Bayorn hunkered down next to Maka, bullets spraying over their head, sending chunks of concrete in all directions. “That must have been Letho,” Bayorn said, nodding toward the smoke and fire that surrounded them.

“Yes, it is no doubt the work of our Eursan friend. But it does not help us against the metallic beast above.” Maka said. “And our weapons are ineffective against him.”

Just then a low rumble filled the air, and a great starship emerged from behind the palace. Abraxas’s ship. A brilliant red flash filled the air as the fabric of space-time was torn open—and the ship was gone.

“What?” Crimson Jim shouted in obvious confusion and anger. “Hey! Come back here!” Abraxas’s guard could be heard uttering similar sentiments. As if Alastor could hear them. He was gone.

“What an asshole!” Jim shouted, throwing his hands up. “Who needs him. Let’s finish this!”

The Jolly Roger cycled up its twin cannons and began to chew away the cover Bayorn and his troops cowered behind. He didn’t notice that the remaining Mendraga warriors were now abandoning him, disappearing into the temple entrance.

People were dying all around Bayorn. The Jolly Roger’s fire had begun to find soft spots. Bayorn watched helplessly as Eursan and Tarsi alike were torn to pieces.

The Jolly Roger was unstoppable.

Then the warbirds swooped in.

They turned their withering fire on the walking tank who stood on the temple steps. The stream of fire laid into the Jolly Roger, setting fire to the air around him, driving him to the ground. Maka cheered as pieces of the metal beast began to fly in all directions. The Jolly Roger tried to raise an arm cannon to fire back, but it was cut off by the angry storm the warbirds rained down on him. Jim shrieked, his mechanical body coming apart under the relentless assault.

Crimson Jim’s body, which had previously looked like a cross between an action figure, a jet, and a tank, now appeared to have a large helping of smoldering ruin thrown into the mix. He turned and fled. The curtain of molten lead followed him, pulverizing the ornate facade of Abraxas’s temple.

“Press forward into the temple!” Bayorn shouted.

“You want us to follow the Jolly Roger?” Maka said.

Bayorn gestured toward the endless mutant swarm. “We stand no chance out here in the open—we have no choice!” Bayorn said. “Move!”

All ran for the safety of the great temple as the swarm of gray, twisted bodies surrounded them, blotting out the ground as far as the eye could see.

****

“Hey, you gonna stand there all day, or are you going to get me out of these cuffs?” Thresha asked.

Letho turned, his face drawn. He summoned his strength again, and broke her cuffs.

“Thanks. You all right?” she asked, reaching to embrace him.

“I’m fine.” He allowed her to wrap her arms around him, but he didn’t reciprocate the gesture.

“Letho,” Saladin reported, “I am picking up communication from the sleepers. They are requesting your presence. It is urgent. Mutants are storming the temple. Your friends are in danger.”

“Let’s go then,” Letho said.

But before they could get going, a clanking and crashing commotion arose, and Crimson Jim emerged into Abraxas’s former vestibule. His massive metallic body crashed directly through marble, metal, and wood, blasting through doorways that weren’t designed for his size and girth. He cut an imposing figure even though he looked like someone had thrown him into an industrial sized-compactor, and then tossed him into an even larger wood chipper. Parts of his metal body were missing entirely, and the surface of his chest plate had been chipped and chewed away. His faceplate was gone altogether, and Jim’s green-smoke face, constricted in a snarl of terror and frustration, was on full display.

“What the hell?” Letho said. Instinctively, he dove to the side just as a blast of chain-gun fire chewed through the wall where he had been standing.

“I don’t have time for this!” Letho shouted as he jumped and rolled, moving too fast for Jim’s tracking systems.

After a moment, Jim’s gun began to click, the barrels glowing red, smoke pouring off of them. Jim’s other gun was gone; only a stump of rent metal and exposed wires remained.

Looks familiar, thought Letho.

He smiled, rising from cover.

“Damn,” Jim said.

Thresha grinned. “Out of bullets?” She fired her rifle at him, bullets ricocheting off Jim’s metal hide and passing harmlessly through the green smoke that was the obscene manifestation of Jim’s soul.

“I ain’t going down that easy, sugar,” Jim said. “Besides, I owe you one.”

He moved toward Thresha, the chain-gun on his arm folding back and splitting apart. Twin chainsaws with gigantic steel teeth emerged in their place. They spun up, sputtering black smoke as they growled. Jim charged forward, swinging his saws, aiming to take Thresha’s head off. This new Jolly Roger was faster than the previous incarnation, even in its current, mangled state, but it was still nowhere near the speed and agility that Jim had possessed in his former body. His swings were heavy and slow, and Thresha easily avoided them.

Saladin, give me a scan, would you?

Right away.

Suddenly everything went monochromatic red. Letho could see right through Thresha, and he marveled at her skeletal structure as she pirouetted past Jim, firing another blast into his faceplate. When Letho turned his focus to the Jolly Roger, he could see every rotor, every wire, every circuit board.

Then he found what he was looking for: a box in the center with a brain suspended in some sort of fluid. It was magic—or was it science? It didn’t matter. With Thresha providing a distraction, he leapt over the broken chunks of ceiling he had taken cover behind, landed nimbly right behind the Jolly Roger, and with one thrust, drove Saladin into the Jolly Roger’s back.

The blade pierced Jim’s brain, and he screamed, a jet of noxious green gas shooting up and dispersing across the ceiling like a geyser. Letho saw Jim’s snarling face materialize in the green cloud one last time, and then it was gone.

“Awwww, I wanted to kill him,” Thresha said, grinning.

Letho favored her with a blank stare, saying nothing.

“Letho Ferron, please report to the elevator at the end of the hallway. Your presence is required in the sleepers’ den.”

“Let’s go,” he said, turning to leave. He didn’t wait for Thresha’s response.

Shrugging, Thresha followed this strange automaton that seemed to have replaced Letho.

****

Letho stood at the entrance of the sleepers’ den. The hologram deck hummed to life, and a three-dimensional representation of an old man appeared before him. Before Letho could say a word, the man spoke.

“Our time is short, and there is much that I must convey to you, so I will do my best to keep it brief. My name was Chancellor Elan Steigen. I am responsible for all that is transpiring now.”

“I’ve seen your name before,” Letho said. “You issued the official decree on the Fulcrum recall.”

“Please, let me finish. Even now the citizens of this city are fighting for their lives. The fate of the Eursan race hangs in the balance. The man known as Elan Steigen no longer exists. Abraxas killed him. I am a virtual construct, a copy of his mind that exists only in the computer attached to his pod. The people in these pods are business leaders, politicians, engineers, doctors, artists. Long ago, when the world began to fall to ruin, when the resources that powered our cities began to run dry, those with enough influence, money, or desirable skills were placed in stasis in the pod bays you see before you. The hope was that we could preserve the tenets of our culture, the vast collective knowledge of the Eursan race. In this vulnerable form we needed protectors, people to keep our machines running so that we could maintain order. So we manipulated the genetic code of the people that chose not to board the Fulcrum stations. We molded them into creatures with strong backs and resistance to diseases and the elements. And we enfeebled their minds so that we could control them. Under our command they walled off our city, making it inaccessible to outsiders.