Necroepilogos

Ooni followed her orders with all her martial diligence; she kept her eyes open, her head up, and her gun down.

The first order was easy, but the second and third were much more difficult. Even as a beneficiary of more protection and comradeship than she had ever experienced before, Ooni still wanted to run away.

But she didn’t. Trust and faith kept her at her post. She would not betray the Commander, nor let her down.

Ooni was out on Pheiri’s exterior deck, sitting on a long white whorl of bone-armour, peering over the low wall of knots and humps and the crest of frozen waves, down the front of his hull. This makeshift parapet of Pheiri’s armour was infinitely more secure than the sharpened wooden stakes of any fort Ooni had seen in true life — though her memories of those were thin and grey. The designated observation post on Pheiri’s back was placed as far forward as possible, less than a foot from where the armour began to slope down to the ground in a long skirt of white bone, punctuated by weapons and pin-hole lights, terminating in Pheiri’s great articulated forward ram-prow. Pheiri’s main gun loomed overhead, casting distended shadows across the deck amid the blood-red backwash of his floodlights. The bulk of the turret formed a reassuring presence to Ooni’s rear, and offered superior cover in case the worst should happen. To the left and right, Pheiri’s many weapon emplacements rose from the hull like a forest of bone-encrusted stalagmites. Autocannons tracked slowly back and forth like flowers in a breeze, their mechanisms whirring far beneath Pheiri’s skin; point-defence guns stood erect and ready for use, almost quivering against the blood-red shadows; missile pods lay sleeping with one eye open; flame-throwers and chemical-discharge nozzles pointed down the sides of Pheiri’s hull, highlighted in bright and burning red, so that none would tempt their use.

Ooni herself was also clad in armour. She wore plates of grey-black carapace and bulletproof equipment taken from the tomb armoury — a helmet, a gorget, and a long bulletproof vest with additional protection for her groin and thighs. A comms headset was nestled beneath the helmet, her link with the cockpit and with Pheiri himself. A pair of tough and flexible gloves encased her hands. Fresh boots on her feet lent her stability. She was warm and dry and secure.

Despite all that effort, Ooni still felt terrified.

Beyond the vantage point up on Pheiri’s armour — beyond the blood-red pool of illumination which frilled his skirts and spilled onto the floor, beyond the thirty-feet of buffer zone, beyond the picket line of Kagami’s heavy drones twinkling with bright warning lights — the tomb chamber was full of zombies.

All of them were armed, most of them were eating, and many of them were casting occasional glances in Ooni’s general direction. She knew their interest was not in her; who gave a damn about some random revenant, next to the spectacle of Pheiri? He was the force keeping them all honest. His guns kept them from each other’s throats. His power kept the peace. Ooni was irrelevant.

But the sight of so many revenants out in the open made Ooni’s heart race, made her throat constrict, and her mouth go dry.

Every kind of revenant was represented in the chamber by then — except perhaps the most extreme of predatory cyborgs. Ooni’s orders did not include keeping headcount, but she had attempted one anyway, to keep herself alert and aware. She had given up over an hour ago, though no additional zombies had arrived in the last thirty minutes or so.

Long-limbed and sharp-clawed successful scavengers sat in a ring, ripping handfuls of meat off a donated corpse — only a dozen feet from a terrified, wide-eyed huddle of borderline freshies, carefully cutting strips of dead flesh from their own meal. Statues in powered armour watched over their less well-equipped companions, doffing their helmets to partake of the meat only when convinced this unnatural truce was holding steady. Heavily modified bionic chimeras settled down on four or six or even more legs, folding back shimmering plates of armour and glistening beetle carapace, lowering stingers and lances and electric prods, allowing their mounted companions to step to the ground to accept the bounty of blood-rich flesh. Blind and twitching predators swayed back and forth in silent communion with each other, spooking those who were unlucky enough to find themselves as temporary neighbours. Girls grown large claimed more space for their own groups, vying with others in a silent conflict where neither could risk a bullet or a blade, not beneath Pheiri’s unwavering gaze.

Some groups sat with their collective backs to the black metal walls, weapons armed and ready even as they ate one-handed; others slumped where they had staggered and fallen, in exhaustion and starvation — or perhaps in wordless awestruck relief, now gorging themselves on the Commander’s gift. Some sat in circles, others faced outward with their backs together; a few cared not to rest their legs, wandering in a daze, or stalking in the habit of predation, even if they dared not strike at unprotected bellies. A few of the most fresh and bewildered stared about with open mouths. Singlets sat alone, struck dumb and terrified even as they ate their ration of severed limbs; some of them were beginning to gravitate toward each other. Some of the more confident — or more exhausted — had nodded off; Ooni counted four of those, at her last attempt.

The two far corners of the chamber were occupied by the most paranoid and sceptical. One was a group of heavily-armed, highly-developed, experienced tomb-raiders, all of them clad in high-end gear ripped from the guts of so many tombs, sporting plasma rifles and articulated servo-arms and body-locked powered armour; they had accepted the gift of meat without thanks, retreated with weapons drawn, then spent several minutes throwing hostile active scans at Pheiri. That had ended when Pheiri had grazed their leader’s helmet with a single round from one of his point-defence cannons; Kagami had shouted over external loudspeakers to prevent that turning into a general panic. The other corner was occupied by a seven-strong group-mind of identical girls in long robes; Pheiri’s own scans had shown the girls weren’t truly identical, but had undergone — or were currently undergoing — nanomachine self-modification toward the same ideal of silver hair and flawless white skin and sharply pointed features. They didn’t seem to carry any weapons except short blades made of light-drinking steel. Everyone gave them a very wide berth. They had accepted their share of the meat with wordless silence.

A few groups sat very close to the outer picket-line of Kagami’s drones — both the very boldest and the most afraid.

Several of the latter groups had stuck around and settled in after they’d finished eating, finally allowed to relax their hypervigilance beneath the watchful firepower of Pheiri’s guns. With the constant terror abated for the first time in their undead afterlives, some of those bottom-feeder unfortunates were beginning to talk to each other. Different groups were mingling. Singlets were drifting in, finding they were not so alone. The fear was breaking down.

That had brought a smile of triumph to the Commander’s face. Ooni had felt her own chest fill with pride. She’d helped make this happen.

The former groups were not so gratifying.

Only two of those extra-bold packs were lurking close to Pheiri. One of them was standing all the way over to the right, every single revenant staring at the open larder of additional corpses still laid out on the floor, toothy jaws hanging open, clawed hands flexing with need. The ‘larder’ was guarded by a double-thick duty of Kagami’s drones, and marked off by a series of blood-red lines projected onto the floor from Pheiri’s lights, complete with a big red warning ‘X’ and a battery of auto-cannons pointed at the final step before the corpses.

That group was at least predictable — hungry and greedy, not genuinely dangerous. Pheiri had been forced to flash warning lights at them twice so far, but they just backed up and made rude gestures at him. The second of the bold groups was much more worrying — they were sprawled within ten feet of the picket line, directly in front of Pheiri, watching his hull with sullen eyes. Their leader was an eight-foot slab of cyborg metal, festooned with guns, her girls armed with heavy weaponry and twitchy point-defence equipment of their own, mounted on shoulder racks and portable back braces.

That leader had spent the last fifteen minutes arguing with the Commander. Ooni couldn’t hear the words over the roar and crash of the storm outside, but she could see the jutting jaw and bared teeth and threatening gestures. How the Commander stood down there so serene and calm, Ooni could not understand. How she didn’t let Ilyusha or Hafina tear into the cyborg bully, Ooni would never comprehend. But there was much Ooni did not comprehend; she knew the Commander was right.

Still, Ooni couldn’t bear the roiling in her guts.

Everything she had learned during her long years among the Death’s Heads told her this situation was volatile beyond belief. All these zombies in one place would erupt into violence sooner or later, even if just to establish a pecking order of cannibalistic opportunity — probably sooner, probably at some tiny slight or a moment of underfed hunger or an imagined flicker of hostility. Every instinct told Ooni to flee, get back down inside Pheiri, and hide from the carnage that must logically unfold. Her headset was quiet — nobody spoke to her very much — but at any moment she could whisper a plea to Pheiri himself to unlock the top hatch and admit her back inside. She could abandon her post and stumble away and slip back down into her bunk, and Pheiri would never judge or reject her for that. Worse — neither would the Commander. Elpida, in all her grace and wisdom, would not chastise Ooni for any depth of cowardice, as long as Ooni kept the faith. Ooni could run, and it would cost her nothing.

But she didn’t.

Ooni stayed at her post, because the Commander had given her orders, and Ooni wanted to be a good girl. She wanted to be useful. She wanted to be true. She wanted to be worthy of the symbol she wore.

The symbol daubed on the chest of her bulletproof vest helped more than the armour itself — a crescent intersected by a pair of lines, like a great spire silhouetted against a verdant moon. The symbol of Telokopolis.

Elpida had drawn that herself, with a stick of green camo paint. At first Ooni had tried to refuse — she didn’t feel worthy of that, not yet, not her, not when she had not proven herself worthy of anything — but Elpida had not given her a choice. Everyone else who ventured beyond Pheiri’s armour also wore the symbol. The Commander had clapped Ooni on the shoulders and told her that she was no exception.

Telokopolis rejects nobody, she had said. You’re one of us now, Ooni. You’re one of my girls, one of my cadre, and you’ve accepted a place within Telokopolis. If you won’t draw it yourself, I’ll do it for you.

The submachine gun laid across her knees also helped.

Ooni kept her hands on the weapon, burning nervous energy by running her fingers over the cold metal and smooth polymer. This was the first time she’d been allowed a loaded gun since the Commander had claimed her for Telokopolis, since the Commander had washed clean her Death’s Head past. Not that Ooni couldn’t have taken a gun for herself at any time, but she simply never had. She had received this weapon from the Commander’s own hands, and that was what mattered.

Ooni was not going to let Elpida down.

“You sure you’re still up for this?” asked Victoria.

Ooni almost flinched.

Victoria was sat to Ooni’s left, far enough for legroom, close enough to bundle each other to the floor if one of the zombies down below started shooting. Victoria hadn’t said anything for the last fifteen minutes, too focused on the Commander and the Cyborg down at the picket line. She seemed so much more relaxed than Ooni felt; Victoria lounged in that heavy armour, her grenade launcher resting easily on a lip of bone-white armour. Victoria looked like a real guard, on real watch, with real courage. Victoria was entirely worthy of the crescent-and-double-line daubed on the chest of her own armour.

Ooni nodded. “I’m … yes, thank you. I’m holding up fine. I can do this.”

Victoria eyed her for a long moment, expression hard to read between gorget and helmet. “You sure? You’re sweating, it’s on your face. You look jumpy.”

“I’m … fine. I don’t need to go back. The Commander said two hours. We’re not done. Not yet.”

Victoria sighed, then offered Ooni her cannister of water; Ooni politely refused, so Victoria shrugged and took a long swig herself, then said: “If you say so. Look, the best thing to do on this kind of job is just don’t think about it too much. You don’t need perfect vigilance, that’s why you’re not alone up here. And hell, you don’t need vigilance at all. We’re just for show. Pheiri’s a better spotter than all of the rest of us combined. And he doesn’t get distracted.”

“I suppose so,” Ooni said. The notion of letting her attention lapse made her uncomfortable.

“We can swap you out any time you like, you know? No shame in it, Ooni. We don’t even have to be up here, after all. We’re just for show, like Elpi said, to put the human face on all this.” Victoria nodded out at the chamber. “They know that too. Nobody cares about us up here, trust me. They’re all ogling Pheiri.”

Ooni nodded along, smiled politely, and said nothing.

Victoria was Elpida’s second in command. Victoria was a favourite of Kagami, and of Pheiri, and well-regarded by both Ilyusha and Amina, both of whom still terrified Ooni. Victoria even got on with Leuca, and had a good — though awkward — rapport with Serin. Atyle, well, she didn’t get on with anybody. Melyn and Hafina were hard to understand, but Melyn seemed to like Victoria. Everybody liked Victoria. Ooni was not about to argue with her.

To be fair to Victoria, Ooni quite liked her too, because she was a comrade.

Ooni had never really felt like this before. Sitting beside a Sister in the Death’s Heads was a dangerous affair, unless one had somebody else to shoot at or mock or insult. In the Death’s Heads Ooni had to worry if the Sister at her shoulder was going to put a knife in her back — if not literally, then socially. Mockery was a slippery slope to being abused. A joke at one’s expense was a dangerous price. Constant vigilance was essential to survival.

But here, despite Victoria’s obvious lack of faith in Ooni, she wasn’t going to cuff Ooni over the back of the head, or pull seniority to have her do something degrading, or loudly insinuate that Ooni should be dismembered and eaten as a weakling.

Ooni felt secure, in a way she could barely remember since true life.

“The show is doubly important,” said a cold and impassive voice from beyond Ooni’s back, “when the audience knows it is a show.”

Ooni flinched. Victoria shuddered.

Ooni couldn’t help but glance back over her shoulder, though she knew exactly what was sitting behind her.

Shilu — Necromancer, Corpse-Rapist, Monster, Central’s Slave, Black-Iron-Scarecrow Nightmare-Thing — was sat cross-legged on the surface of Pheiri’s hull, about ten feet back from the parapet.

Shilu no longer looked like a giant walking torture device; she had re-assumed the disguise she had worn when the Commander and the others had first met her — soft brown skin, wide dark eyes, delicate facial features, and a long straight wave of glossy night-black hair. She was slender and slight and looked incapable of throwing a punch. No bionics or modifications, just baseline humanity. She wore clothes in addition to the lie — tomb-grown gear from the cadre’s own stores, her petite form wrapped in grey beneath the comfort of an armoured coat.

Ooni offered her a polite smile.

Shilu stared back without expression. Ooni felt sweat prickle on her skin.

“Hey, hey,” Vicky hissed. She tapped Ooni’s shoulder. “Eyes forward. The big ‘borg down there’s all done, finally. Elpi’s on her way back.”

Ooni turned away from Shilu and straightened up; the earpiece of her comms headset crackled once, but remained silent. Kagami must be chattering with Victoria, but Ooni wasn’t privy to that.

Down at the edge of Pheiri’s blood-red illumination, Elpida’s away team was stepping back through the picket line of heavy drones. The discussion with the leader of the sullen band of heavily-armed zombies was concluded; the eight-foot cyborg was staring up at Pheiri with surly interest. Elpida’s group made their way around Pheiri’s side, beyond Ooni’s line of sight.

Vicky muttered into her headset: “Yeah, she’s right next to me. Yeah.” Then, louder: “Ooni, trigger discipline. Those are our friends coming up.”

“Understood,” Ooni said — and refrained from pointing out that she didn’t even have her gun raised, let alone her finger on the trigger.

Her headset crackled again. A low metallic rasp trickled into her ear — Serin.

“Don’t take offence, convert. They trust you. But not your judgement.”

Ooni broke out in a cold sweat. Serin never spoke with her; Serin terrified her. Serin was an open Wrecker and Murderer, and a skilled one at that, the kind of assassin and hunter that would have killed her on the spot if she’d remained a Death’s Head.

Then again, Ooni was a Wrecker and Murderer too now, as far as her former Sisters were concerned.

When she didn’t reply, Serin’s voice rasped again. “Wondering how I can see?” Serin asked. “Because I’ve got one eye on you.”

Ooni swallowed. She glanced sideways, but Vicky wasn’t reacting. That broadcast had been just for Ooni. She knew Serin was nestled down in a hollow on the front of Pheiri’s armour, watching the flock through her rifle’s scope.

She decided not to answer. She wore the same symbol as Serin now. Distrust did not matter, not to Telokopolis, not to the Commander.

Several minutes passed with only the static of the storm-rain and the distant howling of the wind to break the silence. A hundred whispers rose from the shadows of the tomb chamber, washed with Pheiri’s blood-red illumination, punctured by the sounds of chewing and the mash of meat between teeth, all but drowned in the storm beyond the tomb’s walls. Ooni strained her ears to hear the subtle noises of Elpida and the others climbing the side of Pheiri’s hull, but she couldn’t make out anything.

Ooni’s headset crackled.

“Commander to watch team,” said Elpida. “Be advised, we’re coming up on your left. Four strong. Count us off.”

Victoria hissed back, “Sure thing, Elpi.”

“Yes, Commander,” Ooni added.

Victoria and Ooni both looked to the left. Ooni didn’t dare raise her gun, but Victoria shouldered her grenade launcher, aiming high, finger off the trigger, safety on.

A few moments later the away team emerged from the gloom, striding out from amid the gnarled forest of Pheiri’s secondary weapons and sponson-blisters and knots of bone-armour.

Elpida led them, boots thumping against Pheiri’s hull, submachine gun hanging loose at her waist. Ilyusha darted along at Elpida’s side, sharp red claws going click-clack on the hull, massive black-red tail lashing back and forth, quick little head on a swivel, still keeping her ballistic shield raised as if a distant sniper might take a pot-shot at the Commander. Hafina strode behind, wearing her full complement of armour, head a beak-shaped helmet, shimmering like a pillar of reflective black oil; the Artificial Human was heavily armed enough to take out half the chamber by herself, and bowel-clenchingly tall. Last came Atyle, half-naked, sauntering along at the rear of the group, empty handed as usual.

Vicky counted them off as they arrived and dropped into cover, eyeing the shadows behind them, keeping her grenade launcher high.

Elpida fell into a loose crouch alongside Ooni and Victoria, her armoured coat pooling beneath her, followed by the long white waterfall of her hair. Hafina folded herself up, losing half her height as limbs retracted and guns tucked close to her multi-armed body, assuming a low and simian squat. Ilyusha scurried forward to grip the edge of the parapet with her claws, shotgun stowed, shield held high to cover Elpida, her leaden grey eyes peering down at the room full of zombies. Atyle stopped a few feet from Shilu, standing tall, eyes elsewhere.

Ooni attempted to copy Victoria’s strict attention, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off her new comrades. Everyone — with the exception of Shilu — wore the same green-crescent and double-line symbol. Everyone wore the symbol of Telokopolis now.

In the past, wearing the grinning skull of the Death’s Heads had made Ooni feel powerful. Even when the Sisters had been eating each other, even when Ooni had found herself at the bottom of the hierarchy, always at threat of being used for somebody else’s amusement, that skull on her flesh and her armour had sent bottom-feeders running and experienced zombies fleeing in fear. The Death’s Head skull had been a statement that she was not to be fucked with.

But the symbol of Telokopolis filled Ooni’s heart with clean pride.

Elpida clapped Vicky on the shoulder, then did the same for Ooni. “At ease, both of you,” she said. “You’re doing a very good job up here. Well done.”

Ooni nodded and tried to say ‘Thank you, Commander’, but managed only a little “Mm!”

Vicky lowered her grenade launcher. “You’re sure you weren’t followed, Elpi? Absolutely certain? ‘Cos if even one of those zombies down there slips through—”

A voice crackled in Ooni’s headset — in all the headsets. Kagami snapped: “I have eyes in every drone, thank you. We’re perfectly secure, despite the utter insanity of playing loaves and fishes with human meat. Drop the paranoia, Victoria. I have more than enough for all of us, remember?”

Victoria sighed. Elpida cracked a knowing smile. Ilyusha hissed a nasty little snort — and shot a lead-eyed look back at Ooni, full of suspicion and spite.

Ooni tried to smile back; Ilyusha hissed and looked away.

Another headset crackle, but Ooni heard no words. Elpida spoke into her microphone: “Negative, we’re not withdrawing just yet. I want eyes on the chamber for a while longer. Keep the hatch locked for now. Mmhmm. One question for Pheiri: what’s Iriko’s current location?”

Kagami’s voice replied. “Right where we left her. Still digesting, if we’re lucky.”

“Thank you, Kaga,” Elpida said.

Silence settled over the forward watch post, broken by the wrath and rage of the storm. Elpida peered out at the zombies below, eating precious meat by the handful.

“So,” Vicky said, nodding over the parapet, down at the group Elpida had been speaking with. “What did tall dark and encrusted with metal want with you?”

Elpida raised her eyebrows. “The leader of that group?”

Atyle spoke up. “Tell them her name, Commander. It is such a glorious name.”

Elpida smiled a bit too wide. Ilyusha snorted something which might have been a laugh.

“Her name,” said Elpida, “is Persephone The Magnificent And Most Merciful. She has about a dozen other titles, but we only got the full string once. She was very insistent on the first couple, though. She won’t acknowledge any words addressed to any mere ‘Persephone’.”

Kagami’s voice crackled across the comms again, dripping with sarcasm. “As is her right.”

Vicky’s eyebrows drew together with confusion. Ooni said nothing, fascinated by this exchange.

Elpida explained. “Persephone The Magnificent And Most Merciful, etcetera etcetera, claims to have lived her true life in a ‘space station’. I have no way of verifying that, but … ”

“Ah,” Vicky grunted. “What is this, Kaga, spacer solidarity?”

If Kagami replied, the reply was not for Ooni.

Elpida went on. “As for what she wants, she’s requested a tour inside Pheiri.”

Vicky’s eyebrows shot up, eyes going wide. She glanced back down at the tomb chamber floor. Ooni frowned with instant disapproval, try as she might to keep the look off her face. Ilyusha’s tail lashed back and forth. Even Shilu made a noise, a little ‘hmm’.

Ooni said, “C-Commander—”

Vicky interrupted. “You can’t seriously be entertaining that request, Elpi. Fuck no.”

Elpida grinned — Howl, grinning through her face. Howl said: “On conditions. Stripped of guns, stripped of armour, buck fucking naked, and muzzled.”

Vicky chuckled, low and dark, laughter lost in the rainstorm static. Ilyusha grinned without looking up. Ooni let out a nervous laugh. Atyle said, “As the day she was born.”

Elpida blinked, and was herself again. “She is seriously considering the offer.”

Vicky stopped, no longer amused. “You’re joking.”

“No joke.”

Vicky let out a low whistle. Ilyusha made a growling noise which made Ooni flinch. Hafina adjusted uncomfortably, as if stretching her folded-up limbs.

Ooni wanted to ask so many questions — would Elpida allow such a thing, was that wise, would it be safe? What precautions would they need to take? What if the ‘tour’ went wrong? What were the cyborg’s stated motivations, and what were her true motivations? Was Elpida suggesting they trust this unknown, or merely entertaining the notion for a lark?

But Ooni kept her mouth shut. She did not want to draw the ire of the others — and she knew that by not speaking, she was not putting herself in danger. In the Death’s Heads she had to show her own initiative at every turn, fawning on superiors or dominating those beneath her. But the symbol of Telokopolis on her chest did not compel her to speak. She did not have to worry about others considering her an easy target if she did not contribute.

“And before any of you ask,” Elpida went on, “it’s not my decision to make. It’s up to Pheiri, and possibly Mel and Haf.”

Vicky said: “Is that what you told, uh, ‘Persephone’?”

“Mmhmm. For now.”

Vicky puffed a doubtful sigh and leaned over the parapet again, peering down at the big sullen cyborg below. “Hell, Elpi, I’d love to get that whole group disarmed. Half their big guns look like anti-armour equipment to my eyes. I spot at least three things down there which could put a hole the size of a bathtub in Pheiri’s face. And Persephone herself, you see those tube structures strapped to her back? Either those are top-attack ATGM launchers or I’m a sailor. She could hit this watch post from down there, let alone Pheiri.”

“Unnn!” Ilyusha added, swishing her spike-tipped tail back and forth.

“Vicky,” Elpida said. “Relax. Pheiri can flash-start his shields faster than any of them can take aim.”

“Still, Commander,” Victoria said. “I don’t like the look of them. And I don’t like the idea of her anywhere near me.”

Shilu spoke, from ten feet behind everyone else.

“You may have to accept allies you find distasteful, if they accept your coin.”

Ooni could not read the glance with which Elpida regarded Shilu; she recognised curiosity, caution, hard-eyed challenge — and deep fascination.

Shilu did not elaborate. The others regarded her with wary suspicion, open hostility, or blank-faced stares.

The Necromancer and the Commander had been engaged in conversation about Telokopolis, when they had been interrupted by the arrival of the first zombies looking for a handout of fresh meat. They had broken off mid-debate, and had allowed Shilu up onto Pheiri’s hull. The Commander had spent the last few hours handing out corpses, attempting to speak with as many of the groups of zombies as she could, and showing her physical presence among them. Pheiri’s guns kept the peace, but Elpida’s face was the one above the crescent-and-line symbol daubed on her t-shirt.

Ooni had not seen the debate with her own eyes, but she had heard all the details from Leuca and the others; news travelled fast inside Pheiri.

Elpida turned back to Victoria. “Vicky, how many revenants do we have in the chamber now, please?”

“Sixty three,” Vicky said, then paused. “Kaga says Pheiri agrees on the count.”

“How many of them left before eating?”

“Fifteen.”

“And how many left after eating?”

“Without returning? Seven.”

Elpida nodded. “How many corpses do we have left in the pile?”

A reply came across the headsets. Kagami said: “Seventeen. Not including the ones on board, for our personal use. Do not dip into that, Commander. We need those.”

Elpida broke into a smile. “Understood, Kagami.”

The Commander straightened up out of her crouch, stepped forward, and planted one boot on the parapet, looking out across the chamber. Her long white hair caught the backwash from Pheiri’s blood-red floodlights, visible from even the furthest corners of the room. Purple eyes seemed to glow in the dark, set in that golden-copper skin. Every zombie out there would see her standing tall on Pheiri’s hull, see the symbol on her chest, and know this bounty of meat had come from the Commander’s hands.

Ilyusha swished her tail, claws flexing in and out, then wrapped the appendage around Elpida’s leg. She did her best to cover Elpida with the ballistic shield.

“Those are very good numbers,” Elpida said. “Better than I had hoped.”

Ooni felt her heart fill with pride.

Shilu said: “This doesn’t scale.”

Ilyusha looked back with venom in her eyes. Ooni felt herself bristle.

But Victoria spoke up before anybody could take offence. “She’s, uh, she’s got a point, Elpi,” Victoria said. “We can’t sustain this for more than another two to three days, at most. We’ve been handing out minimal rations, sure, but we’re gonna run out eventually. Kaga had a point with her loaves and fishes thing, we can’t just magic up more meat. When we run out, those girls out there are gonna get hungry. And then they’ll start tearing into each other again.”

“Yes,” Elpida said. “They will.”

Ooni’s heart curdled. “Commander?” she whimpered.

“Shilu is correct,” Elpida said, still gazing out across the chamber. “In its current form, this technique does not scale. We cannot stop these revenants from attacking each other again when the food runs out. That is sadly inevitable. I have to accept that. We all have to accept that. There is nothing we can do, not yet, not until the meat-plant project bears fruit.” Elpida drew in a deep breath. “But they’ll remember this.”

Ooni shivered. Ooni knew, once again, why Leuca had decided to follow this woman.

Ooni knew, deep in her heart, that she should feel terribly jealous and spiteful toward Elpida the woman, however she felt about Elpida the Commander. Leuca — Ooni’s beloved, Ooni’s one and only, the girl who Ooni would cross any abyss of time to find again — drank blood from this woman’s hand, like a hound at her ankles. Ooni knew that Leuca and Elpida had shared something special, something that Ooni’s mouth on Leuca’s cunt could never quite replicate, however often she tried. But Ooni understood. When Elpida spoke, Ooni heard truth and clarity.

Shilu interrupted Ooni’s clean thoughts, dragging her back down into the shadows of the tomb.

“What are you trying to achieve here, Telokopolan?” said Shilu.

Elpida let out a sigh, almost contented, and finally climbed back down from the edge of the parapet. She turned around and squatted opposite Shilu, staring back into the wide, dark eyes of the Necromancer’s disguise. Ilyusha followed, hovering about Elpida like a dog waiting for the command to bite.

Elpida said, “What do you think I’m doing, Shilu?”

“I don’t know. Enlighten me.”

Victoria hissed, “Couldn’t we all have this conversation indoors, you know? Talk politics inside Pheiri’s hull, perhaps?”

Elpida answered without looking up. “I need to be here if any additional zombies arrive. Vicky, I need your eyes for that. Shilu and I are just passing the time on watch, that’s all.”

Vicky let out a big sigh. “Fair enough. You good too, Ooni?”

Ooni almost flinched again, surprised to be addressed. “Y-yes. Yes, I’m good. Thank you. Yes.”

Elpida was speaking; Ooni wanted to listen.

“I’m sowing seeds, Shilu,” Elpida was saying. “I’m sowing as many as I can. Some will wither, some will be eaten by animals, some will shrivel up for want of water. But some will sprout and grow, even if we can’t see them, even if we can’t sit in their shade for a very long time. Even if we never do.”

Shilu sighed. A human expression finally crossed her face — mild irritation. “Spare me the tortured metaphor.”

Elpida laughed softly. “Alright, my apologies. Every girl down there who’s eating one of those corpses, she’s eating a meal she hasn’t had to kill for, a meal that she hasn’t got to drag back into a hole lest some other scavengers take it from her. For some of them, that’s the first time in a very long time they haven’t had to fight to fill their bellies. For some it’s the first peaceful meal since death. And those corpses, that meat, it doesn’t come from an abstract place, it comes from me, and you, and the whole cadre, and Pheiri. It comes from Telokopolis. That’s the message I’ve been spreading down there.”

“Mmhmm,” Shilu grunted. “And why do it?”

“It’s what Telokopolis would do, so it’s what I’m doing.”

“Is it sustainable?” Shilu asked.

Elpida shook her head. “I’m not delusional. The only reason we can do any of this is because of Lykke’s hounds, because she practically fed them to us. We’re unlikely to have a windfall like this again. But like I said, every girl out there will remember this. It makes the next steps — months, or even years from now — that much easier.”

Shilu closed her eyes briefly, as if thinking. Atyle tilted her head, as if she could see Shilu’s thoughts. Shilu opened her eyes again; Ooni thought she looked rather tired.

“So,” Shilu said. “You don’t have a plan.”

“Hey!” Ilyusha snapped. “Reptile fuck!”

Elpida raised a hand. “Illy, it’s okay. She’s allowed to critique. And she’s right. I don’t have a specific plan, and I’ve been completely open about that. What I’m doing is creating as many opportunities and openings as possible. Some of them won’t pan out, some will have to be abandoned, some — like feeding those fools who kept pinging Pheiri with their low-grade viruses — we’re having to entertain just to show good will to others. But some of them will work, and we can pursue those in the future. Reinforce success, where we find it.”

“Interesting doctrine,” said Shilu.

Elpida smiled. “I was taught by the best.”

“And now you’re applying that doctrine to change the world.”

Elpida nodded slowly. “I’m trying to find the fulcrum on which the world can be turned. Can I change it? I don’t know yet. But I know Telokopolis can.”

“By re-inventing agriculture,” Shilu said. “Your meat-plants. Your little miracles. That’s how you hope to scale this up, right?”

Elpida puffed out a sigh. Vicky winced slowly. Ooni could hear the crackle of voices on the headsets, but whatever Kagami was saying was not for Ooni’s ears.

“In theory,” Shilu answered for the cadre. “All you have is theory.”

Elpida nodded. “In theory. The plants are a challenge, and they’re not ready yet. We can only do preliminary work for now. I want to tell as many zombies as I can, but—”

Kagami’s voice snapped over the comms. “But you are fucking well overruled, Commander! None of it is ready! Telling them we can feed them now, it’s a lie!”

Elpida just smiled.

“No spreading the good news, then?” Shilu asked.

“There is none,” Elpida answered. “Yet.”

Shilu and Elpida both fell into silence for a moment, washed over by the distant sound of the terrible storm beyond the walls. Ooni glanced away, casting her eyes over the zombies assembled beyond Pheiri. Ilyusha kept going click-click-click with her claws on the hull. Hafina hummed a tuneless melody. Atyle stared up at the distant ceiling, lost in dripping shadows.

Victoria cleared her throat, and said, “Big Man economics.”

When Ooni looked around, Victoria seemed almost bashful. The others were all staring at her.

“Please go on, Vicky,” said Elpida. “What does that mean?”

Victoria cleared her throat again. She seemed to be having trouble meeting anybody’s eyes. “It’s a uh, theory term. I never did university or anything, never was really big on theory at all really, I wasn’t good at it, but this is something I remember pretty well. The sort of thing the place I came from — the Great Lakes Republic, I mean — the sort of thing everybody knew. I think there’s more accurate technical terms for it, too, but I’m no good with those. ‘Single-point resource centralisation’. Something like that? But I always remember the ‘Big Man’ metaphor. Big Man Economics is when you have like, a local ‘Big Man’ — you know, somebody important, somebody with power, or a stand in for that, like a religious figure, or a institution, or maybe even something that isn’t a person, like a ring of standing stones in some ancient world tribe, or … you … you get the idea, right? Is this making sense?”

Ilyusha tapped Pheiri’s hull with her claw-tips, and grunted, “Uh huh!”

Ooni was surprised; Ilyusha seemed absorbed.

Vicky went on. “Well, in those kinds of economies, everything goes through the Big Man. Everyone gives the Big Man their harvest, or their cattle, or whatever it is they make. And then the Big Man goes like ‘hey, I don’t need all this stuff, I’m just one guy.’ Or if the ‘Big Man’ is the gods or an idol, well, gods don’t eat. So the Big Man parcels it out to everybody else. That way, everyone knows like, hey, that’s the family who grows all the beans or whatever, that’s the family who makes all the cheese, and so on and so on. Any disputes go through the Big Man, instead of with each other. The Big Man commands all the soldiers and warriors, so he keeps the peace. That’s … kinda like how you’re trying to act, Elpi. Like that’s what you’re trying to make us into. At least here. In this chamber. For a bit.”

Silence fell, filled with rainstorm static.

“Palace economy,” said Shilu, and she did not sound impressed. “You are describing a god-king palace economy.”

Elpida said: “Shilu?”

“Not only are you trying to reinvent agriculture,” Shilu said. “You’re reinventing the bronze age. That is far too slow and far too primitive for your aims.”

Atyle smiled. “Primitive is relative, faithless slave.”

Vicky huffed. “Well excuse me, Necromancer. Sorry for coming up with the best analogy I could think of. You got a better one?”

“Yes,” said Shilu.

“Huh!” Vicky laughed, rather unkindly. “Well come on then, let’s fucking hear it, you—”

Elpida raised a hand. “Yes, Shilu. Let’s hear it. I want your input. You’ve got a much wider reference range than us. What are we getting wrong?”

Shilu stared for a moment, as if trying to decide if the question was genuine.

“During my true life,” Shilu said eventually, “in the place where I lived and died, there was an ancient political concept, about two thousand years old by the time I was born. It drifted in and out of fashion from one century to the next. I was never a very diligent student of history, so I can’t remember the exact origin. This concept was called the ‘mass line’.”

Victoria squinted, as if she understood a little of what Shilu referred to. Elpida gestured for Shilu to continue.

Shilu said, “This was a methodology for combining leadership and mass action. I’m not a political philosopher, I can’t explain the underpinnings. The basic form goes like this: you make a plan, a theory, and you are busy implementing it; while you do that, you need to ask those on whose behalf you are working what they think of the plan and the theory. You need to ask what they need, what are their concerns, what you can do better. Then you take those responses and use them as the fuel to improve the plan and the theory, as it is being implemented. This forms an endless cycle.”

Elpida nodded. “Right. That’s what I’ve been doing, talking to the revenants down there.”

“Saying what?” Shilu said. “Asking what?”

“If they’re willing to stay in the chamber beneath Pheiri’s guns, if they’re willing to renounce infighting and predatory action, as long as there’s a source of food. Telling them about Telokopolis, about the possibility of something different to all this.”

Shilu shook her head. “Go back down there and ask better questions, Telokopolan.”

“Like what? I’m serious, Shilu, what are you trying to suggest?”

Vicky cleared her throat. “She means ask them what they need, not what they’re willing to follow. I … I think.”

Shilu leaned to one side, thinking. It was the most human gesture Ooni had seen from her yet.

“What will they do when the meat runs out?” Shilu said. “Not as a rhetorical question, but a practical one. Ask them what they plan to do. Who will they attack? Who will they trust, after spending time in this chamber together? When this storm passes and this truce ends, will they follow Pheiri, and seek safety under his guns? Or will they run, because they suspect they’re next? What do they want from us? What do they believe is possible? Do they trust your intentions? Do they think you will supply more meat? Do they believe you? How many of them know what ‘Telokopolis’ means now — and how many only think they know?” Shilu paused, as if done, but then surged on ahead, voice threatening real emotion in her urgency. “There are several hundred zombies in this tomb right now, enduring unprecedented conditions. The storm has shocked them, created an opening for dialectical synthesis. You know this, but you’re slow and cautious. You need to take that opening, before they turn back.”

Ooni heard a crackle over the radio — Serin, laughing softly, rough and scratchy behind her metal mask. None of the others seemed to react. Another broadcast for Ooni alone?

Elpida nodded slowly. “And will you help me do that, Necromancer?”

Shilu’s lips twitched — the corpse of a smile. “I’m no good at that, Telokopolan. That’s not my area of expertise. I’m no political officer.”

Elpida leaned back and almost grinned, as if Howl was trying to peek through her skin. “Fair enough, Shilu.”

Vicky snorted. “Yeah, you can say that again.”

Ilyusha made her tail spike go shick-shick — but slowly, staring at Shilu in silent contemplation.

Elpida said: “Speaking of your areas of expertise, we got interrupted before we could continue our conversation, earlier. There are things I need to know, Shilu.”

“I have little else to tell.”

“Tell them anyway.”

Shilu raised her eyebrows. “Here?”

“Why not?” Elpida dipped her head and spoke into the comms network. “Kagami, keep us updated on any changes in the crowd downstairs. Watch the entrances, too. Don’t hesitate to interrupt me if more zombies turn up, that’s why we’re out here in the first place.”

Kagami’s voice crackled in Ooni’s headset. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Commander.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. Ilyusha snorted a laugh. Atyle was paying no attention at all, staring at a blank section of metal wall. Hafina was staring off at something on the far side of the chamber as well, eyes hidden behind her angled mask.

Elpida smiled. “Thank you, Kaga. Now, anybody else want to head back inside? Ooni, Vicky, you’ve got another twenty minutes on watch, but you could cut it short. We can keep an eye on things now.”

“I’m good,” said Victoria.

Ooni shook her head; she wouldn’t miss this for anything, except perhaps Leuca.

“Alright then,” Elpida said. “Good job, Ooni. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Yes, Commander,” Ooni said. “Thank you.”

Elpida returned her attention to the Necromancer. “Now, Shilu,” she said. “Tell me about Central.”