cascade | kotlc

21. Combat: Continued

- F. K.

Faye watched the hopelessly in love couple leap away before she turned her eyes back to the soaring fire all around her. The uranium core turned warm in her palm, a half-searing brand so hot she had to let go.

Clink, plink, and the sphere rolled just to the hull of her car, glowing a soft, incandescent orange.

"Look at them go," a soft female voice whispered. That same voice that had haunted her a month ago, in those stone-cold dungeons weathered with shadows, and the activator in her resin back began to burn.

"Vespera."

"Yes. It is me, Vespera."

Faye turned, briefly spotting the projectors present on the ledges of buildings around her, casting intersecting beams of light into the middle of the crossroads. The holographic Vespera was no more than a pale, unearthly ghost as she stood in the middle of the rails.

"How are you always here? Even I didn't know I was going to stop here," she said exapseratedly. "Do you guys have, like, a set up Vespera projection kit in your hideouts somewhere? A DIY playset?"

"My methods are much too complex for today's youngins to understand," Vespera told her haughtily, with an edge of annoyance. "There is no one who can match my prowess for light manipulation."

"What about Luzia Vacker?"

Vespera huffed. "She is an imbecile compared to me."

"So you say. But how do you really know? You have not seen her work for centuries. Millenia, even. How long was it you were locked in Eternalia?" A vicious grin appeared on Faye's lips. "Three thousand years? Four? Five, even? How do you know that Luzia's brilliance has not changed over the years?"

"Because I have seen it." Vespera's cold eyes focused on hers. "Surely you do not believe I have not approached Everglen? Surely you realize Luzia's methods are derived from mine? Surely you have found out her secret?"

She maintained a poker face as Faye shifted internally, slight amounts of panic and confusion bubbling in her stomach . Was there really a hidden secret in Everglen they had missed?

"You have not," Vespera noted. "That is well."

Her words were so undeniably true, passing over her like a snowstorm with only slush and transparent flakes, and Faye shivered inside at the cold. Her grip on her Ace of Spades increased tenfold and her fingers began to sweat. The thin sheet of metal tingled with gathering heat.

"And where are your friends? Surely they have not left you behind, with all my men cornering you. Surely not?"

Faye gestured at the fire. "Your men don't seem particularly interested in charging through all that fire."

"Ah, but I can change that."

Light shimmered as Vespera brought a device out. A vial of viridescent and shockingly alive liquid that churned like a whirlpool, attached to a sleek central core she was all too familiar with and a glowing syringe.

"Distitopiknian," Faye breathed. "So that's what you're using it for."

"You don't seem very surprised."

"Why would I be? I knew how the serum worked. Granted, I didn't know how you managed to distribute it, but..."

Vespera smiled ghastly. "Then, surely, you know how distitopiknian is bound to itself? So, therefore, by altering one drop, one secretion of this serum, all other serums experience that change too?" She dangled the glass vial, and the liquid swished inside. "One additional insertion of amino acids, of sulfur, of butterfat... all men affected have their minds changed too."