New Era’s Mould 1 – Vectors [Multiple POVs]

“You good?” Clark asked, worry swinging in his voice. The other conversations at the table slowly came to a halt as they, one after another, noted what he had noted. Their mutual friend had turned pale – really pale. The kind of pale that no one healthy ever turned. “Hey? You hear me?”

“I…” John shivered head to toe. He was a pudgy man with an unfortunate figure: narrow shoulders and big gut. He had never been a looker, but with his cheeks so sunken, he looked borderline disgusting. “…I am… not good… Do you hear that?”

“…Hear what?” Clark asked, to keep John’s attention. It felt as if he did not do so, the man would fall off his chair and never stand up again.

“The… the drums?”

______________________________________________________________________

“I am Agent Joane from Nightfall,” she barked into the phone the second she heard the click of an established connection. “I demand an immediate report on your identity, current location, troop number and status.”

“Yes, Sir!” The soldier on the other side was pleasantly disciplined. Other people she had called before had been scatterbrained. Joane made immediate note of it. “Name is Conroy Tublinson, CO for outpost RS-SE4. This location has 4 soldiers stationed at it. We have mustered in accordance with the mobilization order and are awaiting further instructions.”

“Very well. Remain that way,” Joane stated and hung up. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. With knowledge of the soldiers, every Communication Officer had their own psychological profile. What anti-Lorylim measure was complete if subversion could not be noticed in their own communications network?

She found Conroy Tublinson quickly. ‘Lack of discipline in speaking habits,’ was a three-months old note. Had he fixed that in this time or was he among the affected?

Joane did not know.

_______________________________________________________________________

“To think I would hear your eldritch whispers again… I thought I had rid myself of the three of you.”

“…”

“No words, as always. That’s fine, I can see. I can see the **** you want me to shape. I can’t do it. This body is broken now. I swung the hammer for the last time.”

“…”

“I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.”

“…”

“Maybe… Oh, I see now… I see… that is why he had it made. One to absorb and one to undo. I wish to make it. I wish to give this **** shape, but I cannot.”

“…Empower…”

“…You… you can speak?”

“…Learn.”

“No… no, no, no, no, you are pure! Inhuman! What are you?! What are you?!”

“…Vision.”

“I… can… I can move… I can… yes, I will do it! I will forge the dagger to plunge into her heart!”

______________________________________________________________________________

A mass of mould, black as Tiamat’s scales, squelched and boiled on its way to the edge. Oh, finally, finally, it was time to move. Finally, finally, the impudent half of the hivemind had ceased its resistance. Chaos would swallow the world. What Izha was planning, this cluster did not know. It did know, in its cells, in its mycelium roots that stretched through the layers of reality back into the prison where entities fused, but its minds did not know. Not until they were permitted anyhow.

Their mission did not require such knowledge. They had lay dormant within the walls of the facility forever. They had infected five soldiers in that time. Four had gotten caught by Fusion’s mechanisms and purged by the hated anti-mages, but this body had slipped through the cracks. How useful it was to possess the brother of a politician.

A melted body now, devoured for mass as the creature joined with the horrid mound. To restart the **** Zone was perhaps a lofty ambition, but they could start somewhere. All would be one.

The body of the Metracana they piled on would just be the beginning.

_________________________________________________________________________

Hank thought he would never be free of his frustrations. Even while he had rested at the hospital, he had managed to be annoyed with the lack of work that he was doing. He knew that every file untouched and every matter not personally checked was a matter he would have had to resolve once he was back at work.

Now he was free of such concerns, because he had a much larger one.

Of all the people that Hank had the displeasure of working with, there were few that made his life better. Momo Firefly, chancellor of Fusion, was first and foremost of those few. Right now, that woman, competent beyond anything human, was staring at a map of the Federation with the kind of focus reserved for two predators eyeing each other up.

She picked a yellow flag out of a nearby box and pinned it into the cork beneath the map. It joined several dozen others, another yellow one in an ocean of them. Very few of them were red. Not a single one was green. That box was left entirely untouched. Each flag was a representation of a military outpost inside Fusion’s territory.

“Do you see what I see, Enki?” Momo asked.

“I see disaster,” the custodian responded grimly.

Hank swallowed. “W-where is the President?”

“Doing what he must do,” Momo answered cryptically.

___________________________________________________________________________

“WHERE IS JOHN NEWMAN?!”

The scream came from a representative of Niagara, the northernmost territory of the Lake Alliance and Fusion as a whole. It was a demanding shout, echoing within the already tumultuous hall of Parliament. There was confusion, a whole lot of it. They had been gathered for over thirty minutes and yet no official procedures had begun.

Emrik burst into the chamber. “What is all of this?!” the usually so collected man asked, his face sweaty with exhaustion.

“We should ask you that!” Someone shouted back. “You called this meeting.”

Confusion covered Emrik’s face before he could harden his expression into a stern mask. “I did no such thing. Someone must have created a fake email.”

“You think that would fly on the systems of Scarlett fucking Thorne?”

“What is the alternative explanation? I did not call this meeting!”

“I’m sorry, Emrik.”

Something about the female voice caused the tumult in the room to quiet. Emrik whirled around in the doorway and faced his wife. The woman, who had only ever stepped in the building to bring him tea and conversation, now shambled forwards into the Parliament chamber. Any semblance of control flowed from her husband’s face, staring at the tears on her face.

“I… I do not know wha-“

She bent forwards and vomited black sludge.

________________________________________________________________________

Benjamin was no one outstanding. He had prepared himself for that all of his life and would have been quite happy if his single son would have been no one outstanding either. He was, however, and that gave Benjamin a bit of happiness every day. The joy of having a successful child was quite unparalleled. That was why he was considering, despite his age, to try a second time. His wife was still young enough for it.

He was tip-toeing around the decision for now. Perhaps he would make it today. He should make it by New Year’s, at least. They didn’t get any younger and they were more than secure, financially.

He walked to the front door of his house. It was too large for just two people, but just two people lived in it for now. There had been various visitors during their swinger phase, but that had calmed considerably. Just a drift of taste. Maybe they would return to it, maybe not.

Benjamin opened the white picket fence. His shoe stubbed a hedge trimmer that had been left on the tiles that connected the edge of the property to the front door. ‘That’s unusual,’ he thought and picked it up. He would put it somewhere visible so they did not forget to return it to the shed. “I’m home!” he shouted, once past the door.

No response.

‘Is she out?’ Benjamin wondered. No, even at her most scatterbrained, his wife did not leave the music on. It was pop music, the electronic kind with minimal lyrics. His son’s girlfriend, first girlfriend, had no doubt recommended it. Benjamin thought he vaguely recognized the song. The drum beat was harder and more erratic than he remembered it to be though.

He poked his head into the living room, then the bedroom. Lord knew that she needed her time in the bedroom regularly. He did not fault her for that whatsoever. She was not there, though.

“Bren?” he shouted loudly. There was something unnerving about the music now. It was a little too rhythmic, a little too inviting to dance. It made his hairs stand on end. He heard a mild creak from the bathroom.

“Ben?”

He let out a sigh of relief when he heard the question. He began to move. “You could have made a sound earlier,” he complained. “Are you looking through your supplements again?”

Benjamin Newman pushed open the bathroom door.

____________________________________________________________________

Magoi and Mabirl Magus sat on the porch of a house.

It was not their house. The house was, in fact, empty. Not because it was one of the swathes of land in the Hudson Barrier yet to be settled but because its inhabitants had been evacuated. The efforts to do so had started the day before. Given how sudden it had been, many had resisted, most of all local representatives. Many was still the minority. Most had taken Momo’s order immediately.

Magoi was there for the few stubborn ones. The few that, feeling the seriousness of the situation, were finally evacuating.

They would have been in a panic if they had felt what Magoi felt. That was why he did not say anything to anyone. He did not need to for the woman next to him to know.

The phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked for a moment, seeing Momo’s name on the display. He ignored the call. “That is rude of you,” Mabirl pointed out.

“She is just going to tell me to leave already again. I don’t even know how she found out I was out here,” Magus answered and looked out at the Hudson. The Guild Hall was impossibly distant within the width of the river. It was nestled in there in a way that tricked even his schooled eye. Maybe the lenses of his mask would have helped, but he did not feel like wearing it. “You do not have to stay. It’s cruel to the kids.”

“They’ll be fine, Magoi,” she responded.

The High Fateweaver felt a lump in his throat. “Will they be?”

“We raised them well,” she assured him and hugged his arm. She sniffed and smiled. A look as beautiful as it was on this day as it was the day they had said their vows. “I’m so proud of everything you have done. Your work for the Fateweavers, for our children, even for Fusion. It all made the world better, honey.”

“I could not have done any of it without you,” he whispered and embraced her.

_______________________________________________________________________

“FOR THE LADY!”

William’s shout was echoed all throughout the estate. From the monastery to the depths of the mansion, blessed weapons cut through foul abominations. They had come out of nowhere. One day, all the seers had stopped receiving Her guidance, the next they were assaulted by dozens upon dozens of infected creatures and corrupted elementals.

A massive ball of water slammed into a nearby wall with enough momentum to make it as hard as concrete. William was washed back. He could taste the Lorylim’s corruption on his lips. He could feel the tendrils dig into him, then burn away by the lingering Blessing that still granted him an echo of power.

He rushed forward, his proud zweihander gleaming with divine might. This was what he was good at. In a way, he relished the opportunity to smite the impure. It was a more satisfying task than politicking. Alas, these were not heretics or dark mages. These were the unfortunate vectors of infection of the Lorylim and their only sin was to be unsalvageable.

There was no satisfaction to be found in this, only the sorrow of the inevitable.

_________________________________________________________________________

The drummer had started laughing a minute ago.

It had been confusing to all of them the moment it started to happen. Usually the drummer was quiet during ceremonial meetings like this, only granting his rhythm to the dancers and his presence to speakers. Some traditions had been broken recently, certainly, and many done away with, now that they knew they had been fraudulently dedicated to the five-headed vulture. Still, it was wrong for the drummer to laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh.

Without pause, the drummer laughed. A second one joined him suddenly, then a third. It was like a disease, spreading from one person to the next.

No, it was not LIKE a disease.

It only took them a few more seconds to realize that. They had seen the most horrid of contagions before. Rancid Purple flowing through glorious streets. “Not again!” an old crone wailed. “Not again!”

Black teeth burst from stomachs. Stalks grew from spines. Even as their bodies were consumed by slime and mould, the men continued to laugh.

“Not again!”

“Not again!”

“Not again!”

The chorus was all around. The Mexica could not take it again. Had they blasphemed against all heavens? Were they living in the deepest hells? Did the shadow of **** loom over them all?

It did.

___________________________________________________________________________

“Halt!”

The private security officer of Thorne raised his gun. His finger was already on the trigger, as were those of the five other officers with them. It was an inhuman reaction to the approach of a scared little girl. They were not paid to be human.

“I-I lost my mommy!” she stammered and approached another step.

A bullet was loosened, piercing the concrete and earth to the feet of the girl. “Do not encroach further! This is the property of Scarlett Thorne. Move away immediately!”

The lower lip of the little girl quivered, then she broke into tears. She tilted her head back, screaming loudly at the sky, “MOMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

“LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!” he shouted over the wailing. “THE EVACUATION ORDER IS IN PLACE! GET TO THE GUILD HALL! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME ON THORNE PROPERTY!”

“Dude! It’s a kid!” One of the other officers broke rank and stepped forwards.

“Get back in line! Immediately!”

“I’ll just show her the way!” the younger man responded. He reached down to put his hand on the shoulder of the girl. A reassuring gesture that ended with his hand wrist deep inside an open black maw. “Fu-“

“OPEN FIRE!”

And all over North America, the story repeated in a thousand flavours.