Altered Cerium

“For god’s sake, will you change into 4th? You want to rev the nuts off this snotbox?”

“Hell, yeah”, I say noncommittally and slot it into fourth. “Why are we even doing this? And what the hell is going on?”

“The Leaf said we’re supposed to keep on driving, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. And let’s not try to act smart. We’ve gotten this far. We’ve survived the encounter with Ratzen. And we can’t afford to blow this up. Focus. FOCUS!”

“Okay, okay, OKAY. But I’m not exactly pleased with what I am seeing.”

I really wasn’t. The sky was on fire. In sharp contrast to the sky was a towering structure owned by The Syndicate (or so the gargantuan neon signboard claimed). It looked like an enlargement of the internal mechanism of one of those ancient gearboxes, the cogs engaging and disengaging with deafening noises that threatened to rip the ground apart.

She goaded me on: “Shut up and drive. We need to get to wherever we need to be as soon as possible.”

“I’m not sure if we should.”

“Then you’re not sure if we shouldn’t.”

We were driving on a bridge over what used to be the river Qailaiea. Now it was a dynamic, shiny black mass of slime that stank to the high heavens. Unable to take it any longer, I puked all over the dashboard and swerved violently. The car broke through the iron railings and was free-falling into the darkness below.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she yelled, and tried to grab at my throat in vain.

“Fuck this”, I shouted back.

And we went under.