I’ve never died before. I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve heard from other people and I’ve been in the minds of bags what have died and got their impressions but they say it’s different for everybody and I don’t know what it’ll be like for me and I was hoping not to find out for a while yet thanks very much but there we go.
I start wondering if they’ll resuscitate me at all. Oh fuck; what if I’m in such big trouble they’ll just lose my identity from the crypt? What if they catch my dying thoughts and then just interrogate me, or don’t bother saving me at all?
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
The roaring around me goes on forever. My eyes are dry and soar. My ears hurt too.
Oh fuck I don’t want to die.
I can’t believe how long this is taking. I feel like I’m in crypt-time. It occurs to me maybe I am, maybe I crypted without knowing about it. But I can’t be. I’m obviously not. I’m here, falling down this shaft, dammit. I try crypting again.
It works. I’m on the second basement level, practically at sea level.
How much further down can this bleeding shaft go?
/I port across into the crypt; at least I can avoid the moment of impact. My implants will pull me back when I die, so there won’t be two of me, but at least… wait a bleeding minute.
According to the local hardware I’m still on the same level. The crypt thinks I’m stationary. What’s going on here?
I double check, treble check, quadruple check. Yep; the cryptosphere thinks I’ve stopped.
I give a sort of mental gulp, then port back across to my body.
/The air is still screaming up round me. It’s still totally black but with the thermal bit of my vision I can still make out the walls to either side. Sure enough, they do look a bit different; no impression of them hurtling past no more. I stare down.
I don’t see nothing but blackness but now I think about it the sound is different somehow; even more of a roar.
Then suddenly there’s lights everywhere, blinding me.
I close my eyes. I think; blimey, I never felt a thing. That’s me dead and this is the long tunnel with the light at the end what everybody gets to see and I must have hit the bottom and not even felt it.
Except the roaring’s still there and the wind is still pushing into my face. I open my eyes again.
I’m staring straight down at a sort of a hexagonal grid of wires or metal or something, and beyond the grid, a few metres further down, there’s all these big propeller things, 7 of them, all whirling away and roaring and sending the air screaming up past me.
I look to the side.
There’s a door in the wall level with me and a couple of big black mean looking birds with scaly necks perched there, looking at me, beady-eyed, their feathers ruffling in the draft.
I can’t think what else to do. So I wave to them.
That was how we used to reach our home, one of the birds tells me.
I’m walking along a broad brightly lit tunnel. The two lammergeiers are keeping pace with me by sort of half-hovering in the air one on either side of me, their wings going whuf whuf, whuf whuf. I didn’t even know they could do this.
I’m walking kind of funny because I think I did crap my pants just a little, but they don’t seem to notice, or they’re too polite.
You mean you got blasted up there by those fans? I say, surreptitiously pulling at the seat of my pants.
Correct, says the bird (having to shout above the noise of its wings going whuf whuf).
So why’d you leave? I shout. And who was that up there who pushed me down?
We left because it was no longer safe, and we were needed down here, yells the bird. As to who pushed you into the shaft, I imagine it was probably a state employee.
What, a Security geezer or something? But-?
Please; I can’t tell you any more. Our commander may be able to answer any other questions you have. Look; would you mind running?
Running? I says, Why, is there somebody after us? I glance behind expecting to see Security people pursuing us but there’s just the long bright tunnel stretching way into the distance.
No, shouts the bird, it’s just this pace is very tiring for us.
Sorry, I says, and break into a run. Doesn’t do my chafed bum no good but it keeps the two lammergeiers happy, beating alongside.
And so that was how I arrived at the lammergeiers’ HQ; breathless, on the double and with my pants spotted with cack.
The head lammergeier is a fierce big bugger of a bird; taller than me when he’s perched and wings longer than I’m tall. He isn’t no old guy neither, he’s in his prime with sleek black and white feathers, steely looking talons, a naked neck that looks old and bright, and jet-black eyes. I don’t know if he’s got a name; we haven’t been properly introduced.
He’s sitting on a perch, I’m sat on the floor. The room is funnel shaped and the broad circular roof has an image of a blue sky with little fluffy clouds in it. There’s another half dozen or so other lammergeiers perched around the room too.
You have been a proper pest to certain people, master Bascule, the big bird says, staring at me and rocking from side to side and sort of stamping its feet on the perch. A most persistent pest.
Thank you very much, I says.
That was not a compliment! the bird screeches, flapping.
I sit back, blinking (my eyes are still a bit sore after all that wind roaring past me when I fell). What do you mean? I ask.
It’s quite possible that we have given away our new position here by turning on the lift fans so we could save your miserable hide! the bird shouts.
Well, sorry I’m sure, but I was told you might have some information about the whereabouts of a friend of mine.
What? the head bird says, sounding puzzled. Who?
It’s an ant. Her name is Ergates.
The bird stares at me. You’re looking for an ant? he squawks, and sounds incredulous.
A very special ant. (I narrow my eyes.) What was taken by a lammergeier.
The bird shakes its head. Well, it wasn’t done by one of us, it says, shaking its feathers.
Oh yeah? I says.
We are chimerics, master Bascule. This… ant must have been taken by a wild lammergeier.
And where are they then? I ask. (Damn, thought I was on the right track at last!)
Dead, the head bird says.
I blink my eyes. Dead?
The state had them killed during yesterday evening when it realized we opposed it; most of them were mobbed by chimeric crows and brought down. We believe we were the real targets. Two of us were caught and destructed. All the wild lammergeiers are dead.
Oh, I said. Oh dear, I thought.
Hmm, I said, I don’t suppose you know if any of them said anything about-?
Wait a minute, the bird says, waving one wing at me. It closes its eyes for a moment. It opens them again.
It looks steadily at me for a moment, then sort of half shakes its head. Well, master Bascule, it says. As I said, you have been nothing if not persistent. And you have not been frightened to risk your life. It stamps its feet again. There is something you might do.
Do for what, for who?
I can’t tell you too much, young sir; it’s best for you if you don’t know too much, believe me; but there are some very important things happening right now, things which affect – and which will affect – all of us. The state – the people who have attacked our friends the sloths and have tried to kill you – are trying to prevent something happening. Will you give us your help in making it happen?
What happen? I ask, suspicious. They say there’s an emissary from the chaotic bits of the crypt around, wanting to infect the upper layers.
The big bird shakes its wings impatiently. The emissary, it says, is called an asura and it is from one of the few parts of the crypt which has not been touched by the chaos. It carries within it the means of our salvation, but its mission is in jeopardy; the state opposes it to because the fulfilment of its mission would – conceivably – mean the end of the present power structure. Of course the state has used the bogey of the chaos to attempt to turn others against the asura and those who would aid it. The fact remains it is our only hope. If it does not succeed we are all lost.