Chapter 10:

The ghost laughed.

Faustic


“You’re full of shit,” said Jin.

Faust approached the corpse and pulled the tarp back over it. “I’m only saying what you already know.”

“And I know this was a homunculus. I know I’m being paranoid. At best, this is another homunculus we weren’t able to track.”

“Oh Jin. If you truly thought otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re here because I’m going fucking crazy.” She circled around him, a hand on her head. “First it was the dreams, Faust. Now I see ghosts.”

“Only thing you’re seeing is truth, Ms Yurinhalt.”

“What truth? Bite marks, behavioural profiling, all of it matches homunculi.”

“But none of them match Betty.”

“A lack of evidence does not mean evidence for the contrary.”

Faust flicked his wrist, and the teeth diagrams returned to her interface. “You’ve been so focused on the size and structure of the teeth, yet you’ve neglected to cross-examine it with the severity of the wounds themselves.”

He brought up images of Samuel West’s neck. “The abdominal wounds are difficult to analyse, but you can very clearly tell that the neck wounds were caused from a single bite. A single bite, and poor Mr West almost lost his head.”

“Most homunculi can decapitate with that sort of ease.”

“Not with those sort of teeth though. Deadly, sure, but not fit for killing like the Marauder or Grendel models. In fact, it is biologically and evolutionarily impossible for an animal to achieve such an immense bite force with such comparatively unimpressive teeth. It’d be like trying to paint the Sistine Chapel with a toothbrush.”

“What’s your point, Faust?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure you know this better than anyone. How does one achieve that force-to-size ratio? How does one best nature like that?”

Jin bit the end of her thumb. She already knew the answer, but she kept running the question in her mind over and over again, trying to come up with another reasoning. Some alternative route she hadn’t considered before. In the end, the same singular response greeted her.

“Cybernetics,” she said.

Faust smiled. He leaned against another locker, arms crossed. “When I still taught at the university, I had this bit I’d do every semester. After the exams, or maybe a particularly hard lecture, I would give a little joke. To lighten the mood, that sort of thing. There’s this specific one I’d always tell. It goes like this.”

Jin slid the corpse back, shutting the locker behind her. She strode right past Chang. “Put me through to Séquard and the Princep, then get the Triton ready. We’re going back.”

“A man visits the zoo,” said Faust. “He sits in front of the monkey exhibit, watching the apes in their habitat. As he sees them screaming and howling and eating bananas, he thinks to himself, ‘humans are truly the most intelligent creatures on Earth. We discovered fire, built cities, conquered space. All the apes have ever done was stay in their jungle, eating and shitting.’ What the man didn’t realise was that the apes were thinking about how they were the most intelligent creatures on Earth.”

The ghost laughed. “For the same exact reasons.”

At the edge of Cisterna, where the border between town and forest blurred, Séquard stood in near complete darkness. His only light, beyond the sparse floodlights behind him, was the cigarette he was dragging on. In truth, he had given up smoking after the war. He had smoked for the stress and the nerves, but after he became a Runner, he promised himself he’d never touch another cigarette.

But promises were cheap, and the Chesapeake Meadows between his fingers was oh so expensive. It was the most prestigious brand, the sort made from real tobacco plants, however many of those were left in the world. Even on an elite rank payroll, it wasn’t something he could afford on the regular, so, when the police chief offered him a stick, he didn’t think twice.

The evacuation order had only just been rescinded, and with most of the civilians still gone, he was enjoying a moment of silence. Like the Meadows, it was a rare luxury. After the gunfire of the war and the traffic of the city, it was almost strange to hear one’s own breathing. Everything had a sound, from the soil crushed underfoot to the flakes of ash dropping from the cigarette.

Clint Séquard pushed his cheeks in and blew out a plume of smoke. A child got hurt tonight. A child almost died tonight. Massaging the bridge of his nose, he told himself he should’ve never listened to Yurinhalt. He thought she had seen something he didn’t. Some threat about the homunculus that a quick sniper shot couldn’t fix. Turns out the Ashwalker was just getting soft.

That was the problem. With her, with everything. Being a Runner, the highest cause of death wasn’t homunculi, it was complacency. They won the war, and peace had a tendency to make great men weak. Many of the Runners believed their profession might not even exist in a few years, so what was the point? A world without pests would have no need for exterminators.

They had forgotten what it was like to be hunted. To be the pests themselves. But Séquard remembered, and he made sure he’d never forget.

His gaze flew to deep within the woods, where something was rustling against the trees. He took one final taste of the cigarette. “I know you’re there. I was having a pretty perfect moment, you know. Perfect temperature, a nice quiet night, and some Chesapeake Meadows. Only one thing to make it better though.”

The rustling grew, accompanied by the noise of crushing gravel and dirt. Footsteps. It was coming closer. A steady prowl at first, quickly shifting into a sprint.

Séquard dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the heel of his boot. “To water the woods with homunculus blood.”

With the cigarette gone, so was his vision. The floodlights behind weren’t enough to illuminate the beast, and he didn’t have night-vision to compensate. He sure as hell didn’t need them though. He could find a homunculus from the sound of their cackle and by the stench of their malice.

Séquard drew one arm back, waiting. Once the drumming of the ground ceased, and the beast was mid-air in pounce, his fist shot out. Cobalt connected with flesh, and he could feel the creature’s organs pulsate from the blow. The homunculus flew back, and judging by the volume of the fall, quite a distance. It crashed into a tree, the splintering wood ringing like thunder.

“Fucking come on!” The hydraulics in his arm reset, ready for another punch. “I already fucked your sister, now it’s your turn!”

A roar, followed by a burst of wind. Séquard pivoted too late, and a blade sliced open his shoulder. Blade? No, claws. He gripped the wound, hand wet, and spun around. Bushes and leaves were shaking, and he needed to track the sound. His head darted from side to side.

There was another whistle of metal through air, and a stinging blow caught him in the leg. He fell on one knee, and swung in the dark, finding nothing but air. The next stab came from behind, carving deep across his back from neck to hip.

Séquard cursed, making another aimless punch. The homunculus was quicker than he expected, and its claws several times sharper. Whatever class it was, it couldn’t have been a cattle breed like the one exterminated earlier.

Séquard forced himself up and dashed. He slammed into a tree shoulder-first, and heard the bark crack. He wrapped his broad arms around the trunk, clenched his teeth tight, and heaved with all his strength. His arm’s cybernetics sparked from the strain, and the tree’s metal shell crumpled like paper under his fingers. Little by little, the roots tore free from the soil and Séquard stumbled to support the new weight.

Then, he angled his new weapon, an ugly towering hunk of steel. It was no more a sword than an ocean was a puddle, and with it, Séquard anchored himself to the earth and swung. The tree smashed through its brethren, one after another, and he swivelled on his heel to keep it swinging. Once he could not bear the weight, he let go. The trunk crashed onto the ground with a loud thud.

Séquard ran a finger through his hair, sticky with sweat, and pulled out a fresh cigarette. He tugged it close, lit it, and breathed deeply. “Who fucking knew? I should’ve given you more credit. You’ve got more shticks than your sister.”

The homunculus, wherever it was, hissed. It was breathing heavily, either from getting hit by the tree, or all the effort dodging it. Either way, the creature was running out of stamina. If there was any time to end it all, it was now.

Séquard extended his arm, palm up. The drumming of his heart filled his ears, and his blood burnt like boiling water. Violet light gathered at his fingertips. “Axiom,” he whispered.

The homunculus must have understood him. It made a low growl, and pounced, roaring across the air. Séquard spun towards the noise, aiming his hand at it, cloaked in purple flames. Their light rolled away the darkness, and for the first time that battle, he saw his assailant.

Human eyes stared back.

Séquard flinched. He withdrew his Axiom. The flames faded, and with them, the light. In that familiar darkness, a cold blade plunged his heart.