(This is the story text from the corresponding Radio Cataclysm podcast episode. If you prefer audio, you can subscribe here. Read and listen early on Patreon.)

“These are the symbols for dreamspace, dream walking, pocket magic, knowledge hidden, knowledge revealed,” said John, pointing at each one in turn. “But it beats me what any of it's supposed to do. I don't know much about synthesizers, but I do know that this one's a blend of magic and electronics, so I'm betting it's a little out of your wheelhouse, too. This kind of thing was not uncommon during the war, but I've never seen something quite like this before. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I don't have much of a choice, do I?” said Zeck.

“Fewer options every day,” said John.

Zeck stood up and brushed his hands off. “Ready when you are, Colonel,” he said. “It's still a little dusty with skeleton crud, but it's all patched.” The console hummed with power.

“You're sure,” said the Colonel. “I don't want to get locked out for good. Or blown to pieces.”

“Is that a possibility?” said Zeck warily.

“It's not not possible,” said Steven.

“I need you to be absolutely certain you've set it up correctly,” said the Colonel.

“As close as we could get,” said Zeck. “Some of the cables were corroded, so John had the idea of coaxing some of the vines back in. They seem keen to be a part of it, somehow. Anywhere we needed a cable, or the wires were corroded, they climbed right in. aside from that, I followed the patch sheet to the letter.”

“Does it need a power source?”

“This whole place is like a living battery,” said John. “It's saturated with energy. All we have to do now is flip the master switch.”

“Everybody but Strauss out of the truck,” said the Colonel. “Better if only one of us gets blown to bits, should something go awry.”

Bob's head jerked, as if he'd been startled. “Hold on,” he said. He put a hand to the side of his helmet, something he often did when listening intently. “Colonel, sir, I'm receiving a distress call. It's from Captain Solomon. 'Soldier down.'”

“Yes, I hear it,” said the Colonel. “Lieutenant Teymore can handle it. Ouroboros is on his way, and I've already told the Tephra to hold their position. If you're receiving a transmission, Jaut, you can safely assume that I hear it, too.”

“But they're requesting backup. They need our help.”

“As I said, help is on the way. The Lieutenant will report in when the situation is dealt with. If they can't handle it, it's better that we get this bunker open so we have a position to fall back to. I'll not have you questioning my leadership again. Do you understand, Jaut?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bob.

“You may proceed, Strauss,” said the Colonel.

Zeck took a deep breath. “Nice knowing most of you.” He flipped the switch.

The LEDs on the console lit up in a wave. A march-like drumbeat rolled from the speakers. On the smooth steel wall of the bunker, a black rectangle appeared. It looked as if the wall had simply vanished in that black space, leaving an endless abyss. A bolt of electricity jumped from a sigil on one of the synth modules, forking into Zeck's hands. He yelped. The sigil glowed with a deep red light. A sequencer started up, playing a simple melody from a square-wave oscillator. John chuckled. Zeck smiled with recognition.

Inside the black doorway, a multicolored wireframe landscape appeared, bright and flickering like a laser show. A robed figure stood in the center. “Greetings, hatchling,” it said. Its voice seemed to come from both the doorway and the speakers.

“How is that happening?” Zeck wondered aloud.

“You have the blood,” said the figure, “but have you the heart?” A three-dimensional laser outline of a Churlian airship appeared behind the figure in the robe, accompanied by a low bass growl. “You have chosen this as your trial. When you are ready to begin, place your hand on the broken shell.”

“Oh, shit,” said Steven.

“Trial?” said Zeck.

“It's a trial of initiation,” said Steven. “I thought they were just a legend.”

“Oh, they're real,” said John.

“I thought you said this was a Melody Lock,” said the Colonel. “You were all so sure of it.”

“Well, it is,” said Steven. “But think of it as the most secure type of Melody Lock you could possibly have, under the circumstances. I wonder if they programmed it this way for extra security when the bombs fell, or maybe they actually were planning to initiate someone that day. Either way, this is not ideal, to say the least. The trials are usually tailored to a specific person. It's something they would have trained for. It's not just for unlocking a door, it's for testing to see if you're worthy to join.”

“Join what?” said Bob.

“Who knows?” said Steven. “The Cult of Nowhere? Freemasons? Ex Ova? Insert the name of your favorite secret society. Like I said, I thought these things were a myth.”

“We did trials of initiation in the Pyroclasts,” said John. “But they were never like this. They were more symbolic than anything.”

“Time grows dear,” said the robed figure in the doorway. “Battle does not wait for the timid.” The airship turned toward Zeck. The laser-lined scene seemed to grow beyond the frame of the door.

“You'd best get started,” said the Colonel.

“How can I possibly pass a trial specifically made for somebody else?” said Zeck. “I mean, I recognize the song, but...”

“If you know the song, then what's the problem?” said the Colonel. You are a musician, yes? And you're proficient with the synthesizer?”

“I'm proficient with the synthesizer, which was also the name of my first album, but that's not the problem.”

“Well? What's the delay?”

“It's the song,” said Steven.

“The Ballad of Ruby Cadence,” said John.

“If you all know it, surely you can play it. Children play the piano.”

“It's not like playing the piano” said Zeck. “It's a dueling synthesizer jam. There are some common elements that you'll hear in most performances, like the intro melody, but it's never played exactly the same way twice. Each performance is different because every player is different. And every synth is different. A lot of them don't even use keyboards. Hearing ten different people play The Ballad is like hearing ten different people tell the same story. Each one tells it differently. And it is a story, about a wizard named Ruby Cadence who battled a Churlish, er, Churlian airship that used sonic weapons to rain destruction and terrorize the populace.”

“The Alkonost,” said the Colonel. “Commanded by Colonel Sone. I'm familiar with it.”

“Anyway, the song itself is always played as a duel. One side takes the role of Ruby Cadence, sonomancer, and the other side takes the role of Sone aboard the Alkonost. I've seen it performed plenty of times, but I've never been a part of the duel before. Even calling it a duel is a bit of a misnomer; it's more of a reenactment. Ruby Cadence always wins, so I'm not sure how this is meant to be a test.”

“I suspect there's more to it than that,” said the Colonel.

“Perhaps,” said Zeck, “but it's quite as clear as mud. There's no indication of what to do or where to begin. Anyway, it's traditional for the airship to fire the first volley.”

“War comes to all,” said the robed figure, “be they ready or not.” The truck rumbled. The airship's weapons array slid open, laser-outlined rows of sonic weaponry trained on Zeck's position. “Fight back, or face annihilation.” The lasers flickered, making it seem as though the speakers on the ship were vibrating. Sonic waves blasted from its weapon ports and struck Zeck. A sickening mixture of pain and shame rippled through his flesh. Out of something like instinct, he turned to the console and placed his right hand on the broken egg symbol.

For a split second, all was blank. The trailer and the synthesizer and the Colonel were gone. Silence all around. Only for an instant, and then everything was back.

The living room in that little apartment in New York City. That hideous wallpaper. That smell. Sulfuric fumes seeped in around the windows and mingled with his father's cigar smoke. Mom made him smoke on the fire escape, but it lingered on his clothes. Zeck smelled it now as he sat on his dad's lap. And something else. A smell like rain. No, like water from a hose. Fresh plastic. Across the room, his mother was setting up a new keyboard on its stand. “You wanna play the keyboard, Zeckie?” His father's voice. “Your mom's gonna teach you. Heck knows I can't.”

He sat at the keyboard, the cushioned stool spun up high so he could reach. His mother placed his hand gently on the keys. Middle C. Every Good Boy Does Fine. Scales. Chopsticks. Heart and Soul. The memories were there and gone, like turning away in a dream and looking back to find everything changed.

Upstairs. The music room. The house in Dayton, after they'd moved. His mother installing a new module in a synth that already covered half a wall. The Beast, she called it. Always hungry for more. Zeck sat in the corner watching her plug and unplug cables. There were more than he could count. She never hesitated, she moved as if she was building a sculpture, the shape of which she'd always known. He fell asleep in a beanbag chair while she worked, flipping toggles and nudging knobs just so. Every motion seemed as natural as the swaying of a tree in the wind.

She taught him piece by piece. “This is called an oscillator.” He learned the difference between a square wave and a sine, a sawtooth and a triangle. Dozens of filters. How to use a sequencer. It was like learning a new alphabet. Soon, he could tell you the frequency of a sound just by listening. He could close his eyes and picture the waveform. Sometimes, when he was falling asleep to the sound of her work, he thought he could hear what she was building.

“When will it be finished?” he asked.

She smiled. “It'll never be finished.”

“It's not just music, what she does,” his father would say. “It's magic. Acoustomancy. She has wizard blood, you know.” Mom would roll her eyes and snort.

“Sonomancy,” she said. “But I'm not a wizard.”

She played down the street at the coffee shop, in a trio called Speckle Pattern. She crammed a few synth mods into a thrift shop suitcase. “Just enough, and a little bit more.” They called it Beast Jr. The others in the trio played keyboard and sang. Zeck drank hot chocolate while his dad drank espresso. More often than not, he fell asleep on the sofa in the back. He started drinking coffee instead, so he could stay up with his dad and hear the music.

They were playing the night the Riverlords came to do battle on the banks. The sound of the music drifted like a fog and sapped their battle cries. They made their way inside, and sat entranced for the rest of the night while their weapons lay forgotten at their feet. They did not make peace that night, but they left without fighting, and did not battle again for two more years.

Her band mates came for dinner sometimes. Mom's sister, Emily, and their friend Erika. After, they went upstairs to write and record. Zeck's father took him to the movies.

Speckle Pattern went on tour. Beast Jr. came along, so Zeck was allowed to play with the Beast all he wanted. His mother had patch sheets, but she didn't need them. She could always find her place again. Zeck stayed up late into the night, trying different patches, chasing the sounds his mother found so effortlessly. His father, shouting, woke him at daybreak. “Zechariah. Get to bed.” Zeck had fallen asleep on the floor, headphones twisted around his face. They were bent where he'd slept on them. Dad was just coming in from a long night of work. Exhausted. “Your mother's favorite pair,” he grumbled and banished Zeck from the music room.

His mother laughed it off when she got back. “Those were a million years old,” she said. Zeck bought a new pair with his allowance.

He sat at the keyboard again. The stickers were worn from years of being rubbed at. He barely gave them a glance. His fingers knew the way to go, and music followed.

He knew the modules now, and all of their names. The tangle of cables, the switches, the knobs, were no more a mystery than his own tongue.

“Not bad,” said his mother from the doorway. She'd been standing there a while. He hadn't noticed. There was only the machine. A bottomless well of sound and music.

Some time later. A night. An eon. The finite length of a time he can't get back. His parents arguing. Not their first fight. Their last. He only caught snippets. “Too dangerous... take him with you... not another one... can't go... won't know the truth... capped his teeth... broken shell...” And then the whispering, worse than shouting. The night before another tour. Going abroad this time. Flying into New Belgium. But the airship never landed. No wreckage was ever found. It just vanished, somewhere over the Atlantic.

Later. He fiddled listlessly with the synth. Nothing sounded right. Everything was there, but something was missing.

Later. He played as if the machine were his enemy, as if he could trade the life of the Beast for that of his mother.

Later. Zeck tried to block the doorway. His father held a toolbox. “We have to sell it, Zeck. I thought we were done running, but we're not. We can't stay here, and we need the money.”

“I'll get money. We can't sell it, it's not even finished!”

“It'll never be finished.”

That was the last night in the house in Dayton. His father dismantled the Beast gently. Methodically. After he went to sleep, Zeck packed as much of it as he could into a suitcase. He wrapped his clothes in a sheet like a hobo's bindle. He paused at the door to his parent's bedroom, left ajar by his father, who slept fitfully. Zeck waved goodbye without a word, without trying to wake him. That was the last he'd seen of his father.

For a split second, all was blank.

Zeck was back in the truck, disoriented as if waking from a dream. Unlike a dream, the memories stuck. He could still smell the old house. Feel the worn stickers on the keyboard. The final notes of The Ballad of Ruby Cadence were ringing in the air.

“What just happened?” Zeck asked. He turned around. Where the dark rectangle had been, there was now an open door leading into the building. Steven's mouth hung open. John wiped a tear from his cheek with the sleeve of his robe. Even Chad's neutral expression showed cracks around the edges.

“You were like a man possessed,” said Bob.

“I can't say I'm a fan of squeak-squawk bleep-bloop music,” said the Colonel. “But you managed to open the door. Well done.” He stood in the doorway and peered into the gloom. “I've sent a message for the Tephra to bring the horses,” he said. “This will make a good shelter for the night, provided there are no traps inside. Captain Jaut, you'll go in first and do a sweep. And be quick about it.”

If the vaguely block-shaped heaps held together by kudzu's embrace could still be called buildings, the overgrown lanes that ran between them could only be called streets in the broadest sense of the word. Sheryl and Captain Irving stuck close to the walls, soundless, shadows in the weeds. After they'd gone about a quarter of the way around the clearing's perimeter, Sheryl relaxed a little. She sent a HUD message to Irving, “Minimal risk. Stay alert.”

A little while later, she broke radio silence. “Let's take a break,” she said. She sat down on something that might have been a bench at one point. It was covered in a plush moss the color of emeralds. She pulled off her mask.

Captain Irving stood at ease, staring straight ahead in the direction they'd been moving. Sheryl looked down the street, but didn't see anything.

“You can have a seat, if you like, Irving.” Sheryl patted the bench. “Or find your own, if I make you nervous. I only bite if provoked.” After a moment, she added, “That's meant to be a joke.”

Irving hesitated, but finally took a seat next to Sheryl. She reached up, paused, lowered her hands, reached up again and took her mask off.

“It's nice here,” said Sheryl. “Peaceful.”

Irving nodded. “It's a little spooky, though.”

“You think so?”

Irving shrugged. “Maybe I'm just not used to the wilderness. I've been in the woods before, but only if you count Attle Park as the woods. It's not like this.”

Sheryl didn't reply. She just gazed up at the canopy.

“You're not worried we're letting our guard down?” said Irving.

“I don't ever let my guard down,” said Sheryl. “But if it'll make you feel better, we can keep moving.” She took a deep breath before putting her mask back on. “I just thought I might like it here, for a minute or two.”

Irving put her mask back on, too. “But you don't?” she asked over the radio. “Like it here?”

Sheryl didn't answer. She got up and motioned for Irving to follow.

“Permission to ask you a question?” said Irving after a minute.

“Granted,” said Sheryl.

“Do you- Is it true you've seen Plumwine up close?”

“Where did you hear that?” said Sheryl.

“Everybody says it.”

“Everybody?”

“Well, not everybody. It's a rumor. Among... some of the Sparassa.”

“I saw him briefly,” said Sheryl after a moment.

“So it's true about the task force?” said Irving. “You led a top secret squad into Arteria to assassinate Lord Plumwine?”

“Assassination was a secondary objective,” said Sheryl. “It was primarily an intelligence gathering mission. It went poorly.”

“But you saw him? Face to face, or over vid?”

Sheryl stopped walking. She didn't answer.

“I'm sorry,” said Irving. “I should be quiet. I don't mean to pry. I probably don't have clearance to know these things, anyway.”

“No, it's all right,” said Sheryl. She dug in her utility belt for something. It was a pill. Her hand shook as she fed it through a port between her chelicerae. “If you're here, you have the clearance. Anyway, I think the cat's out of the bag as far as the Arterians go.” She started back down the street. Irving walked beside her. “We were face to face. Plumwine and me. Closer than I ever want to get again.”

“What was it like? I've heard- well, I've heard a lot of things.”

“What are they saying?”

“There are so many rumors, but- They say he dug into the ice and rock, dug down until he found a cache of ancient Saurosapien technology buried there. And he used that to build his army of clones, but it turned him into a monster.”

“Hm.” Sheryl considered for a moment. “Where to begin? It's true, he's hardly human anymore. He has stretched and pulled his flesh like taffy, lifted his skin as if it were a blanket and plucked his tissues like seeds from a fruit, drilled and drawn from every square centimeter of a body that has grown and warped and crept its way along the ducts and conduits and corridors of his compound until there is not a room he does not touch, nor a corner he does not see. He has, over the years, abducted, tortured, and deranged a few hundred outsiders. But it is his own flesh from which he grows the clones that people his halls. It is a castle built by and for and from himself. He is the lord and he is the jester and he is the serf. He is as much a part of its walls as the ice and the rock. Once, long ago, years before the Empire had revealed itself to the world, you would not have known Plumwine from anybody else you passed on the street. But now? In form? He's more like the ones that some call gods. Pray you never meet one of those, either.

“That is not what makes him a monster, though. None of his transformation has changed who he is inside. To the contrary; he has warped his flesh to match his boundless ego, and now he would spread the sickness of his empty heart until the world collapses into itself like a rotten harvest. If there was any good within him, it withered long before the Empire sent him into exile at the bottom of the world. Why else would they take such drastic steps? No prison, no execution? He must have been truly rotten from the beginning to deserve such a sentence.

“And if that wasn't true before, it certainly is now. Any chance that he could be redeemed, any chance that he could turn back upon himself and leave the path that he has paved, any chance of that died long ago with the world that Emperor Vincent killed. He is a fetid wound, a bloviating parasite, driven only by love for himself and hate for all others, as like to a man as a shit is to a peach.”

Irving held in a laugh. “Sorry, that all sounds horrible. It's just- That's the first time I've heard you swear,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Sheryl.

“No worries,” said Irving. “It just took me by surprise, is all. I'm sorry if I offended you. That's the most I've every heard you say, as well. By far. I apologize if I touched a nerve. Not that- I didn't mean...”

“You're fairly new to the Sparassa, aren't you? Practically a Spiderling.”

“I've been in for a little while. I went straight from the academy to the Funnel. Graduated last year. This is my second deployment.”

“You must have gotten high marks,” said Sheryl. “Most take an intermediate course somewhere before going into the Funnel.”

“My mother was Sparassa,” said Irving. “I guess I wanted to make her proud.”

“You're not an orphan?” said Sheryl.

“No. Both my parents are still around.”

“I only ask because it's fairly common for Sparassa to come from the Orphan Sponsorship program.”

Irving nodded. “They told us that in one of our classes. Eighty percent of all Funnel graduates, I think they said. Are you? A sponsored orphan, I mean? You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. You don't have to do anything I say. You're my commander. Now I'm babbling. I'm not being very professional, I know.”

“Not very,” said Sheryl. “And there was a time, not so long ago, when it would have bothered me greatly. But to be honest, it doesn't bother me at all anymore. To answer your question, yes, I am an orphan. A 'Child of War.' But that's neither here nor there. What district are you from?”

“Cornerstone. Seaside.”

“Nice area,” said Sheryl.

“I guess so.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“No. I'm an only child. I have a few cousins, though. One in the Tephra. I've been trying not to think about him since the attack, but... I hope he's okay.”

“You said your mother was Sparassa. What did your father do?”

“He's a baker. Runs his own shop. Gets up at four o'clock every morning, just to get things ready.”

“Did you have to get up early and help?”

Irving laughed. “No, my parents wouldn't allow it. My studies always came first. He did teach me to bake, though. Sometimes I'd stop by after school with my friends and I'd help him make a batch of cookies or something. Two days a week, his apprentice ran the shop, so Dad would take the time to show me how to knead dough properly, or how to tell if something's ready or if it needs another few minutes in the oven. He once gave me a pet sourdough starter to take care of. I kept it alive for three years. I had to give it back when I enlisted. They still use it in the shop. He even named a special sourdough after me, with cheese and herbs baked into the loaf. He calls it 'Dani Bread.' Sorry, I'm rambling.”

“No need to apologize,” said Sheryl. “You can keep talking about your family if you want.”

Irving shrugged. “I try not to think about it, but I keep wondering if I'll see them again. We got lucky in the Hinterlands. And finding this place, I guess. But we're still a long way from anywhere.”

“It wasn't luck,” said Sheryl. “Not only luck, anyway. I saw you out there, on the battlefield. You're good at what you do. We all are. We stand a good chance of survival.”

“I hope so.”

“And listen, Captain. Danielle. I left the Sparassa for many reasons. And when we get back, I'll probably leave again. But that is not today. Right now, my only priority is keeping all of us alive and getting us home safe.” She looked over at Captain Irving, impossible to read through all that armor, both of their faces covered.

Captain Irving started to say something, but she was cut short by a blast of red and a series of symbols flashing across her HUD chat.

Sheryl got the message, too. “Distress signal,” she said. A second later, she was halfway down the road, her hydraulic greaves propelling her ten meters to a stride. She sent a message back to Irving, “Keep up.”