The Rightful King

Marlo opened his eyes. The jelly fish was floating outside an open window. Nessa was shaking him, and Monticello was climbing through into the building. For a moment, his mind was hazy. Who were these people? What was it he was lying on? Where was he? Some kind of city, with lights of every colour flashing up above, a thousand smells, none of which were pleasant, and more sounds than he could possibly process, even if he lay here for a day. Sirens, laughter, shouts, gunshots, wails, alarms, whirring and the sounds of crashing, a city spurred far beyond what was natural, a chaotic whirring maelstrom. More than just alive, it seemed to be mechanically enhanced, more madness made and perpetuated by machines. It just sounded so strange that he assumed he was still in a dream. But then he remembered.

He remembered the train, feeling it bear down on him, and every trace of hope leaving him. He had still so fervently believed, right up until the end, that he’d somehow make it out. Just pure human foolishness, he guessed. When he hadn’t, he had accepted it, but on the condition that he’d have a nice enough afterlife. Nothing fancy, just the bare minimum eternal paradise. This had not been paradise, and Marlo certainly hoped it wasn’t eternal. Hermes’s threats, the imprisonment from Benkei, the explosions, and the deaths he had seen. Then almost falling to his death, discovery of how terrible this new world was, and realising that it was now going to be his job to try and change this. No choice, no way out. Just fight a system he had learned existed today or die. Again.

Then if that wasn’t bad enough, getting betrayed by who he thought was the most normal person he’d met that day, a face-to-face encounter with the most terrifying creature he’d ever seen, almost falling to his death again, and being trapped with people he realised he actually quite hated. The one he got on with best didn’t know his name and seemed to not understand any of her surroundings. Marlo, on the other hand, was understanding more every minute. And none of it was anything he wanted to learn. That was his reality. In the space of a few hours, without consulting him once, his life, or afterlife, had spiralled into this. Running from monsters, and gods

He got up, and silently climbed through the window after the pair. As Monticello went back to the window to dispel the jellyfish, he looked around. They were in a strangely normal office corridor. The mundanity, after the day he’d had, mixed with the residual amounts of grogginess still in his brain and eyes, made it feel even more surreal than seeing the entire world painted on the sky.

Nessa went ahead gleefully, almost skipping, calling out as she went “Boss! We’re back! We got two new members!”

Marlo couldn’t be bothered to correct her. Instead he winced at her sudden booming voice, and looked around, sure that the doors on either side of them would burst open filled with more innocents these two would end up hurting, or maybe security that would go after them, forcing them to run even more. He didn’t know which would be worse. But, neither occurred. Monticello walked back past him, and sighed “Nessa, a bit quieter? You know we don’t want anyone on the floors above or below to hear us.”

“You own the whole floor?” Marlo asked.

“Sort of. Our cell is one of many, overseen by a singular larger rebellion hub we get our orders from. They got us this office, which serves as our base. To everyone else, we’re an insurance firm for cybernetics.”

As if on cue, in a room four doors down to the right, a phone started ringing. The repetitive, trilling tones range out once, twice, then cut off suddenly. Marlo heard the voice of a man, maybe somewhere in his forties say “Yes… hello?”

A robotic voice from behind the door replied “Hello.”

Marlo looked at Monticello, who said “Artificial response system. People tend to call these helplines for only a couple of things, so these were set up to maintain the illusion better. This way Nessa doesn’t have to work the desks and get us found out a minute into the first call.”

“Please… you’ve got to help me.” The voice of the man continued. He was rasping, hard “My heart… it’s not holding up. It took a stab earlier, and the mechanism I had installed in it… it’s powering down. I can’t… nowhere will accept me for treatment without proof of this insurance.”

“Certainly sir.” The reply was utterly emotionless. “What is your registration number?”

“My… what?”

“Your registration number sir. Thirty to forty numbers, ten to twenty letters, in any order. In your own time sir.”

“I don’t… please, I can’t… I don’t have that.”

“Sir, we cannot progress without your number,” The voice was completely calm. Of course, it was. The man probably had no idea he was pleading with a robot. Marlo felt sick, and Monticello couldn’t meet his eyes. “Once you get your number, we can move to getting you back your -” there was a slight pause as the robot chose the issue “-heart.”

“What? But I don’t have it! I’m not home… I’m in an alleyway I don’t recognise… please, I can hear things getting closer. I need-”

“Sir, I’m afraid I’ll have to put you on hold. We have a lot of customers and cannot afford to waste time in a call. Once you reacquire your number, after a brief period we would be delighted to speak with you.”

The call went dead. Marlo wasn’t even aware he was moving until Monticello stopped him.

“Don’t. There’s nothing you can do for that man.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Marlo was trembling with fury “You just want to stand there and let him die?”

“Nothing we can do.”

“We could at least find out where he is.”

“With a raven out there looking for us? No chance.”

“Call some service to help him, then-”

“You’re not getting it, kid. You need to pay for all that, and we don’t have shit to pay. Besides, what if they’ve isolated our voices from recordings of us? we left a lot of footage on cameras all over today.”

“Then let me at least talk to him and…”

“And what? If you tell him, he could call the authorities as a last act of spite. That guy’s probably been registered with us for years. He’ll feel cheated.”

“Cheated? You just killed him!”

“I didn’t do-”

Marlo tried to shake him off, but he was almost as strong as Nessa “Let me do something!”

“If you go in there and try to call him back, one of three things will happen.” Monticello gripped Marlo’s shirt, not letting him twist free. “A, he’ll already be dead, and you’ll hate us more. B, he’ll have been trying to scam us and chickened out upon being asked for a reference, in which case you’ll feel betrayed. Again.”

“You heard him! There’s no way he-”

“C. He’ll have been an officer posing as a man in danger, and if you pick up to try and help you’ll be breaking the law. It’s against the law here to deal in any form of insurance negotiation without a reference number. A sting operation that would accidentally catch us” Monticello met his eyes for the first time “Sometimes the machines act up, and I’ve got to be the one that answers. I’ve learned this stuff.”

“Congratulations, you’re a veteran of listening to people die!” Marlo pulled viciously, but still couldn’t get free.

“I can see it in your eyes, you’ll want to break something. That robot isn’t like what you’re thinking, I guarantee. It’s not some mechanical man. It’s a wall of monitors and wires. Just a big computer, smart enough to be dumb. Hitting that won’t do you any good. Though I can’t risk the small chance you do break it.”

“What the hell are you doing this for?” Marlo yelled. “Why are you even rebelling? You clearly don’t give a shit about these people. Is this just some power thing? Do you just feel stronger than these people, and like watching them-”

Monticello pivoted on his heel, lifting Marlo off his feet with the motion, and slammed him into a wall. Marlo gasped; all the wind-driven from his lungs.

“We aren’t in this to save anyone.” Monticello hissed, leaning in “We’re not good people, nor will we pretend to be. We’re in this so that, even slightly, we can inconvenience DVIN. If my death causes one second of extra paperwork for one of those bastards, I’ll face oblivion with a smile. People like that don’t matter, people who just grease their wheels. If you’re not careful kid, you’ll end up in that group.”

Marlo, still gasping, grit his teeth “I’d rather that than be grouped up with you!”

“Ho ho!” A new voice came from down the corridor. Marlo’s eyes flicked to the source. There, stood in the doorway Nessa had walked through, stood an old man. Grey hair framed his head, mixing hairline, moustache, and beard into a figure eight of silver on a face as creased and sunbeaten as a tissue discarded in the Mediterranean. He was huge, tall, and wide enough to almost fill the doorway, and his stance didn’t show his age at all. He smiled kindly and Marlo blinked.

“Wha-”

“Speak up, sonny.” The man said, directly in front of him. Marlo jumped back with a shout of surprise, then realised he could move. Monticello’s arms were gripped, politely yet firmly, in another mechanical arm. The man had two of them, and, Marlo noticed, two metal legs too. Even his eyes were metal, grey, multi-layered, Damascus steel balls with red highlights that shifted and swirled, seeming to observe Monticello, Marlo, and everything else in the room too. They were connected by one wire between them, bridging the nose to give them the appearance of spectacles.

“Come now Monticello.” The man said. “At least let me talk to the lad before ye hurt him. Ye’re not making a good first impression, are ye?”

“I’ve been around the kid a few hours. This ain’t my first impression.” Monticello said, pulling out of the man’s grip. The larger, older man nodded solemnly

“Of course. Still, I doubt yer first was any better.”

“What?”

“Look. I understand ye’ve had… frankly a right piss up of a day.” The man’s accent was Scottish, and his clothing was strange, almost like a bishop’s robe. “Why don’t you go… do other things, and I’ll deal with this.”

“I… I see.” Monticello nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“We’ll talk later. But know whatever happened, it is nae yer fault.”

Monticello started to walk away, and the man turned. “Apologies about that. It’s not been a good day for any of us. If I hadn’t had to wait for new orders, I would have come on the raid, and perhaps he would be in better spirits. Then again, I’m a dreadful leader, and if I lost anyone under one of my attacks, I might just have killed ye out of stress. So I suppose things could be worse, eh?” He let out a great booming laugh, then stuck a hand forwards.

“The name’s Wimund. Bishop Wimund. The rightful King of Scotland.”

“Oh.” Marlo shook his hand weakly “That’s nice.”

“Ye heard of me?” Wimund’s face creased further in expectation.

“I… uh…”

His face fell. “Ye haven’t. I see. My deeds still aren’t being taught in schools then?”

“I mean… I never paid much attention, so-”

“Ach nae me laddie. If ye had heard the tales of Bishop Wimund, the man who abandoned the clergy to fight the tyrants of Scottish royalty as a pirate to try and gain his rightful throne, only to be struck down in the last steps to the throne, cruelly defaced, losing eye and bollock alike, and sent back to his crumblin’ monastery to live the rest of his days in shame… you’d have remembered. All the wee bairns in yer class woulda been a weepin’ and a wailin’.” Wimund’s face was like thunder

“I’m… sorry to hear that?” Marlo tried. Suddenly, Wimund was alight with joy again.

“Ach, well, ‘twas a long time ago, and ye cannae be blamed for what ye betters thought ye should have crammed ye noggin wit’. Now then, let’s have a mosey on intae the meeting room and make a decision.”

“A decision about what?”

“A decision,” Wimund’s arm lashed out, and a blade unfurled from the forearm, the hand turning sideways, the fingers fusing and the palm flattening to make a large wide cutlass that came to a stop just ahead of Marlo’s throat “About whether or not we kill ye.”

Marlo froze, unable to move in the piercing metallic gaze of Wimund. They stayed there for a few seconds until Wimund burst into laughter. “Ach sorry lad. I’m just messin’ wit ye. We’ll nae be killin’ ye. I hope.”

Wimund flopped down on his throne. At least, Marlo assumed it was meant to be a throne. It was cobbled together from all the furniture that had once existed in this dim room before it had been so mercilessly stripped. A desk nailed to the wall made up the backboard, cabinet doors ripped off their hinges formed arms. The sad vestiges of a desk chair groaned under him, making this the only throne Marlo had ever seen with spinny wheels. It squeaked as he grunted, shifting into a position he found more comfortable.

“Ach me back.” He rubbed his spine. “Cannae believe this is meant to be the prime of me life.” His eyes shot up to stare at Marlo. “Ye heard about that yet lad?”

“I… uh…”

“What Boss means.” Nessa chimed in, said on a desk which did not sound very happy to be under her, swinging her legs back and forth. This was not as effective as she wanted, as her feet were planted very firmly on the carpet. So her feet just sort of ground back and forth, making an obnoxious noise, occasionally punctuated by yips as she shocked herself with static electricity. “Is that when people die, they arrive in Limbo at the peak of their lives. For people like you and me, it is just when we were physically and mentally at our peaks.” She looked Marlo up and down. “Do not worry, you keep growing until you reach it, so you do not have to worry about being stuck like that forever.”

“Gee, thanks.” Marlo shook his head.

“You are welcome. But for famous people, like Boss, it is when they were at the absolute peak of their fame and popularity. Which in his case, is when he was a little older”

“Famous?” Wimund rubbed the back of his head “Ach I dinnae about that. I’m just the rightful heir of the throne who had it cruelly and unjustly ripped from me hands, and spent me whole life-”

“Yes, yes… we’ve heard.” Monticello said. “Personally I’d never heard of you even when I was alive.”

“Well, the boss said he was very famous.” Nessa said. “So you must just be dumb. Same with you.” She pointed to Marlo “I am the only one who is smart because I died before him.” She sat back with the self-satisfied smile of a woman who knew she was absolutely, unquestionably correct. Marlo was halfway through looking for a window to jump out of when Wimund cleared his throat.

“Aye, thank ye, Nessa. Anyways… first, let’s get our facts straight. You lad. What’s happened to ye?”

Marlo told him. It took a while, starting with him finding the woman on the tracks, detailing his meeting with Hermes and the creepy details. He talked about Benkei imprisoning him and glared at Nessa as he related their disaster of an escape attempt. He talked about how they had fallen into Monticello, descended through the city, and caused an incident in the train station. His voice fell as he talked about Aiyana, barely audible over Nessa getting up and looking down the hallway to see if she’d arrived yet.

“And then, just when I thought that she was a nice person, she yelled for…” Marlo stopped himself just in time “A certain bird, owned by a certain God. It showed up, shredded the train, almost killed me, and then we got away… and now we’re here.”

“Hmmm.” Wimund stroked his beard “You’ve got the memory of a Hyakku that’s for sure. Ye’ve had a rough first day, haven’t ye?”

Marlo couldn’t even comment. He just nodded weakly.

“Well, while I ruminate on the best course of action for you, Monticello, how did things go for you?”

Monticello glanced at Marlo, but Wimund waved his hand as if to dismiss him “The lad’s seen enough of us that saying a wee bit more could nae hurt.”

“But… if DVIN got him…”

“What will DVIN want with a wee baby cell like us? Listen, Monticello, if it scares you so much, we’ll just have to keep the lad safe. And a good way tae do that is tae keep him in the same room.”

Monticello sighed. “You’re the boss.” He thought for a second. “The five of us left here as you saw. We travelled in groups, Yoki and Giuseppe with me, Harlo with Nessa. We made it out of the city with no issue. We made it through the gravitational swap with no issue. Then we made it down to the checkpoint, and things started going wrong. Only two of our explosives went off, so we missed a good half of the checkpoint in the original attack. If they’d gone off, Benkei and Hermes might have been injured enough to not… do what they did to us.”

Marlo winced at the memory. His back still had a fair few bruises from where he’d been blasted onto the gravel, and he was sure he’d lost his eyebrows from the fire. “We landed, and the security of the checkpoints attacked. Nessa got too excited and ran off, taking out a lot of them, but then we lost her. Giuseppe went after her, while me, Harlo, and Yoki tried to set off the other explosives. Harlo tried to steal us a weapon, but I was too slow to back him up, and…” His fists clenched “He got shot. As far as I can tell, death was instant. Yoki lost it and started ripping through the guards.”

Nessa nodded “Those blade arms of hers were good work. I am sure she did well against the guards.”

“She did.” Monticello glared at her “Until Hermes showed up. If we hadn’t had to split our forces, we would have done much better.”

“Well, I found a new friend this way, did I not?” Nessa gestured to Marlo. Monticello’s eyes widened with fury, but Wimund shook his head.

“What happened then?” Wimund asked “Take your time lad. No one here blames ye for this. Ye was up against a Knight of DVIN, and a bad'un at that.”

“Yoki and one of my shadow puppets tried to hold him off as I set another explosive but… people just can’t hold up against that speed. Hermes could have gone past her and killed me, but she made him angry. Her reflexes kept her working well for a while, parrying him, slashing where she could. I got the explosive off, but the damage, made the blast weaker, it was mostly smoke. I went looking through the smoke, and then I found her. My shadow dragon lay in bits around her and… Hermes had…” his voice broke “All her limbs, they were broken. He’d hit her so hard, and so fast, there were chunks of her missing. I could see her ribs, her organs. She reached out to me, but…”

“Ai, you dinnae have tae relive it. What happened next?”

“I sent more puppets, the jellyfish, the ape, the crab, the lot. They kept Hermes busy, and I managed to escape into the smoke. I crept around, trying to find the others. I found Giuseppe, or what was left of him. Benkei had… he was torn him in half.”

Marlo’s heart sank. Monticello had just lost three of his friends before they met, and Nessa had paraded him around like a trophy. No wonder Monticello had been so angry.

“I’m… so sorry.” He said, quietly. Monticello sighed.

“Not your fault, is it? So apologies from you don’t mean much.”

“Not yours either.” Wimund said assertively. “That was all of their choices. We all know those three were strong enough that if they wanted to, they could have fled. They died to ensure you two would still be here. Grieve them sure, resent them even. But don’t insult them by believing you could have changed their minds.”

“Yeah.” Monticello nodded, not looking too convinced “You’re right. Not sure why they chose us, but… After that, I assumed Nessa was gone too. I had no clue what to do, but luckily Dragon had just come back. I rode it up, and out, and after a few minutes, started to patrol. I was going to watch for a few more minutes, see if anyone made it out, and what the forces on the ground were doing. We did nowhere near as much damage as we wanted, but after a few minutes, I saw Nessa. Nessa and the kid.”

“I… I had no idea, I’m so sorry. If I had known-”

“Don’t worry about it.” Monticello said “You couldn’t have known. I’m not that unreasonable, that I’d hold something you couldn’t guess against you.”

“That is weird.” Nessa tapped her lips. “I am fairly sure I told you all not to follow me. Maybe Giuseppe did not hear? Sorry, I should have talked louder.”

Monticello turned. “You know what?”

“Monticello…” Wimund growled.

“No, don’t make excuses for her. If you’d stayed with us, like we told you to, then everyone would still be here in this room!”

“You know that’s not true.” Wimund snapped “Two knights of DVIN? There was no way you were escaping that without casualties.”

“She got out fine! Because she ran off and ignored them, ignored the mission. Her kleptomaniac tendencies cost us half our force, and she’s brought back someone who, no offence kid, seems a lot more trouble than he’s worth.”

Marlo had to give him that.

“Just one apology would go a long way.” Monticello continued “Or even just a sign that you cared. Because while you’ve been laughing, our friends have been lying dead in that goddamn checkpoint!”

Nessa swallowed. “I… I do not want to think about it. It is a waste.”

“A waste?” Monticello looked ready to punch her, but she continued.

“A waste of these emotions. Instead, I can use them when I am making something. Making augmentations they will never get to try. If I think about how they died, how I will never see them again, and how much I hate the people who took them from me then… The weapons will come out all the better.”

“What?” Monticello spat “What kind of logic is that? You’re waiting to feel sorry for yourself?”

“My creations are my apology. I will make sure I will not lose any more friends. Every masterpiece is filled with regret.” Nessa stood up, and Marlo realised tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Excuse me. I am already starting to lose it. I need to go work. I will use the swords I got from Benkei to make the best cybernetics I can for you,” she pointed to Marlo “and that was, I will not have lost anyone. Because… they will all be with you.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Monticello yelled as she ducked through the doorframe “We’re not finished!”

“Let her go.” Wimund said. “You know she deals with… things, different than us. She doesn’t get apologies, not like us. Nessa never puts much faith in words.”

“That’s not enough! I need-”

“It’s not about what ye need.” Wimund interrupted, sternly. “I’ll not have me team fall apart over this. She’ll have learned. The lass is older than you and I combined, don’t ye forget.”

Monticello threw up his arms. “I know. but she’s always just… you know.”

“She means well. Did ye notice she never stopped believing that lass you met on the train would show up? She’s got a kind heart to those she cares for.”

“I’d just like to know who they are.”

“So I’m not crazy.” Marlo muttered. The pair looked at him, and he jumped, realising he’d said it out loud. “I mean… you two appear… fairly normal but… it’s like she doesn’t listen to what you’re saying at all. I can never tell what she’s really thinking.”

“Aye, she’s a strange one.” Wimund leant in and whispered “I reckon her death, whatever it was, messed up her brain somewhat. She must have gone out in an awful way, and that’s from the man who died of an infected bollock wound.” He chortled, then shook his head. “Listen, Monticello. I’ve known the lass for since before you were born, let alone came down here. She can be a lot to deal with, and you’ve had a dreadful day, so I willnae blame ye. But know she has our best interests at heart. She went off to go find metal to help all of us, I’ll remind ye.”

“Sure, she just… I wish she picked better times.”

“Me too lad, me too. Still, best not speak ill of the dead. Especially if the dead can come back in the room and bonk ye on the noggin with a hammer. Now I’ve had the story from both ye, I can work out what to do next.” He stroked his chin and looked at Marlo “I willnae keep ye here if ye dinnae want tae be here. however, I dinnae ken anywhere else ye can go. Monti, do me a favour. Load up the front page of Limbonet?”

Monticello nodded and moved to a wall. He rapped on a portion with his knuckle, and it flopped open, revealing a monitor and keyboard. Marlo walked over, eager to see anything to connect him to normalcy. It started up, lines upon lines of code running down its screen, boxes opening and closing.

“Anti-triangulation software.” Monticello explained. “Avoids this machine being tracked.” He clicked a few icons, and a web browser opened. It was unlike any Marlo had ever seen. There was no search bar, instead, a little tiny cupid sat in the corner. Monticello motioned for Marlo to be quiet, and grabbed a black box, about the size of a mobile phone, on the side of the computer. He tapped some letters into it and held it up to the screen. It read out, in a tinny voice. “Front page.”

The cupid on-screen nodded, and flew away into the distance, vanishing in a burst of pixels.

“It wants you to say your requests out loud.” Monticello said. “That way DVIN can keep voice recordings of anyone looking up things they shouldn’t.”

The screen burst into colour, and when it loaded, Marlo’s heart sank. He was looking at himself. Not a reflection, but on a poster. A wanted poster of him, frontpage on the internet for all to see the text beneath it read “Marlo White. Kidnapped prisoner of terrorists. If seen, call this number immediately. One thousand ration reward.”

“One thousand rations.” Monticello noted. “They really want you huh kid?”

“One thousand?” Wimund looked over “Didn’t expect it to be that high.” He looked at Marlo with a calculating gaze, then laughed. “Ah well. Getting one over on DVIN is worth tightening our belts a few notches. But this is what I mean lad. We could drop ye anywhere in this city and do our damn best to never see ye again. Life would probably get worse for ye.”

“I’m stuck here.” Marlo said, hollowly, taking a step back. “I can’t go… anywhere.”

“Glad to see ye… understand the situation?” Wimund looked to Monticello for support, who shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. Hyakku’s smart enough to understand how bad this is.”

“Well, if ye stay with us for long enough, maybe another Hyakku will arrive, and they’ll stop caring about ye?” Wimund tried.

Marlo looked at him, and his eyes looked empty “What’s the likelihood of that?”

“Something like one in a hundred million? But hey, there’s a lot of you modern folks, aren’t there? And ye’re dying all the time!”

“I guess I’m stuck here.” Marlo said, quietly. “You three are the only ones down here who won’t sell me out on sight. It’s me against every person who ever lived.”

The others were silent. They understood how Marlo felt. “Why me?” Marlo asked. “I’m just… some normal person.”

“You just got unlucky I guess.” Monticello said. “Listen, kid… I was too hard on you. You can’t help being what you are, just like I can’t. We’re…” he shook his head “Forget it.”

Wimund clapped his hands, trying to break the gloomy mood. It didn’t work “Well, now that’s sorted out, welcome to the team! We’ve lost most of our members that were big on ceremony, so I’ll just mention ye to the leader next meeting. Though… maybe I’ll omit the bit about you being a Hyakku. That’s information best kept between us. Now…” he stood up, slowly. “Where did I leave it?”

He rootled around in a nearby cabinet and pulled out a mostly empty tube “Here it is! Isissence, freshly stole...” he checked the label “a hundred and sixty years ago. Rub this on that arm of yours, and in a few hours, you’ll be fit as a fiddle!”

Marlo took it wordlessly. Wimund looked around. “Well. I’ll start writing up a report. Marlo, as a new member of our cell, ye should know, we’ve been permitted a food raid by the higher-ups tomorrow, so be sure to be up for then. That’ll be a good way to welcome ye then. We’ll have a proper meal to welcome ye, none of that ration sludge. Proper scran. Why when I first arrived, I didn’t eat for the first twenty…” he trailed off.

“Is there… somewhere I can sleep?” Marlo asked.

Wimund nodded “The printing branch has all been converted into bunks. Monticello, show him to one. Get some sleep lad-” From outside, the sound of metal hammering, harsh and percussive began. Wimund winced “-If ye can.”