Prepotente: Thank you.
I tapped the headset microphone I’d borrowed from Donut. Hedy’s ice-cream truck featuring the severed heads of the Faction Wars leaders passed by the stands.
We’d turned off the Auto-Tune for this.
“Earlier,” I said, my voice reverberating, “Donut asked me what the difference was between revenge and vengeance. I know there’s an official definition somewhere, and this might not be exactly correct, but I want to tell you what I told her. Revenge is when we take direct action against someone for something they did to harm us. But vengeance, at least to me, ispunishment. Righteous punishment, and sometimes it’s not as direct.”
Behind me, Donut pulled the string, and the pieces of the giant triangle fell away.
The massive statue we’d made of the Unwashed, the strange creature that Juice Box had turned into, popped up like a jack-in-the-box, huge and menacing. It was an upside-down tree, directly in contrast with the giant white tree that stood in front of us now. The eyes trailed smoke, and if we’d built it correctly, several of the black flowers would fall off it, revealing red flowers and paint representing rivers of blood.
The gremlins had done a pretty impressive job of building it. It was meant as a jump scare for anyone watching. But it was also meant as a reminder.
Those two symbols, the Epicure and the Unwashed, both represented death and vengeance. The Epicure at the beginning of our progression was a symbol of hope, of vengeance against the predators of the galaxy. But that last symbol—the Hag, the Unwashed, the Stalker, the Beautiful Place, and so many other names—was a symbol for something else. Whether it was real or not was irrelevant. It was said to be a personification of the Nothing. To me, it was that and more. The Inevitable Ruin. Itwas a reminder that death comes for us all, no matter who we are, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
We passed Lamashtu the donkey with Grigori standing upon her, and I met eyes with the psychotic AI. Chaco remained at his feet, health still in the red. Never removing my eyes from Grigori’s, I pulled up a healing scroll, I selected Chaco, and I healed him. Grigori’s eyes never left my own. He didn’t react.
I turned my attention upward and then I pointed at the effigy of the Unwashed.
I spoke to the galaxy.
“It is coming. It is coming for you all. All of you who participated in this wholesale murder of me and my people and everyone before us, those who didn’t speak out, I am holding all of you culpable. It won’t be justice because there isn’t any way that justice can possibly ever be served. It won’t be revenge. Revenge, as nice as that sounds, requires the party directly responsible. How do you get revenge against a generational system that has existed before any of us were born?
“But vengeance?
“Every one of you. Whether it’s in a big way or a small way,youare responsible. And those of us who survive this, we will remember. We will not forget. We are coming. It may not be me, and it may not be my friends, but we are coming.”
Above, the transport bay doors on the airship opened, and the sluggalos started to rain down on the stands on either side of the road. The audience, consisting of bankers, politicians, elites, all masked, unable to fight back, screamed as the smallest of the small, the lowest form of dungeon NPC, fell amongst them and started to slaughter them one by one.
Bigs: I’ve never been so proud. Unity, support, family, and kneecapping bitches! Hell yeah!
[ 93 ]
We pulledup to the entrance of the arena. The white metal door was absolutely huge, like the size of something designed to house Godzilla. We were no longer in a line, but now spread out one by one in front of the door. Inside the arena stood the tree. It just went up and up into the air hundreds of feet. From this angle I couldn’t see the mob that sat atop it, but it roared, its voice shaking the very world.
Krakaren Prime, I assumed. She’d been banished to the Nothing, and the last I’d heard, she’d ended up on the eighteenth floor when she’d escaped.
I pulled Donut from my shoulder, and I held her in a tight hug. “Get to Elle and Imani,” I whispered. “Stay away. Do you understand?”
“I know the plan.” She looked up at me, shaking. “I’m scared, Carl.”
“I haven’t really said this out loud, and I hope you know this already. I love you, Princess Donut. If this doesn’t work?—”
“Don’t say that. Don’t jinx it, Carl. People keep saying that they don’t trust how you might react if something happens to me, but they never ask how I might react if something were tohappen toyou. I don’t want to find out. Not today, not ever. I love you, too.”
I gently reached down, and I kissed her forehead. I took in her scent, wishing things had turned out differently, wishing I didn’t have to wear this heavy, heavy mask.
Donut bounded away and landed atop the back of Mongo.
Rend looked up at me from the ground. “Go with Mongo and Donut,” I called, pointing. “They’re all meeting up at the RV.”
“No, no, no,” the meatball said, but after a sharp call from Donut, he turned and waddled away.
I stomped on the roof, and Tipid popped his head out the window.
“Sorry, boss,” Tipid said. “I’m not leaving. You need a more reliable driver for this.”
“Your story isn’t done, Tipid,” I called down. I didn’t want or need a good driver for this last part. I needed the worst possible drivers ever. “Get to the RV.”