huh.”

“I spoke to the High Mystic while I was there. Perhaps when I return I could put in a word for Tumsiever—”

A breeze passed to the left, and a chunk of strand hit the bar beside Ono with an ear-popping slam. The mass of metal was shaped like an arm, but twice as thick as any arm should be. Ono turned slowly to meet the limb’s owner, a man whose massive chest came up even with Ono’s head.

“You have a lot of balls coming back here.”

“Sylas!” Tokkan yelled. “The bar!”

“Good to see you again.” Ono gave a gracious nod. In fact, he had never seen the man apparently named Sylas before, which could only mean one thing: this was another of Aunio’s acquaintances.

“Good?” Sylas’s sneer parted over brown teeth. Strand ran above his lips, coming from his nose and across up his cheek, then looping around his left ear on the way down to his over-sized arm implant. “Just wait till we get done with you.”

With his flesh hand Sylas motioned to his two companions, muscled and mean but possessing relatively little strand. Not Fesso’s Children, then—her gang tended to come better-equipped.

“Tell me,” Sylas continued. “Why’d you do it, eh?”

Ono searched in vain for some memory of how Aunio had wronged this man, but his alter ego had left him with no recollection of the period when he had taken over their body. He shrugged. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you it was someone else?”

Sylas c****d his head. “You think I wouldn’t recognize a skinny creep with half a body’s worth of strand?” The words built in anger as Sylas readied himself for the fight.

“Now, Sylas.” Tokkan’s voice from behind. “Let’s just take it easy.”

“I’ll take something.” Sylas slammed his hand down on Ono’s forearm at a speed beyond reaction, pinning it to the bar top, strand on strand. His friends drew closer. Ono had a split-second decision to make: risk Aunio’s return by using his implants, or risk a serious beating by not fighting back. Neither option seemed clearly superior to the other.

The strand in Sylas’s arm flexed, then oozed down, covering Ono’s own. A string of lights flashed across Ono’s ocular implant, warning him of network probes searching for vulnerabilities. Sylas may have looked a brute, but that arm had a few tricks—by throwing enough raw data Ono’s way, he might render his implants useless before the fight began.

With a tinge of regret, Ono enabled his counter-measures, engaging parts of his internal network he had previously left dormant. As more of his implant’s functions came online, Aunio responded, pressing against his bonds at the edge of consciousness. The buzzing intensified. Sylas raised his meaty fist to strike.

Ono dodged to the side, leaving his strand arm behind on the bar. Sylas’s hand thumped the bare wood where Ono had been, then he swiveled and lunged in pursuit.

Ono kept moving, using the crowded bar-room for cover. Thin cables trailed from his shoulder back to his detached arm, drawn out like a snaking river over the floor. One of Sylas’s friends charged, and Ono hopped onto the wall with a powered boost from his strand leg, then kicked off and landed up on a rafter. The man crashed into a table full of glasses below, raising howls of protest from other patrons. Tokkan screamed at them all to take it outside. Ono jumped across to the next rafter, then the next. He hopped down to the floor, breaking his fall with another table, leaving it smashed to pieces beneath him.

The three toughs regained their bearings and advanced again, Sylas in the lead. Behind them, Ono’s arm crawled along on its fingers, still trailing the cable that looped up and over the ceiling.

The buzz in Ono’s head pulsed, became a growling voice only he could hear.

Kill them, you coward.

“Shut up.”

Do it. They’re scum; I should have finished them when I had the chance.

Sylas, noticing his apprehension, grinned and cracked his knuckles.

Ono whispered, “Be helpful for once and tell me what you did to him, so I can talk us out of this.”

“What?” Sylas raised an eyebrow.

Aunio chuckled in his mind. His cousin had a warrant. Sylas wouldn’t give him up, but his wife would. She has a fetish for men with extensive implants. I gave her what she wanted, and she returned the favor.

“Great.” Not likely he could talk his way out of that.

Sylas growled, “You think mumbling to yourself like some sort of nut is going to save you?”

“No.”

Ono’s detached arm leaped. The fingers elongated and splayed, encircling the thick flesh of Sylas’s neck. Ono took hold of the cables running to his shoulder, jumped and tugged down with his considerable weight. Sylas rose a foot off the ground, hands at his throat, emitting a choking noise that would have been a scream.

Very nice. I like the style.

“Sorry about this,” Ono said.

Sylas’s friends took a step forward. Ono shook his head. The strand squeezed Sylas’s neck, evoking another gurgle, causing the men to hesitate.

“This is probably the last time I’ll be allowed in here,” Ono said. “So I’ll make the best of it. Who’s seen Fesso’s Children lately?”

At once the room fell deathly silent, save for Sylas’s rasps.

“Come on. She always has crews skulking around these parts. One of you must know something.”

The only answer came from Aunio.

They’re scared.

“I know that,” Ono mumbled. “Don’t tell me you’re sympathetic?”

They’re scared of Fesso, but they should be scared of you. Show them you’re more dangerous than her. Strangling this buffoon to death should prove the point.

Ono sighed and released the cable, dropping Sylas to a coughing heap on the floor. He watched the two men run to his side, studied the look on Sylas’s purple face, the stares of the onlookers.

Aunio was right. Fear dominated this place. The farmers and fishers feared the outlaws, the outlaws feared Fesso, and everyone, high and low, feared the strand and the Ints who controlled it from within. And if he was going to succeed, he had to use that fear to his advantage. But not the way Aunio wanted; he wasn’t in control of their body yet, and he didn’t get to call the shots.

“Listen, all of you. I know you don’t trust me. Maybe you don’t trust anyone from Jolon. But this time is different: I’m not working for Serr anymore. I’m going after Fesso herself. The Children are nothing without her. Once she’s taken down, none of them will threaten you anymore.”

The crowd mumbled, processing his words. Perhaps some wanted to believe him, but was that enough? Life out on the Plains meant facing hard reality, and they likely understood how little chance he had of success. What good were his promises of protection from Fesso if he was dead?

Sylas coughed. Several of the onlookers shuffled their feet, eyes on the floor, but said nothing.

“Two of them were here yesterday.”

All eyes went to the far corner, to the old man Ono had seen at the bar.

“Here? In this tavern?” Ono flashed Tokkan a look.

“Quiet, Ger!” came a call from another table.

“Shut it. Those two knew what happened to my boat. They tried to act like they didn’t, but I’m no fool.”

“Your boat?” Ono said.

“Went missing at dock a week ago. Just replaced half the strand in the hull.” The words sloshed drunkenly from Ger’s mouth. “They laughed at me, you know, when I asked for it back. Said they had bigger things to worry about. Well, I don’t care if they find out I talked. You hear that, everyone? If I can’t feed my family, what good am I alive or dead?”

“Where did they go?”

“South.”

“There’s nothing south but wilderness.”

Ger sneered. “You think I don’t know that? That’s the direction they went. Was I supposed to run after and ask why?”

“No.” Ono reeled in his arm. “You’ve done enough.”

He headed for the door, passing wide around the three toughs.

You got lucky. But the lead is weak, and you’re weakening. You really think you’ll be able to bring Fesso in without my help?

“We’ll have to see.” Ono nodded to Tokkan. “Sorry for the damage.” He closed one eye, found the tavern’s key on the local net and sent a small amount of coin to its account, all he could afford. “Thanks for the tip, Ger. I hope you find that boat.”

At the bottom of the stair, the walker rose slowly from a pool of rainwater. Before them, the oily Gwyer plain had turned iridescent from the moisture. A mile distant, the edge of the forest loomed green.

That’s a lot of land out there. Plenty of space to get lost. Go back inside and give me control. Let me find out what else these people know.

Ono set about re-attaching his arm, muttering curses when the water interfered with the connection. “We need to disappear. I told them too much; now Fesso will find out I’m after her.”

Then you should have told them who we’re working for. These yokels are so superstitious, one mention of the Ints would have shut them up good.

Ono mounted the walker and dug his fingers into the loose strand atop its neck. The walker tested a few hesitant steps, then splashed forward. “If we get the Ints what they want, they’ll keep their end of the deal. You’d better keep yours.”

You’re going to spend weeks combing those woods, and in the end find nothing.

Ono hunched against the rain and snorted. “At least I’ll have the pleasure of your company.”