by Ramy Vance
Suzuki pushed up closer so that he could see better through Fred’s eyes. Higher grade chips and powers for those closest to the Dark One?
Exactly.
Which means—
That every orc, goblin, and giant in this defense ring will be considerably stronger than anything we’ve faced so far.
Fuck. Why can’t things just be easy for once?
Chapter Nineteen
Fred and Ros’ten had made sure to push the ashes of the orc they had recently killed to the side, hiding them out of view of anyone who might have wandered behind the buildings.
Then they set a nav point for the first group of diggers, the Mundanes and José, and another nav point for the second group, the rest of the Horsemen and the recuperating soldiers. Once that was done, they returned to the crowded streets of the final defense ring. Suzuki was more focused on what was going on around him now. The orc recognizing them had given him a scare. There was no telling how many agents of the viceroy were in the defense ring. They had to find the ringtone and get out of the middle of the viper’s den as soon as possible.
One thing that caught Suzuki’s attention now in a way that hadn’t before was just how advanced the tech was that the different races under the Dark One’s command was utilizing. It didn’t just look futuristic. It didn’t even look human. It was beyond anything that Suzuki had ever seen or read about outside the most utopian science fiction. There was no reason that it should have been here. The air was clean and smelled fresh as if there was nothing but clean fuel. The cars and trolleys that zoomed by hardly made a noise, yet no one seemed caught off-guard by them. Suzuki noticed that even the HUDs that appeared to be for the bureaucratic peons seemed to be more advanced than anything that he had seen MERCs with – and that was including what Chip had modified.
That brought Suzuki’s mind back to Chip as they walked through the defense ring, both Fred and Ros’ten trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The closest thing that Suzuki had seen to the tech being brandished by the Dark One was Chip.
Even then, it had only been for a moment.
Outside of seeing Chip torn nearly to bits, Suzuki hadn’t gotten a chance to take a good look at her weaponry. Maybe Chip held some kind of tie to the Dark One. He remembered that he had initially doubted Chip’s position with MERC. Those doubts had fallen to the wayside when he had seen her loyalty to her party and her willingness to help the Mundanes. But if MERCs could have spies as deeply imbedded in the Dark One’s camps as Ansalm had been, what was keeping the Dark One from doing the same? Further, it didn’t seem like free will was a part of the question.
Chip could be a spy and not even realize it.
Suzuki felt Fred turn inward and face him. I know Chip and the tech are troubling you, Fred started out. But we don’t have time for you to be lost in your thoughts. Even if you are not in your body right now, we need as many eyes as we possibly can get.
You’re right. I’ll stay focused.
For all of our sakes, Suzuki, please do so. Beth and Ros’ten cannot do this by themselves.
Suzuki nodded. Gotcha. Don’t worry. My head’s in the game. But there’s some shit we need to talk about. I can’t keep my brain from doing what it’s got to do. We need to find someplace quiet to talk.
Fred looked around. Besides the orc that had taken notice of them, it didn’t seem as if anyone else was really concerned with who was around. Maybe hiding in plain sight is the best idea, Fred suggested as he guided Ros’ten to a bench placed in the middle of what looked like a small technological garden. There were no plants or trees. Instead, there were steel constructions that were made to look like foliage. Yet that was not it completely. The metal, much like the metal that formed the large buildings, looked to be alive, snaking back and forth, flowing as if it were water. Suzuki wondered what would happen if he reached out and touched it.
Again, Suzuki was surprised at the attention to detail and the beauty that seemed to run rampant in this section of the defense ring. It was almost as if the entire area had been lovingly built by an architect that had some message for the world. This garden radiated peace yet still seemed to push forward, toward the future, as if its entire elegant design was not something far beyond the simple machinations of humanity. Suzuki hadn’t seen anything this well-crafted since he and the Mundanes had visited an elvish city.
Now that Suzuki thought about it, the design of the garden looked very elvish. It reminded him of a lot of the elvish art that he had seen in the VR Middang3ard as well. Chip had mentioned that she was half-elvish…
Fred took a seat on the bench and looked out at the garden. Even though Fred was not directing any of his immediate thoughts in Suzuki’s direction, Suzuki could still feel the appreciation Fred had for the garden, a feeling that Suzuki had not sensed from Fred before. However this garden had been created, it was made in a way that had touched all of them. This unsettled Suzuki greatly. Thinking of the Dark One as a force of evil had been easy in the abstract.
He had seen the damage the Dark One’s forces had caused. He’d seen the tyrannical control the Dark One maintained over the different races. Yet here the Mundanes were, sitting in a beautiful garden crafted from the most illustrious materials Suzuki had ever seen, bathed in some kind of radiant glow, feeling a sense of peace that went down deep into their cores, almost as if it were ambient music being broadcast through speakers.
Suzuki felt Ros’ten and Beth connect to him mentally as they all sat in the garden and took in its delights. They do this at Disneyland, Beth mused. The exact same freaky shit.
Disneyland? What the hell was Beth talking about? Care to elaborate a little more on that? Suzuki asked.
Pump feelings into the air. You know, when you go to Disneyland, everything always smells so good all the time. It always smells like fresh popcorn or…I don’t know…like savory foods and stuff. Not BBQ, but like something’s grilling. You never know what it is. There’s just this feeling. It’s because they pump scents into the air. All over the park, they have all these vents that just keep flooding the air with smells of food. And you buy food. But it’s not just that…it’s weirder than that.
Are you talking Simulacra and Simulation?
Suzuki, I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
It’s a book by Jean Baudrillard. He talks about how Disneyland is—
Will you please just give me the Cliff Notes?
It’s about how Disneyland is supposed to remind us of something that isn’t real, but we wish it were. You know, like no place smells like great food all the time, and it’s supposed to remind us of something magical, but there’s really nothing magical like that…so it creates something completely new that we get lost in…and you don’t even know it.
Like mind control that you don’t even know is controlling your mind…like an alternate reality in your head that you don’t even realize is nothing like reality.
Suzuki watched the crowds of orcs and goblins and ogres lumber through the streets of the last defense ring. They didn’t look like tourists, but neither did anyone in an amusement park. Instead, the different races, specifically the races that Suzuki had always thought of as evil and barbaric, looked as if they were in a simulation imitating order, attempting to pass itself off as a machine with a heart and soul. Yet beneath the surface, there was a lie that was being carefully covered up. Suzuki did not know for whose benefit it was being covered up, though.
Fred interrupted Suzuki’s thoughts. Is this why we have stepped away from our mission, which I would like to remind you, is extremely time-sensitive? To talk about banal human philosophies?
Suzuki remembered what he had initially wanted to ask Fred. No, that’s not what I need to ask you. I need to ask if you have any fucking idea what is going on here? This shit isn’t normal, Fred. This isn’t like anything that I’ve ever seen in Middang3ard. Do you have any idea, any clue as to where all of this advanced tech came from? Have you ever seen anything like this?
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Fred was hesitant to answer. Even when he spoke, Suzuki could still hear it in the imp’s voice. I…I have not seen anything like this, Fred admitted. I have seen many realms and I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. Nor do I believe many have.
What do you know about the Dark One? Suzuki asked.
Beth broke into the conversation, her voice dripping with irritation. Fuck, Suzy, he probably knows the same things that everyone else knows. The Dark One showed up out of nowhere and started enslaving everyone. How the hell does that help us now?
Beth, we’ve been fighting this war, and we don’t even understand what is going on. How are we going to beat something that we don’t understand?
The same way that we beat everything else, Beth growled. We stab it until it doesn’t get up anymore.
Suzuki shook his head. It’s not that simple. Nothing since either of us has gotten to Middang3ard has been that simple.
Beth sighed. All right. Fred, do you have any insight, whatsoever, that makes any of this make any more sense? That makes it any less important that we get that ringtone and get the fuck out of here as soon as possible? Do you have some kind of ancient understanding of the Dark One that you’re only going to explain in riddles and weird ass stories?
Suzuki could tell how frustrated Beth was getting but he didn’t care. They were already grossly outnumbered in the defense ring. It really didn’t matter how fast they tried to take care of their mission. If someone was going to catch them, it was going to happen. They had been found out within their first ten minutes. Suzuki needed to know. He could feel that Fred knew something. He felt it deep down and had been feeling it since their connection had been growing. Fred knew something important, even if Fred didn’t realize how important.
Fred, what is the Dark One? Suzuki asked.
Fred paused before he spoke. The citizens—for that is what they seemed to be, not slaves, not workers, not mindless drones—walked past, hardly taking notice of the imp and magical bee sitting on a bench, admiring the liquid metal sculptures in the garden.
They are said to come from the stars, Fred explained. But in my language, the dead language of the eldritch imps, it is a different sort of star. We have said for eons that the Elder Ones came from the stars. They were born in black holes and dying nebulas. For the most part, it’s true. The first dragon was born of a red dwarf. I saw it myself. I watched him fall from the heavens to an unsuspecting world beneath him. For much of my time, I did not pay too much attention to the rumors spoken of the Dark One. If they were to come from the heavens, what of it? Many greater creatures did just that.
What exactly are you saying, Fred? Beth asked.
The word that I heard for the stars that the Dark One came from was different. It did not mean stars as you know it. The word was yogasoreth. It means the other stars. The stars which we cannot see. The stars which we cannot know.
Suzuki considered this before speaking, There are realms folded on top of realms. That was one of the first things that we learned about Middang3ard. It’s just a realm resting on top of our realms. What’s so special about someone who comes from a star when there’s seven or thirteen different realms with eighty different races?
Because the Dark One comes from the place where there are no stars, Fred said. I believed it to be superstition when I was younger…for much longer than that, and for the same reasons. What difference would it make if a man came from space? There are dwarves that live underground, elves that slip and slide between the realms with hardly a thought, and dark gods that dwell in places both seen and unseen. But what they said of the Dark One was much different.
And what is it? Just spit it out!
Fred fell into silence. It was as if he couldn’t bring himself to speak what must be said.
Instead, Ros’ten spoke. His voice was deep and bubbly, almost like a curious river. He’s embarrassed, Ros’ten murmured. He thinks they be the tales of a child. He is not alone, though. I will say what Fred is afraid to. It is a story many of us hear when we are children. It’s a nowhere place, a place where there is nothing but chaos. Not the chaos lovingly spoken of by the Elder Ones or the eldritch. A place of pure chaos, of pain and suffering that extends outside the limitations of space and time. It’s not another realm, but an entirely other dimension. A place so foreign to us that we would not even comprehend it if we were able to see it. The realms are all different, but they are all the same. They have similar rules of existence. Things are born and things die. Some take longer than others. There is magic. Some know it more than others. But they are all the same, more or less. This realm, the dimension of the Dark One is different. It is outside our comprehension in its horror. And it is said that the Dark One was the only being in this dimension, among millions and trillions of planets, who was able to order the chaos, who single-handedly shaped the entire dimension into a form found to be pleasing. There is no god in any of our realms of such power.
Suzuki still didn’t quite understand what Ros’ten was trying to get at. So, what are you saying? That the Dark One is a god? Like, a real god? Suzuki asked.
I am saying that the Dark One was powerful enough to bend an entirely separate dimension outside our own to his will. The Dark One represents order, in all its potential perverseness, and he has come to spread that order to Middang3ard.
Beth laughed, and Suzuki imagined that she was shaking her head. Ros’ten, you know how to drop the bombs, don’t you? she asked. What I’m hearing is that we’re not facing a god, just a control freak. That sounds easy enough.
Suzuki appreciated Beth’s cavalier attitude, but he felt like it might be misplaced at the moment.
Whatever they were fighting was more than just a control freak. If what Ros’ten was saying was true, they were attempting to go up against a being that believed that he might be a purifying force of nature. He knew people of this sort. He had read about them throughout the world’s history, different generals or leaders who believed that they had the answers to the issues of chaos. Their answers were always totalitarian and always deadly. They were never easy to destroy.
Outside of the internal dialogue that was taking place with the Mundanes, the crowd of orcs and goblins and other races had turned their focus to something that was taking place farther in the defense ring. The whole attitude of the citizens of the defense ring had changed. Before, they had been walking with an almost comically, leisurely pace. Now these same races were rushing toward something, their eyes alight with a kind of fervor and passion which Suzuki had not seen since they had entered the ring. “What the hell is going on?” Suzuki wondered aloud for everyone to hear him.
Fred was the first to answer. “It seems as if something has caught the attention of our enemies.”
Beth chimed in next. “Now would be a good time to make a rush for that ringtone.”
Suzuki weighed his options. Whatever was going on probably was enough to distract the majority of the defense ring based on how strongly this section of citizens was behaving. If there were to be an easy time to sneak into any of the buildings, this would be it. And therein lay the problem. There were multiple small buildings and moderately-sized skyscrapers. There wouldn’t be enough time to search each one. They would be shooting in the dark. “We need more information,” Suzuki finally conceded. “We have no idea where the ringtone is.”
Beth scoffed derisively. “You suggest that we go ask someone where they’re storing the ringtones?” she asked. “Is that before or after we get outed for impersonating the right hand of the viceroy, who just so fucking happens to be in the same defense ring as us?”
“No. I suggest that we keep blending. You said so yourself—this place is like Disneyland. Have you ever been to the Electric Parade? It’s one of the few times in the whole day that the guests are paying attention to the assholes in costumes and the assholes in costumes aren’t paying attention to the guests. It would look more suspicious if we weren’t there.”
No one
could disagree. Fred and Ros’ten stood up and followed the crowd that was swelling around them. Whatever this is it better be worth it, Suzuki thought.
Chapter Twenty
The crowd of races under the Dark One’s technological control were converging toward one of the larger buildings. A long, slender awning stretched out and curved as if to offer shade to what was beneath. Resting under the curve was an odd, monolithic structure. It looked like a giant black slab of concrete that was ten feet tall and roughly five feet across. From a distance, it looked thick and sturdy. Suzuki felt that he recognized it from some place before, like a movie or something. When he thought back, he was reminded of the monolith in the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
He wondered if Myrddin, the wizard who had created Middang3ard VR, had been responsible for seeding the human consciousness with this idea as well. Suzuki couldn’t remember exactly what the monolith was for, though. There was too much going on to distract him.
What Suzuki did notice was the odd energy that seemed to be coming from the monolith as he got closer. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was outside of his body, much the same way that he had begun to think that was why both he and Beth noticed the odd “amusement park” feel to the last defense ring while their familiars hadn’t brought it up. Suzuki apparently was more sensitive to energy at the moment.
Whatever was coming from the monolith was hitting him like a hammer over the head.
The crowd had gathered as if they were watching some kind of sporting event. Suddenly, a screen was projected from the building’s pylon, directly above the monolith so that everyone had to turn to face the monolith so they could see the screen.
The image of a woman was projected onto the screen. She appeared to be ageless, and her skin was an odd yellowish color. Yet it was not her skin that called the eye’s attention, not the color at least. It looked as if her skin were peeling, but not from being dry. Rather, it seemed that her skin was cracked and there was something underneath, desperately trying to force itself out. She seemed to have fiber optic cables underneath her skin instead of muscles and veins. Technology had infected her like a virus. She was missing an eye. It had been replaced with a red orb outfitted with circuitry covering her eyelid and most of her brow. The technological decay extended down to her arms and her chest. The viceroy’s face was the only part of her that conveyed any semblance of being human. She was cloaked in a dark purple robe and sat on a sleek, hovering chair.