bindsthedead

PSL

There was a time when Sabriel might have been eager to see the inside of Cyberlife Tower. Her class had been to Detroit when she was thirteen, and they'd toured an android factory- or the part of it they showed to tourists, at least- and visited museums and art galleries and all the sorts of things Young Ladies ought to see, but weren't available in the small town of Wyverley, or in Bain.

But Sabriel wasn't here for a school trip. Recent events in Ancelstierre meant that with the sudden loss of all android soldiers meant that soldiers from the entirely human garrison at the Wall had been transferred elsewhere- which meant fewer soldiers watching the border, on top of the losses from Kerrigor's attack, and a necromancer had slipped across, making his way to the largest city that was close enough to the Wall that magic still worked- one that seemed rather different than how she remembered it.

But what was occupying most of her attention was the Cyberlife representative in front of her. Sabriel listened politely as the woman spoke about malfunctioning machines and simulated emotions and how things that weren't alive couldn't die, so why would a necromancer- and from the woman's voice it was clear she didn't believe such things were real- want with deactivated androids?

Sabriel stood up and shook the woman's hand, telling her she'd been very helpful without meaning a word of it, and headed out the office before pausing.

She sensed something ominously familiar- Death, and a recent one at that. She turned another corner, following the sensation as a hound tracked a scent, half-expecting someone to spot her, to see her in her armor and bells (security had made her check her sword at the front desk) and tell her she wasn't allowed to be here.

But no one came, and no one living was in the laboratory she went into- just a dead- (deactivated?) android on a table-or its head and torso at least, with panels on its chest removed to reveal tubes and biocomponents, and Sabriel felt she'd stepped into a morgue and found an autopsied body.

Sabriel was seized by a sudden impulse. If androids weren't alive, then she'd simply waste some time, but if they were... well, she'd have a source of information she could interrogate as she would any Dead spirit. And unlike the representative she'd just spoken to, she could force it to answer honestly and completely.

Decision made, Sabriel undid the straps and drew Saraneth from the bandolier. This far from the Wall, stepping into Death took a deliberate effort, but soon Sabriel was in the First precinct and she cast around with her senses, trying to feel out the spirit of the android- if it had one, it couldn't have gone beyond the First Gate, and probably shouldn't be that far into the the First Precinct.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sabriel frowns- Connor has made some good points. She looks at the bodies, at the expressions they'd been frozen in at the moment they'd died.

She can't in good conscience say that Harris and his group don't deserve to die. But something in her recoils at the thought of killing them when they're already tied up.

"I doubt they will- Humans tend to see what they think is there, or far more Ancelstierrians would know about the Dead and magic. Besides, if they notice anything odd, what do you think is more likely- they'd thing their minds were playing tricks on them, that the people who attacked them were lying about their real intentions- or that someone magically altered their memories?"

"Besides, the necromancer can't heal them. It's not in the nature of his magic. They'll be dealing with a concussion, gunshot wounds and broken fingers, and and everything else you did to Harris. I don't think they'll be able to assist the necromancer for the next several days, and once they are, he'll be dead." Or probably longer, in Harris's case. Sabriel can't say she's particularly sorry about that.

The necromancer can't heal. And apparently Abhorsen can't change memories—not human ones, at least—for the full duration of the week. Connor notes both facts for future reference, and adds several questions to his growing list.

"If all goes according to plan," he mutters in reply. Still, Abhorsen isn't entirely wrong. The probability of interference from these humans was low. The risk they'd pose if they did try was lower.

"It should." It certainly didn't with Kerrigor, but this is just a necromancer, not the greatest of the Greater Dead and a rogue member of the royal family. It'll be fine- she or Connor will kill the necromancer, dispose of the Dead he's made, and she'll lay down a binding on the landfill and never need to go this far south again.

"I'll get started on changing their memories, then I'll have them go to sleep while you get rid of the thirium so it looks like one of their competitors did this. Unless there's anything else I should know?"

Get rid of the thirium. He'd suspected that would be his job from the moment she'd broken down the tasks, and Connor's lips press together, swallowing an irritated comment. Cleanup isn't part of his function... but it's a necessity of her current plan. And he can't exactly—

Anything else?

Connor stills. There was the recognition displayed by Harris' friend. The last question he'd asked, in a blood-stained bathtub filled with the reek of human fear. And the answer Connor had received in turn. Abhorsen's enemy had shown his lackies images of her. Footage recorded in Cyberlife tower.

Abhorsen... should know. It's relevant. He knows it is. But the words stick in his throat, something cold and painful interfering. Was Cyberlife... opposed to Connor's mission?

Why had they sold him to her if they were?

Probably, it's a mistake. Hearsay. A false lead, or intercepted data. Just because Abhorsen was technologically inept didn't mean that all her enemies were, too. He shouldn't assume the situation—and certainly, he shouldn't confuse his owner with misleading data that had yet to be confirmed.

"...Nothing else, no." Connor turns to the stored liquid. "I'll get started."

[So̶ftẁa̛r̨e̴ In̵s̷ta҉b̨i̵lit͜ý ^]

"Very well then- meet me outside when you're done," Sabriel tells him, before going to focus on her own work.

She recites the same story to each of the three as Charter marks circle their heads- the same description of their attackers, and what they did- she adds a few extra details with Harris, an entirely different set of questions than what he was actually asked. Each of them repeats the story back to her with a glazed expression, and in turn she sends each of them to sleep before their dazed expressions- when they wake up, it will be like they never met her- or Connor. Then she heads outside, her expression pensive.

Next time, she might not be able to get through a confrontation like that without killing anyone. Not if she and Connor are massively outnumbered.

It takes five trips to haul the thirium downstairs. There's a 37% chance of being spotted if he uses the storm drain out front, so Connor exits through the back, scaling a fence to dig a small hole in the neighbor's flower garden. The dirt is loose-packed, and absorbs the liquid easily enough as he pours out one gallon after the next.

There had been eight bodies in the house. Nineteen, with the last delivery. Harvested by one group of humans, in the span of a few days. If Abhorsen's target kept up his work, that would make hundreds of deviants off the streets.

Negligible, with hundreds of thousands out there.

Abhorsen seemed to be expecting conquest—or mass murder, at the very least. But Harris talked about her enemy as someone who could solve the deviant condition. And the android they'd found here had followed orders.

Cyberlife... might be interested in that.

Connor doesn't have enough data. Not on their goals, and not on his target's. He doesn't have any evidence a link exists. He glowers at the blue-stained dirt and fills the hole, stashing the empty containers in a nearby shed. By all appearances, the neighbor's house had been evacuated days ago. It would be weeks more before its occupants returned.

He climbs the fence. Kicks some snow across the prints he's left behind. Connor slips back into Harris' house, making a quick detour to wash up in the bathroom before he heads out front.

Abhorsen's waiting. "Where next?"

Sabriel gives a start, then frowns, ticking off several options with her fingertips, and shivering a little in the cold. The wind's picked up again.

"I suppose- I should get something to eat, and we need to decide what to do next. We know where and when we can confront the necromancer- should we scope out the site ahead of time? Are there any supplies you want to get before then? Or should we go after more of his allies, and risk the element of surprise at the meeting?" Sabriel frowns. The meeting is their best lead, and she doesn't want to ruin it by being too aggressive.

"My preference is to visit the place where the meeting will happen before we do anything else, but- I'd like your input. You're the one who found all this information."

Scouting. Supplies. Or pursuit of new targets. They're all valid objectives, and Connor tilts his head, considering. Her insistence on his input is new, and slightly out of place... but not something to discourage. Not when it might be crucial for the mission later.

"Scouting out the meeting site sounds useful," he agrees. "We should be careful, though. There's a chance our target may have the area watched."

Or, be there already.

"It's possible- either by living allies or Dead servants." Most likely the latter- the necromancer seems to have put his living allies to more active uses than merely guarding things, but if the guards are Dead, they'll have an advantage by going in daylight.

"Where is this place, anyway? Is it inside a building, or out in the open?"

"Neither, I believe."

Connor's LED spins yellow once, then twice—searching for images online. Unsurprisingly, there isn't much past barbed wire and hastily built walls. Human media had been excluded from the sites during their operation, and they'd had much more eventful stories to chase since.

"Recall Center Number Two. It's near the northern edge of the city."

Sabriel looks vaguely nauseated when he tells her the site.

"A site of mass death- are there many corpses there?" Even if there aren't- the necromancer will have an easy time drawing bodiless spirits out of death. And it's another place she'll need to lay a binding on. Her hands ball into fists.

"We need to visit it- in daylight. And when we attack, we need to take out the necromancer right away." This is... less than ideal. She'd assumed the meeting would be in some abandoned building, or a public space totally depopulated by the evacuation.

Mass death? Connor nearly snorts his incredulity. He swallows back the reaction with effort, but the quirk of his eyebrows doesn't seem especially impressed by her dramatics.

"I couldn't say." He's never been there.

The timing should be easy enough—even stopping for food, they'd be setting out in the middle of the day today. As for their target...

"Wasn't that already the plan?"

"It was, but- Connor, this location means he could raise many Dead, very quickly, if he's alerted to our presence." In many ways, it's the worst possible location she could think of.

She's still not entirely sure why the Ancelstierrians thought murdering as many androids as they could find was a good idea.

"How many more camps are there in Detroit?"

This location. Mass death. Abhorsen doesn't spell out what she means, but the implications aren't difficult to guess at. Connor eyes her, wishing he had a second source. Her knowledge about magic has been reliable so far—but it's obvious, too, how thoroughly she's bought into the deviants' pretense.

"Five more," he answers promptly. All of them currently defunct. Not all accessible, but Connor refrains from commenting as much now.

"Why? Are you planning a tour?"

Sabriel resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"I want to understand how much of a mess I'm going to need to clean up, once the necromancer's dead. There are... bindings, spells that can be laid down, to make passage from Death to Life more difficult, even in places like that. But such spells take time to cast."

Months. She could be here for months, while humans and androids keep killing each other, stuck in the middle of a fight she's not interested in, instead of being in the Old Kingdom, closer to Touchstone and helping to rebuild the Old Kingdom.

Time, in places occupied by Jericho. Or by the army. Connor doesn't know enough to comment on Abhorsen's methods, but if the deviants haven't been put down by then, he doubts she'll have an easy time. Still, it's not an immediate concern. Connor might well have no part in it at all.

He still doesn't know if Abhorsen plans to keep him when they're done.

"...We should get moving," he offers after a brief pause. The longer they stand in front of Harris' house, the higher the likelihood of witnesses.

"We should," Sabriel agrees, and starts walking in long, even strides. "Let's get a few blocks from here before we call a taxi."

Before she can think too much about what will happen after, she needs to deal with the necromancer- ideally, before he raises an army of the Dead. And with Connor's help, that should be possible. Afterwards... well, she's not sure how many Charter mages she'll be able to recruit for work in the middle of a warzone. Perhaps she could ask Connor if he wished to be baptized.

Connor blinks in faint surprise. How... unusually circumspect. Of course, their target was unlikely to have access to records from the taxi system. But he'd had access to other information that he shouldn't have, already.

...Not Connor's concern. Not now, at least. He reaches up, adjusting his tie out of habit before he falls into place behind Abhorsen.

Connor's... not talkative. Which is fine, Sabriel supposes. There aren't many shops open, but she's able to find some food without too much trouble, and scarfs it down before heading to where Connor's waiting, and calling another taxi- this time, heading north, towards the edge of the city.

The taxi drops them off about fifteen minutes walk from the camp- far enough for them to sneak up, in case the area is being watched. She shoulders her guitar case with her swords and bandolier, and adjusts her winter coat over her armor, wrapping her scarf around the lower half of her face, trying to shield it from the wind.

"Let's go- I'll get my weapons out when we're closer."

She is, after all, making an effort at keeping a low profile.

Maybe scarf-wrapped figures with large cases are low profile in Abhorsen's country. Connor doesn't consider it especially stealthy here. Still, this district is all but abandoned: a graveyard of defunct factories judged useless long before the residents had been scared out by war. An easy place to to move unnoticed.

Or to accomplish other things.

He takes the lead, navigating through snowy streets and past the silent, rusted buildings. Precipitation in the last few days has covered up most signs of traffic, but there are still depressions in the middle of the road: snowed-over tire marks, from transports with a heavy load. Connor slows his pace as they draw nearer, scanning the space around them. No observers yet.

The surrounding buildings cut out to a wide perimeter of open space—once, probably a city park. Its more recent use is all too apparent. Bullet-riddled crates, blast marks, and overturned vehicles outline the battlefield. An empty machine gun mount dangles from a blasted emplacement, and while the bodies seem to have been moved, a faint reek, both chemical and organic, still pervades the space.

At the far end of it lies a makeshift compound: tall barricades and slatted metal fences. Like the gate at its center, they're crowned with barbed wire. The doors have been forced free of their hinges and trampled into the ground.

Under her scarf, Sabriel's gone dead white. She can feel the pressure of all those deaths- recent, and so many pressing down on her. Crossing into- or out of- Death here would be as easy as drawing breath.

She can't feel any Dead present- in Life at least. She can feel some on the other side- not alert enough to be there at the command of the necromancer, and very weak. It's probably the spirits of everyone who died here- some of them attempting to cling to Life even though they shouldn't, slowly being warped by fighting the current and turning into monsters. There are probably even more deeper in Death, and Sabriel suppresses a shudder.

"At least they moved the bodies- small mercies, I suppose. Can you find any places that might be good for an ambush- or just to attack from?"

Sabriel steps through the camp, observing with all her senses. There's plenty of signs of struggle, but she's drawn like a magnet to structures that look a bit like oversized shipping containers.

Most of the deaths seemed to have happened here- it feels like many, many deaths happened in the same spots, in rapid succession, and in Sabriel's mind the Book of the Dead opens to pages detailing ways to create easy paths in and out of Death.

For a minute or so she just stands there, shaking.

For a place that had been the focus of a battle, the interior of the camp is remarkably plain. Metal bars separate different tracks, clearly meant to corral androids into line. Mobile surveillance towers sit at the corners—one still standing, and three toppled on their sides. He scans the space, looking for old thirium. It's there, but in less quantity than he expected.

The humans seem to have been efficient here, for once.

There's no one present. Not that he can see or hear—though Connor keeps an eye on Abhorsen just in case. Sensing the dead is supposed to be one of her specialties, and she's been able to predict attacks before. Here... she just seems to be quivering. He eyes her skeptically, but nods to the instructions. "I'll look around."

He does. It doesn't take long. There's an intake room by the entrance. Some displaced shipping crates where one side of the barricades was overrun. The fence around the compound has some low points too— it might be possible to crouch out of sight and watch from there.

And, of course, there are the exits. Four identical containers—two overturned. The others sit, open and empty, and Connor can make out the shapes of assembly arms dangling from the ceiling. He eyes the casing on the outside: layers of magnetic shielding, directed inwards. Thick power cables feed into the nearby generator.

It doesn't take an RK800 to reconstruct what those were used for.

His owner stands in the middle of one, having progressed to what looks like a panic attack. Connor eyes the structure from a safe distance and calls out.

"Abhorsen."

"Connor." Sabriel jolts at the voice, and tries to steady herself.

They were killing them here. One, after another in the same spots- like they were trying to tear a hole between Life and Death. She doesn't know the exact method they used, but it doesn't matter.

She's quiet, for a moment as she walks back to Connor, her expression eerily blank.

"There are no Dead in Life, but there are some on the other side, in Death- the necromancer will have an easy time drawing them out, especially if he has bodies. They won't be strong, but there will be no shortage of them." Sabriel keeps her voice calm, trying not to betray the dread she can feel welling up. The Ancelstierrians have given the necromancer the makings of an army, and they seem more interested in fighting the deviants than trying to clean up their mistakes.

The other side. Connor's expression doesn't change, but his LED blinks, irritated and quick. Abhorsen is the expert on this enemy—and as her own powers have demonstrated, they can expect a range of tactics never listed in Cyberlife's databases. But there's a difference between acknowledging their target's capabilities and operating off these superstitions as a whole.

Especially regarding "android souls".

Are Abhorsen's predictions faulty? Or accurate, despite the false assumptions they come from? Even if she has deluded herself about the mechanics of the situation, she might still have the experience to assess what the target will do next. The human they were hunting did reactivate androids. He'd also made those shadow creatures—whatever they came from. The books Connor had read had helped make sense of Abhorsen's magic, but offered absolutely nothing about either party's interactions with the dead.

At least not the ones she'd let him read.

She's telling, not asking. He doesn't need to respond. "...I found some hiding places," he reports instead, expression blank and mechanical. (Useful.) "This way."

If she follows, he'll show her the options.

Sabriel follows, occasionally shaking, looking nervously at every corner. She knows, intellectually, that there's no immediate threat, but the sensation of so many recent deaths presses down on her, making her feel like she needs to either fight or flee. Instead, she grits her teeth.

"That spot over there seems to offer the best vantage point- we don't know exactly where in the camp they're meeting," she says, indicating one of the spots Connor showed her.

"If we arrive an hour or two before they do, do you think that will give us enough time to hide?" Sabriel's glancing at the exit as she speaks. She wants very much to leave, to get as far away from this place and its overwhelming sense of Death as quickly as she can.

But she still needs to do her job.

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