The moment Lachlan saw the heavy doors of the Lighthouse complex drop into the ground, he was reminded of what one of the former Archons had told him: organisation comes from order, and order comes from all the little things. That was probably the reason the hallway ahead, even if just mostly leading to a cargo lift like the one in the Gefnian citadel, was a brilliant white thing with polished metal fixtures, and little automated sweeper robots scurried out of the way of their entourage, scraping up every last grain of sand that been blown inside once the doors closed. Discipline and neatness were their forte, and in turn that served to keep some of the chaos inherent in such a diverse group of people in check, and yet, not to a fault. He glanced over his shoulder at Evelyn, taking up the back of the fox woman’s entourage, the axe back hanging from her belt and her hands clasped neatly behind herself. Lachlan knew she was always a messy person, and their earlier fight hadn’t changed his opinion on that matter. It was more…
Restrained, he thought. They value restraint. A tempered blade was the exact Modus Operandi.
Hana stopped, and her entourage stopped, at the edge of a gaping pit, down in which the noise of machinery was echoing upwards, signalling the arrival of their lift. “Leave us.”
The Lighthouse security team and Evelyn nodded, and began to move away.
“Captain?”
Evelyn stopped, and turned to face Hana, her arms at her side. “Ma’am.”
“I think you should join us.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I don’t think that’s appropriate.” Her eyes switched to Lachlan, and then back.
Hana giggled. “You’re so funny when you’re formal. At ease. Please.”
Evelyn’s posture visibly relaxed.
“We don’t take in a lot of outsiders, Miss Winters,” Hana continued. “And we have very high expectations when we do. Expectations that can only be fulfilled if you’re properly informed of everything that goes on in here. I can’t speak for the others, but I think it would be a great benefit to you if you had a little…preview of this entire ordeal.”
Evelyn bit her lip, but said nothing.
“Your trainers told me about some issues you have. I’d say you’ve made progress, but I prefer to fix the problem at its root, before it festers. Besides, it’ll be an excuse for me to raise your clearance level, no?”
“I’ve only been here a month.”
“And I already want you as my bodyguard. Last call.” Hana stepped over to the console, sticking a key into a slot underneath the usual array of buttons.
Evelyn stepped onto the lift platform, straightening herself again in the corner, watching Lachlan. “If he tries anything-”
“I won’t,” Lachlan said, irritated. “I keep telling you I just want a deal. And maybe some antiseptic.” He lightly touched his abdominal wound.
“I’ll see what the boys downstairs can do.” Hana turned the key, and with a start, the lift began descending. All three of them were quickly swallowed by darkness, with the only visibility provided by little lights that were stuck on each level, coming through the gaps in their doors.
Lachlan focused on the rumbling of the machine under his feet to get his mind away from what he knew was something inside himself rupturing. At least the vortex Chloe had unwittingly unleashed hadn’t yet consumed his laboratory. “I assume you’ve read the file about my acquisition.”
“I have,” Hana said. “We have some good and bad news about that.”
“Tell me the bad.”
“The Archon who gave you that Engine and the machine it was integrated into ended up deposed before the end of the Unification War. There was an overwhelming vote for his successor, and they shut down the program entirely.”
“And the good?”
“We never destroyed the files. They’re in the restricted archive in the same department as Project Lugh.”
“Okay, that’ll do.”
“This…” Evelyn glanced over at Hana, who didn’t seem to care if she was speaking out of turn, and then continued: “You said the Engine took someone. Who?”
“Someone important to me,” Lachlan said simply, catching a glimpse of what seemed to be genuine concern on Evelyn’s face as they shot past another floor. “Clearly this isn’t the first time you’ve heard of one of them.”
“I saw an Engine in action once, when I lived on Theremis. The UHE has one in a vault somewhere. Isn’t it less science and more…I don’t know, instinctive.”
“A little of both, in my experience.”
“So how will research help?”
“Truthfully? I’m desperate.”
The lift finally stopped, and the connecting corridor was short and grey, in contrast to the squeaky clean upper levels. Standing guard by the door were two more soldiers in red, grey and white digital camo, each holding a bullpup submachine gun that seemed to be a Vermillion product itself. The steely look in their eyes as Lachlan limped out told him this was a different breed of warrior than the others he’d seen, except perhaps the ones in white.
“Are these…” Evelyn started.
“Darkwatch, yes,” Hana said.
“They don’t have jurisdiction here, do they?”
“This is a special department. La Espada expressed that we might need his men. They don’t just keep people getting in here, you know.” She turned to the one on the right. “Would you be so kind as to fetch Dr. Klariss’ cellular foam? We’ll be in the launch chamber.”
He saluted and headed off down a fork in the corridor.
“Cellular foam?” Lachlan asked.
“I know you’re not human. It’ll stop your bleeding and make minor internal repairs.” She headed off in another direction, leaving both Lachlan and Evelyn to wander after her.
Evelyn, noticing Lachlan was falling a little behind, stood back to wait for him. “I know how you feel.”
“Been shot before, have you?”
“I mean with the other thing. You’re not the only one who’s lost someone.”
Lachlan scoffed. “I haven’t lost her yet.”
“That was something I kept telling myself too. That I could fix everything and we’d be back to normal. I kept it up until he slipped away.”
He raised his eyebrow.
“Why, were you expecting an apology?”
“You really are a psycho, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t we all?”
He shrugged.
She sped up her pace, closing in on Hana, who was again using her key to open another door. This one was smaller, but had no windows, and Lachlan could tell it had heavy magnetic locks in place. In addition, some of the panels in the walls and floor were subtly removable, possibly hinting at the automated weaponry that hid within. He remembered that the chamber where Vermillion’s Threshold in reality was, the passage that they had taken to this world, and it was similarly armed, but as these doors opened, he realised now that this was the true core of the Lighthouse.
Unmistakably, there was a moon pool the size of a sports field in the middle of the room, filled with azure-coloured water made so by the lights in the pool’s walls. There must have been dozens of engineers and scientists in the surrounding labs linked to it, and perhaps two or more dozen Darkwatch soldiers overlooking it all. The unseen ceiling was high up, with cables and pipes and shafts rising past the hanging industrial lights and into the darkness.
But what really got Lachan’s attention was none of those, and instead the thing that was in the pool. Or rather, only the tip of the thing - as he got closer, it became obvious that whatever it was was larger than even most of Vermilion’s warships, with most of the mass hidden in the cavernous space that must exist below the lights. At first it had looked like a radical design for a submarine, all angles and no curves that would somehow deflect or absorb sonar, but then a section near the front shifted. It was part that mounted many sensors and cameras, a veritable suite of sensory equipment, and it was looking around. He had read around Project Lugh, what with the redacted information he had run into, but it had been nothing like this.
“What the hell is that?” he heard Evelyn blurt, as if plucking the words directly from his mind.
“This is Project Lugh,” Hana said, stepping up onto a raised platform at the edge of the pool. “What do you think, Mr. Lachlan? Exactly as extravagant as you imagined it?”
“More.” He stepped around the pool. “It’s alive. I heard it was a weapon.”
“It is. A living warship capable of repelling our greatest enemies, should they ever return. And they are returning.”
“The Fomorians?” Evelyn asked. “They’re real?”
“Division Five calls them the Deep Ones. The servants of your fallen god Eingana. They washed our world away, and they will do so again to others. But Project Lugh has the capability to take the fight to them and end Mother Hydra once and for all.”
“Ah.” Lachlan chuckled, taking another look at the thing. “It’s not just alive, isn’t it. If you think it can kill gods, it’s probably another. Something you’ve strapped armour onto and hoping you can control.”
“Your opinion is noted, but irrelevant. The data disc, now, please.”
He clicked his tongue. “For all of this? If this thing gets loose it won’t be you who pays the price, you know.”
Hana smiled. “Last call.”
Thinking fast, Lachlan manoeuvred his robot arm to grab the disk and hold it up above his head. The sudden action resulted in all the rifles in the room, at the door and on the catwalks at the edges, to point directly at him. “I wouldn’t!” he exclaimed. “Can you hit me before I crush it? Especially in the parts that matter?”
“Aim at his spine,” Hana said. “It will deactivate the arm. He needs to cast with his real hands. Fire as soon as you see his fingers twitch.”
Lachlan’s eyes roamed around the room. At least 8 guns from where he was standing. Who knew how many from the angles he couldn’t see. “What gives you the right?”
“The right? Nothing.” Hana stepped down from the platform. “What gives you the right to judge us?”
Evelyn was shaking her head at him, and Lachlan could already tell how this was going to go. “Could have just shot me outside. Why bring me all the way in here?”
“Honestly? I was hoping you would get this gist. You are an asset, Mr. Lachlan, even without that disc. I thought it would be a shame to not give you a chance to know what you would be facing if you got in our way.”
“I always hated how polite you guys were.” He licked his lips.
Evelyn drew her pistol, and pointed it at him. “Give us the disc. Listen to me.”
Lachlan made a face. “Seriously, you too?”
“You said you were doing this for someone right? If you die here then so do they. Do the right thing.”
He breathed heavily, staring at Evelyn. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, and there was something in her eyes. He sighed, and reached one hand up to pluck the transparent data disc from his robot arm, holding it out. “Promise me this won’t go badly.”
With the slightest of indications, the guns were put away, and Hana stepped towards him. “Trust me honey, if this goes wrong I’ll be right there with you.” She plucked the disc from his hands, and turned back.
“Your end of the deal,” he called after her.
“He’s right.” Evelyn shifted her aim to Hana.
“No!” she exclaimed as the Darkwatch soldier began to raise their weapons again, and they lowered them. She nodded at Evelyn. “Damn, you’re a natural.”
“Just give me what I want, lady. I’m out of your way. The Engine’s malfunction, how do I fix it?”
“A Metaphysical Engine doesn’t normally malfunction. In the form we found them, they were fully shielded. It would truly take a remarkable amount of magical force to get through that.”
“I suppose magical comets would do that.”
“You mean those-” Evelyn frowned. “But that was last year. Yuletide, right?”
“They would do it, yes.” Hana stepped back up the platform, leaning on the railing over the console. “If that’s the cause, then you have an out-of-control metanarrative vortex. She’s not trapped back there, she’s scattered all over the multiverse and the hyperverse. There’s no bringing her back.”
“What if, hypothetically, I froze time before it went critical?”
“If you did that, well…” He looked up, thinking to herself for a moment. “The Engine typically reaches one pataphysical layer above where we are. It’s how it draws things from your imagination and makes them real. Something that ascends that way has working of both paraphysics and exophysics in tandem. You’d need another Engine to cancel it out. There’s nothing else like it.”
“Yeah, I figured something like that. Don’t suppose you have another one?”
“No…but there might be something else you can do.” She took a puff from the pipe, exhaling red smoke. “If you can establish a link outside of the normal flow of time, to what is essentially another drifting timeline, which is where she is, like the UHE does with that office of theirs, even for just a second, you might be able to get her out. Doesn’t solve the overload, but she should be fine. I’m assuming it’s a she, am I right?”
“So a temporal anchor she can grab onto.”
“Precisely.”
“Now that…that’s a hell of a thing.” He smiled to himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Evelyn lowered her gun.
The door behind him opened, and the soldier from the lift approached with a large syringe on a tray, containing a clear liquid. Lachlan grabbed it, and limped back to the door. “Remember the deal, Hana! You screw up, and you’re stuck with me.”
“Wouldn’t do it for anyone else!” she called after him.
“Lachlan, wait.” Evelyn put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry about the uh, trying to shoot you thing. That wasn’t personal.”
“Well I think that was very personal, using Chloe like that,” he said, shrugging her hand off.
“Oh, Chloe is it?” Evelyn grinned.
He smiled. “Touché. Well, Miss Winters, I’m glad you finally found somewhere that you actually belong.”
“They fuck up and I’m on your side too.”
“Make sure she keeps her word on the bodyguard thing.” He patted her on the shoulder, and exited through the door.
A temporal anchor. That, at least, was something he could engineer. And then Chloe would be free. A plan was already forming in his mind, its steps clear. Just one more trip and he had a chance.
He only needed one.
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