Redemptor Secret Origin

Chapter 4 - Cure / No Cure

Her aerocycle hovering parked in the middle of the eating area, now closed and emptied from patrons, Mandias paced in her high heels across the Takke Store, so bored. She pressed to the side of her uSee visor while in the other hand she slurped on a strawberry milkshake. All the other Sirens were busy out flying around delivering the General's invitations to his Black Banquet—to be held that very night—to every guild leader, every foreign diplomat, every important person in Tetrapolis, and all of them commanded to wear any color except for black, for only the General himself would be allowed to wear black—and here Mandias was stuck at Takke Store. (Well, at least she had her shake.)

"Sheriffa Salve, Mandias reporting," Mandias droned. "How those invites going for the Malefic Mash?"

"Speak."

"Zeta-class incident at Takke Store 0159C."

"So?"

"Scarthroat was involved. Your favorite prey. Knew you'd want to know."

"Correct. Anything further?"

"Oh, Takke Manager had installed new security protocol at the door. Some kind of poison."

"Was a girl with him?" shouted the Sheriffa, interrupting her subordinate Siren.

"What? No."

"You're certain? Designate Rainbow Rag Girl."

"Y-Yes, witnesses corroborate Scarthroat was alone."

"Identify what poison. Is it contagious?"

"Plagocet. Which is? Is not? Contagious? Do we know? Do we care?" Mandias looked over to Manager. She slurped her shake. The Manager shrugged, holding up his four hands to the air. "Eh," Mandias said. "Not certain, Sheriffa. "

"What's the incubation period? Sentos? Berus?" A high-pitched eeeeee began in Mandias' ear and Mandias strained to hear. It was rising fast.

"What's it matter?" Mandias asked, "You've wanted Scarthroat dead how many orbits now and finally justice will be served. With a side of crisps. Heh heh..." She slurped on her shake, pleased with her own wit. She waited.

The large front window of the Takke Store shattered. In flew Sheriffa Scythia Salve on her aerocycle, bashing Mandias' parked aerocycle out of the air, smashing and bouncing it across the store. Mandias ducked, and spilled her strawberry shake all down the front of herself. "Ee-yugh."

All sharp blue and long limbs, Scythia Salve leapt from her aerocycle and grabbed the Manager by the throat and slammed the Manager against the wall. 

The Manager saw his choking, terrified face reflected back at him in the pink uSee visor. Below that visor, Scythia's face itself showed zero emotion. "Antidote. Speak." Scythia loosened her grip, yet only slightly.

The Manager coughed. "Antidote? Why would I need an antidote for thieves?"

"Sheriffa. Sheriffa, please." Mandias stood a safe distance away to make her critique of her superior.

Scythia released the Manager, who tumbled to the floor, and turned to Mandias, placing a call over her uSee visor, "Omnes Sirens, APB on Sellstalt Designate Scarthroat plus Rainbow Rag Girl. Scour all factories. Repeat. All four factories. Find them. Now." 

***

At that moment, far, far below the Food Court and the Takke Store and the factories and the Sirens with their searchlights so high up above, in the Neath, in the Sylva Dome, the sickly green Rene knelt at the base of the steps leading up to the altar, hands clasped in prayer.

He watched as Ophiuchus laid the trembling, small girl upon the altar. Hanging over the altar, from the top of the domed ceiling, a very large, very old tree stuck upside down, and its branches moved like dozens of different arms. Around the Sylva Dome were set up different instruments. One branch pounded a drum. Other branches played strange instruments, woodwinds. Interspersed throughout the branches twinkled upside down candles, and their lights pulsed in time to the music the branches played. Ophiuchus did a dance, circling Nariah upon the altar, his grandiloquent black robe of feathers swooshing as he went, as if his feet did not touch the ground in his dance whirling faster and faster and faster around. He danced for her life.