ACT 1: A World Where Dead Is Living
Chapter One:
The window glass is cool against my forehead. Five stories down, the streets are clogged with the dutiful. A river of black suits flowing between skyscrapers, their purpose a fragile shield against the chaos they pretend doesn't exist above them. I wonder what they'd do if they looked up. See the broken windows, the blood-smeared glass. Probably just sigh and check the time. Dying on the job is the closest thing to a holy sacrament in Lavender City.
I turn from the view of the living to the room of the recently departed. My new colleagues. Their corporate black is now a messy abstract in crimson. Some are already still, having made their ultimate contribution to the city's bottom line. Others are still twitching, making a real effort of it. Such is the glorious life of an Agent of the Compass. I guess that includes me, standing here with a rusty katana I overpaid for, my own contribution contingent on making it out alive.
The source of the office redecoration is a masterpiece of biological absurdity. It's the size of a delivery truck, all chitinous legs and multi-faceted eyes, crowned with the perfectly preserved, slightly balding head of a middle-manager. Its mandibles are currently busy cracking open the armor of a former charging specialist. The lucky ones are the ones cocooned in shimmering silk, strung up in the web that now drapes the ceiling lights. Their struggling is just faint, rhythmic twitches. A slower bill to pay.
"More!" the manager-head screeches, its voice a dry rattle. "My quarterly quotas are not met! My children need their bonuses!"
Yes, it talks. No, this isn't in the employee handbook. This is what happens when the Infection decides a regional supervisor needs a few more limbs.
A hand shoves my shoulder. "Hey! What are you doing, spectating? We're up!"
It's the team leader. His face is a mask of heroic desperation, the kind that gets you a posthumous medal and a drained bank account.
I glance at the rest of our little fifth-string squad. They're pale, clutching their weapons like they're life preservers on a sinking ship. Can't blame them. Teams one through four are currently decorating the floor and walls.
I point my katana toward the last two fighters still standing, their brown Thorn armbands stark against torn sleeves. They're a man and a woman, performing a frantic dance of evasion between scything legs. "They're still clocked in."
"Not for long! We have to support them now!"
I appreciate the team spirit, really. It's almost touching. "But isn't the job just to stall? Rushing in seems counter-productive to a stalling strategy."
He just gapes at me, his jaw working soundlessly. "What?"
"Stalling. It implies we're waiting for something. Probably something that isn't us."
He looks from my deadpan expression to the nodding, terrified faces of our teammates and snorts in disgust. "We shouldn't have brought you unbound freelancers. No discipline! No loyalty!"
He's a bound Agent, of course. A company man. You can always tell by the branded armband and the corporate jargon ready to spill out with their last breath. The company that hired this circus is 'Thorns'. Fitting.
He doesn't charge alone. He just stands there, fists clenched, watching the two remaining Thorn agents with the intensity of a man seeing his stock options evaporate.
It takes about five minutes.
The dance ends. A leg spears the woman through the gut. The man screams, and the manager-head bites down. The screaming stops.
The team leader turns slowly. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, lock onto mine. "So? Any more brilliant insights?"
"Not really."
"Then follow me!" he roars, brandishing his energy blade. "And fulfill your duty as a West dweller!"
There it is. The city's mantra. *Die for your job.*
And who am I to argue with local customs?
He charges. The final team, a ragged chorus line of the damned, follows. I take up the rear, my grip tightening on the katana's worn hilt. The spider's many eyes swivel toward us. The manager-head smiles, its lips stretching over too many teeth.
It's performance review time.
The spider's smile is a wide, wet thing. We are a delivery, a hot meal served directly to its mandibles. And we are.
A man to my left is hoisted into the air, impaled on a glistening black leg. He dangles, his blood painting a new stripe on the carpet. Another to my right vanishes under a blanket of white silk, pinned to the floor like a specimen. We keep charging. I can almost smell the reward money, a phantom scent of cooked meat and a warm bed.
It was said that even a scratch would triple our pay. Triple. That's three months of careful eating, not one.
The team leader reaches the monster first. His halberd swings in a heroic, shining arc. It connects with a sound like a bell ringing against stone. The blade doesn't even mar the chitin. He tries again, a desperate, grunting swing. I don't know what he's thinking. We all watched the four teams before us learn this exact same lesson.
*Swoosh.*
I don't think he realized it. His body kept going through the motions, the halberd swinging uselessly, for a full second after his head finished its quiet journey across the floor.
A lot of the others follow. They see a dead leader and think, 'Maybe my sword is sharper.' They see the triple reward and forget the 'alive' part of the requirement.
People like me do the job. Stalling. That was the objective.
A thick rope of silk shoots toward my chest. I throw myself sideways, shoulder hitting the deck hard. Before I can breathe, a spear-tipped leg slams down where my chest just was. I roll. Another leg sweeps where my legs were. I scramble back. Another, and another, a relentless, mechanical dance. Again. Again. Again and—*oops*.
A hand closes around my ankle. One of my teammates. He's half-cocooned, his face turning blue, but his grip is iron. My pant leg is stuck fast in his desperate clutch.
"Help me!" he gurgles, eyes bulging.
He's already a dead man. My job is to stay alive for a few more seconds.
And the spider's leg is already in motion, a black dagger aimed at my heart.
So I grab my katana for the first time today… and let go. The steel wouldn't cut his arm, not in time. My fingers fly to my belt buckle. A frantic click, a shove, and I'm kicking free of the black trousers, scrambling backward in my boxers.
*Stab!*
The leg buries itself in the carpet where I'd just been. I made it. Again.
Speaking of survival… ah.
I take a breath and the reality of the room crashes down. The charging, the screaming, the fighting—it's all stopped. The only movement is the slow drip of blood and the twitching of silk-wrapped corpses. I'm the last one standing. Or rather, the last one crouching in my underwear.
Every one of the spider's glistening eyes is fixed on me. Every leg, every mandible, is poised for the final strike.
I shrug. I sigh. The air leaves my lungs in a tired huff.
I guess I failed. I didn't stall long enough. I never did find out what we were stalling *for*, but I hope it was worth the pile of bodies. Dying now… it doesn't feel like a tragedy. I have no one waiting for me, no grand dreams beyond my next meal. This was always the point, wasn't it? To make my end mean something to the city's ledger. *Die for your job.* It's a fitting end for a man with nothing else.
…
…
Huh.
I've been sitting here waiting for the end, and it hasn't come.
The spider is frozen. The smug grin on the human head has melted away, replaced by wide-eyed, primal fear.
Eh? Is there something behind me?
I twist my body, every muscle screaming.
And there she is.
One woman. A red armband. Red eyes. Red hair. Uh… is my vision failing? Everything about her is a shade of crimson. I wipe a hand across my face and it comes away slick with blood. Not mine, I don't think. Okay, vision clearing. I was right. She isn't *all* red.
She's all… on fire?
She takes a step forward, the carpet smoldering under her boot. The flames lick up her body in a silent, shimmering wave, but she moves as if she doesn't feel them. Her burning amber eyes sweep over the carnage and land on me.
A dry, blistering heat washes over my skin, so intense it feels like the air itself is catching fire. My lungs tighten, seared with every breath.
"Are you still alive?" Her voice is calm, cutting through the crackle of her own personal inferno.
"Yeah."
"Good. I'll handle it from here."
That's all it takes. The last string holding me up is cut. My face meets the cool, blood-soaked carpet with a dull thud. I turn my head, my cheek pressed against the floor. The view is a gallery of the dead, a landscape of silk drenched in red, and scattered, forgotten things.
The only thing close to me is an ID card, torn from someone's neck. I squint at the plastic rectangle.
*Alias. Agent.*
That's me in the picture. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark… hold on. The edges of my sight are crumbling inward, swallowing the light.
Ah. I'm checking out.
One last, drifting thought before the blankness takes me. None of them screamed. Not the skewered, not the eaten, not the suffocated. Even though I'm pretty sure being skewered is really, really painful.
Blank.