The monotone announcements coming from the PA system might as well be static for how little attention I pay to them. As soon as our bullet train flashed through the thirty-meter storm walls at the edge of Section V early this morning, I’ve been posted up at a window table in the dining car, hungry eyes drinking in the austere countryside.
Truthfully, there’s nothing all that stellar about the no-man’s land that surrounds Olympus. It’s an uncultivated buffer zone claimed by no Section. No cities or towns dot the seemingly endless flowerfields, nor do any mountains but the storm walls line the horizon, and those vanished within an hour. The real draw, the one that’s got everyone up and down the train crowding for a glimpse, is the vast thing transfixed amidst the clouds.
It started as a tiny, vertical line of silver on the horizon yesterday; too far away to see any concrete detail until today. Side by side with Thane, I wolf down an intercontinental breakfast and watch that line continue to thicken and rise with sleep-crusted eyes. There’s an infectious excitement in the air that wasn’t present on previous days. Other passengers still in their casual clothes nurse cups of exotically scented caf and mingle with none of the normal distance kept between groups. The view is magnetic, and everyone wants a look. No one gives a damn if they have to do it with baggy t-shirts and tired circles ringing their eyes.
The train sways with cradle rhythm. Dishes and silverware clatter relentlessly as the dining car continues to fill. Bright morning sunlight beams through the window to warm the long, crowded table that I sit at. The faintly curved scabbard of Ajax’s sword hangs off the back of my chair from a leather strap. A damp towel from the train’s cramped, busy gymnasium curls around my neck. My skinsuit is rolled down to my hips to let off the steam from my early morning run, and an opaque white sleeve covers most of my prosthetic arm. Long strands of white hair tickle the back of my neck where they escape my ponytail. Beads of moisture drip down the empty cup of iced caf beside my plate; all that remains of the yellow-flavored drink. I don’t remember when exactly I finished it. Hard to pay attention to anything other than the view.
Every second of travel is taking me further from home than I’ve ever been before. Every passing hour brings that line on the horizon a little closer, a little higher, until it now looms incomprehensibly vast above the countryside like some segmented, ringed tower to heaven.
It casts no shadow over the earth. No trails of fliers crisscross the sky around it. It’s just there, primordial and absolute. The closest thing in the world to fighting mecca.
I keep downing spoonfuls of eggs and bacon and hashes like they’re going to evaporate if I stop paying attention. After spending more than a few years fighting for scraps, the novelty of real, hot food has yet to wear off. I’ll never take bacon for granted again.
Between bites, I reach down and unclip my unregistered JOY from the crossed belts that circle my hips. Two swipes of my index and middle fingers calls up the blank message history.
Well. Not entirely blank.
There’s one message that’s been in it from the moment I first booted it up. It was in my old JOY too, and it was even in the JOY before that. The message has no author. No subject. Just a time of distribution- nineteen years ago, eleven-forty-seven in the morning- and a challenge that every person on the planet knows by heart; because it appears for all of us the first time we go to send a text.
[Long dormant, our Great Mountain now lies open.], the message reads.
[Its treasures, its vistas, its dangers summon all challengers anew. Take to its heights now, and bring with ye a warrior’s might. Men were divided unto Champions, but atop vast Olympus, one shall be crowned to whom all must kneel. A King to rule above all.
[Come one, come all, and fear that which caused our Great Mountain’s awakening. One worthy of the greatest title has arisen within the humble Sections. Their name is Babylon, the Ultimate Life Form. But take heart, weak humanity. Babyl hath no greater claim to the Crown than ye. Only through battle will the throne be taken. And only the strongest shall rule.]
It was the first, and only, message the Creators have ever sent to humanity. You can probably imagine the uproar it caused.
Olympus was already the biggest question mark on- and above- the planet. Its lowest realm, the first layer, hovers a mile above the surface of the world. The twenty-fifth and final layer brushes against the very edge of the atmosphere, right on the border of space itself. For the past seven hundred years, only the first ten layers have stood open, and countless would-be world conquerors have been fighting over them for much of that time. To seize Olympus, a realm above all the Sections, would mean to declare yourself a ruler above all the Sections. A Champion of Champions. But for most of human history, any conquest on Olympus was always a victory with an asterisk. No one would be declaring themselves a king over all as long as over half of the realms lay dormant.
Then the message came.
Some people didn’t even believe it was real at first. The Creators are as much folk tale and fiction as they were real historical figures, and they’ve never been seen since the JOYs appeared. Aunt Jolie is one of those doubters. From the few times I asked her about the message when I was little, she suspected it was some left behind artifact like the Relics; running on standby until the conditions to open Olympus were finally fulfilled. It’s worlds more believable than the idea that someone in the Sections is some sort of superior being like the message claimed. The gladiocracies are founded on the promise of the JOYs: that anyone has the potential to be the strongest and earn the right to rule. No one is just born the best. But the Creators said otherwise, they threw open the gauntlet of Olympus, and the rest is history. Dad’s history, to be specific.
Today, Babyl is a spook story for kids, nothing more. There was no ultimate life form among the war parties who raced to conquer Olympus. The idea of a king over all was ended the moment my father destroyed the crown at the summit rather than take it. Olympus’ myriad realms are fractured and ruled by individual warlords, little different from the Sections and the Champions. Its Relics and other treasures were stolen, pawned off, and eventually acquired by collectors like Cal.
And yet that message still shows up on every JOY, no matter how new. With it, the lingering idea that someday someone might finally answer the challenge still lives on. As does the threat that someone might be a tyrant like Gami.
It makes sense that Jolie would come here in search of allies. Many of the international warriors who aided Dad first met him on, or because of, the war for Olympus. During our trip, Thane has told me everything he knows from his brief trips as a part of our Section’s delegations to Olympus in the past. The way he describes Olympus’ twenty five layers makes them sound like a world of their own in scale. But that world is wildly different from the only one I’ve known. I’ve never left the Section before in my life. I hadn’t left home until three years ago. With all the factions and warlords in up there, some of them are bound to be friendly to our cause- but I’m going to be walking into them as a total outsider.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
An unproven one, at that.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today’s a little more straightforward. Keep shoveling down calories like there’s no tomorrow, squeak through Olympus immigration, and link up with Yuki on the first layer.
Shoulder to shoulder on my right, Thane mirrors my eating at a far more measured pace, finishing his plate after I’ve already gone back for seconds. Steam spirals from a cup of hot coffee caf near his right hand, barely touched. His golden eyes dance over the trifold holobrochure fighting for space in the small gap between our elbows. His pale skin is flushed from an earlier weightlifting session- he was already in the train’s gym when I showed up to go for a run at five in the morning. A poorly carved staff, one left forgotten out on my home’s back porch sometime in his teenage years, leans against the side of his chair. It’s one of the few usable things we were able to scavenge from my house. Taking it felt like sacrilege, but it’s a necessity. There’s no knowing when we’ll have the chance to properly rearm.
Clearing my plate, I pile up the silverware and go back for thirds, navigating around the bunches of passengers crowding around the windows and cluttering the way. Thane doesn’t look up as I bring back a homunculus pile of meat, eggs and hashes, dropping back into my chair with a grunt. He does look up when I slide an equally stuffed bowl to him, right over top of the holobrochure.
Already chewing on a wrinkled strip of bacon, I spear a pair of chopsticks into the steaming mass in front of him. “You’re not prepping for a shirtless photo shoot on an Id Co. catalog. Eat.”
He politely declines, sliding the bowl back to me. “You forget, I’m not a Ki Fighter. I don’t evaporate calories like you do.”
“I saw how much you were lifting. You need the protein.”
His lips purse. Considering refusing again, then thinking better of it. Exhaling quickly through his nose, he pulls the bowl off the brochure and takes out the chopsticks, methodically searching first for the bits of bacon scattered through the heap of food. Like he’s picking out the best, sugary pieces of cereal. My heart twinges at the sight.
“For the record, I only did one of those photo shoots,” he idly says. “Cal insisted on it. She said she wanted a chance to see what they were like in person, but I’m fairly certain she just wanted an in with one of their upcoming designers, Navessa.”
“Your abs were way filtered. They don’t stand out that much.”
“You saw the poster?” His cheeks redden. “Believe me or not, but it’s not filtered. I hadn’t drank water for an entire day. I was delirious by the time they put me in front of the cameras.” He shakes his head, strands of dark hair brushing over his eyes. “Never doing that again- the models can keep their industry.”
“Couldn’t they have just sculpted you? Brought in a Biohancer, or had you swap a class to Modd.”
“Anyone can customize themselves, but doing that is like…” he searches for the best way to relate the idea to me, “...it’s like using a JOY-generated weapon. Smoothed, perfect, lacking idiosyncrasies. Raw, authentic beauty- the kind that you can’t manufacture- is imperfect. The imperfections are what make it stand out. It’s independent, not vapid, not tailored for your desires. It doesn’t invite you to admire it- it forces you to.”
For just a moment, his eyes light up like they used to when he’d be explaining something complicated. Passionate, intensely full of meaning and emotion. Cal talked with her hands. Thane always talked through his eyes. Though the actual words he says are only easy when they’re coming from someone who looks like he does.
My eyes flick down to my carbon-fiber arm. Imperfections aren’t always so romantic as what he’s talking about.
I slowly stir the breakfast disaster in my bowl. “You know a lot about fashion now.”
He shakes his head. “Only by relation. That diatribe is one of Cal’s. I’m just paraphrasing it.” Having finished picking the best parts out of his bowl, he moves it off the holobrochure and spreads it flat again. Transparent, electric-blue flaps play animated vids and information about Olympus’ first five layers. “I’m surprised she never talked about it with you. She was going to minor in it in university.”
“I guess she did bring it up,” I say, thinking back. “Roundabouts, at least. Before the gala. She was so picky about what clothes to make me wear. Spent a whole day bouncing around between fashion outlets to pick out tops.”
“Better that than letting you pick for yourself. If she ever saw your old wardrobe, she would’ve had a stroke.”
I sputter out a snort. “What’s wrong with my sweaters?”
“Nothing, if they weren’t the only thing you wore other than athletic shorts.”
“Then she’d be thrilled to know that my clothes, like my house, are now trashed.” I roll my eyes. “You capital people are weird. And hypocritical. Everyone loves a cozy shirt. Cal even kept one of yours in her closet. The purple one with the holes in the neck.”
“She took you to her apartment?” He sounds surprised.
“Is that weird?”
“As far as she told me, Cal never brought anyone over. She’s… protective, over her things. I’m sure you saw it for yourself.”
“I’m pretty sure I was one of those things.”
“You were.” Thane shrugs off my sideeye glance. “Take it as a compliment. You must’ve been the first person besides me to see her apartment. Did she volunteer to take you there?”
Distracted by the food and the mood in the dining car, pretending to be just another passenger, it’s so easy to get lost in the banter with him. There’s a resonance between us. An old, familiar interplay. Capital charisma and dry village drawl flowing easily against each other, turning back the clock of our lives to three years ago for a fleeting moment. Then I remember who I’m talking with.
I start to slow down again. Hesitation creeps into my voice. “Cal voluntold me to come back to her place so we could clean up. We’d… just beaten the shit out of each other. She gave me that shirt to wear.” Now I’m the one poking aimlessly at my food. “It still smelled like you.”
After a weird moment, Thane tries to work back to our harmless conversation
“I missed that shirt,” he quietly says. “I thought I’d lost it. Cal cleaned out my closet when she was doing a donation run years ago, and I never saw it after that.” After another awkward pause, he brushes a lock of hair behind his left ear and taps at his empty earlobe, getting my attention. Expertly keeping his tone casual. “Jolie still hasn’t messaged you back?”
“Not yet.”
Not even a read receipt. It’s been a week; I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting apprehensive about it. I tap my earring to open up the staticky projector screen, tilting my neck so the screen moves between Thane and I and he can read it. He leans a little closer, squinting as I tap through the menus to check if there’s any new messages. No dice.
“You have any idea what this thing is?” I ask him in a murmur, still leaned close. “The boot screen has the word STAR instead of JOY, and it looks like it runs off the same tech. It was on Dad’s bedside table, but I swear I’ve never seen him wear it.”
“It’s something the Olympians use,” he says. “I think they give it to their citizens, because all the natives I met were wearing one. Always on the left ear. They had JOYs though, so it must be an extension of some kind.”
“Maybe it was ceremonial. I couldn’t find any information about it when I was searching on the ‘Net back home.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. You won’t find much of anything about Olympians on the outside ‘Net. They prefer to keep their cards close to their chest.” Thane returns to sitting upright, turning his head towards the window. His brow darkens as his gaze raises to the nearing realm in the clouds. “I am worried. Jolie said she couldn’t risk saying which layer she was visiting first, meaning that we’re trusting entirely in her envoy to meet us up there.” His eyes shift back to me. “I did notice that you’ve been avoiding telling me their identity. Do you not trust me to know it?”
I let out a dark chuckle. “I don’t trust you to like it.”
of Showmaker's epilogue (though I'd definitely recommend reading the rest of the book first). In Tay's recounting here, there's a little spoiler of how the rest of that book would have ended, too.
AUTHOR NOTE: Drink Flavors?
color, not their connection to a real-world taste. Red drinks taste fruit punchy, blues tend to have a hint of sweetness, oranges are all citrusy, and yellow drinks are sugary with lemon. I believe this is pretty consistent throughout the whole series, even going all the way back to Memento Mori / Showmaker, where coffee is described as brown/coffee caf. So if you see someone in the story describe a drink in the future as "pink with a hint of red", try not to blink too hard, yeah?