The Holocaust Piano
by Phaedra7veils
Chapter 15: World Ends
Paviter unlocked the safety mechanism on his gun, and held it ready.
Rubble choked the streets. The air over Tanagura was the colour of marmalade and reeked of smoke. Crumbled hulks of burnt-out buildings and half-imploded skyscrapers, many of which still smouldered, posed a constant threat from falling debris as Paviter and Tibór picked their way through the ruins.
Nor were the hazards entirely from the city's disintegrating structures. Now that the planet's power supply was rationed, most of the merchandise which had attracted customers to the once glossy district of Flare was useless, but this didn't stop roving gangs from looting what remained. The smashed and empty storefronts and garbage left in their wake had been the only signs of life so far. Not a rat or a cockroach scuttled in the debris.
Suddenly, a shout burst to their left. The sound of running feet echoed through the stretch of road. The Car and Furniture turned to watch three men scatter from the storefront of an empty hoverbike dealership. Paviter started to hyperventilate as a couple of monstrous robot-human hybrids pounced upon the fleeing men, one of them plunging from what must have been the fourth storey and landing on its feet unharmed. Hydraulic pinchers gripped the backs of the men's necks and, within moments, they were lying pressed against the pavement, their elbows pulled backwards almost the point of shoulder-dislocation. Solid metal cuffs were clapped around their forearms, ankles were shackled, and they were hoisted up with agonized cries—one of them hanging limp and silent—to be hauled away.
Soon, all that could be heard was wind hurtling and moaning through the canyons of ruined steel and the creaking of exposed girders. A crumpled sheet of plastic whispered and rolled across the pavement.
Paviter glanced at Tibór's face, white tinged with green. He chewed his bottom lip to keep from breathing too loudly. The Car knew how he felt. Large as he was, trained and smarter than the average Mongrel of Amoi, Paviter was no match for these unnatural creatures. He reached over and pulled the Furniture into a consoling embrace. Tibór stiffened briefly, then relaxed into the warmth. He saw a weak muster at reassurance in Paviter's smile.
A huge shadow loomed up behind Paviter. Wild-eyed, Tibór shouted a warning, but it was too late. It seemed that the warmth had attracted their enemies, a heat signature which was distinctively human. They were torn from each other and wrestled face down onto the pavement. Blunt pinchers dug into Paviter's neck. He kicked and bucked, especially as he heard the sharp cries of pain from Tibór. His chin and cheek scraped across the asphalt and sand, but struggles and cries had no effect. Soon their arms were wrenched back, compelled by an irresistible and inhuman strength. The Car had never felt anything like it, not even at the hands of the Blondies. Their feet were also secured, and they were slung over a bulk of rolling metal with no more regard for their bodies than if they were sacks of dried goods. Paviter could feel Tibór's chin against the small of his back. The hybrid creature started to haul them away.
The monsters moved so quickly, it was almost impossible to read where they were being carried. Paviter watched the ground pass under the creature in a blur. The disconnection from their humanity told him everything he needed to know about their situation. He supposed they were being hauled to some sort of processing place, a death camp—not like the legal holding cells of the Onyx police forces where criminals and malcontents waited for mind-wiping, but something even more inhumane. The creature which held them had biological elements which may have once been human, but it was just a machine. He and Tibór were probably going to be reduced to their constituent cellular elements, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. They were outmatched by the speed, power and impersonal will which guided and directed these monsters—a will which had a very familiar hallmark to it.
Paviter had come across it before. He knew this thing. He reached back through his memories grasping at recollection. His memory had never been very good, but the force, impersonality, and inhumanity, it all came down to Jupiter!
Jupiter was not disabled after all. It was embodied in these monsters.
There came a strange whispering and muttering, however, like wind and ghosts. The ground trembled like a small earthquake, with light crackling and splitting noises. The air filled with ozone. The overpowering hold on his arms was released quite suddenly, and the restraints fell away.
In between periods of susurration, mechanical thunks and hydraulic whirs, there fell a silence so intense that it seemed Paviter could not only hear the thumping of his own fear-stricken heart but that of Tibór's as well. He finally dared to lift his head.
The streets were filled with strange, white fibrous pods like spider nests. Fibers were flitting out of cracks in the pavement and walls around them, and weaving themselves around the hulking shapes. They rustled like snakes. Here and there, he caught a glimpse of a protruding mechanical arm or foot, still whirring, still trying to maneuver only to be caught in hairs so fine, they could barely be seen, yet so strong, they failed to snap even against the robotic strength he had fought so uselessly.
Tibór whispered, "What do you suppose has happened?"
"I don't know." Paviter whispered back and climbed to his feet. "But those things look like the stuff that came out of Raoul's pianoforte."
"Do you think it will come after us?"
Paviter's jaw stretched into a mirthless grin. His heart thumped like a caged animal. He didn't want to consider what could happen to them, but felt it necessary to move. As long as they stood frozen while these mysterious cobwebs stitched the monsters to whatever solid thing they stood by, they existed in uncertainty and terror. The only way to find out for sure involved risk.
"I don't think we're in danger," he whispered back, "for no other reason than that the fibres haven't tried to attack us yet."
He helped Tibór the rest of the way up, and murmured, "This reminds me of the night when Flare burned—the way the flames were put out. It happened this suddenly and thoroughly. Raoul must've been playing the pianoforte again. I'm sure this is his doing."
It was as though a tight band of anxiety that had been constricting his head and heart started to loosen. For the first time since Hilarion Fyss' body had been retrieved from the Eos Tower's incineration chute, Paviter felt as though everything was going to be alright.
"What should we do now?" Tibór kept whispering.
The Car breathed noisily and deeply and let out a loud, forced laugh. He swung his arms around as though taunting and daring whatever intelligence resided in the fibres and pods. Nothing happened.
"We should go back and see what's going on." He turned on his heels and started walking toward Eos Tower.
They were almost back in Eos when they spotted Katze, standing in front of the tower's main gates, his back turned away from them. His shoulder-length and untidy hair rippled in the wind like flames. He was surveying the fibrous lumps which had risen like cancers from cracks in the pavement and buildings. The sun blazed hot and bleached over the bombed-out Tanaguran towers. Now that streets were filled with bizarre lumps which had once been Apheliotrophs, Katze expected very few people would dare leave their hiding places. This was how the Car and Furniture were able to approach him without being noticed.
Paviter plunked himself down onto a cement barricade, pulled Tibór beside him, and slung his arm over the Furniture. For a moment, Tibór struggled, but when he looked at the Car's face and saw the determination there, he snorted once and gave up.
"It looks exactly like that Holostream Recording of Thallë," Katze murmured.
"This happened before?" Paviter's voice rumbled behind him. Katze turned, gave a quick double-take, then schooled his expression.
"Not exactly," he amended. "Raoul stopped—some of it, I think. It doesn't seem to be interested in us, anyway. Were you there when this white stuff happened?"
Tibór nodded, and described in his gentle voice how the hybrid cyborgs-human creatures had made their appearance in one moment and were almost instantaneously suppressed by the threads the next.
Katze's brow wrinkled. The time period which had elapsed confused him.
"Raoul and I were gone for days and days."
"Tibór and I left Eos less than two hours ago." Paviter tugged the Furniture even closer to him, a statement of sorts, although Katze wasn't sure what it was about; he had gotten the message the first time. They were a couple. "That was just after Raoul jumped into the black — that cube thing which Admiral Hahn rigged up–"
"The interface?"
"Yeah, that."
"My sense of the progression of time and space has been completely thrown off." Katze muttered more to himself. The air which licked at him was dry like an oven. Beads of perspiration formed and almost immediately evaporated. It had to be uncomfortable to stand there in the middle of the street under the sun's full onslaught, but Katze remained and spoke in a soft, bewildered, almost child-like, tone, "So many other things happened while we were in there. There was the whole second moon, the audience with the High Priestess, and then, me and Raoul–"
Paviter unhooked his knee, and drew his foot against the grit on the street with a loud scraping sound. It worked in that it startled Katze back to the present.
Even though the Car and Furniture had just hooked up, they looked like an old married couple, like their connection had been there all along. Tibór's head leaned against Paviter's shoulder. His hands were now draped around the bigger man's waist.
"Still, it looks like some good came out of this." Katze smiled, as though ridiculously happy for both of them, but his eyes looked sad and his voice seemed wistful, even a bit envious. He reached up to his ear, reflexively, like an old habit, and tugged on the pet ring. The cuff that had been clipped to it sprang open at his touch. He stared, aghast, as it fell to the ground and rolled a small distance from his feet.
Pet rings weren't supposed to do that. Their removal always meant permanent damage. For the cuff to simply fall off like that meant–
Katze reached down, plucked the silver ring from the road, and held it to his mouth. "Hello? Raoul, are you there? Raoul!"
There was no answer.
"Excuse me," he ended his conversation with Raoul's servants, turned on his heels and strode quickly and purposefully back into Eos Tower.
"Do you think we should follow?" Tibór asked Paviter.
"I'd give it an hour or two." His partner replied. His eyes swept over Tibór and darkened. "Or three."
Raoul was sitting at the Holocaust Piano, hands at rest. Even though he wasn't touching the keys, a strange sort of music came from the instrument. Not the distinct rippling sounds which happened when the hammers struck the strings, but the humming sound produced when the strings vibrated sympathetically to movement in the atmosphere. It seemed there was a lot of movement. When Katze ran into the room, Raoul rose to his feet.
"There you are," he said. "I wasn't expecting you back so soon."
Katze launched himself at the Blondie. It was like hitting a solid wall.
"Is this how you were going to tell me?" He raged, pounding the stone-firm muscles with all his force. It had no more effect than if he had been an insect. "Disconnect me? Close me off? Did you really intend to leave me on Von?"
"What are you talking about?" Raoul's hands were massive and strong. As they closed around Katze's wrists, the eunuch suddenly remembered how Guy had lost his arm. Though still white with rage, he stopped trying to kick and punch the Blondie.
The pet-ring felt so small and insignificant in Katze's hand, he almost thought he had lost it. He had to unfurl his fist to see if it was still there. It glinted in the hollow of his palm like a quartz crystal.
"You thought I had set you free." Raoul's voice was quiet and calm, not the least bit affected by Katze's tantrum.
Katze had no idea what to say. It almost sounded like that had not been Raoul's intention. He stood staring at the ring.
"Well, I have," Raoul confirmed. "This isn't to say I don't want you to return to me."
Katze stared back, confused. His mind was too agitated to make sense of what Raoul had just told him.
"Do you really think you've disappointed me, Katze? It seems to me that you've always been the one consistent thing I've been able to rely on since the Holocaust Piano first intruded on our planet."
Katze's confusion cleared instantly. He picked up the burnished metal cuff and set it in Raoul's palm. Then he swept the hair off his cheek, exposing his scar and ear.
"Put it back," he commanded.
Raoul had correctly guessed what would happen after his conversation with the Tenebrian High Priestess. Once the Cult learned that it was not the human population of Amoi which posed a threat to Tenebrios, she merged the full field of her consciousness with Jupiter's artificial intelligence lodged in holographic form within the Apheliotrophs.
Firstly, each of these creatures was held captive within fibres that had issued from the Holocaust Piano. The fibres had infiltrated every transmission system in Amoi but the antiquated power grid from the Hauravon Gulf, such an intricate spiderweb of filaments that the Apheliotrophs had no means of avoiding them. Jupiter's intelligence was trapped and neutralized this time in a circular loop with the hive-mind. The conscious intelligence of the Priestess Cult was able to neutralize every adaptation Jupiter attempted.
In time, the Apheliotrophs were secured long enough that their biological components died and disintegrated. In this manner, Lau's prediction that the Underworld would turn into a charnel house came true. Colin Venables, the Blondie who had overseen the redirection of Hauravon's power supply to the Underworld, disconnected the machine parts from the grid, so that they became useless hunks of metal. It was about this time that the priestess who had occupied Jupiter's Tower succumbed to the same illness that wiped out most of the women unfortunate enough to live on Amoi. The fibres which had stitched the Apheliotrophs to solid matter disintegrated and fell away. The machines were scrapped.
The social network of genetically enhanced and altered Elite was enough to keep the operations of the planet functioning. It took a long time for the atmosphere to purify, and the city to be rebuilt. There were many deaths from pulmonary infections and asthma. Pets were too simpleminded to help out much, but with the moratorium on their production and on genetic mutation research which had created the monstrosities under Guardian, resources were no longer being diverted from crop production under Herbay. At least everyone had enough to eat.
The second moon did indeed turn out to be made mainly of ice. It was labour intensive to ship ample supplies back to Amoi, but proved to be a fairly lucrative business for the Kressellians and for Florian Von, who traded his status as a diplomat to space-port harbour master. It also allowed Renaud and Hahna to remain near Amoi.
One day, when Raoul went to visit them, Katze took the opportunity to pay a call on his old friend, Merc, at the smuggler's holding cell. The cell turned out to be Hilarion Fyss' apartment, the most luxurious on all of Von, even surpassing Florien's quarters.
"At first we would only get together because we didn't know anyone else on the moon," Merc explained, while he and Katze shot a game of pool together. "Nobody was too keen on Fyss because of his scars, and I was a Mongrel, so they weren't too hip on me neither. So we'd get together to shoot the breeze. Then it turns out we both have this thing for cool furniture, so we decided to go into business together. One thing led to another ... and ..."
"Oh, no! Don't tell me!" Katze started to laugh, a great gusting laugh that filled the whole room. Merc would have been offended if he wasn't so surprised. He had never heard Katze laugh before.
"What? That we're lovers? Well, get over it because we are. Surprised the hell out of me, but it turns out I'm crazy about the old bigot. And he seems to return the favour, who knows why."
"No," Katze gasped, clutching his stomach. "That's not it."
"What? C'mon, Mongrel-boy, spit it out! You're starting to irritate the shit out of me."
"You've become interior decorators!"
The Federation lost its status as a key supplier of fresh water, biomass and other materials necessary to sustain life on Amoi. It also lost its supply of Pets. When talk of an invasion came through, Raoul was careful to transmit images of the subjugation of Thallë, along with holostream recording of the fibrous pods on the streets of Amoi. The Federation knew he had a Holocaust Piano in his care, since they had been the ones to give it to him. Talk quickly died away and relationships became less needy, less imbalanced.
The Holocaust Piano and the knowledge of the desire webs continued to bother Katze. From time to time, he heard piano music and would wander into the Hall in search of Raoul. As soon as he entered the room, though, it was clear that no one had been playing it.
"Are you lonely?" He asked it once, but couldn't hear or see any corresponding imagery or sounds in his mind the way Raoul could. Raoul still insisted that the pianoforte was a living creature and had to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness.
"Do you ever wonder if any of this is real?" Katze asked him, as they soaked together in the Blondie's heated pool one night.
"No, why?"
"It doesn't bother you that this might be a mindgame?" Katze felt Raoul's fingers tug at the corded muscles in his shoulders. They gently kneaded and rubbed, slowly melting away the stiffness.
"No."
Katze craned his neck around to look at him. "You realize that it's at times like these that I'm especially sure you're an illusion. I can't believe Raoul Am, ruler of Tanagura's Elite, would not unleash the full fury of his Blondie Pride at the–mmph."
Raoul's hand slipped over his lips.
"Do you really object to the way things have turned out?" He murmured in Katze's ear.
The redhead took all of twenty seconds to think about this before his arguments melted away and Raoul found a better use for his hands.
The End