Chapter 118: Mortis Castrum

“Once I absorbed the Reservoir Cube, a completely new understanding as to how to approach manufacturing filled me. Not only was I flooded with new possibilities and schematics, but also an appreciation for how best to realize the greatest number of accomplishments by the Pit deadline.”

They were still floating down into the cavernous space. James crossed his arms and allowed his gaze to wander, taking in the hundreds of small drones who were all building and working together to construct new machinery even as larger drones continued to fly in and out of the space.

“Even now I’m… frustrated by our limitations. Being the sole level 500 Battle Engineer means I can’t really explain everything, and not having equally powerful Structuralists and War Smiths means I’m greatly hampered on what I can build. But the key was to broaden our resource intake system. That central spire there was the first thing I worked on. It’s both a control system for the reapers as well as a processing plant for raw materials. More importantly is builds new reapers, operators, and tenders who then increase the spire’s functionality, allowing it to work ever faster. We’re operating on an exponential curve. For the first six hours almost nothing happened, but now we’re really ramping up.”

“So they run themselves?”

“Set and forget. I’ve commanded them to reap resources from the streets. We no longer need Fabricators to excavate Divine Diamond or anything else. The reapers find and collect. The more they bring back, the more we have to work with, and the more reapers we’ve been able to build. The first eight hours were dedicated to getting this system up and running, along with refashioning the parking lot’s interior and laying the groundwork with the operators who anticipated our reaching a threshold where we could cease to focus solely on reapers and move to building Cornucopia centers. These in turn allow us to create specialized manufacturing equipment that can construct my machines at a vastly improved rate.”

“Damn, Jessica,” said James. “I think I understand, but… what are you working toward?”

“My focus has been getting the best weapons online just before the Pits opened up. We’re now an hour from that deadline. In the next forty-five minutes we should see the fruits of all this labor. Here, in the back.”

The platform floated on, descending to the rear of the huge space where James saw a second chamber had been excavated from the wall, sunken even deeper into the bedrock. It w as a cube the size of three tennis courts, its walls crisscrossed by channels along which robotic arms slid, their hands incandescing with Aeviternum and resources that flowed up within them to be laid down in liquid form upon a central construct that vaguely reminded James of the War Hound.

It rose sixty-feet tall, two telephone poles stacked atop each other, and where the War Hound had been a massive chassis balanced atop its two legs, this construct was humanoid in appearance while maintaining its huge and ponderous feel.

Half the body was the legs, heavily armored with enameled cobalt blue plating trimmed in gold. The feet were circular with four great toes extending radially around it, the knees covered by the shin guards, the thighs surprisingly short and attached with ball-sockets to the articulated hips. The upper torso was the remaining thirty feet, the head a skull-like helm placed smack in the center, medieval in appearance and made from steel, diamond, ivory, and gold. Huge blue plating surrounded it but for the shoulder mounted double-barreled Vault Canons that flanked its head. Two more Vault Canons were mounted like turrets atop its huge shoulders, fifteen feet apart, and the machine’s arms were each a weapon the size of a car.

The left arm was a complex machine that glimmered and glowed with Aeviternum within its core, the barrel surrounded by coils of diamond, the muzzle tapering to a surprisingly delicate bore just large enough for James to insert his fist.

The right arm was as bulky and huge as the left was delicate and precise; more complex machinery composed something akin to the Empyreal Vault Gun, but on a scale four times larger.

“Hot damn,” whispered James. It was almost too large to take in, its body covered in ant-like drones who soldered and worked on internal systems as a half-dozen arms continued to print out plating and ablative layers. “What do you call it?”

“It’s listed as a Mortis Castrum. It takes 6,561 Aeviternum points to awaken, which was one of the bottlenecks I started working on from the get go. Luckily one of the machines I was able to construct was an Ambient Aeviternum Harvester, which drains Aeviternum from everyone in a five-mile radius, drawing its power from Fabricator and operator regeneration powers. I made ten of them, distributed them across Brooklyn and the southern portion of Queens, and have been piping the power into our new battery banks.”

James looked off to the left where huge machinery took up an entire corner of the vast parking space. “Looks like the innards of a power station.”

“That’s because it is. Cooling process, transformers and condensers, turbines, containment capsules… another bottleneck we only got online four hours ago. But we’ve already collected 4,742 Aeviternum points, with more coming in at a rate of 20 Aeviternum per minute. I’m expanding capacity by adding another two Harvesters in the next thirty minutes. With a little luck we’ll animate the Castrum by deadline.”

James raked his hand through his hair. “Damn. And does it need a pilot?”

“No.” Jessica smiled. “It comes with a massively enhanced Throne of Reason that can apparently house an angel. Which, I know, you should be able to summon.”

“Yeah, no problem. Got a menu of options for you. Damn. All right. Any chance we can mass produce these things?”

“That’s my next challenge. Once this Castrum is up and running, I plan to create Cornucopia Seeds that can be activated anywhere in the world and which will then begin an autonomous process of creating a duplicate factory, completely with reapers, harvesters, and everything else required to start producing war machines.”

James didn’t know what to say.

Jessica laughed. “What did you expect? I’m a Lord of Creation Level 1, James. Fancier armor?”

“I don’t know, but I like it.” James grinned. “This Castrum should really help put a dent in whatever’s coming out of those pits. I just wish we had thousands of them.”

“Yeah, well.” Jessica’s smile subsided. “That’d be nice. But we never had the time.”

“We never would have, either.” James rubbed at his chin. “When the Monitor decided to throw all the Nemeses at us all at once and rush the opening of the Pits, I knew I’d been right. The supposed fairness of the system was all a sham. I haven’t received an update on how the rest of the world is doing, but from what I saw across the US…”

Jessica pinched the bridge of her nose beneath her spectacles and sighed. “They’re estimating a 90% casualty rate. Globally. Something like 7 billion dead. I can’t…” She paused and gave a panicked laugh. “I can’t even wrap my mind around that number. We’re done to the last 10% of humanity. It’s… it’s just too much to process.”

James literally felt his blood run cold as her words hit home.

90% of the world’s population had died within the last twenty-four hours. Between the Nem3 Fourth Wave and everything that had followed, the demons had just about wiped out humanity altogether.

His knees went weak and he dropped into a crouch, both hands cupped before his mouth. He’d known. On some level he’d known how badly their species had been mauled. Flying over Philly, Jacksonville, San Diego, he’d seen the endless ocean of corpses. The millions of dead. The lack of movement in the streets, the strongholds that had sprung up as bastions of last defense.

But 90%?

Arete 800 stopped him from screaming. Helped him process and understand what that meant. Only 1 in 10 people yet lived.

But.

That was always going to be the case. The endgame to this Nemesis Gauntlet. Each successive wave would have further whittled them down. The Nem4’s corrupting anyone of power who would listen. The Nem5’s assassinating those who resisted. The Nem6’s, 7’s and 8’s crushing whomever remained.

Even if they’d played this straight like good little test subjects, the Nemeses would have massacred them in the remaining two months.

Leaving just a fragment of humanity to face the opening of the Pits.

His leveling to 500 had threatened that gradual plan, pissed off the Monitors and whomever else was in charge. Could he and the rest of Crimson Hydra and Jessica have made a real difference in the remaining two months?

James looked around the huge workshop that Jessica had constructed in twelve hours alone. Jessica could have made a difference. Cornucopia Seeds would have tilted the balance. James and Crimson Hydra could have worked 24/7 to continue leveling up groups of 56 across the world. They could have helped over 600 folks rank up each day. 36,000 folks over the course of the remaining 60 days, and that’s not counting all the folks those newly ranked operators would have helped level.

Yeah, his getting access to the Reservoir Cubes had ruined the demons’ plans. Had forced them to accelerate everything so as to keep humanity on edge, to have them weak and overwhelmed when the Pits opened.

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James rubbed his thumbs into his eyes. He could feelArete 800 helping him process what nobody should have to deal with. His own culpability in what had happened. If he hadn’t grabbed the Cubes, those four billion people wouldn’t have died.

Not immediately.

But they would have been picked off over the course of the remaining two months.

He hadn’t killed them.

The demons had.

This was on their heads, not his own.

Those truths seared themselves into his mind and kept him from drowning in guilt and despair.

“James?” Jessica crouched beside him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just said it like that.”

“No. I needed to know.” James dropped his hands and stared bleakly at the Castrum. “It is what it is, and we need to keep on fighting. Nothing else to say.”

“I guess not.”

James stood. “You’ve done amazing work here, Jessica. The second I saw the Reservoir Cubes I knew I had to bring you one.”

Jessica grimaced and stared at the Castrum. “Is it enough, though? That’s been my question all along. Every time we’ve made a break through or advance, it’s still felt like it’s not enough.”

“It’s not meant to be. The demons don’t want us to have a fair shot. They’ve wanted us on the ropes all along, but with just enough hope to stay in the fight.” James fought to keep the burning hatred under control. “But now we’ve got access to abilities and machines they never counted on. We forced them to change their plans. We’ve proven that we’re not passive participants in their game. Even if we’re still on the ropes, even if humanity’s nearly wiped out, at least they now know that we won’t just do what we’re told.”

Jessica squeezed his arm. “Correct. Thanks to your initiative.”

James managed a broken smile. “We’re all in this together. And in forty minutes we’ll see what the demons have planned for us next.”

“Forty minutes.” Jessica summoned a dozen glowing screens before her, checked the data, then swiped them away. “The Castrum should come online just in time. Assuming ambient Aeviternum levels don’t dip, and that we’re able to finish producing all of its components.” She rubbed her face. “Everything from the past twelve hours have culminated in this.”

“But after, as we continue fighting, you’ll be able to create a Castrum every six hours?”

“Or quicker, as we work on bottlenecks and expand our production capabilities.”

“That’s huge. We just have to make sure we last that long.”

“Yes.” She smiled tiredly up at him. “Something tells me we will. That you won’t let the demons steamroll us, no matter what they’ve got planned.”

James chuckled. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Jessica’s eyes welled up with tears and she stepped in and hugged him. Surprised, unsure, James hesitated and then hugged her back. For a moment they stood thus, and then she released him.

“I’m sorry. Just a lot of emotion going around right now.”

“Don’t be. Any time you need some support. A hug. Anything. I’m here.”

“Thank you, James.” She managed a smile. “Who would have thought we’d end up here? Certainly not me. When I first saw you and Serenity outside the Emergency Management Center, I thought you both were a waste of my time. Now I can’t think of anyone more important to me.”

James felt warmth spread through him. “Thanks. Same goes for you. From me, that is. The important part. Not the, ah, waste of my time.”

She grinned. “Thanks for the clarification.”

James cleared his throat. “Well. I’d better get with my team and Hackworth. I want to check in on Kimmie and Kerim, see what we’ve got planned, which Pit we’re going to monitor.”

“Sounds good. But - given what I went through when I leveled to 500… I think I understand why Kimmie and Kerim went down. From what I saw of them, they seemed to be… the most expansive? Spiritually advanced?”

James nodded.

“Maybe that made the temptations of losing oneself to the universe, to the cosmic energies we glimpsed more insurmountable?”

“Yeah. I think that’s right. I originally thought it would be the least spiritually advanced of us that were in the most danger, but…” James sighed. “I just hope they come back to us soon.”

“Me too. I’ll be in touch.”

A Wing flew down by itself to hover beside their platform. It was a clear upgrade to the original model, being made all of gold and silver. Larger, sleeker, it looked far more durable and faster. James hopped on, bonded with it, and gave Jessica a two-fingered salute. “As you were, Lord of Creation.”

Jessica stuck her tongue out at him and summoned her screens once more as he willed the Wing to rise and head toward the platform up above where the elevators still stood. Even as he rose, however, he studied the Castrum Mortis. The sheer size of it, the number of weapons, the ponderous and huge nature of the armor plating.

If that thing didn’t give them an edge in what was to come, he didn’t know what would.

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