Chapter 18 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 18 — The minor quorum; code red

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Chapter 17 — Eleven hours · Next: Chapter 19 — The ruling; the ceasefire ends · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

“This is an official field ruling adjudication,” Panford the dreadnaught said to the pisse

Summary

In the late queen's private kitchen, blood-handed at a carved table, Carl sits ten feet from the warlords while the three adjutants confer: Panford, Baroness Victory and Opiee, a tiny floating bune, adjutant for the Madness. Architect Houston, the Madness's warlord, sits at the far end in pope-white robes and a white mask with a single red teardrop, unmoving, his neck creaking like a ship when he turns. On the counter, a bag of cheap Seattle cat food, 'Meow Time', stickered 'a gift from Pet Angels' — Ferdinand's, Carl assumes, and wants to steal it. Panford lays out the facts on floating screens: Stockade offered peace terms in the warlord chat with a parlay, then cast a level-15 Summon Ally at Carl in the seconds between the sleep potion and the gel, because warlord requests persist through unconsciousness and Shi Maria, in control during the dream, could accept it — which she did the instant Imani pulled the toe ring. The plan was to teleport Carl away and leave the spider at the Posse's base to slaughter the room; Mordecai in chat explains that Summon Ally is a teleport that puts control in the summoned's hands and moved an unconscious Carl only as a non-corporeal avatar, which is what saved him — 'I thought I'd killed you.' Stockade rages that this was supposed to be a game and the adjutants are complicit with the mudskippers, mantids and Valtay 'whose ineptitude let this happen'; Victory: 'the rules are the rules. We all know what will happen if we don't continue as normal.' Panford: the entity is a Reaper Spider Minion merchant, part demon and part demigod, who would jump at an escape; Opiee thinks a different teleport might have worked; Victory says the rest would not have happened without the game guide. Carl's consciousness stayed in Katia's while his avatar was in two bases — 'the communal nature of his Primal race', Victory guesses, or the duality of a spider with a god inside her. Then the screen shows the dream, hazy, and Carl learns they can see dreams: Fannar in a doorway in Icelandic, 'Telling them the truth'; a faceless official refusing Katia her sick child over an addiction ten years past; 'He had no right'; a hospital crib, a nine-month-old with wires, Annie the crow with an infant's skull blended into Katia's shoulder; Shi Maria pushing in, then Hapanzi, who becomes a dark-skinned man in a vest with Asojano's accent and the voice Carl sometimes hears: 'Worry not, my children.' 'This isn’t yours to watch.' Stockade paused his second spell on outside information again, shouts that the Posse must be cheating too, and is told he has admitted his guilt — a ping. Prepotente writes from the naga border: trebuchets readying, a hundred Madness mercenaries who think they are invisible, armoured tracked vehicles under netting; he has a score with the lead producer of Blood Hunter before he will join anyone's army. Elle, Florin, Imani, Li Jun (two splash towers up in Shanty Town; Lucia Mar drinking at the Possum Envy on the Reaver border) and Li Na report movement on both fronts with twenty hours of ceasefire left and nothing finished. Code red. Louis has half the bombs loaded. 'Get that thing into the air ASAP.'

Characters

• Commander Stockade — Confesses by accident; 'If we survive this, you will all be sorry.'
• Architect Houston — A red teardrop on a white mask; a creaking neck; says nothing.
• Panford — Facts on a screen, and the rules.
• Opiee — The Madness's bune adjutant, who found the theory worth the risk.
• Baroness Victory — A wink across the room; 'I will refute this.'
• Katia Grim — Her nightmare on a screen for strangers: Fannar, the official, the crib.
• Hapanzi — 'Worry not, my children.'
• Prepotente — Watching the naga border from the sky with Bianca; a score to settle first.
• Lucia Mar — At the Possum Envy, nearly tearing a recruiter's head off.
• Carl — 'This isn't yours to watch.'

Locations

• The Sugar Cube — Queen Imogen's kitchen, with a bag of cat food from a Seattle charity.
• Shanty Town — Two splash towers up, two more in twenty minutes; the Possum Envy on the Reaver edge.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — Summon Ally through the warlord chat; outside information; sanctions on two teams.
• The show — They can see dreams; the feed watched from outside to time a spell.
• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Part demon, part demigod, with a god inside her.
• Primal engines — 'The communal nature of his Primal race.'
• Ferdinand — Meow Time, a gift from Pet Angels, in a castle kitchen.