The lunatic is on the grass

  The lunatic is on the grass

  Remembering games

  And daisy chains and laughs

  Got to keep the loonies on the path

  Everyone feared the morning.

  Night’s shimmering canopy draped over New Tenochtitlan, growing threadbare with each passing minute. Stars, flung across the sky like strokes from a celestial brush, watched in silent pity—for soon, the tyrant sun would rise, burning them away, and this fragile peace would fade like a dying dream.

  The sprawling metropolis awaited dawn in silence—a black grid of brutalist structures and scrambling baroque temples. Dark windows stared down at the lacework of shadows that made up the throughfares. There were no streetlamps or artificial light of any sort in New Tenochtitlan. Nothing stirred, as if the city were a machine waiting to be turned on.

  Visitors from another time might find the silence disturbing, unnatural—like lightning cleaving the sky without its thunderous echo. In a city of five million souls’ life should stir, even in the loneliest hours before dawn. A city is a beast, and beasts breathe even as they sleep.

  But a pre-H.A. visitor would not know about the noise curfew prohibiting sound above a conversational 60 dB level within the safety of the tenements. For those brave enough to venture out after curfew, the threshold is even lower – any noise above 30 dB alerts the Eagles.

  Which is why the Whispers moved noiselessly—living up to their name.

  The pair skipped over the rooftops, breath measured—deep, controlled, never ragged. Every step was deliberate: using the outer rims of their feet so their padded tabi footwear barely registered on the sound sensors displayed in their HUD. A combination of skill and forbidden technology from the old world.

  Even at a sprinter's pace their passage was indistinguishable from the phantom ambling of a prowling cat. The high winds were with them tonight, masking any sounds.

  Not that they were likely to be so careless.

  The mission had been meticulously planned, every variable considered: wind patterns, the moon's position, even the age of the roofing material along their route to the ecclesiastic district known as Heaven, which lay beyond the walls of the northern warrens.

  The Team Leader slid to a stop at the roof's edge and raised a gloved fist. The Whispers caught their breath, waiting for her Navi to recalibrate. Her pulse raced while a waterfall of information cascaded across her interface: figures and measurements produced an augmented reality path to their quarry, complete with suggested routes, risk assessments, and probabilities of success.

  DISTANCE TO NORTH OUTER WALL = 27.432 METERS

  ETA = 15 minutes

  TIME TO DAWN = 27 MINUTES

  RISK = SEVERE

  Should be enough time, she thought. She briefly lowered the interface to dab sweat from her brow as she looked over the site. This was the tallest tenement in the North quarters and provided a slight vantage over the wall into Heaven.

  Moonlight spread across the grounds—an arboreal pavilion twenty hectares deep. A colonnaded causeway split the lot like a seamless river of white marble, connecting the gates to at temple that peeked over the bulkhead like a whale's hump.

  The grand Hellenic temple perched impressively at the head of the promontory: fluted Doric columns topped with an abacus and echinus saluting the sky. Despite the absence of visible guards or overt security, their intel warned that the grounds were heavily surveilled.

  She nodded, and Second Whisper secured the grappling line. They vaulted over the edge, descending like spiders on silken threads, landing soundlessly on their toes. After quickly detaching the lines, the Whispers fell into step—moving at a ghostly.

  Two pulses from their suits’ haptics signaled their arrival at the weakest surveillance point. Now, the wall.

  Scaling the ten-story wall unnoticed would be impossible — going through is the only choice.

  Second Whisper unhooked the bag slung across his muscled torso and sifted through its contents. Weapons. Medical supplies. Climbing gear. Each tool nestled in velvet. His hand emerged victorious, a compact device held aloft for Leader's confirmation. She stuck her thumb out in the ageless gesture of approval.

  Second Whisper wiggled his hips in celebration. Leader smothered a chuckle. Laughter is always warmest when least appropriate, especially when standing in death’s shadow.

  Stop fucking around, she signed.

  Second Whisper sobers, fingers skimming across the device’s dashboard, feeding it a feast of data about the wall's composition: thickness, bonding properties, density, thermal conductivity, acoustic properties, toxicity, flammability, radiation, and potential countermeasures.

  After pressing the phaser's belly to the wall and releasing the safety latches, Second Whisper sands back as a low hiss escapes the device. Eight mechanical legs unfurl from its carapace, latching onto the surface until the phaser is entrenched in the stone like a tick burrowed into flesh.

  Second Whisper hesitates. Fingers flicker in the dim light.

  No going back from this.

  Leader nods, her chin dipping slightly.

  Her subordinate exhales, thumb hovering for a beat—then presses the red button.

  The device awakens, its legs a blur of alloys—a mix of titanium, nickel, aluminum, and magnesium—moving at speeds too swift for human eyes to track. Yellow light spills from the phaser's belly. A depression forms as the stone surrenders, liquifying into a molten slag, then folds.

  Real-time data on the phaser’s progress feeds into their HUDs: a flexing heatmap outlining velocity, temperature, emission, and decibel levels.

  Warnings flared in urgent crimson:

  Convection and Infrared Emissions: Critical

  Gas Emissions: Approaching Detection

  Threshold Breach Imminent...

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Leader's hands flash orders: Cover the work site!

  Second Whisper is already in motion, spreading a sheet of nacreous metamaterial over the drill site like a curtain—an original blend of kevlar, fiberglass, and aerogels coated in fluoropolymer and silver. The curtain traps heat and bends infrared light, concealing thermal imaging.

  Thirty agonizing seconds crawl by as the phaser carves through a meter of concrete.

  TIME TO DAWN = 25.34 MINUTES

  Milky halon vapor seeps around the curtain's folds. Finally, the button turned green.

  Second Whisper sweeps the metamaterial curtain aside with a bow, revealing a tunnel veined red with snaking heat. The wind finds its way through, kicking up embers.

  Entering the breach, the Whisper’s passage is only marked by the sizzle of aramid fibers against superheated stone.

  The Whispers race through the wet sedge fields, closing on the entrance. Pre-dawn’s muted blues spill over the temple's white marble fa?ade. They vault over the rampart gracefully, skating into the portico’s waiting shadow.

  Inside, the air thickens with frankincense and myrrh, a choking haze that bleeds through their air filters. They glide over the marble, hearts hammering in the empty, sacred silence.

  Then, they stop—awed by the sanctum's sheer scale. The space could house a village.

  Nothing stirs: no meditative chants, no shuffle of acolytes' feet, no murmured supplications.

  Second Whisper freezes like a deer sensing a lion in the high brush. Team Leader feels it too: the spine-chilling sensation of being observed, dissected, judged.

  The eyes of God.

  Hyperion’s effigy dominates the space. The spires of his gilded crown stretching through the gaping oculus. Ivory and gold leaf shimmer over his robes, iridescent veins flicker like captive lightning across his brow. The jeweled eyes study them with cold disproval: who are these ants daring to trespass on hallowed grounds.

  Second Whisper hitches, kneeling on the floor with his hands clasped.

  Leader grips his arm. Her fingers dig into the suit shaking him until she’s sure his eyes on her. Even through the visor, she senses the lost terror in his eyes.

  NOT your God. Not anymore.

  Breathing shakily, he slowly rises, his knees trembling as if the foundation of his identity were crumbling to ruin. Team Leader points at an alcove tucked within the western arcade.

  Keep moving.

  The alcove stairwell corkscrews into the earth, winding like the hands of a clock spinning in reverse. Step by step, time unravels—neoclassical elegance giving way to jagged angles and stark lines. Each level passed peels back a layer, revealing a world both advanced and nostalgic.

  The world that was.

  They exit at the fourth landing, sprinting down a carpeted path so devoid of color it seems to hunger for it. Sickly fluorescents cast a jaundiced glow, stretching shadows where none should exist.

  This place is a tomb for a culture that sold its soul, Leader thinks, gliding past a sign reading CONFERENCE ROOMS—a gallery of dim chambers furnished with chairs that look like torture devices —and cold windows whose black glass swallows their reflections.

  Past that, are the COMMUNAL SPACES…stunted cubist dwellings—small and impersonal—partitioned with corkboard. Tiny family photos buried in dust. Paperweight with floating goldfish. Kitschy decorations. Abstract art sticks to the walls with all the charm of stale vomit.

  This is no place for free people, Team Leader muses.

  Right turn. Left turn. Endless corridors.

  TIME TO DAWN = 12 MINUTES

  The HUD shows their path through the maze—a ghostly blue line with pulsing white directional arrows.

  Somewhere in the heart of this banal nightmare lies the information key to understanding the monster that ended this world.

  The suit's haptics buzz in triplicate when they reach their destination. They enter a dark server room and stand before a bulwark of wall-to-wall monitor shelves, dashboards, and hard drives.

  Their optical sensors scan the dormant technology. Team Leader accesses her onboard databases, pulling all available files and schematics on the room. Her hands move:

  This is it. Find port. Install FOB.

  Second Whisper pulls up an AR overlay of the command center's original layout—salvaged from a blasted server farm—and begins the search. It's like a game of virtual hot-and-cold—following the ghostly digital path that settles and intensifies. Finally, it settles, standing before an ancient terminal layered with inch-thick dust.

  The FOB slides home with a satisfying click, but nothing happens.

  He tries again. The machines remain inert. Second Whisper gestures desperately.

  Now what?

  Team Leader's brow furrows beneath her visor. Then, she fingers snap in silent triumph.

  Power button!

  Second Whisper nods eagerly.

  They attack the ancient computer, their fingers leaving dust trails as they sift through the arcane symbols, pressing buttons at random.

  Team Leader summons a digital treasure trove—manuals painstakingly collected over decades—scrolling through the list until...

  The Icon Book: Visual Symbols for Computer Systems and Documentation

  She dives into the appendix, zeroing in on "P" for power. The symbol lurks on the monitor's edge, blazing to life at her touch. The machine stirs. Monitors flicker to life in sequence, cascading across the wall like dominos of light. Milky white light flickers on the monitor screens, slowly, stubbornly, as if blinking away the fog of a centuries-deep sleep.

  The fob pulses—initiating the program.

  The air crackles as capacitors charge and data paths clear themselves of dust and corruption. Desktop windows detonate open, and files spill across the display like a deck of cards.

  The Whispers hold their breath as the program feeds when a command prompt appears, cursor blinking expectantly.

  DOWNLOAD OPERATION HYPERION? Y/N

  Team Leader selects “Y.”

  The program goes to work, consuming terabytes in seconds— blueprint, meeting transcripts, audio files, surveillance footage—a meticulous grocery list of ingredients.

  Everything they need to bring down the system.

  The download barely finishes before all hell breaks loose.

  The screens go black, snuffed out like candles. A deafening alarm wails through the halls— a frenzied drone bee rallying the hive.

  Second Whisper's removes the FOB just as the monitors burst into flames. His eyes snap to Leader, panicked.

  MOVE!

  They sprint through pulsing red corridors. Upward they spiral—floor after floor, as drywall and concrete yield to marble. Time twists, fractures beneath Hyperion’s fury.

  TIME TO DAWN: THIRTY SECONDS

  Panting, they reenter the inner sanctum. Sunlight streamed through stained-glass, splashing vibrant patterns onto polished marble. Morning spilled through the dome’s oculus, branching like lightning as it illuminates the gold filigree in Hyperion’s crown.

  Slipping into the colonnade’s shadows, the Whispers surge forward at breakneck pace toward the atrium—past the portico and over the rampart. Their feet slap the dew-soaked grass—legs pedaling and breath ragged; the time for subtlety is over. Just as the exit comes into view, the heavens stir.

  A drone rises as Hyperion’s Eagles circle overhead—their flaring apexes shifting into a malevolent halo over the temple, like comets orbiting a celestial body. The Whispers activate their countermeasures. Their suits shimmer with a reflective surface, making them difficult to track in harsh daylight. They dive into the tunnel crawling desperately toward the dim blue portal where the shadows of the tenements might provide cover. The ground shakes, and a piercing screech follows after them. They roll from the tunnel just as a gout of flame bursts through, scorching their suits, damaging their cloaking device. Bodies burning, they race for their line.

  Second Whisper's panicked voice rises above the droning. "We're not going to make it” His words echo across weathered tiles as they scramble toward safety.

  Team Leader's slashes her hand out. We're almost there!

  Back on the rooftop, they quickly gather their gear and bolt toward an AC vent—a hidden chute that will carry them deep beneath the earth, out of Hyperion’s reach and beyond the Eagles. One breath away. One heartbeat.

  But then, the sky moves.

  The buzzing constellation shifts; the Eagles realign with terrifying purpose. High-intensity solar energy surges through their vertices, coalescing into a critical mass of annihilation. The air cracks—superheated in an instant.

  Team Leader reaches for her companion, but it’s too late. Second Whisper crumples to his knees, ripping off his goggles to face oblivion. He looks at her—tears of shame boiling on his cheeks—and throws her the FOB. She catches it and looks at her lover one last time. He murmurs something, but its lost amid the Eagle’s screeching.

  The solar lance strikes, turning the rooftop into a crucible. In a flash of light, he’s gone.

  With a scream that scorches her lungs, Team Leader leaps over the edge.

  Five stories down, her fall is broken by a flaming awning. She slams into concrete with crushing force and tumbles across the street. Several bones are broken; she feels them rattling inside her like the wreckage of a shattered ship. Yet, she rises again, hobbling as fast as she can away from the collapsing tenement and pyroclastic cloud.

  The acrid tang of brimstone fills her lungs, mingling with the taste of blood and loss. The tenement is an inferno, the rumble of its crumbling bones and crackling flames barely disguising the wail of screaming citizens and clanging alarms.

  There’s nothing she can do for them.

  But Hyperion's merciless ascent leaves no time for grief.

  Shedding soot and shock, she limps past the gathering crowds, into shadowy alleyways of the warren, away from the light, away from the tyrant sun.