Chapter 43.1: Penny Turns

The air had stilled and the trees quieted. Despite the shade, a stagnant warmth settled between the mimosas and other broad-leafed trees that composed the thicket, only adding to the claustrophobia that brewed in Penny’s gut. It was a different feeling than the serpentine knot that sat anxiously alongside it—gods, the two had become fast, stomach-turning friends. If her usual intestinal twist had always hardened her, made her more stubborn, this new pressure was one that threatened to push her right out of her skin. Her hands worked furiously at separate tasks, one flicking the snap on her belt pouch open and shut, open and shut, while the other drew its pistol, spun the loader, and returned it to the holster. Again and again, the two ran their repetitive tics, operating far below the level of Penny’s conscious thought as she paced the thicket and avoided eye contact with the others.

The four of them were waiting for the sound of an alarm, something Wepp had sworn they wouldn’t be able to miss, but it felt like they’d been waiting for hours. Hell, maybe they had; without any kind of a timepiece, it was hard to tell. Either way, they were waiting an unknown amount of time for an unknown signal to rush into unknown danger. The only thing Penny knew with increasing certainty was that all these unknowns were threatening to crash over her in one, unstoppable wave, so she’d had her pistols loaded, explosives and killswitches pouched, and Minkus’ pack strapped on tight since the moment he and Wepp had left. The last thing she wanted to do was simply wait, but here she was.

“If you’re not going to stop that,” a voice said, “would you at least do it somewhere else?”

Penny came back to herself, recognizing the sour grimace on Jindel’s face. Temper flared in her, but only for a moment. She literally couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

With a dismissive grunt, Penny turned and stalked off into the trees, her fingers still working at their unending tasks. If the rest of them didn’t want to hear her, then fine, they wouldn’t.

She passed one gnarled, ropey tree and then another, pressing farther into the copse. It was deeper than she’d remembered, but with each few steps, the subtle sounds of her waiting accomplices drifted farther away behind her, until all she heard beyond her own tics were some kind of bird in the canopy and an occasional breeze that had stirred up and rustled the lower limbs around her. Good riddance.

How the hell were the rest of them so damned calm about all this, anyway? Yeah, maybe she’d been able to ignore it when they were interrogating that Inquest sap, but now, in this lull? Penny faced a flood of images: Skixx’s dead body bleeding out on the cobbles of Rata Sum, that tiny rock monster from the projector pack, the asura girl looking half-dead in a Peacemaker waiting-room, an overcharged electrical pylon nearly killing her—Penny wasn’t far removed from that one—and all the stories these people had told her of the psychotic effect this magic had on those who came into contact with it. Gods. How in Torment were the rest of them holding it together? Maybe they were already insane.

She snickered darkly, but it didn’t last. Nothing could keep her attention off the clear and present risks: not the thicket she hardly paid attention to, not the awful humidity she couldn’t wait to escape, and not the oblivious group of adventuring fools she’d stepped away from. Even her own continued snapping, sliding, and spinning couldn’t hold her attention long. There was only thought, and the slithering fear that threatened to push Penny out of her own skin.

The sensation of heat on her skin brought Penny back to herself—or at least to her surroundings. The feeling was more than mere humidity, and it pulled her out of her thoughts. Unblocked light had fallen on her once more, and she squinted up at the blazing sun. Gods, she’d come all the way out the eastern side of the thicket, where the gentle slope of cragged grasses and moss swept down into the lowlands she and the others had hiked out of only hours before. Beyond that was the Vigil camp they’d left behind.

Penny halted her pouch-snapping and pushed a hand through her hair, rubbing at her temple for a moment.

Beside her was a wall of earth that rose up to a plateau towering overhead. To this point, it had been behind them all, southeast of their hiding place and in completely the opposite direction of the Thaumacore complex—perhaps that was the best thing about it. Where she stood now, the plateau wall was close enough to touch, rounding away into the hillside maybe just a hundred yards beyond her. And somewhere far beyond that? Penny knew Rata Sum hovered a mile above Tyria, leagues out of reach of all the disasters she and the rest of this lot of fools were aiming to walk into. She couldn’t see the asuran capital, of course, and it wasn’t the Reach—it never would be—but that big, floating contraption of a city was at least that, a city, and that was something.

At the thought of Divinity’s Reach, Penny took another thoughtless step down the incline, muttering a string of curses to herself.

Gods, what was she doing in this place? What did she think she was really going to get out of it all? Vengeance? Vindication? No. More than likely, she’d get a chest full of lead and a head full of brain-rejiggering magic.

The thought made her snicker mirthlessly again. It seemed fitting, really. Her brain must have already been jiggered to even get her here.

Feeling that cold, little laugh taper off, Penny stared straight into the plateau wall. Obviously she wasn’t going to see any glimpse of that floating block of civilization through a solid mass of earth, but the knowledge that it was there—well, that felt like something. Because Rata Sum was there, some unknown distance away from them, a distance they’d willingly traversed in the last several days—bunch of chumps that they were. The snap of her pouch started up again, and the scrape and whir of her pistol seemed to keep time with the dual wrenchings that still pulsed in her gut.

Penny stood there for— some amount of time. Scrape and whir, scrape and whir. In time, the movements and her thoughts aligned. With each scrape of steel against the leather of the holster, her eyes wandered back toward her shoulder, toward the people in the wood behind her, and toward the imminent conflict they were all willingly walking into—hell, fools that they were, they were on the verge of causing the conflict. The asura girl flashed through her mind, and she could hardly tell the difference between Ippi’s visage and the vague memories she had of her own girlhood face. It was for a good reason, she supposed, at least at some level. A glimmer of fury rose up again, but it no longer felt like enough.

A sound intruded on the moment, something angry and distant: a swarm of riled mosquitos calling for help. It wasn’t, of course, and Penny had the vague sense she should have made meaning of the sound, but her thoughts kept right on with the nearer and more real click and spin of her pistol’s loader and all that came with it.

The gun went back into its fitted leather sleeve, and Penny’s gaze went once more to the green slopes extending away from her. No trees to darken them, no looming laboratories, and the possibility of at least another day. Somewhere out there—not Rata Sum, if she were being realistic, but somewhere—maybe she could find a settlement to call home, somewhere she could disappear to and start rebuilding. Maybe she could get back to a city one day. Lion’s Arch was viable, after all, but there were other places in the world to land too, places she had enough connection to establish herself. Hronsson could make Hoelbrak a possibility. It sounded miserably cold, but the moots could make it worthwhile. Ebonhawke was an option, she supposed. It wasn’t a paradise by any stretch, but the city’s walls had held against charr siege for ages, and there would be plenty of business opportunity in a place no one else wanted to go. None of them would be the Reach—gods, nowhere else would ever be home—but given some lucky breaks, just maybe she could squeeze out a living and get something like her lost lives back. That was all she wanted. Not this heroic, make-it-right bullshit. Damn it, that kind of thinking was only ever a liability.

As her mind raced through the costs and possibilities, time seemed to slow, further and further, until the breeze stopped, birds froze in flight, and Penny could swear she hung somewhere in the air above, staring down at her own time-locked form. Only, something had changed: the sound of her pistol loader had stopped, as had the gentle scrape of the gun’s entry and exit from the holster. In her hand now was something else entirely. Her worn, orange knapsack. Unconsciously she must have pulled it from her pack.

She gently brushed the tiny bristles of the age-frayed canvas, feeling every scratch, every stain, every patch worn soft by years of thoughtless touches. For a second, it actually managed to push the competing thoughts aside. But only for a second.

With redoubled force, it all rushed back over her, and the pair of counterbalanced twists in Penny’s gut flailed like writhing vipers, lashing at her insides and hissing to be free, away from the danger and back to absolutely anything that felt like order. Behind it all, the distant wail of mosquitoes continued.

A fat hand slapped around Penny’s wrist. “Hey!”

Penny blinked at the sudden contact, and it felt like waking up. She was a dozen yards outside the thicket, in the openness of the moors.

“Hey,” Jinkke demanded again, tugging at the woman’s arm. The scene still felt fuzzy. “Didn’t you hear me? That’s the alarm. Minkus needs our assistance!”

Penny recognized the asura and began to realize what was happening. That distant sound had been the alarm, the sign that the plan was in motion.

“Get the hell off me,” Penny demanded, jerking her arm away. The knapsack swung in her grip, and Penny glanced down at it, almost surprised to see it there. 

“What is happening?” Jinkke took a step back. Her eyes tightened as she took in the scene, visibly drawing answers to her own questions. “What is wrong with you? I know you hear that alarm, even with your meager human senses. And I know you comprehend what’s at stake.”

Penny flashed a glance at the wide-open landscape before them: the cities, the lives that her instincts swore were available to her, if only she would run for them. She snapped back to Jinkke. “Yes, I know—I comprehend. Ventyr and that scholar are in there, in trouble. All that. But gods, what are the chances—”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Jinkke said, cutting her off. There was steel in the asura’s posture. “I wish the best for the sergeant and the scholar in all circumstances, including this one. But frankly I’m not offering a momentary thought to either of them.”

Penny had primed to snap back at the interruption, but she stilled, eyeing the petite woman incredulously. That hadn’t been the response she’d expected.

“Not a fleeting consideration,” Jinkke repeated, meeting Penny’s gaze. “My sole concern is for Minkus, who—whether it’s kind or foolish—has cast himself in over his head for two people who are, at most, acquaintances.”

Penny felt she should have had a retort, and it seemed the asura expected the same, but there was nothing there. She scowled, crossing her arms, but in the end, a shrug was all she could offer, a lifeless gesture.

Jinkke turned, eyeing the distance between the thicket and where the two of them now stood, and then her gaze moved up to Penny. From the deep shadows of her chocolate skin, Jinkke’s eyes glittered wildly up at the human. And damn it if they weren’t the same shade of lilac as her brother’s. Uncomfortable as it was, Penny couldn’t look away.

“To use your clumsy nomenclature,” Jinkke said. “I do not give a shit why I’ve caught you wandering away. Not a single one. I cannot— I will not leave my brother to die by himself inside that amoral monster’s factory of abominations, on this quest or any other. And after all he’s done for us both, neither will you.”

Penny’s stomach churned, and she didn’t know which of the facts currently before her had caused it. She really didn’t want to know.

“What exactly are you going to do for him?” Penny demanded. “What are either of us going to do for him that he couldn’t do better? Huh? Tell me.

“In case you haven’t noticed, your brother is a sword-toting wizard who can’t die. We’re just a pair of machinists. Gods, you were handed your first gun three hours ago. What good do you think you’re going to be in there? If he saves them, it won’t be because of us, and if he doesn’t, what difference do you think either of us is going to make?”

A hot breeze swept past them and over the moors, brushing the tips of scattered grasses to life in a rolling dance that frolicked down the incline, in and out of the rocky crags, wherever it found the least resistance. Penny followed it anxiously. There were cities and settlements all over the continent where she might be free of this. She just had to leave.

“Smoke and sparks,” Jinkke hissed, crossing her arms as Penny glanced back at her. “What’s become of all your bluster about justice and vengeance and the progeny in Rata Sum and your shop? All just solid matter sublimating away into the ether?”

Penny brushed limp, black hair out of her face, and pressed it behind her ear, where she hoped it would stay. Gods, it was humid.

“Stupid,” she barked. “All of it. It was just— gods, the world doesn’t work that way. Shit happens to people who don’t deserve it, and trying to stop that, trying to fix it— that just makes matters worse. Always does. And damn it, I knew that; I know that! But your brother, he—”

“Has a way of changing a person’s perspective.” Jinkke nodded.

“I was going to say ‘messed with my head,’ but sure. We can go with yours.”

Brow arched at the remark, Jinkke almost smiled, then sighed. She slumped forward and stared off across the landscape. “The fact is, I have no certain plans for what occurs next, and I couldn’t hope to prognose the outcome. The reality of that eats at me, but I must do something. I must. I’ve failed Minkus before, painfully and consistently, and I can’t do that again—I won’t. I said I wouldn’t hinder him, but neither will I fail to aid him in every possible way, because he would and has done it for me.”

Jinkke met Penny’s eyes again, and there was no denying it this time: the lilac was identical to Minkus’.

“He’s done the same for you,” Jinkke said. “I instructed him not to, but still he did, rushing back to Divinity’s Reach to ensure your safety and exonerate you of your betrayal.”

Penny looked away, back down the incline again, but she nodded.

“My ears, even when he discovered his assumption to be incorrect, that you were in fact guilty, he remained to help you.” Penny still gazed down into the distance, not looking at Jinkke, but she could hear the pride rising in the asura’s words. “It’s illogical, but it’s what he does, and it’s what he deserves now.”

It took a moment, but Penny nodded again. It had no impact whatsoever on the writhing mass of terror in her belly, but she nodded, gripping the knapsack hard.

“So we’re following him,” Jinkke went on, “whatever he’s walked into.” She spoke patiently now, though it was clearly an instruction and not a request. She took the human’s hand, and drew her into motion back toward the trees. “We have no time to squander.”

The knot twisted and wrenched as Penny took her first steps, but she did take them, giving only a fleeting glance back at the open space.

It should not have been this hard just to walk, but gods, it was. Even with Jinkke tugging her ahead, it took concentration not to drag her feet, not to snap at the little woman, and not to simply flee outright. Her mind raced with all the possibilities she was leaving behind and all the losses she was walking straight into. She had no illusions about what Jinkke was asking of her; whatever she had left to her name or in her future, she was giving it up; that was where heroism, justice, and all that nonsense only ever got a person. Her father had taught her that, and gods help her, she was about to follow in his footsteps. Gods-damned idiot that she was, she was doing the exact same thing.

And yet, the obnoxious, little asura holding her hand was right. She owed this to Minkus—to the asura girl and to Minkus.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!” The curses spewed out of her.

Jinkke shook her head. “Profane all the excrement you want. You know I’m right.”

“Gods,” Penny bit off the word. “I know it. I know. But— just, shit!”

She froze, doubled over, and retched across the rocks and grass, surprising both herself and Jinkke. She’d never considered the tension in her belly would actually escape, but the bile on her lips said otherwise. Wiping a hand across her mouth, Penny stumbled on beside Jinkke.

The same thing happened once more, followed by a series of empty heaves that ensured nothing of food or drink remained inside her. It was oddly relieving.

“Gods, we’re all going to die,” Penny groaned.

“Then we all die,” Jinkke agreed. “But my brother will not do that alone.”

Penny’s mouth tasted of vinegar and rotten fruit, but she walked more solidly with each step, and Jinkke walked beside her, a hand now to the human’s back as she urged them both into a trot.

Until they’d attained some speed through the slalom of trees, Jinkke’s hand remained at the small Penny’s back, presumably as a kind of moral support. Something in Penny wanted to scoff at it, but she couldn’t bring herself to it. The asura’s hand felt too much like her brother’s.