Necroepilogos

Pheiri’s rear access ramp unsealed with a clunk-clunk-clunk of bolts drawn back, then descended with a deep mechanical purr. Bitter cold rushed into the airlock chamber, bearing a mingled reek of dark metal and congealed blood. The static hail-haze hurricane-murmur grew louder, no longer muffled beyond bulkhead and armour, drumming against the distant walls of the tomb.

“Stick to the plan,” said Elpida as the ramp opened, voice undrowned by the storm. “Remember, we are completely safe beneath Pheiri’s guns. If anything unexpected happens, retreat to the airlock. No heroics. No surprises.”

“Quite,” replied Atyle, with a worrying smile on her lips. “No heroes left in the grave.”

Elpida prompted, “Vicky?”

“Uh, yeah,” Vicky said. “Yeah, of course. Understood, Commander.”

The ramp yawned wider; a red-lit wall loomed from the Stygian gloom. The ramp-edge touched the floor with a sharp click of bone on metal.

Elpida took the lead, boots thumping against the ramp, her long loose white hair a beacon in the dark. Atyle sauntered after her as if beneath a summer sun. Two of Kagami’s new drones were already on-station, holding position just to the left of the ramp — thigh-sized oblongs of matte black, picked out by the steady red points of their own running lights and forward sensors.

Vicky took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the stale stench of old blood and older metal. She tried not to grimace, then walked down the ramp.

She strode with a display of false confidence, just as Elpida had ordered; head up, shoulders back, hands resting casually atop the automatic grenade launcher now slung over her belly. Confidence was key for this mission, so Vicky put on the act as best she could.

She wasn’t going to give Kagami the satisfaction of being right.

The tomb chamber opened out to either side and soared high above Vicky’s head as she descended the ramp. The ceiling was wreathed in darkness, dripping down the metal walls, barely beaten back by Pheiri’s crimson red external lights. To her left, past the pair of drones, the corpses of Lykke’s ‘hounds’ were laid out in rows, most of them still in their armour, though some of them in several pieces. That was the source of the blood-and-meat stench hanging in the air.

Vicky stepped off the ramp; her footsteps clicked on the black metal floor, echoing off into the dark.

She suddenly felt very small and very vulnerable, surrounded by the great yawning emptiness of the chamber, despite the additional protection she wore; Vicky had ‘up-armoured’ with part of the haul from the tomb armoury, also at Elpida’s suggestion. A thick bulletproof vest lay beneath her armoured coat, with additional padding and plates covering her throat, groin, and upper thighs. She wore knee-pads and shin-guards, a silent statement that she was ready to drop into position, shoulder her weapon, and take aim at a moment’s notice. A lightweight helmet of black polymer protected her head; a headset with earpiece and microphone completed the look.

And it was a look; all for show.

Elpida was back in her armoured coat. She wore nothing beneath except a grey thermal t-shirt and matching trousers. Her right sleeve was rolled up to expose the bandage around her bite wound, showing off the limb with which she had defeated Lykke — another statement. A freshly cleaned and oiled submachine gun hung from one shoulder, while a pair of heavy pistols jutted from her waistband, out in the open rather than sensibly tucked away in pockets or holsters. She also wore a headset, to keep the team linked with Pheiri — and by extension, with Kagami, on overwatch in Pheiri’s cockpit, managing the drone escort.

Atyle wore a headset too, but she was naked from the waist up, with her coat hanging over her shoulders like a cloak, empty-handed and unarmed. Vicky wasn’t quite sure what statement that made, but Atyle made it very loudly.

The AGL, the pistols, the nudity, the drones, all of it was for show. Pheiri provided the real protection, from other zombies or from Shilu. One wrong move from the Necromancer, one unexplained shadow on the chamber walls, and half those big guns would burst everyone’s eardrums and turn the offender to a smear on the floor.

The low red glow of Pheiri’s external lights dyed Elpida’s hair a sticky blood-red, shading her purple eyes to black; Atyle’s naked belly and chest writhed with crimson shadows.

Vicky wondered if she looked intimidating too, dressed in armour, carrying explosives. She didn’t feel it. She felt awkward and clumsy.

Once all three were clear of the ramp, Elpida signalled back into the airlock with a raised fist. Hafina was waiting by the manual controls inside; the android was fully armed and armoured — emergency backup in case something unexpected went horribly wrong. Hafina answered with a raised fist in return.

Elpida whispered, “Vicky? Atyle? Are we good to go?”

“Of course, Commander,” Atyle whispered back. Her eyes were elsewhere, already roving across the chamber.

“All good,” Vicky hissed. “Good to go.”

Elpida spoke into the microphone of her comms headset: “Kaga, we’re clear. Pheiri, button up.”

Pheiri’s ramp rose with a mechanical hum. It sealed with a clunk-clunk-clunk of bolts, closing Pheiri and the others back inside the thick layers of metal and bulkheads and bone-white armour.

“Vicky,” Elpida said. “It’s time. Get yourself loaded.”

Vicky nodded, then crossed to one of the armoured pockets on Pheiri’s rear — a series of projecting abscesses in his armour, large enough to climb inside, each one capped by a heavy plate of bone. All but one pocket was currently empty, all of them remotely locked by Pheiri himself. Vicky had to use both hands to lift the lid, then extracted a string of sixteen slender cylindrical grenades — flashbang-EMP combination rounds, perfect for scrambling cyborgs and zombies. She replaced the pocket lid, opened the drum-mag on her launcher, and loaded the grenades. She double-checked the safety was on, then rolled her shoulders and tried to resume a casual stance.

“Ready,” she hissed.

Elpida said, “Vicky, relax.”

“Right. Yeah. ‘Course. ”

“Relax. That’s an order, soldier. Just follow my lead.”

Vicky took a deep breath and patted the AGL. “Sure. Relax. Cool as a cucumber, that’s me.”

“Remember, whatever happens, Pheiri’s got our back.”

A soft acknowledgement ping chimed in Vicky’s headset — Pheiri, agreeing. Vicky managed a smile. It was true, Pheiri had her back. She trusted the old boy more than she trusted her own nerves.

Atyle was already stepping around the right-hand corner of Pheiri’s rear armour, striding out into the chamber. Elpida glanced after her, then shot a wry look back at Vicky. “Come on, let’s not get left behind.”

Vicky followed Elpida out from behind cover. They walked beside Pheiri’s flank, trailing Atyle along the cliff of bone-white armour, staying well within the fifteen-foot radius of Pheiri’s low red external lights, pooling in a bloody puddle about his armoured skirts. Pheiri’s armour seemed the only landmark in the featureless black and shadow of the tomb chamber, studded with the bulges and knots of sponson mounts and weapon turrets. His bigger guns loomed overhead, tracking slowly back and forth across the distant walls.

Atyle waited for them at the forward corner of Pheiri’s hull, one dark hand resting on a knot of bone. Elpida and Vicky halted beside her.

The tomb chamber was a black cavern, the ceiling lost in dripping shadows, the far walls barely visible. Four passageways opened in those walls — one to the rear, through which Pheiri had entered, then one each to the left and right, and one straight ahead. The rear passageway was wide and smooth, designed for vehicle access, but the other three rapidly split and narrowed into a tangle of twisty little tunnels.

Shilu still sat thirty feet from Pheiri’s front — cross-legged, straight-backed, eyes closed in her ghostly face. Red backwash from Pheiri’s lights snagged on the sharp angles and cruel spikes of her black metal body. She was the same shade as the tomb.

Half a dozen of Kagami’s new drones hung in a rough picket line further out; running lights winked red in the dark.

Vicky tried not to shiver at the chill and the gloom; she was undead, immune to the cold, the effect was all in her head. She could see in the dark well enough, but somehow the darkness inside the tomb seemed different. It was like damp seeping upward from the black metal floor combined with tar dripping downward from a leaky roof, filling the room with a layer of tarry dark oil. The shadows and the metal amplified every footstep into a myriad of echoes, interrupting the whisper of hushed voices, all drowned out by the distant static haze-hum of hurricane hailstones and torrential rain.

Elpida and Atyle ignored all of that. They were both more experienced in combat than Vicky, more able to focus past the nerves, less twitchy and jumpy; they were both looking past Kagami’s picket line of drones, into the shadow-choked mouths of the three passageways ahead. Vicky forced herself to do the same, ignoring the sweat beneath her armpits and the churning in her belly. She could do this. She was up to this challenge. Kagami was wrong.

Dark shapes and hunched figures clustered in the passageways.

The distant backwash of Pheiri’s low red light picked out a face there, a shoulder of armour plate here, the dull glint of a rifle held in loose hands, the reflection of a pair of bionic eyes, and a hundred other details sunken in the gloom. Little oval faces peered around the corridor corners, bisected by peeking from makeshift cover. Feet stirred and fell silent against the metal floor. Occasional whispers ghosted forth, only to be swallowed by the fury of the storm.

Vicky raised her grenade launcher and looked through the sight; night vision swept aside the darkness, but revealed only a confused jumble. The passageways ahead were broken up and complex, with natural barricades and barriers built into the floors and walls, studded with nooks and crannies, pockmarked by side corridors and empty rooms.

Dozens of faces peered back at her, some naked, many masked or helmed, matched by an equal number of guns held at the ready.

Vicky lowered the launcher and swallowed hard; she couldn’t help it, her mouth was so dry. “Shit. Shit me, that’s a lot more of them than I expected. Are they still coming?”

Elpida whispered, “Hold steady. Pheiri’s got us.”

“Yeah, but why?” Vicky whispered. “Why are they here?”

Atyle chuckled. “To watch the show, perhaps?”

“Interrogation is not a show,” Elpida said. She raised two fingers to the earpiece of her headset. “Kaga, give me a headcount.”

Kagami’s snort crackled over the short-range uplink, broadcasting to all three headsets: “Too many, Commander. Too fucking many—”

“Numbers, Kaga.”

Kagami huffed; Vicky could practically see the rolling eyes. Kaga said: “Pheiri reads thirty seven revenants straight ahead, twenty in the left hand corridor, and seven in the right.”

Vicky swallowed again. She was not used to this — seeing the eyes of her opponents up close; give her an artillery park under drone attack any day, not this face-to-face over no man’s land. She kept her eyes peeled, hands on her weapon; pointless with Pheiri’s guns at the ready, but it helped her heart.

Elpida said: “Can you identify separate groups?”

Kagami huffed again. “How should I—” Then she paused and tutted. “Yes, fine. Pheiri estimates five separate groups in the corridor straight ahead. Might be six, they’re gathered close but they’re keeping their distances from each other. Left hand corridor, four groups. Right corridor … they’re all too close to tell, maybe just one group. Maybe one group and a single.”

“Are they all bottom-feeders and scavengers?” Elpida went on. “Anybody out there with powered armour, high-level cybernetics?”

Vicky whispered: “Saw plenty through the scope, yeah.”

Another voice butted in, crackling across the comms uplink with a metallic rasp — Serin: “I spy all kinds, Coh-mander. Everyone is at the watering hole, but nobody is feeding.”

Vicky glanced up and to the left, trying to see onto the front of Pheiri’s armour, where Serin was crouched in her unblinking contest with Shilu. But the black-clad zombie was tucked too deep into a whorl of Pheiri’s armour, hidden with too much skill. Vicky was glad Serin was on their side.

Elpida said: “No violence? There’s been no fighting among them? Is that correct, Serin?”

“Correct,” Serin said. “Not that I have spied.”

Vicky whispered into her headset. “Serin, have you ever seen anything like this happen before?”

“No,” Serin replied. “But then again, I have never seen a storm like this before, nor heard roaring like that voice outdoors. The fools and cannibals are shocked. Perhaps they think the world is ending.”

Atyle said brightly: “Perhaps they are right.”

Revenants had begun to appear in the passageways about thirty minutes earlier, while Vicky had been deep in conversation with Kagami and Elpida in the lab, discussing how exactly they were going to interrogate Shilu.

Vicky had wanted to postpone the interrogation until after everybody had a chance to rest. She wanted to prioritise the new arrivals — Eseld, Cyneswith, and Sky. She also wanted a chance to talk with Kagami in private; they needed to discuss what was going on with Elpida, the return of her confidence after Eseld, the renewed light in her eyes, the clarity of her command decisions. Vicky trusted Elpida’s intentions and judgement, even when clouded, but this change was sudden and sharp, after her long weeks of brooding over sins and skulls. She was back to her usual self. The Commander had pushed to carry out the interrogation right away, in case the storm should begin to pass, or the other Necromancer — Lykke — should find some other way to return. Vicky and Kagami had been on the verge of presenting a united front; they had almost convinced Elpida to at least take a nap, but then the gathering revenants had forced the issue.

Ooni had come blundering down Pheiri’s central corridor in a fright when the zombies had started showing up on Pheiri’s sensors, not knowing what to do without command direction. Up until now the other revenants who had managed to take shelter inside the tomb had avoided Pheiri completely, scurrying away in fear whenever they’d happened to spot him down one of the corridors. This change in behaviour had no explanation.

Vicky knew she shouldn’t really be out here; she should be in Pheiri’s cockpit beside Kaga, or deep in Pheiri’s guts, oiling up machinery and looking after her new home. Her place was behind the big guns, not in front of them. But Elpida had insisted the interrogation had to go ahead, especially if the revenants were gathering because of Shilu.

Others had wanted to come too — especially Ilyusha, because of the potential for a confrontation. That almost made Vicky chuckle. She liked Illy a lot, and could always rely on her to be ready for a good scrap, in exactly the way Vicky never was.

But Vicky wasn’t out here to be a grenadier, despite the weapon in her hands; this was all for show, all to shift the unwanted audience, all to strike the right tone for their little chat with Shilu.

Kagami had not approved.

As the others had been getting ready, Kagami had pulled Vicky aside and hissed in her face. Kaga had said that Vicky was an idiot and a fool. Kaga had called her a fascinating new variety of obscure Moon insults, some of them very scatological, one of them so sexual that Vicky had laughed — which had not gone down well. Kagami had told her in no uncertain terms that she was to stay put, she was to let Elpida jump the gun if she wished but Vicky was to sit her pretty little backside back down in the cockpit where Kaga could keep an eye on her, because Vicky was not cut out for this, Vicky was not to be risked so carelessly like this, and Vicky was a fucking idiot to trust the Commander’s badly impaired judgement like—

Elpida spoke into her headset again: “Pheiri, you ready?”

Vicky flinched and silently chastised herself. The argument with Kagami lay heavy on her mind, but she could not afford distraction, not while she was on duty, out here, beyond the hull.

Pheiri responded with an acknowledgement ping.

“Let them know they’re spotted,” Elpida said. “Hit the lights.”

Three narrow cones of blood-red floodlight lanced outward from atop Pheiri’s hull, blooming across the three passageway mouths in bright splashes of bloody illumination.

For a split-second many zombies were caught unaware, frozen in the sudden revelation of crimson, standing with mouths agape and weapons held loose, or pressed tight to the walls in what had been sure hiding places a moment earlier. Serin was correct — all kinds of revenants were represented among the scatter-shot audience. A clutch of predators with maws full of sharp teeth and limbs twisted into bone-spears were poised in uneasy truce right next to a squad of heavily-armoured, full-helmeted, black-clad cyborgs, bristling with shoulder-mounted weaponry and heavy guns. A group of naked bottom-feeders huddled around a low barricade, flanked on one side by a towering giant of gleaming chrome and black bionics, and on the other side by another group all wrapped in heavy rags, carrying a mixture of long blades and short pistols. Three robe-clad zombies held hands in a little ring, their eyes all pointed in one direction together, right next to a gang of fang-mouthed predators with bionic tendrils waving from their shoulders.

Then the zombies broke and fled, swarming backward in a wave; everyone scurried for deeper cover.

Vicky watched through her scope, braced for return fire, pressed to Pheiri’s armour, ready to hit the deck. Many of the opposing groups veered too close to each other as they retreated, snapping words lost in the storm-haze, brandishing weapons and waving guns, flashing insults and baring teeth; one or two even shoved and pushed each other.

But then the moment passed without conflict. The audience assumed new positions; they had not left, but only retreated as far as they had to, just beyond Pheiri’s light.

Atyle chuckled. Vicky turned a sigh of relief into exasperation. “Not gonna make it easy for us, are they?”

“Round two,” Elpida said, then spoke into her headset: “Pheiri, give me external audio for one sentence, seven words, then cut.”

An acknowledgement ping sounded in the headsets.

When Elpida spoke again, her voice was projected from Pheiri’s external loudspeakers, echoing off the dark metal walls of the tomb chamber.

“Disperse,” Elpida said, “or we will fire on you.”

The zombies in the passageways shifted and stirred, beetles and grubs squirming at the edge of Pheiri’s blood-red light. Vicky sighted down her launcher again, into the green-grey night-vision gloom.

“Doesn’t look like anybody’s moving,” she muttered.

“Kaga,” Elpida said, her voice reduced back to normal. “Do you see any takers out there?”

Kagami’s voice crackled into Vicky’s ears: “A few. Not many. Most are content to stay put.” She sounded so smugly satisfied, Vicky almost tutted; she couldn’t tell if Kagami was taking more pleasure in being right or in the opportunity to scare the shit out of Vicky. Kagami continued: “You do know, Commander, that if you don’t back up your threats, nobody’s going to believe you or take you seriously. I suggest you put our guns where your mouth has led us.”

Vicky hissed: “Kaga—”

Skeeeert-squeak!

Vicky winced. A rejection ping, for her ears only. Elpida and Atyle did not seem to have heard it. Kagami could not chew her out or insult her right now; the control cockpit was probably full, everyone watching the action on Pheiri’s screens. So a nasty little noise was the best Kagami could muster.

Elpida said: “Agreed. Pheiri, put warning shots into all three passageways, please. One round. Aim high. No casualties.”

A voice echoed down the comms link, probably over Kagami’s shoulder: “Fuck ‘em up!”

Illy, cheering; Vicky smiled.

Kagami sighed. “Commander, for a—”

An autocannon on Pheiri’s hull opened up with a trio of single shots — boom! boom! boom! — splitting the static haze of the hurricane and slamming through the shadowy innards of the tomb, tracking from left to right. On the left a corner of wall exploded into a puff of pulverised metal; dead ahead a distant crack-crack of shattering steel announced the round’s impact; on the right a deep crump-crunch indicated the round had penetrated the metal, then stopped dead on a more dense inner layer.

Revenants fled, scurrying down the corridors and vanishing into the depths of the tomb. Shouts and screams and squeals echoed back — but no gunshots.

Within seconds, the passageways stood empty.

Vicky let out a sigh of relief. “What was that all about? Seriously, what were they gathering like that for?”

Atyle said: “To witness. To witness us. To witness Pheiri. To witness the Necromancer with her wings clipped and her strings cut.”

“Food,” said Elpida.

Vicky squinted. “Eh? Sorry?”

Elpida sniffed the air. “Food, Vicky. Take a whiff.”

Serin’s voice cracked from Vicky’s headset, laughing. “Haha! The Coh-mander is correct, I believe. The stench of corpses brings many hungry mouths.”

Vicky blinked several times, then almost laughed as well. The smell of blood and meat was so heavy in the air that she’d not considered it abnormal. The kills from the gravekeeper’s chamber — Lykke’s ‘hounds’ — were attracting the zombies who wanted to eat them.

“We can address that later,” Elpida said. “Now, Shilu—”

Kagami’s voice suddenly cut in on comms: “Commander, we have some reluctant stragglers.”

Elpida said, “Explain.”

“All the others turned tail and ran away, as they should have done, but there’s still seven zombies in the right hand corridor! All seven of them!” Kagami huffed. “They haven’t even moved. Are you going to pussy-foot around with more warning shots, or are we going for a kill?”

Vicky sighted down her launcher’s scope, into the mouth of the right-hand corridor; a cluster of figures remained in the shadows beyond the crimson light, ghostly night-vision smears in Vicky’s sight. They weren’t even in cover, just standing out in the open.

“What the hell?” Vicky murmured. “They’re just standing there.”

Elpida said nothing for a long moment.

Kagami’s voice crackled down the comms uplink: “Commander! They’re clearly planning something. We have to open fire, for real, for—”

“Serin,” Elpida said. “Are any of those zombies carrying heavy weapons? Anti-tank weapons? Anything which could hurt Pheiri?”

Serin rasped: “No, Coh-mander. I can see their leader from here. Her head is in my scope.”

“They have an obvious leader?”

Serin chuckled. “She is in front and unarmed. She is leader, or bait. I can kill her now.”

“Negative, Serin,” Elpida said — with a strangely satisfied smile in her voice. “Don’t take that shot. This is a positive development. This is good.”

Serin purred a wordless question.

Vicky realised a second before Elpida answered. She spoke first: “Elpi? Elpi, were you hoping this would happen?”

Elpida took a deep breath. “Did I hope? Can’t say for sure. Did I speculate? Certainly. But I didn’t want to get anybody else’s hopes up, or cloud our purposes. This is a happy accident, for now. If I’m correct.”

Kagami snapped down the comms link: “Commander, what the hell are you talking about? Are these friends of yours?”

“Not yet.”

Vicky hissed, “Elpi?”

Atyle laughed. “The Commander has so many plans even she cannot account for them all.”

Elpida said, “All the revenants who made it into the tomb are under a general truce, brought on by shock. Nobody planned this or made it happen. The hurricane has caused a sudden outbreak of peace, that’s all. And that applies to us too.” She gestured at Shilu; Vicky couldn’t help but notice the Necromancer’s eyes were still closed. Shilu had still not moved a muscle, despite the booming noise of Pheiri’s guns. “Shilu can wait a bit,” said Elpida. “I’m going to cross the chamber and talk to that group who didn’t retreat. I want to ask why they’re not running. Atyle, Vicky, you don’t have to come with me, but—”

“I am with you, Commander,” Atyle said. “I am curious, too.”

Vicky almost laughed. “I’m not letting you go alone, Elpi. I’m—”

Kagami’s voice hissed into Vicky’s ear on a private-channel: “Victoria, do not! You think she’s gotten over her death wish so soon? Do not—”

“—with you too,” Vicky finished.

Elpida nodded. “Good. Thank you both. Atyle, stop when I stop. Vicky, safety off, present a credible threat, but don’t fire unless I do. Serin, keep eyes on their leader, but please don’t shoot. Kagami, swing those drones in behind us. Pheiri, point some more guns at them, make it clear we’re not letting our guard down.”

“Gotcha,” Vicky whispered. She disengaged the safety on her AGL, then placed her index finger in the ready position, well clear of the trigger. Up above, she heard Pheiri’s guns rotating in their turret-mounts and armour-bulges, and the distinctive iris-flicker of missile pods opening like flowers.

Elpida said: “Let me do the greetings, but speak if you want to. This is entirely speculative. I don’t know what to expect, but we have to try.”

Kagami’s voice spat over the headsets: “Try what, Commander?”

“Making friends.”

Elpida led the way across the echoing immensity of the tomb chamber, striding out in front of Pheiri, cutting between him and Shilu; Atyle trailed to her left while Vicky took up position her right. Vicky kept the AGL stock tucked tight against her shoulder, eyes scanning the passageway mouth for unexpected movement. Several of Kagami’s drones detached from the picket line and moved in behind, winking red in the black. Their footsteps echoed off into the vault of the tomb.

Shilu’s eyes opened as the trio passed by, turning her head to watch as they left the circle of Pheiri’s blood-red illumination. Vicky met her gaze for a moment, but tried not to react.

The passageway mouth loomed ahead, twice as tall as Pheiri and three times as wide; the floodlight lit only the first few feet, caught on the projecting angle of the wall. Side-passages and stairways climbed and clambered off in the deeper darkness, turning the passageway into a nightmare warren, the perfect tunnel-fighting environment, impassable to Pheiri. Vicky did not want to step down there on foot, not even inside a suit of powered armour, not for all the nanomachines in the world. Her heart caught in her throat just peering into those tangled shadows.

Elpida stopped a good twenty feet short of the passageway. She planted her boots wide, raised her chin high, and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her trousers, framing the pair of pistols already on display. Vicky would have rolled her eyes, but she understood the purpose of the show.

Atyle stopped at Elpida’s side, peering into the dark with her bionic eye. Vicky pulled up short, ready to raise her grenade launcher, feeling clumsy in her heavy body armour.

A cluster of seven figures lurked just beyond the boundary of Pheiri’s bloody light; the closest one, up front — the leader? — was short and oddly shaped, her outline flaring wide. Behind her stood the hard angles of two zombies in heavy armour, their weapons a matte threat in the dark, one of them with greenly glinting eyes set deep in a solid helmet. Behind them was a trio of smaller figures that Vicky couldn’t quite make out, not without pointing her AGL at them, and she did not want to do that so close, where she might present a direct threat.

Attached halfway up the right-hand wall was a mass of ropey tentacles and loops of tarry black mucus, hanging over the short one in front. A face peered out of that mucus-mass on a stalk-like neck, blinking eyes too large to be human.

Elpida raised her voice, and said, “Why didn’t you retreat?”

The short one stepped forward alone, into Pheiri’s blood-red light.

She was petite and compact, perhaps only a teenager in life; a heart-shaped face was so pale her skin was almost translucent, with a stark tracery of blue veins beneath the surface, framed by a messy mass of dark red hair — probably darker beneath Pheiri’s lights. She wore a patchwork dress in tomb-grown grey, once an armoured coat, now modified and sewn back together from scraps and offcuts. She was covered from chin to knees, throat cupped by dark fabric, leaving only a pair of heavy boots exposed beneath the ragged hem of her dress.

She sported sixteen arms. Some of them clustered together on her shoulders, making the bones bulky and lumpy where they attached, while others sprouted from her flanks as if fixed directly to her rib-cage. Every arm was sleeved inside her modified dress, with each hand either gloved in black and grey or tucked away inside the sleeve. She showed no skin but her face.

Vicky quickly scanned the girl for the tell-tale grinning skull of the Death’s Heads, just in case, but she saw no symbol or sign of any kind.

Plush lips curled into a knowing smile, beneath a pair of eyes without iris or whites, just blank orbs of unbroken black.

“Why run from warning shots?” said the many-armed revenant.

Elpida nodded slowly, lips barely moving; Vicky heard her orders over the headset: “Kaga, talk to me. What am I looking at?”

Kagami’s voice murmured a reply. “Regular zombie, expected nanomachine density. Lots of internal bionics. She has a couple of guns tucked away inside that ridiculous dress. And an axe? An axe, yes. Nothing special. She’s clean — ha! As much as any of us undead can be ‘clean’.”

Elpida said out loud: “Are you the leader of this group?”

The many-armed revenant shrugged with half her arms — an undulating motion of too many bones in her shoulders. “Guess I am.”

Elpida smiled. “What’s your name?”

The many-armed girl raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, give your own first before asking for another?”

“Elpida,” said Elpida, then gestured. “Vicky, Atyle.”

“There’s more than three of you.”

“Correct.” Elpida thumbed over her shoulder. “He’s called Pheiri.”

The many-armed girl’s eyes flew wide in surprise. “He?”

“That’s right.”

The girl gestured at Shilu. “And her?”

“She’s none of your concern,” Elpida said.

The girl smiled, showing too many teeth, then giggled — a little scratchy, but not inhuman. Her many arms and hands all gestured at once, some shrugging, others wiggling gloved fingers, one pointing at Elpida, another two indicating herself.

“Puk,” she said. “That’s me.”

“Hello, Puk.” Elpida nodded. “And what about your friends?”

Puk smiled and laughed. “They’re all too shy. Sorry!”

The other zombies behind Puk shifted in the shadows. Vicky twitched her grenade launcher, but held her nerve; she needed to stay steady.

Suddenly the black mass of ropey tentacles attached to the wall jerked downward, as if she’d let go of her perch, sliding down the wall. Two mucus-dripping tendrils dipped into the red light, sheltering Puk.

“ … n-no,” the wall-climber gurgled, her voice high-pitched and girlish. “You! With the grenades! No! No!”

Elpida gestured low and easy. “Vicky, barrel down.”

“It is down,” Vicky hissed. “I didn’t even take aim.”

Atyle let out a gasp of wonder and delight, staring upward at the blob of black goop stuck to the wall. “Oh. Oh, you are quite beautiful, little one. What is your name?”

The mass of ropey tentacles withdrew slightly, waving her head-on-a-stalk as if confused.

Puk spoke upward without looking away from Elpida: “It’s alright, Tati. We’re all being friendly here. Aren’t we, Elpida? Tati’s a bit nervous about my safety, that’s all.”

Elpida said: “That’s very sensible. We won’t open fire if you don’t.”

Puk spread her many arms. “Bit late for that, isn’t it? You already did.”

“Warning shots,” Vicky said. “You didn’t take the warning.”

Up on the wall, Tati gurgled again: “Piss off!”

Puk smiled. “Tati, dear sweet. Let’s us just talk, ‘kay?”

Tati fell silent, pressing closer to the wall, withdrawing her dripping black feelers. The other revenants in the dark exchanged a few whispers.

Elpida said, “Those arms, are those all you? Did you grow them all?”

Puk giggled and put a finger to her lips, then winked as if on stage. “Oh, you know, it’s easier to steal than sow — so you can ‘sew’ yourself together. Haha!”

Vicky swallowed. “You stole all those arms? From other revenants?”

Puk shrugged. “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Elpida said, “Let’s not get lost in the weeds. I’m going to ask my question again, and I’d like a proper answer, or we’ll just turn around and return to what we were doing before. Why didn’t you run from us? Why didn’t you run from Pheiri? How can you be so sure we won’t kill you and eat you?”

“Mmmmm,” Puk hummed. “This is unusual, isn’t it? For me, too!”

“Very,” said Elpida. “A truce. Why?”

“Everyone’s spooked. Scared shitless. The storm, and that roaring noise! Nothing like an external foe to unite the squabblers, right?”

Elpida shook her head. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Puk paused. Vicky found it very difficult to tell where the girl was looking, without any whites to her eyes. It was like talking to Atyle but a hundred percent worse, with both eyes an enigma rather than just one.

A gentle whisper came from behind Puk, from one of her companions. The ropey girl hanging off the wall said something as well, soft and gloopy and wet, which Vicky couldn’t make out.

Puk licked her lips, then said: “We didn’t run from you, because we’ve seen you around before.”

“What do you mean?” said Elpida.

Puk shrugged again. “Everyone’s seen you around. Your tank, I mean. Pheiri? You don’t prey very often, or at least not openly. You don’t go off shooting unless somebody tries it on with you first. You don’t make a habit of chasing down kills. So, you’re probably safe to approach.” She spread her many arms and opened her gloved palms. “Empty handed, of course.”

Vicky snorted. “Why? What for? Why would you risk it?”

Puk smiled, sniffed the air, and made a noise of anticipation. “Meat, of course.”

Vicky grunted. Atyle nodded. Elpida said, “Everyone can smell it, right. And that’s why you’re here?”

“You’ve got so much of it just piled up over there, all going to waste.” Puk dipped her head, pinched the hem of her patchwork dress, and sketched a half-decent curtsy, smirking as she did. “Spare a corpse or two for a poor little orphan girl and her friends, madams and misses?”

Elpida opened her mouth to answer — but before she could get a word out, Kagami’s voice cut in over the comms uplink.

“Commander! No!” Kagami snapped. “Absolutely do not agree to that! No, no, no! You give out one corpse to one group and then the next thing we know we’ve got hundreds of them battering down Pheiri’s doors, crying out for more meat! We cannot start giving it out. Commander? Elpida? Answer me, say something! Vicky, Vicky, back me up. We cannot start giving—”

Another voice interrupted Kagami, from somewhere back in the cockpit. Pira, exasperated: “Kagami, stop, please.”

“And you can shut up!” Kagami’s voice whirled away from the microphone. “As if you have any right to—”

Elpida said: “Pheiri, sound off, please.”

The voices cut out.

Puk — who had been waiting so patiently — said: “That was somebody back inside your Pheiri, wasn’t it? Probably telling you that you shouldn’t start giving out charity, or else everybody will be wanting some. Well, I’m not going to argue with that.”

“You’re not?” Elpida said.

“Mmhmm!” Puk smiled. “That is exactly what will happen, yes. And I think you should do it anyway. I think you should give it out. All of it.”

Vicky snorted. “To you, right?”

Puk shook her head. “No. To everyone.”

Elpida held up a hand to forestall another comment from Vicky. She said to Puk: “Why do you care if we share with other zombies or not?”

Puk sighed wistfully, eyes going up and away, twisting one foot in a girlish gesture. “Weeeeeell. There are somewhere between two to three hundred zombies stuck in this tomb right now. More than three hundreds, actually, I thinks. All of us, packed into a very small space. Everyone who didn’t run when that storm started up. All tense and tight, shoulder to shoulder in here. Noooooot good. Not good. War will break out sooner or later. All these tunnels, these close conditions. Nowhere to run. It’s going to be very, very bad when everyone stops feeling so scared and confused.”

“I agree,” Elpida said. “But that’s not an answer. Why do you care?”

Puk burst into a peal of giggles. She raised her arms, toward the ceiling, toward the storm. “Because the world is going mad. Do your ears work? Hurricanes, giants, where do I begin? The rules are rapidly flying out of the windows. Not that I’d want to fly, in this storm.”

Elpida nodded. “You think a supply of meat can extend this ad hoc truce?”

Puk lowered her arms and shrugged. “I don’t know. I think this weird little peace can hold a little longer, maybe. If we’re lucky, and if you’re clever. And if it holds long enough … maybe we can make it ‘till the storm passes, hey?”

Elpida said, “Alright. And what’s it in for us?”

Vicky hissed, “Elpi?” But Elpida just flicked her fingers — go along with it for now.

Puk shrugged again. “I don’t know. What’s in it for you?”

Elpida smiled. “Changing the world.”

Puk snorted. “World’s already changing. Weird things have been happening all over ever since your Pheiri turned up, you know? That thing fell from the sky a while back. Those huge monsters turned up, that big gold diamond, then the ball. And now this storm, and that thing roaring outdoors earlier on. Is this all your fault, Elpida? You changing the world around us?”

“Not yet,” Elpida said. “Not like that.”

“Well, good luck. But me and mine, we’re just interested in lasting through the storm. Are you going to spare a corpse, or not?”

Kagami’s voice broke back in over the comms; she was calm now — calm and cold. “Commander, she is just trying to score a meal off us. She doesn’t share your vision and she’s not going to be convinced by a mouthful of meat.”

Vicky hissed, “Kaga, shut up.”

Elpida spoke out loud, eyes locked with Puk. “Maybe not. But she’s also not wrong. Puk, we have a favour to ask in return.”

“Mm?”

“Keep the peace, if you can. If there’s a truce, hold to it. Tell the others we’re sharing our meat. But only with those who don’t break the truce.”

Kagami sighed down the comms link, beyond exasperated.

Puk curtseyed again. “No promises! ‘Truce’ is a bit much, this is all unspoken. But we can spread a word or two. Allllllso,” Puk added, almost shy. “There’s a blob monster upstairs. We know she’s with you, everyone knows that. Can you keep her from eating her way through everyone in the tomb?”

“Iriko?” Vicky muttered.

“Yeah,” Elpida said. Then to Puk: “We’ll try. She needs feeding too. Some of these bodies are earmarked for her.”

“Fair dos!” said Puk.

“Wait there a second.” Elpida raised two fingers to her headset, and said: “Pheiri, put me through to Hafina and get ready to lower the rear ramp. Haf? Haf, I want you to come out, head down the ramp, and grab a corpse from Lykke’s soldiers. Pick one we haven’t stripped of meat, but don’t leave any weapons on the body. Then bring it over here. Thanks.”

A moment later, Vicky heard the distinctive whirr of Pheiri’s rear ramp opening wide.

Puk smiled, twirling the hem of her dress back and forth where she stood. Elpida just stared at her, waiting for Hafina to arrive. Vicky took deep, slow, steady breaths, flexing her hands around her grenade launcher, trying not to stare at the dripping mass of ‘Tati’ stuck halfway up the wall. Tati stared at her regardless, massive eyeballs glowing faintly in the dark. Puk’s other companions stayed very still.

After what felt like several long minutes, Hafina’s massive armoured form stalked out of the darkness on Vicky’s right, flanked by a trio of Kagami’s larger drones. She was carrying a big corpse in four of her arms, stripped out of armour, wearing only grey clothes.

Puk lit up with a smile. “Thank you kindly, kind ma’am.”

Elpida put out one hand, indicating Hafina should halt. “Wait a moment, Haf,” she said. “One more thing, Puk, before we hand over the meat.”

“Ahhh?” Puk puckered her lips. “A catch? Oh dear. Really?”

“Not a catch, just a question. Are there any Death’s Heads in the tomb? Any of them make it in here before the storm hit?”

Puk’s expression went sober; her companions stirred behind her, swapping whispers. Up on the wall, Tati let out a messy gurgle.

“Yeah,” said Puk. “A few. I think. Maybe. Who knows for sure?”

“Where?”

Puk giggled and shook her head. “Sweetheart, I’m not about to go looking for them, not for all the meat you’ve got laid out over there. You can truce with some, and this one’s holding like nothing I’ve done before, but with them? Nuh uh. If anybody breaks this first, it’ll be them, with a knife in somebody’s back.”