Infinity Blade: Redemption

hard—the God King’s knee.
    A snap , accompanied by another scream.
    Siris moved. No thought. No planning. He scrambled forward, eyes still firmly shut. He couldn’t trust them. Trying to rely on them only got him killed. Over and over.
    His hands found an arm. The God King reached a clawlike hand to Siris’s face, ripping at the skin.
    Siris ignored the pain, methodically grabbing his enemy by the head and pounding his skull against the floor.
    Smash.
    Smash.
    Smash.
    Like a primeval man breaking open a fruit with a tough rind.
    Time passed. Siris eventually became aware of himself in the prison, kneeling over the God King’s bloodied corpse. Raidriar, the God King, did not breathe. Siris’s own breathing went in and out with ragged gasps.
    His eyes finally worked, but he didn’t see much. An open cell of rough-hewn rock—the soul prison in which the Worker of Secrets had been held.
    Much of the floor was coated with dried blood. His, and that of the God King.
    This is what I can do, he thought. When I let my Dark Self free.
    He forced down those instincts. It was a struggle, one nearly as difficult as killing the God King had been. Eventually, Siris reached forward and pressed his thumbs into the God King’s eyes, bursting them, though the creature’s skull had been cracked wide open by his attacks.
    The skull would heal—but the eyes would come last.
    “Thanks for the tip,” Siris said, stumbling to his feet.

DEVIATION
THE SECOND
    THE TIME for the meeting with the executives, including Mr. Galath, approached. Uriel could do nothing more to prepare, so he diverted himself by summoning some different ledgers. A pet project of his.
    Like all ledgers, these did not lie. They showed him that Mr. Galath, the chairman, had been withdrawing resources from the company. Subtly, slowly. Uriel had access to all of the accounts, though he wasn’t technically an accountant. He needed these numbers to create his risk assessment charts.
    Mr. Galath was up to something. He was the source of pretty much everything that the company had created, from the satellite technology to the new data compression methods. Galath was a genius—but genius in and of itself was unremarkable. What made Galath special was his ability to run a company at the same time. He was smart, but also wily.
    It had only been six months since Galath had revealed the technology that had been christened Project Omega. Teleportation. Real teleportation. Six months of frenzied work to test products, to obtain patents, to prepare for a world reveal.
    And yet, during all that, Galath had been subtly moving resources to another, hidden project. One nobody else seemed to know about. But Uriel had found it in the numbers, for the numbers did not lie.
    How he wished he could make people act like the numbers did. Rational, consistent.
    This is something big, Uriel thought, sorting through the ledgers. Important.
    But what? That was Uriel’s pet project. Trying to figure out what it was, to guess what Galath was attempting to accomplish. What would his next wonder be?
    As Uriel worked, his screen’s automatic reminder feature pulled up the news of the day. Mary was behind that, as part of her desire for him to pay more attention to the outside world.
    He wasn’t certain why she bothered. The news had nothing interesting for him. More killing in the Middle East. The war in South America. Radiation poisoning from the bombs in India.
    Wasn’t progress supposed to have brought an end to all of this? What of the wonders of technology? We look down on the ancient days for their brutality, but when people murdered each other then it was by the dozen. Not by the million.
    Modern men were the real barbarians.
    He closed the news feed and turned back to his spreadsheets. Curious—according to Galath’s schedules, the chairman had been vanishing for long periods lately.
    That’s odd . . . Uriel thought, noticing something else. Meetings before each disappearance, usually with someone from the company. Not always executives.
    Each time an individual met with Galath in one of these instances, they immediately took a leave from work. So far, none had returned, yet all were still drawing salaries.
    He’s gathering them, Uriel thought. The best of the company, judging by the numbers. He’s placing them on the new project. Uriel pulled up some more files, noticing that each person chosen got a promotion around the same time.
    He found himself increasingly