Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 43: And My Theater Never Closes...

[Author's Note: I'm not dead! Many apologies, I intended to take a break from this story after pushing myself to get three chapters out in December, but I didn't intend to be away so long. Back on board now, though, so enjoy!]

Chapter 43: And My Theater Never Closes...

La Fin de Toute
(formerly Galactica Palace)

37th Floor - Library/Security Center

The grating buzz of an alarm woke Labyrinth Commander Eas from her sleep. Perplexed, she opened her eyes and swiped the air with one fingertip. A dozen scrolling lines of holographic text flared before her, throwing her pale face into shadow.

It wasn't a system failure or an intruder alert; those would have been loud and grating enough to rouse her in an instant. Nor was it a summons from Joker, for that would do the same. No, the largest and most prominent status update came from the Merry-Go-Round.

All power to it had been shut down.

Eas lifted the transparent plastic cover of her sleep pod and sat up straight, reading the updates from her holo-tablet as fast as it could deliver them. According to the palace's routing systems, the Merry-Go-Round itself was still running and still at full power... but all conduits leading to it, the conduits supplying it with all its energy, were inactive. Mystified, she opened the Merry-Go-Round's schematics. Most of the details of its inner workings were classified above her security level, but if there were some form of battery inside, she would have known about it. And if it had been capable all along of running itself from an internal battery, why keep it connected to the palace's power grid for all this time? To charge itself? But then, why use the prisoners as fuel at all?

She didn't know, and her holo-tablet could only tell her so much. Eas stood and touched the comm embedded behind her ear. "Master Joker?"

"Yes, my dear?" The harlequin's voice was calm and even. Far moreso than it should be.

"Sir, I just received an upsetting alert. The power to the Merry-Go-Round has been cut."

"Of course it has, Commander. I was the one who cut it."

Eas blinked. That couldn't be right. "Sir?"

"I suggest you come down here, Commander. You can be the first to see it, if you'd like."

"To see what, sir?"

"The Merry-Go-Round is about to fulfill its primary function."

There was no refusing an invitation like that, and it was unsafe to refuse Joker in general. Eas disappeared in a streak of crimson light.

*****

The Merry-Go-Round

She materialized behind Joker, who stood on a raised platform hundreds of meters above the floor, jutting out of one of the chamber's fleshy outer walls. His back was turned, the black eyes of his mask lifted to the immense technorganic tower studded with living bodies from every world. It wasn't immediately obvious that the Merry-Go-Round had been disconnected from the grid; its burnt black machinery and circuitry still hummed, its biological components still throbbed and pulsated with pseudo-life, the hundreds of embedded prisoners still moaned in agony, their voices muffled by the horseshoe-crab-like masks clamped over each of their faces and held in place with sickly yellow pointed teeth. It looked much the same as the last time Eas had seen it.

Except, on her second look, Eas saw something new in the center of the tower's mass. It was maybe a meter in diameter and growing larger with each passing minute, round and plump and shiny red like a festering boil. Multicolored veins and arteries—red, blue, purple, green, black, white, orange, a few other colors she had never seen before—crisscrossed its surface. They throbbed faintly, pumping dozens of different fluids through the tower's circulatory systems. The new growth appeared to be purely organic in nature; Eas could see no obvious circuitry or machinery on its surface. The library's compiled data stated that the Merry-Go-Round's organic and technological components were blended near-seamlessly down to a cellular level, so perhaps its technological aspects were too small to be seen with the naked eye. Whatever the case was, it was best to announce herself before gathering more information "Master?" she said to Joker, bowing out of habit.