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224 - Neo Babylonia [Cherno]
🕑 Added 2024-08-28 07:16:28 +0000 UTCA/N: If you got the amazon release of Cherno Caster Vol. 1, please don't forget to leave a rating or a review. Amazon doesn't have any minimum word count requirements for reviews, and ratings and reviews are even more important there than on RR. That's enough of me, here's the chapter.
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It took Krahe a short while to work out the hovercar’s manual controls, but before long, she had the machine whirring a meter off the ground. A moment later, they went shooting off into the distance, soaring over the city that made up over half of Sector 8. While she had a particular goal in mind, it was a ways out, leaving plenty of time to overlook the subterranean metropolis.
“Neo Babylonia. This city, I mean,” Krahe said.
“Why the name?” Casus asked.
“The towers. An ancient myth of man’s attempt to build a tower so tall they could reach God. The myth ended with the destruction of the tower and the creation of the world’s many different languages. There’s also the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a wonder of the ancient world, which the city somewhat imitates. See how the tallest buildings are all stacked next to the pillars, with the tallest being the nearest to the pillars. Combined with greenhouses atop the smaller buildings, you have another sort of hanging gardens.”
“A curious myth, given the parallels it has with Zastreon’s history…” the Banisher said. His attention quickly returned to being taken up by the scenery, and no wonder.
On the side of a nearby tower, Tower 6, an enormous ad for Wolf and Raven cybernetics shone, depicting the company’s twin mascots bedecked in steel. It had been there for as long as Krahe knew — the building had been sabotaged by a disgruntled engineer so that it could only display this one ad, forever. At the time, this made sense, as Wolf and Raven had only just stepped into the cybernetics market and none believed they could hold up against fierce competition and corporate warfare. However, this particular ad, which had been intended to only run for a few days, had in the end assured their success by turning most of Neo Babylonia onto their products. They were good cybernetics sold at a comparatively cheaper price, as far as Krahe remembered — nothing of interest to her, but fantastic for the common end user.
They continued in this manner for what seemed like hours, if not days. Time was far more congruent here than in a dream, but dream time still seemed to apply to an extent. Taking advantage of the deserted landscape, Krahe swept down to just above street level, flying between the buildings. In reality, turrets would have sprung up to shoot her down for doing this without permission, but no such thing took place here. She pulled back up when streets began repeating, — she didn’t remember the entirety of Neo Babylonia, after all. The bird’s eye view, sure. But she hadn’t seen many streets from ground level.
The hovercar’s radio came alive, and, despite Krahe’s instinctive attempt to turn it off, it continued playing.. It was a mashup remix from an ancient theatrical production and an animation from the early 2000s. A piano line and operatic vocals led into the dark and sorrowful voice of a male singer, a crooner. He sung of dreaming the impossible dream, fighting the unbeatable foe, of bearing with unbearable sorrow and righting the unrightable wrong. Of how that was his quest, no matter how hopeless, to be willing to die so that honor and justice may live. Even when she changed the station, the song stayed the same — the only sign the button even worked was the sound of a raven’s caw whenever she pressed it, barely audible through the music. Clicking her tongue, she gave up and just left it alone.
“And the world will be better for this, that one man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage, to- touch the untouchable, break the unbreakable…”
The crooner’s sorrowful vocals abruptly cut to a determined, defiant rap, and similarly, the instrumental dropped the more reserved aspects in favour of electro that mimicked the original piano line at a vastly elevated level of energy. It was vaguely familiar, in that she thought she might have heard it once or twice at some point, but she couldn’t place when or where. Krahe figured this must be some consequence of Casus’ presence, that his manifestation within her memoryscape somehow influenced it in small ways. At least, that’s how she rationalized this occurrence.
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Casus, knew that his presence couldn’t induce such changes. He knew that this was a matter of Lady Blackhand’s subconscious mind, and he had the good manners to not bring it up.
As they pushed on, similar phenomena began to take place. Faces appeared on Neo Babylonia’s great spires, and by Lady Blackhand’s reaction, it was clear that she not only recognized them — she hated them. Unbidden, black tendrils sprung up from the earth at the bases of the offending edifices and began to envelop them, reaching above the clouds and to the cave ceiling, transforming the great pillars into grotesque, gnarled trees. Eventually, they at last reached the end of the city, stretching out into a desolate waste, with an elevated road running through it. They flew over a subterranean lake from whose floor emanated a pale-blue glow, enormous cables snaking out onto its shore and towards Neo Babylonia. The road entered into a yawning tunnel in the cave wall, far off the ground level, and they entered the passage.
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Krahe landed the hovercar at a rest stop. It was down a left turn at a split in the tunnel, through a set of great bulkhead doors. Despite being a rest stop it was in fact the size of a small town, in no small part due to also being the access point for one of Sector 8’s many surface elevators.
They spent a short while walking around the deserted town in silence, until Krahe noticed an abrupt shift in Casus’ demeanor, as if he was hearing a conversation that Krahe couldn’t.
“It appears my time is up for now. I shall return again, assuming you do not emerge before then,” he said.
With that, he walked into the door of a random building. When she peered inside, Krahe only saw the interior of a grimey fast-food restaurant, if it could be called that.
Comments
Boneless Mango Bird
Nice
