Machined Hearts

[machinedhearts]

Adrian reached for her revolver as Acara spoke, admitting to being her parents' murderer. Before Adrian could get a firm grip on her weapon, the Order leader swept her arms up and pinned Adrian against Dalmytrias's dead body. Then Acara looked at Leiel and gave her a determined nod. The cacophonous omnipresent choir quieted, and the Cathedral fell silent. The burning in Adrian's gut subsided.

"You are quite powerful indeed." Acara stared, her eyes glowing a deep emerald green in her own shadow.

Adrian thrashed in a bid to free herself, but the Order leader was overwhelmingly powerful. No matter how she kicked, Adrian couldn't free herself from Acara's grasp. Underneath Adrian, the body fell to dust which swept up and dissipated. In a panic, Adrian swung her head around, not sure what they were doing but wanting nothing more than to be free. In her hand, the Sun Tear's heat faded, and Adrian felt normal again.

As Adrian's thrashing slowed, Acara's grip eased.

The Order leader's voice calmed. "Now that you've cooled off, let me—"

A mass slammed into the altar and shook the ground. Adrian covered her face and cowered, curling up into a ball and tensing all her muscles. She peeled her hands away and found a brown cloak dangling over her face. Black leather boots were on either side of Adrian's head.

Terror washed over Acara. "Let me explain—"

The Order leader received a firm boot center of mass and she tumbled backwards, head over heels. From over Adrian, Dalmytrias stepped down from the altar. His hooded brown robe brushed against her, and he tightened his black leather, buckled arm-length gloves with the balling of his fist. Then he spun and revealed his white face mask with a single red chevron as the angel locked onto Leiel.

Adrian, still laying upon the altar, latched onto his robe. "Don't."

Dalmytrias broke his gaze with Leiel and glanced at Adrian. With an irate grumble, he flicked his robe and broke it from Adrian's grasp. Then the angel stepped around the altar and advanced on Leiel.

"There are matters greater than—" Leiel started.

With a lone punch square in her chest, the strike rocketed Leiel back and with a crash, embedded her into the stone brick wall. With a frightened gasp, Adrian scrambled to her feet and rushed toward her aunt. Finding a wing blocking her path, Adrian stopped and looked at Dalmytrias, expecting to meet a similar fate.

Adrian scrambled to place herself in between the angel and Leiel, holding her hands out at Dalmytrias. "She's had enough, she's just confused and wrapped up with this whole Order. My aunt doesn't know what's going on here."

"Your spiteful lies plague her as they did me, I see." Dalmytrias's voice was laced with hatred as he spoke to Leiel.

It was clearly a lie, but Adrian's taste for violence disappeared with the heat of the Sun Tear, more so that she didn't want Leiel to get killed.

"I can explain." Leiel struggled and dislodged herself from the stone. Her voice shook with digital artefacting, a damaged artificial voice speaker. "There is much to discuss."

As Adrian listened, her eyes grew wide in shock. Leiel wasn't modded. Spinning, distraught, Adrian spotted her aunt getting to her feet. Her clothes and skin from her navel to her right shoulder was sheared off and revealed a metal endoskeleton. Like an android. Adrian stumbled back in distress and Dalmytrias caught her by the shoulders and steadied her.

"I'm dying to know what there is to be said." Dalmytrias held back rage.

"W—what are you?" Adrian sputtered out, shaken by the sight of Leiel.

As Leiel righted herself, her hexagonal, emerald eyes flickered and lit up like a computer booting. Her aunt always told Adrian that they were just birth defects, that there are no perfectly circular irises, Leiel's were just extremely deformed. How stupid Adrian felt for believing that. Leiel's skin and clothes began to recompose, and in a few seconds her body recovered from the damage.

"Go on then. Tell the poor girl." Dalmytrias demanded. "At least have the respect to put her out of her misery."

Leiel's expression flattened. "XA-33, Experimental Assassin, iteration 33. I am a prototype war machine." As she spoke, her voice recovered, and she sounded normal.

Somehow, Adrian sensed a tinge of emotion, regret in Leiel's voice. It was likely her own grief imagining that. Machines don't feel.

"Who made you? The Order?" Adrian's shaken voice filled the Cathedral.

Leiel closed her eyes in frustration and shook her head. "I cannot tell you that."

"Let me guess, classified. You're probably some corpo plant, aren't you?" Adrian lashed out in anger.

"No. I will not tell you for the sake of your safety."

Dalmytrias chuckled and furiously exhaled. "I'm sure all of your excuses will waste my time in same fashion."

"What kind of threat would use that information to hurt me?" Adrian called her bluff.

Leiel looked away, guilty. "Not just your safety."

Dalmytrias turned his chin up in realization and gave off a devious laugh. "So I see. Him."

"I beg you, do not interfere." Leiel's posture closed, and she hunched down as if to cower.

Dalmytrias flecked his wings and then retracted them. "Interfere. As you did with me? How could I ever think to do such a thing?" His voice was laced with sarcasm.

Then the angel turned his attention to Acara. The Order leader was sitting in the pew just beside where she landed, slinked against the very end of the seat, a fearful expression painted on her face.

"Considering everything, I would've taken you to run." Dalmytrias boomed.

"What good would that do? It's not like I could hide from you." Acara spoke with a shaking voice.

"Why'd you do it?" Dalmytrias took a step forward, speaking about his imprisonment.

"There—" Leiel started.

Dalmytrias held a handout behind and silenced her, then took another step toward Acara. The Order leader looked away from him and folded her arms to hug her own body. All authority was blasted away by Dalmytrias's presence. Adrian thought Acara looked more like a chastised child than the leader of an elite mercenary outfit.

"Why." Dalmytrias took another step.

Acara relented. "We needed you."

In the blink of an eye, Dalmytrias's form faded into a thin veil of smoke, then reappeared next to Acara. He was hunched over and a hair's width from her face.

"And you never thought to ask me." Dalmytrias whispered in her ear.

"We didn't know if—"

"And you. Never thought. To ask. Me." The angel's voice growled with fury. "How long has it been?"

Acara's head shook with terror.

"How. Long." Dalmytrias spread his wings.

After a hard swallow, the Order leader piped up. "Half a millennia. Five hundred years or so."

The number gave the angel pause and he gagged. Then he stood straight up, struck by Acara's words.

"I know—" The Order leader started.

Swiping his wings in raging rotation, the angel launched the entire row of pews behind him, on the opposite side of Acara, into the wall near the entrance to the Cathedral. They smashed and tumbled into a pile.

"What do you know? Tell me what you understand, even one iota, about the matter." Dalmytrias exploded with fury.

Acara closed her eyes and sat perfectly still as the chaos beside her unfolded. On some level, Adrian felt bad for her.

"It had to be done." Leiel called out, stepping forth and standing next to Adrian. "If anyone is to blame, it is I." She folded her hands in front of her stomach. "We did it because it was necessary to preserve the human race."

Adrian looked at Leiel and stepped away, placing distance between them.

Dalmytrias turned and advanced with wings splayed toward Leiel.

"Would you have agreed?" Leiel preempted his inevitable question.

The angel stopped a dozen steps away from Leiel, in genuine ponderance. "I—"

"You would not have." Leiel pressed him. "We just got Solara back. You would not have left her for anything."

"I bled for her." Dalmytrias's voice was filled with anger and sorrow. "Do you understand the heartache—"

"Yes. If I had blood I would have bled for her too. Her abduction was my fault. There was nothing I would not have done to make it right."

"Then why—"

"You are not eternal. You needed to leap-frog through time to get to now." Leiel spoke flatly. "If you were not here, all would be lost."

Dalmytrias scoffed and looked away, his wings retracted, and he folded his arms, frustrated. Adrian sensed this had to do with Meredeth considering his sudden resignation. He snapped his attention to Adrian.

"Let's go. We're leaving."

 

[machinedhearts]

Adrian stood next to Dalmytrias, his wings splayed and ready for a fight, in front of the hotel. Ahead of them, in the courtyard, spread out across the lawn was the entirety of the Order's military branch. Dozens upon dozens of armored soldiers impeded their path.

"Please go back inside." Tank's voice box boomed beneath the awning.

The formations of men were ready to draw their weapons, hands hovering over holstered submachine guns strapped to their chests. The tension wafted through the breeze, cutting through the smog like a honed blade.

"No. There are matters to attend." Dalmytrias responded, looming over Tank.

"We can arrange to—" Tank started.

Dalmytrias sized up the titan soldier. "Why'd you do that to yourself?"

Tank recoiled. "Do what, sir?"

With the bounce of his upward-turned palm, Dalmytrias motioned toward Tank's outward appearance. "You're encased in a machine. Why destroy your body so."

Tank looked at the ground for a moment, pondering the declaration. "I didn't. The consortium did."

Folding his arms in front of him, Dalmytrias relaxed his wings and let off a curious coo. "Tell me what happened."

Tank looked around at his comrades, a sudden vulnerability washed over the armored titan. Hesitating, he started to search for words again, looking down at the red carpet beneath the angel.

Then Tank straightened himself upright, resolute. "The consortium captured me. Tortured me, to get information about the Order. Peeled me apart and plucked the organs from my body when I denied them."

Adrian shivered at the thought of Tank being dissected while still alive.

"Somehow they got me out of there." Tank paused for a long while. "Lady Leiel put me back together. As best as anyone could." Then he wagged his arms down his torso, as to put himself on display.

With a muted gasp, Adrian had to fight her base instinct to wonder how her aunt could do such a thing. Clearly, she was an android, she wasn't bound by the limitations of a human. But something bothered Adrian. Leiel described herself as a 'war machine'. The first thing that came to Adrian's mind when hearing those words was a tank or a fighter jet. Tanks and jets don't mend the wounded. There was even more to this story than was let on, and Adrian's frustration welled just thinking about the web of lies she was wrapped up in.

Hearing Tank's words, Dalmytrias's stance eased, and an air of respect emanated from his straightened posture.

"This consortium. Is there anything that could stop you from taking them down if you had the chance?" Dalmytrias tilted his head, curious.

"No. No one could stop me if I had the power to do what needed to be done." Tank spoke with eagerness, leaving no time for silence after Dalmytrias's words.

"I have my own war to wage. Let me go." Dalmytrias leaned forward, resolute.

Tank let off a long, defeated sigh, touched by the angel's words.

The titan leaned in close and lowered his voice box. "She's afraid you won't come back. My orders are to stop you."

"And if I have to deal with you, do you think that will make things better, or worse?" Dalmytrias straightened upright, imposing.

Relenting, Tank turned to the formations on the lawn and wagged his hand at them. In moments, the armored soldiers of the Order dispersed, disappearing around the building. With a single step back, the armored titan gave way and looked down, beaten.

Taking a moment to observe the environment, and seeing that there was no one obstructing their path, Dalmytrias turned to Adrian and nodded to indicate they were leaving. Adrian scratched her head as she passed the reverent titan. That he would simply disobey, despite his otherwise stoic and filial attitude toward the Order gave Adrian pause. Tank was someone who would fight to the death, no matter the adversary. There was no reason for him to just let their sacred mascot go with such meek resistance.

With a sharp whistle, Dalmytrias caught Adrian's attention as he climbed into the passenger seat of her car. Adrian's suspicion was stymied by the sudden realization the angel understood the nuance of riding in a car. Trapped between wanting to grill Tank on his sudden relenting, and wanting to know how Dalmytrias knew enough to operate the power seat controls of her car, Adrian decided Tank's interrogation was for another day. She raced over to the driver's side door of her vehicle, and got in.

"What are you doing?" Adrian demanded.

"Drive." Dalmytrias pointed behind him, deeper into the city while trying to alleviate discomfort with the power controls on the door.

"Where exactly do you want me to go?" Adrian looked behind her, in the direction of the angel's indication.

"East. We must go to get Ku." Dalmytrias continued to adjust his seat, the motor whirring.

"Ku? What is that?" Adrian's eyebrows dropped in frustration.

"The Blade of Suffering. It calls to me." Dalmytrias stopped his fiddling and relented. Folding his arms in front of him, he put the seat all the way down, looking like a pregnant woman with his retracted wings under his shoulders and arching his lower back.

Adrian shifted, nervous about his desire. "This Blade of Suffering calls to you." She spoke, incredulously. Regret washed over her as she stared at Tank through the windshield, wondering if she should have taken his side instead.

"My body is drained. The longer I am apart from it, the weaker I will become." Dalmytrias put his head on the seat back.

"And what are you going to do with this… Blade of Suffering, once you get it?" Adrian turned to Dalmytrias; the desire for inquisition filled her heart.

"The blood spilled from my enemies will restore my strength and will give me the power necessary to bring the fight to the Queen of Sin." Dalmytrias stared up at the leather trim.

"So what, you're just going to go on a rampage and start taking random people out until you're strong enough to take down Meredeth?" Adrian's voice verged on anger.

"I don't hurt innocent people." Dalmytrias spoke plainly.

"What, like that massive pileup that killed dozens of people that you caused?" Adrian fought to remain calm.

"That was a mistake. I was blind with rage."

"And how do I know you're not going to do it again?" Adrian demanded; her words oozed fury.

Dalmytrias sighed and reached for the door handle. Smacking the door locks, Adrian turned towards him, imposing her miniature presence upon him. It was a bluff, locking the doors wouldn't stop anyone from getting out, but she hoped he didn't know that. The angel relented and crossed his arms in front of him.

"All I have is my word. I won't do it again." Dalmytrias spoke meekly.

His words calmed Adrian's spirit. But she still contemplated getting him out of the car. It seemed that the men of the Order believed in Dalmytrias. But the angel's actions spoke differently than the reputation that preceded him. Adrian had to make a choice: stay the course and let things play out or go back and put an end to this whole ordeal. Adrian tapped the steering wheel with her index finger, anxious and lost in thought, staring at Tank who was standing there watching them.

Her mind wandered to all the things her aunt lied about. All the secrets Acara kept. Her claim that she murdered Adrian's parents. Without another thought, Adrian slammed her key into the ignition and fired up the car. She eased off the clutch and pulled up to the gate, which gave way. Exiting the premises, Adrian began to fiddle with the navigation.

"So where are we going?" Adrian pulled up a top-down view of New Downtown.

"This way." Dalmytrias pointed off the screen, to the right.

As she drove, Adrian panned the map. Keeping a normal pace, she maneuvered around the decrepit old town roads.

"Stop." Dalmytrias blurted.

Adrian stopped the car but kept panning the map.

"No. Not this." Dalmytrias pointed to the floorboards, indicating that he wanted the car to keep moving. "That." He pointed to the map. "Go back."

Adrian let the clutch out easy and took off, then panned the map back west.

"There."

Adrian took her hand off the navigation controls and held two hands on the steering wheel. Then, as they came to a stop at a busy intersection, she looked down at what the angel was pointing at on the map.

"You've got to be kidding me." Adrian hollered. "The Blade of Suffering is there?"

Dalmytrias nodded and grunted.

Adrian scoffed. "There's no way I can get us in there."

"I can." Dalmytrias spoke with confidence.

With a groan, Adrian took off from the intersection as the light turned green.

"I can't believe I'm doing this…" Adrian muttered.

The weapon was in the worst den of scum and villainy anywhere in the world. District 2, the middle executives quarter.

 

[machinedhearts]

Adrian's anxiety grew as she drove along the highway. Beside her, Dalmytrias sat and stared ahead at the road, unmoving. The tension he exuded filled the car. Though he was hidden behind a mask, she knew there was a scowl etched into his face. The unyielding silence frightened her, it was like sitting next to a live atom bomb.

Attempting to ease her anxiety, Adrian poked at the buttons on the steering wheel to review her job notes. Not that they would be worth anything now. But as she scrolled the holographic menu displayed on the windshield, she came across the wannabe ganger, Danny's information and the thought of Lex exchanged anxiety for guilt as she remembered finding his sister locked up. Without a second thought, she initiated text to speech.

"I found your sister. They had her locked up in a cell near the Cleft but took her before I could get her out of there." Adrian spoke, staring at the road. She pushed the center button on the wheel to send the message.

As Adrian spoke, Dalmytrias's trance-like focus ahead was disrupted with a jolt of his head, which craned toward her.

"Figure out where they took her and get back to me." Adrian finished and sent the second message.

Then more quietness returned to the car as she dismissed the messaging menu. But Adrian could feel the angel's gaze burning a hole in the side of her head. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable by him staring her down.

"What is it?" Adrian huffed and turned to look at him for a moment.

"Was this place always so broken?" Dalmytrias muttered.

Adrian leaned forward to look up toward the towering structures ahead of them beside the highway. They were entering into the high-class part of town and security was much tighter here. Helicopters whirred by, their searchlights scanned the shadow of the District 1 support structure. High rises with well-manicured trees and bushes hanging from the balconies and on the rooftops gave a vibrant liveliness not found anywhere else in the city dotted the edges of daylight.

"I don't know what you mean, this is one of the nicest districts in the city." Adrian looked around, wondering what was so broken about this place.

"You don't feel stifled by all of this stone?" This excess of metal?" Dalmytrias pointed out the window at the various buildings and District 1 support structure.

Adrian blinked, confused. "I mean, sometimes I wish there was someplace I could go with fewer people around. Though less people are on the outskirts, so maybe that's not the problem. No, I don't think so."

With a dissatisfied hum, Dalmytrias returned to continue his statue-like stare out the windshield. His question bothered Adrian, and she wondered what he meant. She didn't always live in the inner districts. Before Parastisus hit, she lived in a small house out near the northside of the Cleft. After the consortium took over, everything got bulldozed and high rises went up everywhere. That side of the city turned into a dustbowl, became nothing more than a desert. Thinking about her childhood brought her to Leiel.

"Why would Leiel lie to me all these years?" Adrian piped up, hoping Dalmytrias would have some insight, considering that it seemed they knew each other.

"Who knows? She deceived me too." Dalmytrias shifted in his seat, agitated.

Adrian cocked her head, intrigued. "How so?"

They passed into the shadow of the support structure and the lights on Adrian's car deployed. In the darkness, the glimmer of high rises in eternal darkness sparkled with cyans and magentas around them. Beside the highway, huge spotlights twirled, and holographic displays showed giant, scantily clad performers dancing afar. Down beneath the freeway was District 4, Paradise, a place filled to the brim with every vice imaginable and where the party never stopped. In the distance, harsh thumps from music filled the air.

Dalmytrias scoffed resentfully and looked out the passenger-side window. "Nothing worth mentioning now."

For some reason, his anger put Adrian at ease. She wanted to know more, maybe that would give her insight into who Leiel really was.

"She told me we were related. That she was my aunt." Adrian looked at him, trying to read into his posture. "Raised me alone in a small house outside the city. After my parents died, she took me in."

Dalmytrias's resentfulness faded, and he looked over.

"She never told me anything about herself. We barely spoke, outside of her asking about my grades and if I was eating right." Adrian stared forward out the windshield. "There was always some sort of business to attend to, and that she'd be back soon."

"What sort of business?" Dalmytrias piped up.

"I don't know. She never said, and up until today I never really thought to ask. I respected her privacy as she did mine." Adrian shook her head, frustrated at herself.

"Knowing her, you never had any such privacy." Dalmytrias's voice was harsh.

Adrian frowned and reached into her pocket, producing the two pictures, one of her and Leiel. "I learned recently that I had a brother." She offered them to him.

With a dainty pluck, the angel took the photos and poured over them.

"And that Acara was raising him, I assume, as Leiel raised me." Adrian gritted her teeth, holding back fury from the deception of it all.

Dalmytrias nodded and gave off a curious grunt. "A halfhearted attempt at solitude." He offered the pictures back to her, looking away.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Adrian's eyebrow twitched. "Why would they keep us apart?" She snatched up the pictures and returned them to her jacket pocket.

Dalmytrias sighed with resignation. "Nothing is for certain, but given what you've shown me, you were an inconvenient detail."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Adrian screamed and she leaned toward Dalmytrias. The car's lane departure system blared as it began to correct its path.

"It means you and I are in the same place. Unwanted and disposable." Dalmytrias's voice was mournful. He pointed out the windshield. "Eyes forward."

His words both eased and infuriated Adrian at the same time. She turned to keep her focus on the road.

"If I'm so undesirable, such an inconvenience, then why didn't Acara just kill me, like she did my parents?" Adrian said, defeated.

Dalmytrias stared at her for a moment and let off an amused hum. "Why do you ask such things?"

"It's what she told me." Adrian's frustration fell from her tongue as she spoke.

"When was this?" Dalmytrias's voice was laced with surprise.

Adrian pointed over her shoulder. "Back at the cathedral. Just before you showed up. Again."

After a pregnant pause, Dalmytrias burst out in a joyous belly laugh.

Adrian could hold her rage back and began smacking the angel with an open palm. "This is a serious matter!"

Despite being struck, the angel continued his laughter, recoiling from her hitting him. After his glee subsided, she stopped smacking him.

Taking a deep breath, Dalmytrias sighed. "Even after all these years, she still has it."

"Has what?" Adrian's voice was filled with venom.

"The Sun Tear needs two things to work." Dalmytrias cleared his throat. "A mate and a conduit. And she's the mate."

"So that means—" Adrian started.

"It means that you were the conduit. Which makes perfect sense. Considering you resisted a fully-charged Sun Tear for longer than a few seconds. Most humans would have melted into a fine paste in about a minute," Dalmytrias said.

"Then she lied." Adrian's anger didn't subside at the revelation.

"I don't know much, but I'm almost certain so." Dalmytrias looked at her.

Adrian shook her head and exhaled sharply, confused. "So why did she say that? And how do you know?"

"It's likely that you were already on the verge of drawing me back to the corporeal world. She decided to say something that would push you over the edge." Dalmytrias stated plainly. "I would bet my life that she would never harm you nor your family."

Brow quivered, again feeling like she was an outsider and the only one not in the loop. "But how do you know?"

"Your brother."

Adrian tilted her head, confused. "What does he have to do with all of this?"

Dalmytrias let off a frustrated exhale. "He's a skilled mechanist, no?"

With a dipped brow, Adrian thought about what she knew about Thomas. He was in some sort of research program, for building… something. Next generation prosthetics or the like. Adrian tried to remember the details, but in the loosest of definitions, the angel's description was close enough.

"Yes, I suppose that's one way to put it." Adrian nodded.

Dalmytrias bobbed his head in tandem with her. "He is creating a horrible weapon. And will create Leiel in turn."