 'Coil' by Gerald Brom Finite Flesh I Striking with his heel a tomb, Death at midnight plays a dance-tune, Zig, zig, zig, on his violin. The winter wind blows and the night is dark; Moans are heard in the linden trees. Through the gloom, white skeletons pass, Running and leaping in their shrouds. Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking, The bones of the dancers are heard to crack — But hist! of a sudden they quit the round, They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed. - 'La Danse Macabre', written by Henri Cazalis. A strident alarm screamed within the mess hall of the temple, and four Space Marine guards entered through the sliding door. Every assassin in the room, stopped what they were doing and knelt down, their weight on their spread knees and their arms crossed behind her back, a position that forced the most limber of people to lean forward precariously. This was the standard 'disarmed' position of this temple, such a ritual was considered necessary in an establishment where assassins were present in numbers. Behind the Space Marines, a wizened little man, in a black robe with red feather trim, shuffled into the room. "Operative Ripper," he announced, "the Director Secundus expects your presence within fifteen minutes." Ripper silently unfolded her legs and stood, while keeping her arms locked behind her back. "Why so urgently? Did he say why he wants to see me?" As one of the less successful women, Ripper had never been summoned to speak to the Secundus before. It seemed that the news was not only a surprise to her either, since several assassins were staring at the officer. However, the officer continued without correcting himself. "I'm sorry dear, he didn't give me any details. He just told me he wanted to see you." Ripper nodded her affirmation then turned to leave the room. The curious eyes of the other women followed her, a few scornful whispers reaching her ears as she walked past. She was by no means shy, but Ripper felt at least a little relief once she had closed the door behind her. The business of assassination was very much a business of individuals, and therefore, of rivalry. That was very much in her mind as she sprinted down the corridor and up the wide staircases to the barracks. It's not usual that the Secundus summons someone to have a chat.. there was something brewing, and that something may change her from a fairly average specimen to the assassin she saw in her mind's eye. The barracks were designated with the letters A to F, each one containing four small bedrooms and a shelf of metal chests containing each assassin's weapons and uniform. The barrack's letter was emblazoned on a brass plate, with a few scriptural quotations underneath related to that letter. Over the door of D, in which Ripper's room was located, the plate read: 'DEVOTION to the Emperor is the only way. - The DESTINY of mankind lies within the Emperor's sacred heart. - Put your target to DEATH in His name.' She had read those words a thousand times, first recognising them as writing a few months after her arrival as the temple. They were so common a sight to her, she didn't even consider them to have any meaning any more. Her mind working on discovering the reason for the Secundus's summons, she unlocked her belongings chest with a tiny keychip worn around her neck, and took out her skintight uniform of green insectoid leather, her metal-soled clacker sandals worn to make a loud noise on the floor of the officials' area and fingerless buckled gloves to restrict her movement. Instead of feeling insulted by the restraint garments, Ripper loved them as proof of how dangerous she was. Even her own commanders would not allow her near them without some form of restraint. After divesting herself of her casual clothes and donning a plain robe of black cotton, she left the barracks, with her uniform draped over her arm, and took the lift down to the ablutions room. There, she washed herself, watching herself in the mirrored walls. Ripper was tall and wiry, her porcelain pale skin patterned with white scars. Her body was a weapon, her weapon, she had perfected it over years of training and felt she deserved better than she was getting. Not a mission in months. She powdered herself with consecrated talcum, using her determination for success to empower her ritual blessing of her body. Sealing her uniform up to her neck, she combed her long and currently blood-red hair to a gleaming sleekness and concentrated her thoughts for a last moment before setting off to the officers' area. The officials' atrium was extravagantly decorated with black and red velvet drapings and luxurious furniture at every corner. Capped with a ceiling of glass, a grey, rain-loaded sky hung above the atrium, giving everything an eerie light. The floor was glossy bloodwood, it's droplets of ruby sap preserved forever under varnish. Space Marine guards stood bored beside every door. Ripper passed a large painting of a voluptuous, buxom assassin and felt a little offended at how unrealistic it was... a large bust was seen as a hindrance, and well-endowed girls would either reduce theirs with polymorphine or have it reduced permanently by surgery. At the far end of the officials' area was the immense door to the Secundus's quarters, draped with two tapestries of the Callidus temple's logo. As Ripper approached, one of the guards announced: "No weapons may be taken into the Secundus's chamber." Ripper turned her back to the guard and crossed her gloved arms behind her back. "The weapon is disarmed," she intoned, as the guard fastened the buckled gloves together. As her own words and the click of the buckles resounded in her head, she recalled that this ritual had been used to execute unwanted assassins before. As soon as their arms were secure, the guard would shoot them in the head. Her insides knotted instinctively when the guard stepped back, a searing flash of the possibility for her summoning hitting her imagination. However, not a weapon but an opening door clicked behind her. She sighed inaudibly. The Secundus's chamber was huge and ornately decorated, an ornateness that was too overwhelming to be luxurious. Every piece of furniture was carved with the heads and claws of monsters, every wall draped with florid Imperial tapestries. The Secundus himself was a shriveled corpse of a man, a contradiction of skull-like implanted cranium and withered hands peering out from a mass of rich robes. Ripper knew his position as the representation of the Emperor in this temple, and wondered if it was his role to look like the Emperor as well as convey His holy orders. In a near sacrilegious gesture, he resided upon a large bloodwood throne, the carved details burnished with golden paint. Unsure of the exact protocol, since she had never met the Secundus in the flesh before, Ripper sank reverently to the floor and assumed the disarmed position. In the reflection from the gleaming floor, she could see he was as still and silent as a preserved body, and there he stayed for several moments. Ripper was beginning to suppose she had done something terribly wrong and was about to beg forgiveness, when he spoke... "Weapon of the Imperium, you are among my most accomplished assassins." Ripper looked up at him from under her fringe, not moving her head from it's downcast position. "Sir, I can hardly say I am..." "Do not argue with me. I have watched you from the day you were bought from your medieval home. You may not be the most popular, the most flexible or the fastest, but you are among the strongest, and easily one of the most intelligent women we have here. Unusually, you are also the most ruthless." He paused to wheeze heavily. "Thank you sir. I hold doubt, but I cannot disagree with your evaluation," Ripper said, to fill the silence. From the direction of his breathing, she could tell the Secundus had moved forward slightly, usually a sign of interest. So, she continued. "It is immodest to say so, but I have indeed felt that I deserve more work than I get." "Yes, you do deserve more work than you get. However, if someone wants intelligence, they hire a sage. If someone wants a ruthless killer, they hire an Eversor. A Callidus is called for when something else is needed... infiltration, silent death to an enemy otherwise unattainable without widespread destruction. I am, above all, a merchant, and if there is any way I can better fulfill that need, it is worth researching. This is why I summoned you." "I see, sir, but that doesn't quite explain it..." Ripper asked. "Of course not," the Secundus replied. "There is much, much more than that. You are one of my most promising assassins, but one of my less popular. That makes you the perfect candidate... I will not lose any profit." He grinned wolfishly, revealing several missing and metal teeth. "Intriguing developments in the technology of disguise have been happening in several temples. A way to entirely alter a woman from a human figure to something decidedly inhuman has been discovered. Aliens, Ripper. We can now imitate aliens." "Really? And fool aliens too?" "Yes, in fact, some missions have been completed successfully in which the assassin has directly interacted with the species she is imitating. With this in mind, I do not want to be the last to catch on. I want to be among the first. Ripper, do you know what xeno is the most threatening to the Imperium?" Ripper thought back to the xenology lecture she attended some years ago. "The Orks, sir? No... the Eldar? I think the Eldar have taken and held most land from us." "Almost," the Secundus said, with a paternal tone to his voice. "While the Eldar have taken many planets from the Imperium, the most dangerous alien is the one that lives among humans without alerting them to it's presence. The Genestealers. They no longer field armies, having found a far more effective way of damaging humankind - they attack from within, establishing a base on a populated planet and spreading their infection. If necessary, they attract a Tyranid hive. Otherwise, they simply engulf the planet. All that is left is legions of mindless slaves and cities overgrown with hideous masses of flesh, larger than the tallest buildings. Soon, Tyranids arrive and breed, or carve living ships from the growths." Ripper shut her eyes and tried to imagine a world so infested. "How awful," she murmured. "It seems impossible." She imagined herself disguised as a hybrid, her hair hidden under a cap of synthetic skin and plates of Genestealer carapace glued to her arms and head. Could she bear to carry out a mission in such imperfect disguise, knowing what could happen if she failed? "The absolute destruction of a planet, and the conversion of a human into a Genestealer. Yes, I know, but both have happened and both will happen. In order to make the former impossible, we must make the latter impossible. Ripper will become a Purestrain Genestealer." "Purestrain? With four arms? No, that IS impossible." A peal of laughter threatened to well up in Ripper's throat. One of the first thing learnt by ever assassin was that polymorphine can only work with what was there. It could neither create nor destroy, only shape... only an outsider or an absolute novice could believe that arms could grow from nothing. "No, it is not. Several assassins so far have been committed to the forms of xenos..." (Ripper felt as if the temperature had suddenly dropped - she knew that word.. committed...) "...three into hybrid Genestealers. This is accomplished by placing the seed of a carapace inside the body, which blossoms under growth chemicals from another implant. If it is possible with a carapace, there is no reason why we could not do exactly the same with arms and a tail." The Secundus's expression grew deathly serious, with a hint of madness in his eyes. "Am I to be.. committed? To a Genestealer with four arms and a tail?" She must know. "Yes." The Secundus nodded in an exaggerated fashion. Ripper bit her lip and balled her mittened fists, a wave of cold panic covering her. Immediately, her mind turned to the old Callidus chant, 'the flesh is finite, the will is infinite'. "Sir... please, I don't know if I'll..." "Be suitable? Of course you'll be suitable. Look at yourself, in that suit you seem like a great ant already. It is even made of insect, I believe. Your name, also, is Ripper... a form of Tyranid. And besides, it's no great secret that you're about as psychic as a woodlouse... not even a Genestealer Patriarch could get through that dense skull." "I chose that name because I was the silly child of a feudal world... perhaps that unenlightened upbringing contributed to my resistance to psykers too." The Secundus smiled. "Indeed. Fate has selected you for this." Maybe it was true. Maybe fate had singled her out for this. And besides, what choice did she have. To refuse was to request to commit suicide, but it would be far more than an act of self-destruction. It would be an act of high desecration, the destroying of a consecrated weapon. And more than that, it would make her lifetime's work meaningless. "When?" Ripper asked. Now it was no longer a case of 'if', but of 'when'. "There's no time like the present. The chiurgeon and servitors should have a room ready by morning." As soon as the the doors of the atrium closed behind her, Ripper began to run. Corridors and staircases passed her in a blur, she threw her gloves and sandals at a servitor standing in the front entrance porch and nipped through the automatic gateway before it was fully open. At the temple wall, she crouched and leapt, seizing a gargoyle's head and using it to propel herself over to the other side. She landed on all fours behind a market stall, to the terror of the stallholder and several observers. Their shocked gasps bought her back the the present. "Excuse me," she murmured, standing up gracefully. "May I borrow this?" With a small bow to the stallholder, she took a cloak from the stall and wrapped it around her shoulders. He nodded dumbly. Thus disguised, she headed out into the city. Even in the dead of night, the streets were still alight with commerce. These days, the buying and selling never stopped. A hive world was truly like a hive of insects, doing little but consuming or working in order to get more to consume. Soon, Ripper would have the body of an insect within her own, but she vowed to stay above the cycle of greed and consumption. To remain more human than these humans. The low thud of a nightclub caught her attention. She would celebrate humanity with creativity. With a seductive smile, she pressed a few credits less than the entrance fee into the doorman's hand, noticing how much taller than him she was. As she walked past the coat and weapon repository, she handed her cloak to the girl there without so much looking in her direction. The next room awaited, behind swinging doors that she slowly pushed open. Loud music engulfed her like hot bathwater and she stared into the dark mass of moving bodies. How much like a battlefield it looked! Instead of the familiar red and yellow of shells, blue and pink neon lights pulsated overhead, shining purple off her iridescent leather suit. Ripper wished she knew the song playing, but it didn't matter. Mediocre as it was, she could still dance to it. Weaving her way through the crowd, many eyes were upon her. In a skintight but modest black outfit, she was oddly simplistic compared to the outrageous and skimpy costumes around her. Taking advantage of the small clearing around her, she danced, with movements from her formal dance training and combat training alike. Total abandonment, but still controlled. She would have tried to forget, but it was futile... so instead she danced her anger and grief, replicating the ungainly movements of a novice Callidus, the ecstatic self-discovery of her first kills, the agony of polymorphine and finally, the animalistic motions of how she felt a Genestealer should move. -- Yes, and I'm writing it now. This should mean that it will appear in a week or so, but unfortunately, I am not very good at keeping a writing schedule. I tend to write randomly when I'm inspired, so I have no idea when I'll be finished. What's Warhammer 40k? What's a Callidus Assassin? What's a Genestealer? Wikipedia explains all here. Is Ripper a author-surrogate/Mary Sue? You've guessed correctly. 'Rip' and 'Rip Van Winkle' are aliases I use when I can't get 'Ciepher'. However, since I'm a civilian of 21st century Earth and Ripper is a highly-trained shapeshifitng assassin of a 41st millennium human-colonised planet, there are a few differances. One similarity, though, is that we both have the crest of the Officio Assassinorum tattooed on our right shoulder. Finite Flesh and Ripper were also inspired by a few other sources, primarily Meh'Lindi - the original Genestealer-Callidus from the stories of Ian Watson, and the art of Gerald Brom and H. R. Giger. What is 'La Danse Macabre'? Literally 'the dance of death', la danse macabre is a medieval myth in which the dead rise from their graves to dance to the music of Death's fiddle. Mortals from all social standings are summoned to the dance, represnting the universality of death. A gloomy poet called Henri Cazalis wrote the poem shown at the top of the page, and the composer Camille Saint-Saëns based a piece of music on it. A midi file can be found here, but I'd advise you to look for a mp3 of an orchestra or band's rendition instead (my favourite is by the violin duo Duel). I adore this myth, so expect to see it appear elsewhere. -- ::BACK:: |