“Expin yourself,” Till Ingo demanded while w on the unscious patient in a circur-shaped medical dome of his private transport.

  The object of his indignation shrank on the video s, trying his best to bee oh a wall while holding a helmet in his hands. Keon, an enlistee from the quered nds of Teo-Queen, had attracted Ingo’s attention for a long while. The boy quickly uood the method behind the w of the seized drones; he eagerly traio bee a full operator on the Iable, occasionally assisting with manual tasks, always brimming with energy.

  The reje of his offer to take Keon under his wing surprised Till. He had used the crawler’s cameras to locate the youth, the a repurposed Teo-Queen drohrough a work of air tunnels. Keon, who gained weight and proudly wore an official uniform, had led himself in a ventition shaft, painting the Wolfkin’s helmet bck.

  “Please be quiet, or they’ll hear you, Mr. Ingo,” Keon whispered to the buzzing drone. “I don’t want to get punched like the wolf hag.”

  “The Wolfkins were aware of your presence from the beginning, Keon.”

  The vent looked at a small warehouse that housed a very unusual gathering. Warlord Eled, still blindfolded to ease the strain on her ed eyes, stood atop the crates, dressed in a flowing, slightly glittering gown of bck silk that left her shoulders open. She pyed a simple harp for Arruda, Ashbringer, Melina, and Macarius Voidrunner, filling the hangar with a pleasant melody remi of a long-lost home.

  Ingo wasn’t a seal man, but something in this slow, methodical py reminded him of his oartment, family, and the dried tree outside, the most precious artifact of their vilge. It took him back to the days when his family exged gifts and his sisters enced him not to get frustrated over a small teical problem. What a time it was; he was younger, foolish, more closed in, and his older sisters were never afraid te into his private boratory to get him to eat or carry him into his bed.

  Have I lived to your expectations? Inged his shoulders and hit the record button. If Eled’s piece had su effe him, it should make a killing on the market. No doubt the warlord wouldn’t worry about losing the rights to the music. His brain’s microprocessors offered to slow the flow of time and enhance his memory so he could relive his past in perfect crity, but the stist deed the offer.

  Some things had to be treasured in a natural way.

  The st member of the assembly, Wolf Hag Sarkeesian, g the vent, holding a paw over a swollen dark eye. Ashbringer, without opening her eyes, raised a fist, and the wolf hag quickly sat down, pretending to enjoy the cert.

  “Why are you painting the helmet? Have you been drafted for mainteoo?” Ingo demao know.

  “No, but yes, a little.” Keon smiled cheerfully. “Warlord Onyxia had asked me for a favor. She said that someone ranking her wolf hag by painting her helmet white all the time. The warlord didn’t want the girl to be distressed or sad, so she asked me to fix the vandalism while she was away and keep an eye on who it might be.”

  “Keon, you must learn how to say no, my boy, or the people will walk all over you. The warlord has her own soldiers,” Ingo grumbled. “Why have you refused my offer? If tokens are the problem, just tell me and I’ll solve everything.”

  A mutited body y on the medical table in front of him. A girl, approximately nine years old, extracted from the cruel harnesses of Teo-Queen. Prior to the first four operations, pus had oozed from every open wound, a blood clot pletely covered her remaining eye, arachea suffered from severe infmmation and tissue necrosis. Every time the poor thing regained sciousness, she tried to scream, her voice crag and barely audible.

  The microprocessors redesigeo-Queeional transmitter, rec and transmitting the calm and happiaken from several eager volunteers into the patients’ brains. It could hardly help with the mental state problem, but Till Ingo wasn’t a therapist, and this was the best he could do to bat the stant nightmares that his patients experiehey slept better, uhe effects of the drugs that blocked dreams, and no longer wao die.

  That left the problems of the body. Leaving the patients in such a tortured and partially rotting state was uable, no matter what Ravager might say, and Ingo worked day and night, keeping himself awake with medication. He repced hearts, lungs, treated the deliberate sensory overload that kept the victims in a state of perpetual hellish agony. Currently, the meical maniputors have pleted the task of severing arag the trachea. An additional set of meical arms lowered the artificial rept so that the child could breathe on her own. Pus no lued the girl’s body, but her kidneys still reatment.

  Frankly, the surgeries went much better than he expected. Partly, and it pained him to admit it, the success of the operations was thanks to his Iternian colleagues. He had paid them a visit, expining the situatiohey came to pick up the wounded, and for the past several days, their doctors had repeatedly joined him during the medical sessions, providing invaluable insight into the treatment aing outdated equipment.

  Naturally, he recorded it all. Information should never be wasted, and medical colleges and uies use it.

  The other victims of Teo-Queen madness had slumbered in their capsules positioned on the walls, each bearing their own cyberic augmentations: e engines repced hearts, estic rods in pce of spines, omachs, bones coated ial, and the like. There was little practical use iing nohal damage, but Till Ingo sidered himself a cautious man. After visiting Houstad, his private ptform will take them on a week-long jouro his pany’s headquarters. The cyberics will only ehat the trip will not be unpleasant if they somehow wake up and reduce the potential risk to their lives in the event of a sudden power outage.

  “Sorry, sir.” Keon bowed. “I… I was a coward…”

  “You were a young sve who asted freedom,” Ingo interrupted him. “It’s hard to call someone a coward when they have beeo be submissive.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Keohe helmet aside. “I never art of anything. I was a cog…”

  “Still are.”

  “But this time I have friends and people who care about me! I have rades-in-arms, teachers, mentors, and even…” he blushed.

  “Fast boy,” Ingo whistled approvingly. “Never miss anything, live to the fullest.”

  “It’s nothing serious, not yet! Regardless, I have a ce to save lives, to help break s that hold people like me as sves…”

  “There are many ways of saving lives,” Till made the st attempt. “A soldier fights, a soldier kills, but a skilled programmer create wonders capable of both preserving soldiers’ lives and aiding in everyday life. And I am sure that many of your trymen are upset about the deaths wrought by the Third.”

  The Recmation Army experienced rapid expansion and grew excessively depe on individuals. Numerous intelligent and youthful men pursued careers in stru, the army, field medie, or meics to earn easy tokens, as well as because of the geional trauma that shaped them.

  Those who survived the extin were resilient individuals. They had to bee so to ehe survival of their families. They had to learo cut their losses a an infirm die so the rest of their children could survive. Unsciously, their beliefs were passed on to their sons and daughters, and rather than “wasting” time in uy, they sought to learn the craft on-site, helping sgers and teis learn how to assemble equipment, or helping hunters learn the skills necessary to join an army. The idea of mastering a skill that would require years of study seemed like pure folly to many. If you didn’t earn your keep right away, you weren’t pulling your weight.

  Till Ingo never bmed people for the views that helped them survive, but a thriving modern society could not fun without micreons, stists, programmers, engineers. Every profession had its value; automated medie and knowledge stored in vaults could only take them so far. A janitor or a sewer worker are theoretically simple jobs, requiring little plexity. But they are hard, and the manual bor takes a toll on the body, and these professions are invaluable to society.

  The problem of simplicity and plexity remained. Experts in intricate fields such as geic ing or surgery frequently joihe Army. War was no longer simple; it involved the plexity of making sure yhting force remained capable, recovered from PTSD, stayed healthy, and used the test war gear.

  Had the Dynast hadn’t been so hell-bent on expansion, an equal distribution of personnel would have allowed for the creation of universal free healthcare even ier Regions, but as it was, even in the Core Lands, there was a she of qualified medical and civilian personnel. Private ics helped, but it was harder to find automotive designers, programmers, ineers for new power pnts, since most of them served in the military.

  No one could be irrepceable, so Till Ingo made it one of his life’s goals to find bright ds and sses ahem off to study or take them under his wing. After graduating, his students had their own students, and the process of preserving, spreading, and accumuting knowledge tinued and will tinue far beyond his expiration date.

  As it should be. No one should die from a ck of heart surgeons, as his dear father did.

  “Sorry, but no, Mr. Ingo.” Keon shook his head. “Yeah, there are a lot of angry people. How could there not be? Almost every family has lost a member or a friend, and some still hold on to the illusion that we could have lived in utopia if we hadn’t been quered. It’s hard. It’s hard to accept that I worked my entire life t the end to the people I love. I thought I was helping people! I thought the rebels were crazy. I was cheering their deaths beside my dad, but instead I oisoning the air and ruining children’s lives…”

  “You did nothing of the sort,” Ingo interrupted the usual melodrama. “The fault lies with the one who itted the sin, you moron. Have you ever iionally harmed another person? No? Then shut up; otherwise, by yic, every victim of a theft is ily responsible for the thieves’ vish lifestyle and subsequent thefts. Self-bme is nonsense; snap out of it.”

  “Thank you, mister.” Keon smiled. “I just pray every night so my people move on and live their lives free of anger. But I’ll be a crawler operator. Maybe a part-time assistant in the arsenal. It is the way I want to live and how I set things right. To… if not undo what I did, then to do something right now.”

  There it is. Annacy, Keon, and twenty others deed, leaving him with only two students to send to the UNU.

  “Will you shut up!” Arruda snapped from below, and a knife nded he vent. “Get down there, Normie, and stop your chatting! We are trying to listen to the cert here!”

  “Live well, Keon,” Till Ingo said to the panicked young man, shutting off the unication aing the droo return in automatic mode.

  His hands operated the sole, sewing the girl’s horrid wound, but Ingo’s thoughts were elsewhere. Hoeople dehemselves the future because of self-guilt or family traditions? Geicists, nuclear engineers, robotics specialists, augmentation surgeons, potential creators of artificial intelligence. So many bright minds, all of them ly wasted, but rather lost to the annals of history, their breakthroughs deheir glorious aid not realized because of the never-ending quests…

  “You will stay away from war and danger, young dy,” Till Ingo said to his unscious patient, perf the final checks to make sure the rachea was w nicely. “ement, no traumatic events, a simple, quiet and b life in the Core Lands, a proper education…” He gritted his teeth at a sudden din in his brain.

  ‘DANGER! DANGER! IMMEDIATE EVACUATION IS REQUIRED! FAILURE TO LOCATE AN ESCAPE ROUTE! ACTIVATION OF THE DEFENSE SYSTEM‘ A din of voices erupted in his head. The microprocessors had adopted some human habits, but in their panic, they filled his skull with screams more befitting frightened children.

  “You lied…” A predatory whisper reached the researcher’s ears, but he didn’t turn too focused on pleting the task at hand.

  Meical tendrils slid from the ceiling of the dome in respoo the unauthorized intrusion, preparing to around and stun the ued guest with electricity. Should the guest be resistant to ventional tasing, the tendrils also bore sharp moleeedles around their edges to pump iive drugs. Most of the time, that did the trick.

  The floor trembled as Ravager grasped the tendrils, disregarding the surges of rapidly esg electricity strikes and the needles scratg at her hide. She ripped them and the meism in the ceiling free and stomped on the shattered debris, growling lightly.

  Emergency lights flickered briefly in the room, and the pods holding the wounded sank into the open passageways in the walls. The honeyb structure of Ingo’s private flying saucer allowed entire levels to be moved up and down in respoo ging circumstances or to prevent ued artillery fire from destroying valuable artifacts. Even the trol room was intergeable, and as Ravager tio destroy his medical ter, the sleeping people were safely moved to the safety of the ste area, whose walls could withstand even a point-bnk nuclear explosion.

  “Enough,” Till Ingo said as a cra the floor reached the patient’s ptform. He turned, a small child pared to the rapidly approag bck shape ed ial tendrils and fshing her fangs. His instincts called him to dodge aside, but he refused to expose a child to the danger. “I said enough! There is a patient here! Cease, Ravager!”

  Her cw stopped a timeter away from his eye. The mad rage in her amber suns faded, repced by some kind nition, and Ravager looked around in fusion, twitg nervously at the sight of empty medical tables and the still-twisting tendrils on the floor.

  “I am not in the Room; I am not the Room.” Ravager pressed her forearms to the sides of her head, squeezing with all her might. “It’s gone; he wasn’t here; he wasn’t there; I am to; nothing happen; I am in trol; it wasn’t there…” she kicked the broken flying vehicle of the raider’s leader, who had assaulted Just Peachy. Ravager old Ingo what she did to the man himself, as she brought it to him as a gift. “It… It… Why is it always this shit?” Her eyes stopped at the tendrils.

  “It’s the most effective nohal method to stop an intruder,” Till Ingo stated. Today’s outburst ended better tha time, wheantrum had forced him to undergo a knee rept.

  Drones appeared from the open recesses in the floor and walls. Skittering over the ground, they cleared the dust that Ravager had brought in, removed the broken equipment, and sed the room for structural damage. Given enough time, they will fix the dome bato its inal form. Several of the smart maes climbed over the sleeping girl, cheg her e to the life-support system. Then they wheeled her away, and Ravager gnced over at the girl, softening her expression.

  “Y-you promised,” the ander said acgly.

  “Biological parts, yes.” Ingo rolled his eyes as Ravager sshed the dome’s side. She shook, drooled, and then stormed out.

  Before his friend could cause a ruckus and wake Banshee, who was sleeping for the first time in weeks, Ingo followed her, obeying the silent order. Besides, the idea of teasing his creation for pletely failing in her bodyguard duties was amusing.

  Ravager ched a paw to her chest, her heart pounding so loud Till could hear it from several paces away. She stumbled out of his flying b, pung in access codes she shouldn’t have known. Oside, she reached the crawler’s edge and sat, nervously breathing. The researcher joined her.

  “Why didn’t you ask the Iternians for help when they picked up the injured?” Till Ingo inquired after a period of silence. Small talk wasn’t something he had mastered, and the sight of green fields and w engines was b him.

  “Because it would’ve caused a political shitstorm,” Ravager said, hiding her fa the knees. “By healing them, they would be ily siding with our quests.”

  “Ued restraint. I would have thought you, of all people, would enjoy setting Iterna up like this for what they’ve done in the past.”

  “You sound like Ivar. What’s the point?” Ravager raised her head. “Revenge, hatred, murder, mutition, lies… Against whom? The guilty are in prison; there is no o for me to punish; there is nothio set right, and they had offered their help out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  “And to prove to those around them they no longer harbenocidal iions towards New Breeds,” Ingo remarked.

  “Yeah. Politics. So what if the e is positive? Us, them, these religious freaks... If the little ones are fed, I am satisfied.” Ravager shrugged and looked at him. The light in her eyes intensified. “You’re dang around the argument, Till. You promised.”

  “The promise will be kept,” he assured her. “Ravager, you saw the girl. First, we will deliver them to Houstad. But we ’t treat them there, so my ship will leave for Stormfiend, where the main boratory will perform this act of charity. The impnts are merely temporary band aid.”

  “Thanks.” Ravager was silent for a bit and then asked. “Did the bive you any troubles?”

  “The usual whining,” Ingo sighed. “The costs are too high; ’t we use the emotional teology in war…”

  “We…”

  “’t,” he finished for her. “We’ll be tiptoeing too damn close to breaking the treaty and giving Iterna a ce to use their holograms in the scuffle. No, it’ll remain strictly for civilian use. But Teo-Queen’s stored knowledge is enough to finalize the prototype of the predi engine and to manufacture the disruptor ons and meical suits for the soldiers. I will stay in Houstad and begin research immediately.” He patted Ravager on the back. “Get ready to see our own mechs in bat in a few years. I bet yirls will love the support. And they will soon receive a very special gift to help them survive on a battlefield.”

  “They’d be better off loving peace,” Ravager growled. She noticed the twitch of his eyes and tinued: “I am not blind, Till. But it won’t work. My children… they are as wretched as I. Monsters. Butchers. This is all we are good for. Almost killing each other all the time, even though there is no enemy here. I hear them r, growling, dishing out pain and receiving it iurn. No nobility, no future, uhe Ice Fangs. War is our home.”

  “Such a melodramati and doom.” Till clicked his tongue.

  He didn’t bother tue against the obvious bullshit. What was the point? Ravager lived in her own made-up world, stu childish e. The Orais, as a whole, had beore civilized. The Ice Fangs, having risen above their iuous heritage, strictly avoided repeating such disgusting practices. Many of their desdants subsequently founded businesses and corporations.

  As for the Wolf Tribe… Eled’s music touched his heart; Soulless One proved herself to be more than a rigid priest, and their younger geion was caught reading inappropriate magazines erly helping in the arsenal. Monsters do not behave this way, nor do they perform for the eai of children; they subjugate, not colborate. Even the blind could see that the Wolf Tribe was fully capable of iing into a funing society.

  “Your meeting with the mayor is scheduled for today,” Till said. “Wao stick around for moral support?”

  “Ner responded. She deeply inhaled and stood up on two legs, straightening to her full height, the fear and anger of the ered prey disappearing from her eyes. For a sed, Ingo thought that his heart had skipped a beat. The ander looked airely different person—majesti trol, all-knowing, and anding. “For my sins, for my sons, for my daughters and my troops, I will keep holding on. I do it. Little Sis believes in me.”

  “And I believe, too,” Till said against his will. He had to stand on his toes to read grab her knee. “Stay well, Ravager. Live. You never know how life will turn out. Don’t give up.”

  “Same to you, Till,” Ravager smiled. The ers of her lips quivered nervously, but her eyes were calm, and that scared him to the bone.

  She was normal. Ravager had, by some inhumaension of will, had gotten a grip on her madness.

  ****

  “So,” Janine said slowly. “We meet at st, thing.”

  The Ice Fangs’ chambers weren’t like their desert cousins. White marble tiles covered the walls and ceiling, so pristihat Janine’s eyes hurt from the sheer brightness. This pce was devoid of any st marks or dropped fur, and separate booths covered about three-quarters of the spacious room. Each booth had a stone floor and a sink that smelled wet. On the opposite side of the booth entrance anel full of various buttons, and above it was that thing. A loal-encased hose ected the det, diabolical, and devious circur hole capable of p water.

  “You are fooling me,” Bertruda accused her. The sword sai her spear outside of the bathroom; her bck brows were raised high in disbelief. “You ’t not know how it works. I thought yed me here to talk!”

  “If you want to mock me, go ahead.” Janine gritted her fangs, pissed off at her own inadequacy. In desperation, she approached the woman and asked for aid, petitioning for permission to ehe Order’s territory. “Otherwise, uphold your promise and expin to me which button makes the water the hottest.”

  “You ’t not know how it works!” Bertruda excimed again, giving Jahe impression that she anig. “It’s… it’s a prank, right? A humor beyond my uanding? It’s impossible to operate a bat armor and not know how a damn shower works.”

  “I have never seen this device before. Normies used a hose to us of gore prior to the Dynast’s endations…”

  A Wintersong sage peered from the entrance. Camelia had assigned her own private guard to prevent any possible flict betweewo rivals. Janine accepted this precaution and maintained a rexed posture, holding her head high to expose her ne a show of harmlessness.

  “Please… No, please. Twins, have mercy,” Bertruda begged. “It’s a joke; yes, I’ll just py along, and then we will have a ugh.”

  Janine said nothing, but listened ily to the expnations of the purpose of each button. The Blessed Mother visited the dens in person, apanied by Zero and Alpha. It was rare to see her walking on two feet so casually, and it was doubly unusual to hear the and of getting presentable before the official meeting. Most warlords followed the standard protocol and enforced pulsory self-lig in their packs. But in the absence of sand to the fur, the best Janine did the unthinkable. She asked her rival for help.

  “This is the hottest, got it.” Janine pressed on the yellow button, and numbers appeared on a small dispy, rapidly increasing as mildly warm water poured onto her head.

  “Stop pressing it!” As the ripled, Bertruda jerked her arm back. “Only First takes baths at that temperature! You’ll boil yourself alive, Janine!”

  “Perfect…” Jatered as the numbers stopped rising.

  She could actually feel the heat of her home ier. It wasn’t the bitterly chilly waters that the regur army had used to purify them decades ago in preparation for the Dynast’s arrival. This water… It was awesome! It got hotter and hotter; streaks ran down her limbs, warming her bones; steam rose, hiding the fused Bertruda from view; and Janine spread her arms, enjoying the diviream, wanting nothing more than to soak in it a little longer.

  It wasn’t bad. It was divine.

  “Use a gel, barbarian!” Janine blinked and caught a bottle that the sword saint threw at her from outside the booth.

  “Is this a snack?” She asked, examining the bottle. “Thanks for the offer. I’m not hungry.”

  “Stop! Stop pissing me off! You ot… It’s to make your fur er! Rub it in! Not the whole thing!” Bertruda spped a paw across her muzzle. “Not in the same spot, either!”

  Janine ignored her rival hysterid followed the instrus. She would tolerate this rude behavior for as long as it took, for the entire paeeded to look their best for the meeting, and Janine was only the first voluo test the Ice Fangs’ traption and firm its safety.