Chapter 59
The Bravado of Man
A voice cried out only for a moment before being silenced.
A'stul watched emptily as a listless body of a human fell, eyeless, before him, a stirring of shadows soon shaping into a rank of Spryaes. They stared at him expectantly, awaiting praise. But his lips remained mum. He but glazed over their looming figures before leaning back and closing his eyes. They were children still. Gleeful at the death of a single human, where endless rows roved.
"Holy One," a much thicker shadow flickered for a moment as it shapeshifted into his second-in-command, and a most trusted confidant, Two.
"What is it?"
"The membrane is… changing."
"Changing?" A'stul frowned.
"It seems as though the Will shall evolve," Two said. "Into invasion."
"... invasion? What prompted the change?" A'stul pondered. It wasn't unheard of for a Tunnel to change nature in the midst of its forming, but it was exceptionally rare.
"We are… uncertain," Two said as A'stul realised the futility of his question. "It has slowed down, however. It should take another seven days further for full manifestation."
"An invasion for a newborn world," A'stul wondered. "It does not seem right."
"Uh, I–I can double-check–"
"Not what I meant," A'stul quickly said, standing up. "Let us go. I must see this for myself."
"Yes, Holy One."
**
Ethan's lips were clenched into a smile as he read through one article after another about the 'Mad General', the 'Greedy General', the 'Ambitious General', and a slew of other, less well-meaning descriptions. Accompanying the range of bombastic headlines were rows of words describing, often in detail, the General's overreach.
It had only been just over a day, but Michael did live up to his word. He'd gotten the approval to march upon the portal with whoever wished to volunteer to go with him. Ethan didn't know how the man did it, or just how many strings he had to pull to do it, but he didn't become a General based on his good looks, evidently.
Not too long after, the phone rang, prompting Ronald to put down his phone and perk up, quite curious himself.
"Celebrity of the day, calling little ol' me? Ah, I'm so flattered," Ethan answered the phone.
"... you saw them, huh?"
"Buddy. Everybody saw them. Blind people saw them."
"The world is mocking me," Michael's voice was heavy and exhausted. "I hope you were not just playing with me."
"Shit, even if I was, I'd never have pushed it this far. No, rather, I'd have never known to push it this far. Anyway, Scout's Honour, I've not lied to you."
"You are a Scout?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Haah."
"How goes the recruitment?" Ethan asked.
"I've approximated all volunteers into three groups–frontliners, supports, and, colloquially known, ranged DPS. There are about sixty acceptable candidates."
"Oh, that's not bad."
"Per group. So far."
"... you paused there on purpose, huh?"
"What? Only you get to have fun?"
"Fair enough. What do you mean so far?"
"Supposedly, while the world mocks me, soldiers find me inspiring," Michael said. "We are expecting some few hundred to arrive today from other stations."
"How many of them are spies?"
"Most, I reckon," Michael said. "But we'll probably have to bring at least a few of them as they'll likely stand out like sore thumbs from the competition."
"That's fine," Ethan said. "Gather roughly 60 most promising ones for me to test."
"How will you test them?" Michael asked apprehensively.
"There's this really amazing, secret, awe-inspiring method that I've read about before."
"Yeah?"
"Beating the shit out of them and seeing who doesn't let that shit out of their ass."
"..."
"I'm joking. Mostly."
"... even at times like these, you find it appropriate to joke?"
"Why not?"
"Haah," Michael sighed once again. "Very well. Just… no killings."
"Low blow. Low blow."
"When will you arrive? And where?"
"Tonight," Ethan said. "Prep a room on the outskirts of the city. Send me the address. I'll find you in your office, and then we can go to rattle the snakes in the barracks and test them out."
Hanging up the phone, Ethan lazily yawned and stood up, walking over to the fridge and grabbing an apple. Just then, Layla came strutting into the room from the outside with Tian fluttering around her, the two chattering about some strange flower they found. She swiftly ordered Ethan to squeeze her an orange juice before storming off to the bathroom to wash her hands.
"You mean it?!" Layla exclaimed excitedly as soon as Ethan told her they'd be going back to the city tonight.
"I do," He nodded, sighing inwardly at the sight. "We won't stay long, though."
"That's okay!" She said, taking a sip.
"That's because we'll be going to a whole different city."
"E-eh?" the girl stuttered.
"That's right. We're gonna go on an adventure. In a plane or a helicopter."
"... no way!"
"Ay-way."
"No way!"
"No, not to Norway. Georgetown. Less cool, but more Texan."
"Ha ha ha! I love you!!" she jumped off the chair and into his arms, kicking away with her tiny feet. "With a plane? Or a heli?!"
"Yup." The girl leapt off and danced merrily, prompting Tian to join her as the fairy fluttered about freely. Even Ronald's expression mellowed at the sight, let alone Ethan's.
He'd known that the girl wanted to get out–if for nothing, then simply for the fact that she'd been here for months with her only true friend being a flying fairy. And yet, to see just how much she wanted to leave… cracked him ever so slightly. He'd sworn to himself he'd provide her with a life of no wants and only joys, but had failed to live up to it in the wake of the torrent of excuses. None of them were factually wrong–it was the safest for her at the lodge, but she only stayed quiet and obedient because that was how much she trusted him.
It wasn't long before she and Tian scurried off to play, her zeist for tomorrow rekindled. In the meantime, Ethan went back to the numerous news sites and downloaded as many images of the Tunnel in Georgetown as he could. He couldn't approximate much with any accuracy, as the shades varied from picture to picture, and using any software to pick a colour was unreliable as bonding pixels often yielded two entirely different shades.
The Tunnel was such a force of a phenomenon that many suspected they were not natural; after all, everything in nature has flaws. Humanity, animals, plants, and even weather patterns. Nothing is ever perfect across the board, consistent in all environments, unchanging. But the Tunnels… were. The level of exposure to light, to heat, to cold, to any environmental change never altered the Tunnel's properties in any capacity. That was why the measurements using colour and dilution were so reliable and precise–it was unchanging. Ever the same. Perfect.
Most people suspected that the Tunnels were artificially 'grown' wormholes, though how, to what degree, and where they were 'grown' was the subject of an eternal debate. And, of course, there was also the matter of who 'grew' them. It was difficult to even approximate means or ways in which they could be built. Beyond just the surface-level difficulties of harnessing the sheer, enormous quantities of energy to create them, and the issues of stabilising them to the point of human usage, there was the ever-elusive fact that they were never discovered to actually exist.
Before the Descent, the only proof of wormholes was a proof of concept–a mathematical equation derived from Einstein's General Relativity, a solution describing the spacetime around a spherically symmetric non-rotating mass, like a black hole. It could be further modified to imply a 'bridge' between two black holes, the so-called Einstein-Rosen bridge. Beyond that, in terms of 'stable' wormholes, there was a matter of adding a currently non-existent 'exotic matter' with negative energy density to hold the wormhole open. None of those things were, for lack of a better word, real, in a way.
And yet, the Tunnels were–there was a reason why a lot of people, especially early on, liked using 'portal' as an expression. Though it was just a broad-strokes synonym, it divorced the Tunnels from reality and made them sound magical. Tunnel, after all, felt too real. The implications the word carried were uncomfortable, for better or for worse.
Ethan sighed.
Twenty years later, nothing will have been figured out. Humanity didn't have the luxury to pour over the findings and study them. The world was too busy hanging on to the last vestiges of what it once was to care much for what the Tunnels or the Terrors or the monsters were.
He tried rather hard to not think about the past. He didn't want the experiences of a different world to shape how he viewed this one. It already scarred him enough to dehumanise him, and allowing it to control him further was… dangerous. And yet, on occasion, necessary.
Layla was fast asleep by the time they departed, happily dreaming away on Ethan's back. He walked gently and evenly, ensuring he didn't disturb her. Ronald and he didn't pack much into their inventories, banking on stealing a lot of things from the military. Additionally, Ethan had already fashioned 'Tunnel Dome' to a certain degree, making it at least livable, so the necessity for making camp for him would be minimal… if the Tunnel's environment held.
The address Michael texted him was of a small house on the far outskirts of the city. It was surrounded by nothing and no one, and in consideration of that, Michael had installed shutters on all windows that would block light from escaping and revealing that anyone was there.
Ethan didn't dilly-dally–putting Layla to bed and ordering Tian to watch over her, Ronald and he departed in the darkness of the night. The two men were silent and invisible to the cameras, with Ronald following every step Ethan took to the best of his abilities.
Even though he wouldn't be going in, he would help Ethan speed up the process–the latter was confident that the young boy could easily beat the daylights of the vast majority of the Awakened, and in the case someone could hold their own, it would mean that someone would immediately make the list.
Ethan left Ronald outside the apartment complex where Michael's office was to wait as he went to meet the General. The latter was not alone this time around, with the shorter man he brought along to the first meeting standing stiffly behind the desk, eyeing Ethan carefully the entire time without saying a word.
"Your husband's pretty scary," Ethan said.
"That's why I married him," Michael replied in kind.
"How many?" Ethan asked.
"Around ninety," the General replied, standing up. "It was impossible, for me, to cut the numbers down further. Every one of them showed promise. The strongest is Level 7, the weakest is Level 4. Right, if you don't mind me asking, what is your Level?"
"16," Ethan replied casually, causing both men's pupils to constrict in shock. "Scratch that, it's 2. I don't want you guys to hyperventilate into an early grave because of me."
"... 16…? H-how?"
"A lot of pain and suffering," Ethan replied vaguely. "Forget that. Are they all in the same building?"
"Yeah," Michael said, his lips curling up into a strange smile. "You're quite familiar with the place, too."
"I am?" Ethan tilted his head.
"Yeah. You'll be surprised to see what we did to it after you torched it to the ground."
"Ah. Well. It was due for renovation, don't you think?"
"Again," Michael said. "Please, no deaths. You'll likely find foolhardy boys–but they're just boys. They're confident in themselves, in want of showing off. Don't take it personally."
"... wow, your opinion of me really is just… rock-bottom," Ethan chuckled lightly. "Don't worry. I have no plans on taking lives tonight. Well then, shall we?"
"Are you alone?" James asked.
"No. I also brought along my husband," Ethan replied. "But he's a bit shy so he's waiting for us downstairs."
"Let's go," Michael said. "I'm a bit excited to see what Level 16 can do."
"As am I, really," Ethan said as the three men departed, this time using the normal doors. Ethan felt ever so slightly odd at the sensation of just… walking out, rather than sneaking out.
It was uncomfortable.