Aetheral Space

When they brought the patient in, he already looked halfway to corpsehood. His skin was a sickly shade of grey, and his bloodshot eyes darted around from place to place, as though watching terrors that existed only in his brain - and when the foam rose up in his mouth, his saliva was an awful orange.

His thrashing made it difficult, but after a minute or two Mila and the outsiders managed to get him secured in a bed, injected with a relaxation drug to stop him from injuring himself. That didn't alleviate the other symptoms, of course, but it made them easier to treat.

They'd moved Dian out of the medical tent - his arm had healed to a point where he could be on his own, and they definitely needed the space right now. Sunset light shone through the thin fabric walls as Mila looked her patient over. The outsiders stood just a short distance away, leaving her room to do her work.

"What happened?" Mila demanded, raising her voice to be heard over her patient's wheezing breath. "Answer - quick, quick!"

The red-haired girl - Rudy or something like that - spoke up, anxiously stammering. "T-The, um, the fly … it blew up."

Mila looked away from her. There was no time to wrestle coherency out of her. Mila needed quick answers now, or it would be too late. She pointed at the shorter boy next to her, the silver-haired one. "You," she said, terse. "What happened?"

He almost looked like a scolded child. The boy gulped, then launched into an explanation. "We went after the experiment that had attacked Dian. We, uh, we managed to kill it, but then Serena kicked it and it, well, blew up, released some kind of gas, I think. Probably a contingency, ah, measure, I think."

"Anything else?" said Mila, running to fetch her analysis pen.

"Uh, it was orange?"

Okay. Orange. That could mean quite a few things, none of them good. None of them good at all. The thing to determine was just how bad the situation was. Once she'd done that, she could enter the realm of solutions.

"Hold his mouth open," snapped Mila, shaking the analysis pen ready. It was a small white rod with a tiny display on the side, ready to report its findings. "I need to get a sample of whatever he breathed in."

The leader of the outsiders - Skipper - reached forward, holding the victim down with his elbow and holding the jaw open with his hand. "Make it fast," he said, voice serious. "I won't be able to keep him down for too long."

Mila nodded and reached forward, putting the sensor end of the analysis pen into the victim's mouth. The pending symbol appeared on the display - it'd take a few seconds to isolate the hostile element and identify it.

She blinked, rapidly - a line of sweat had run down into one of her eyes. There was a beep from the pen, and she pulled it free, turning it over in her hands until the display was facing her. She read the tiny words written there in uniform font.

Decimatus-3.

She frowned. It was going to be a long night.

-

It took hours, nearly all the antitoxin supplies the doctor had stored up, but Bruno and Serena looked like they were going to last. They still looked like a disaster, of course - bloodshot eyes and pale skin - but Dragan supposed that at least was unavoidable when you breathed in a substance specifically designed to kill you in the most painful way possible.

"Decimatus-3," said Mila, holding up an old script. She'd plugged her analysis pen into the side of it, and information on the substance inside Bruno was being displayed on its screen. "It's an old Gene Tyrant poison. Decimatus-1 was near instant death for executions, Decimatus-2 was slow agony for interrogation…"

She trailed off, looking down at her script uncomfortably. Skipper looked at her, mouth a flat line. "And Decimatus-3?" he said.

Mila spoke: "Decimatus-3 is a slow, painful death. It was for making an example out of people."

Dragan winced. They'd had to apply a substance to his own eyes to stop the stinging, and now he was appreciating just how close he had come to ending up just like Bruno and Serena. He'd had the stuff all around him, for god's sake.

"Is there a cure?" said Ruth, anxiety in every syllable. "Are … are they gonna die, no matter what?"

Mila drummed her fingers on the table, looking uneasy. "Not … necessarily. I've asked Helga about this, and there is a treatment that's been successful before."

"And that is?" said Skipper.

"Well," said Mila. "Decimatus-3 was an engineered substance - so the Gene Tyrants built in a way to stop it, too, in case they ever needed to pardon someone who'd been dosed with it. Three chemicals introduced in a specific ratio, and the poison destroys itself. Like pressing an off switch. Two of those chemicals I could synthesize here on Yoslof, but the third is a little, ah…"

"A little rarer," said Dragan.

"Exactly. The third is called Rospolox, and it's used as a fungicide on a few UAP planets. You could probably grab some on the market, but it'd be a trip to the nearest inhabited world."

Skipper's face was steel. "We'll grab it."

"Are you sure?" Mila said. "Even with the ship you have, there's no guarantee you'll be fast enough to -"

"We'll grab it," said Skipper, a portrait of resolve. Then, he glanced towards Dragan. "Me and Ruth will fly to the nearest place with Rospolox, grab the stuff, come back as quick as possible."

Dragan's brow furrowed. "Ruth and you?"

Skipper nodded. "You'll stay here. I need someone to look after Bruno and Serena while we're gone. Can you do that?"

Doubt swam inside Dragan's heart. It wasn't that he was unwilling - even though Bruno had been a dick to him, Serena had been perfectly friendly - but he didn't know how much use he would be. He couldn't help with medical matters, and as a combatant he was nothing to write home about. In fact, he -

- Skipper's hand landed on his shoulder. A firm grip. A firm gaze, right into Dragan's eyes.

"Dragan," he said, serious. "Can you do that? Can I trust you with this?"

Dragan nodded - hesitant at first, then with confidence. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, you can."

-

The grasslands of Yoslof were still at night, not even a single gust of wind disturbing their tranquility. It was as if the whole world were a statue, stone carved into exacting resemblance, just like the flies in the palace.

The grass glowed slightly in the dark, green bioluminescence shining out from every single blade. An endless sea of green light below, the pale glow of moonlight above.

Nothing natural could disturb this scene.

The grass moved, crunching underfoot and dimming slightly as a figure moved through it. It wouldn't be accurate exactly to say that the figure walked - although their feet did move up and down on the ground, they held themselves with such grace and fluidity that they seemed to almost glide across the green sea.

The figure was a shadow, a red shadow clad in an all-concealing crimson mantle. Age, gender, face - all was concealed.

The red shadow looked right, left, checking for observers. A dark mask concealed its face, but it could see out of it just fine. Then it looked up, towards the ruins.

They had moved behind it, so they could climb it's outer surface unnoticed by the Humilists. It wouldn't do to have witnesses. It would be unacceptable, in fact. The things that they did must never be discovered.

The shadow began to climb, hands finding each crack in the stone with ease, pulling themselves up with such speed it would look to an observer as if they were simply sliding up the wall. They left no trace of their passing - not even a fragment of stone was left out of place once their hands left each gap. They were a living ghost.

There was a rumbling from the distance. The shadow paused to look, perched in a crack like a bird of prey. Their black mask watched silently, so still they could have been part of the stonework.

The star yacht was taking off, soaring up like a shooting star returning to the sky. The green light of the grass and the white light of the moon were both reflected off it, making it seem a bizarre kaleidoscope as it took off into the clouds. After a second, the ship was gone.

The shadow wouldn't have long, then. It continued climbing.

After two or three minutes, the red shadow reached the top of the palace. This was a simple roof, where nobody was meant to actually go, but the architects of this place had spared no thought for such logical concerns. The roof was another garden of statues, countless stone copies of the same beautiful girl posed throughout its boundaries.

An eerily symmetrical face. Flowing, ethereal hair. Limbs ball-jointed, like a doll. The visage of Elizabeth, Lady of Flies, was unmistakable. The craftsmanship was superb: likely the statues had started off as engineered organisms that hardened themselves into carbon when prompted by some chemical. A whole life orchestrated just to die looking pretty.

A mixture of bitterness and admiration surged through the shadow's mind, but it shook it off. This was not the time for such things.

The shadow wasn't alone, after all. From every unseen spot in the garden of corpses, there was the subtle sound of slithering. Of hissing. The beast that had attacked Dian had been the most impressive guard, needless to say, but that didn't mean the security for the rest of the palace was lax.

Four serpentine creatures poked their heads out of shadows, inspecting the red shadow. Their bodies were dark green, like vines wrapped around each other to form rope - and their heads were like a triangular fly trap, a flappy jaw separated into three sections. Plants with delusions of reptilia.

They weren't that much of a threat. The shadow knew that with a seconds glance. If it looked like a snake, then it could die like a snake.

The creatures lunged forward, digestive fluids already dripping from their mouths, but the shadow was ready. It flowed around their predatory strikes, cloak moving like water - and it dispatched three of the serpents with curt, businesslike thumps of its fist, like knocking on a door. Their heads burst into green viscera, utterly demolished.

The shadow's hand flickered with dark red Aether only in the moment it struck the enemy. Using Aether like that saved effort, and meant that each individual blow could use the maximum amount of power, but the resultant lack of defense made the shadow vulnerable to sneak attacks. That was fine, though. It had no fear of sneak attacks.

The last serpent lunged forward, jaws rushing towards the shadow's neck. It had no fear of death. The god that had made it had no reason to give it a fear of death.

The red shadow stepped backwards, allowing the snake to lunge into the empty space in front of it. Then, with practiced efficiency, it grabbed the serpent with both hands - one just below the head, the other at the tail end. The snake writhed, tried to break free, but it was too late.

Aether the colour of dried blood sparked along the joints of the shadow's arms for a moment, providing them with a split-second of enhanced strength. Then, with the slightest soft grunt of exertion, it pulled - and the serpent was ripped in half. The Aether faded into nothing the second it was no longer needed.

The creature made no sound as it died, and what amounted to its organs oozed half-liquid from the open ends of its body. It's loyalty was pre-programmed, it's dignity in death even more so. Elizabeth had not wanted a guard whose death would disturb her tranquility.

The shadow dropped the already-decomposing remains of the snake on the ground and turned away, the engagement already fading from relevancy. Guards like this were nothing. The shadow could fight hollow, emotionless beings by the hundreds and not feel a thing. If only it were so easy.

It marched past the garden of statues, maneuvered up a hill of debris to the highest point on the palace. It required elevation.

The red shadow reached into its cloak, pulled a small disk free. The device was unlike anything else in the Humilist camp - not new, exactly, but clearly built recently. The Humilists believed that the world was already at bursting point, and that to create new things within it was the height of irresponsibility.

The shadow agreed. Perhaps that is why it's hands shook as they delicately placed the beacon on a chunk of heaven-pointing rubble. It connected easily, sticking to the rock using built-in magnetic systems.

It's hand reached out to tap the button on the top of the beacon, hesitated, then tapped it anyway. A holographic display popped out of the device, floated in front of the shadow's face. A text input.

It tapped away for a few seconds, then read it back to itself.

WANTED FUGITIVES PRESENT

FUGITIVE: "SKIPPER"

FUGITIVE: RUTH BLAINE

FUGITIVE: YAKOB DEL SED

FUGITIVE: DRAGAN HADRIEN

It read the message back more than once, as if mulling it over. This was not yet a thing set in stone. It could still turn around, head back to camp, and go to sleep. Nobody would ever know.

No. That kind of cowardice would doom both them and the ones they were doing this for.

The red shadow finished typing it's message.

DISPATCH RELEVANT FORCES IMMEDIATELY FOR CAPTURE

GID AUTH CODE: 929-712-771-909

MESSAGE RECIPIENT: SPECIAL OFFICER ATOY MUZAZI

The shadow hit send.