Imperium marines, and they'd taken bad casualties. The woman that launched fire out of her hands was holding them back on one side, and the bald captain was shooting the soldiers that stuck their heads into the hallway, but they'd run out of bullets, fire, and luck before they'd run out of Imperium.
The Imperium didn't even see her arrive right behind them. They were too worried about the fireballs that kept squirting down the corridor. So she pulled the pins out of two grenades, then Traveled over to their friends on the other side, and did that to them too. She had appeared behind the pirates and had started talking before the soldiers had even exploded.
'Don't shoot!' Faye shouted. 'I'm on your side.' She glared at the fire lady. 'And don't you dare set me on fire again or you'll be sorry.' Several guns turned on her, but at least they were smart this time. There were several explosions, and then a moment later, more from the opposite corridor. 'Okay, you're clear now.'
The pirate captain used the lull to shove another magazine into his rifle. 'Who're you?'
She waved her ring. 'Sir Faye of the Grimnoir knights.' She didn't know if she was technically a 'sir', like the knights she'd seen in that one picture book, as none of the other Grimnoir ever called themselves 'sir,' but she thought Sir Faye had a nice ring to it, but then again she was a girl… She'd ask Lance. He'd know. 'Never mind. You need to go down that way, up two flights of stairs, and then to the end of the boat. My friend Francis has a blimp waiting. You need to go now.'
'What about the Geo-Tel?'
She rolled her eyes. 'Oh, you people, always needing to know everything!' She was very frustrated. She didn't have time to explain this to every single person she had to go rescue. Why did people have to be so difficult? She grabbed the two closest pirates and Traveled. She dropped them at the rear end of the Tempest and then went back for more.
The captain must have figured she was a bad guy who had just evaporated his men or something, because he tried to shoot her, but she scooped him and a big fellow and dropped them with the others. Then she went back twice more. She was tempted to leave the fire lady. It'd serve her right for setting Faye on fire, but that was just the meanness talking, though Faye did leave her for last.
She found a young man next to a crashed biplane. It was sticking out the top of the tallest structure onboard. He'd crawled out, and was hiding behind one wing. He'd already used up all the ammo from the big machine gun he'd pulled off his plane, and was now shooting at Imperium with two fast-shooting pistols. His magic had something to do with changing how lucky stuff turned out, so he had shot bunches of them. She grabbed him by the back of the coat and dumped him with the other pirates, careful to point him out to sea, since bullets were still leaving his gun when they Traveled.
She found UBF people from the Tempest and scooped them up too.
Delilah was in the middle of a bridge in a place that was lit in red. She was curled up on her side, in terrible pain. Next to her was a big dead Iron Guard. She'd pulled his arm off and beat him to death with it.
Faye landed nearby. She used the rail to steady herself. 'Delilah?'
Delilah looked up. Half her pretty face was gone and Faye could see her skull. 'Leave me alone. I'm almost out of Power, then I won't be able to stand it.'
'I'm sorry, Delilah. This whole place is about to explode.'
She put her face down so that Faye could only see the pretty side and smiled. 'Good.'
She understood. 'Bye, Delilah.' Faye Traveled.
Heinrich and Mr. Garrett were being chased by a bunch of zombies. At least they were smart enough not to argue when she showed up, and they'd be smart enough to explain to the others what was going on, so that gave her an idea.
The three of them landed deep in the steaming guts of the Tokugawa. An Imperium Torch took two steps toward them but Mr. Garrett shot him twice in the chest and once in the forehead. The thing she wanted to show them was behind a big, wheezing, stinky machine. 'Where are we?' Heinrich asked.
'Look at this!' Faye cringed as she limped and led them behind the machine. A really complicated design had been engraved into the wall. She didn't think the others' eyes could see what her grey ones could, but she could see the energy connected from the big, evil, magic superbomb right to these markings.
'What strange geometries,' Garrett said, running his hands over them. He pulled them away as if he'd been shocked. 'It's from the Rune Arcanium… It's a beacon! But that doesn't make any sense… I don't understand.'
There wasn't time. 'You'll figure it out!' She grabbed them both and took them up to the Tempest. There was a big crowd there now.
Mr. Garrett blinked in surprise, his hand still extended. He looked to Faye, biting his lip as the wheels turned. The entire night sky had turned a brilliant blue. Black storm clouds were boiling away around the energy. 'The Geo-Tel!'
'About time somebody got it!' Faye shouted. 'You're smart. You've got the words. I don't. Make them understand.'
Mr. Garrett grabbed her by the arm. 'I can't leave without Jane.'
'I'll get her.' She cried a little as her foot hit the ground. That's what she got for being in one place for too long. 'Francis, are you ready yet?'
He came running, a metal pail in hand, filled to the brim with bits of metal and glass. 'I did like you said.'
'Good, listen, Mr. Garrett, tell Lance. He's smart too. Get in the air.'
'We'll wait for you,' Heinrich said.
'No! Get in the air.' Since she was supposed to be the uneducated hick, it was frustrating how much slower everyone else's brain was. 'We can catch up. But whoever put that mark down there didn't realize how smart the Chairman is. He'll figure out what's going on real soon if he hasn't already. I've got to stop him.'
'From what?' Francis asked, confused. 'Firing the Geo-Tel?'
'No! From shutting it off!' She grabbed Francis's shirt. 'Let's go.'
'What am I supposed to do with this junk?'
'You'll figure it out!'
Sullivan stood defiant in a vast puddle of blood, surrounded by deadly Iron Guards and the most dangerous man on Earth. Strong wind blew through the broken windows. The Geo-Tel was lighting the room in a stark cold blue, but it was no longer necessary, because the world outside had brightened considerably.
The Chairman stood. 'It is done. A great man has been defeated. He will be missed. But the strongest survives.'
'So that's what it comes down to? Survival of the fittest?'
The Chairman nodded. 'As always. I would offer you a place in my service. It is my sincere belief that you could take more kanji upon you than even your brother. You could be the greatest wizard of all, perhaps come to rival even me. Together we could even defeat the ancient enemy, so that the Power could stay forever…' His face grew melancholy. 'Yet, as I read your thoughts, you would fight me to the last.'
Sullivan shrugged and spit half a tooth on the floor. 'Whatever.'
'You sum up so much philosophy in so few words. I wish that we could have been friends, Mr. Sullivan…' He walked over to the Geo-Tel, his bare feet crunching through the broken glass. 'Would you at least watch the end of the old world and beginning of the new with me? I would very much like to share it with someone who can appreciate such things.'
'You've got no right. No right at all to remake the world in your image. You're gonna kill millions.'
'Millions is nothing. If only you could understand what is at stake… I thought you might, but I am disappointed.' He was honestly saddened. Lonely. The Chairman watched the ocean. The night sky had turned an electric blue. The Iron Guards shifted nervously, all of them ready to kill Sullivan. 'Interesting. When the pillar of fire appeared in Tunguska, did the air over Wardenclyffe also become so charged?'
'Unknown, Chairman,' one of the Unit 731 Cogs answered. 'The Geo-Tel is one end of the circuit, so perhaps. Our observers at Tesla's lab were murdered by the Grimnoir when they took the Geo-Tel, so we do not know.'
'And the second time, when the Geo-Tel was almost fired, the sky over New York turned blue, but the Geo- Tel was close to the target geometry. It is possible that the sky is lightened both where the Power is provoked and where the Power is unleashed…' The Chairman nodded thoughtfully. 'Yet, something feels… wrong. Has the energy
