by Ramy Vance
Hell looked like a giant angel.
Above that infernal machine of an angel was the flaming sphere. "You ever see anything like that before?"
Rasputina had donned her cloak and pulled it tightly to her body. "Yes. A few times, but only in dreams. In between places when I was exploring multiverses, never in person. Never right in front of me."
"What are we supposed to do? Can we speak to it?"
Rasputina hobbled toward the sphere. Even though her body was younger than when Abby had first met her, the lich still occasionally moved like a broken creature. Perhaps she always would. "Who knows?" Rasputina wheezed. "No doubt they've already tried to speak with it on the surface. Or attack it."
Abby shook her head as she thought about what humans might do with an omen such as this. It didn't seem too far of a stretch for them to panic.
Panic led to mistakes.
Abby tapped her comm, patching herself through to Terra. "What's going on with your fireball?"
A holoscreen projected of Terra. "Nothing," she replied. "We've been here for a minute, and it just keeps repeating the same thing. Not much of a conversationalist."
Anabelle popped up on the holoscreen. "Same here. We've tried a couple different methods too. Obviously, talking. Signing. Even a couple of ancient magical forms of communication. We're getting nothing as well."
Abby returned her focus to the sphere. She heard a dull voice in the back of her head. It was quiet, as if she were hearing it from far away, but she could still make out the words. "We will speak to the Dark One."
The psychic communication must have been filtered through all the tech in her head. "You hear that?" she asked.
Rasputina nodded, her eyes never leaving the sphere. "Yes. Not as loudly as I believe I am supposed to, though. Being the ruler of hell gives me certain privileges."
Abby raised an eyebrow at the lich. "Ruler? I thought we were in Grok's throne room."
"Grok and I have different forms of rulership. There are things I am trying to build here. You may see them eventually."
One of the rings passed overhead and Abby could see demons scuttling across its surface, craning their necks to get a look at the fiery sphere floating in the nexus of the spinning circles.
Suddenly, the sphere surged, growing nearly twice as large as sunspots grew over its surface and energy flashed from its sides, slashing at the sky as if it were a whip. "What was that about?" Abby wondered aloud.
Anabelle appeared on the holoscreen again. "We sort of have a situation here!"
Anabelle watched in horror as a squadron of fighter jets sped toward her and the dragonriders. She hadn't received information that any of the human armed forces had been given clearance to interact with the sphere. She also couldn't make out any insignia or markings on the planes.
Roy pulled his dragon mech around to get a better look at the approaching aircraft. "Who the fuck approved this?"
"Wait, you didn't know about this either?"
"No. Myrddin made it very clear that we were going to be handling this. Probably the States. Figures that they wouldn't be able to just sit back and let us take care of it. Guess someone wants to attempt to play the hero. I'm going to try and call them off."
Anabelle could hear Roy patching into the planes’ communication. "This is Roy from the Integration Initiative. You are to stand down. Do not engage with the bogey. Stand down."
A voice came over the comm. "No can do. We have our orders, you have yours. It's about time for humans to start taking care of themselves instead of relying on all you magical people. That's probably what got us into this mess."
The comm went dead, and the planes flew past the dragonriders. "Fucking idiots," Alex muttered over the comm. "We're not going to be able to save their asses."
Anabelle looked after the planes heading toward the sphere. "Maybe we won't have to save them. They might have a better chance than we do."
As the planes closed in, the sphere grew larger again. Energy flares lashed out from the surface of the sphere as they neared. One of the flashes tore straight through the closest plane, shearing it in half, and the rest vaporized.
Roy cried out as he and the dragonriders backed up. "That's not going to look good for any of us. Fucking idiots."
Alex flew over to Roy's side. "What'd I tell you?"
Anabelle was annoyed with Alex's tone of voice. "You don't have to sound so smug about it. Those people just died serving—"
"They died listening to stupid orders."
Anabelle could hear the pain in Alex's voice. Obviously, whatever had happened to have turned the dragonriders and Myrddin against her still weighed on her. "You're right, it was a stupid order."
They were quiet, the unspoken tension between Roy and Alex returning. Luckily, Abby started talking. "Did something happen on your end?"
Anabelle tapped her comm to bring Abby's face up. "Yeah, that thing just wiped out six fighter jets. And nearly doubled in size, too."
"Did it attack them with flares?"
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"Terra, what happened to your sphere?"
Terra popped up on the holoscreen. "Ours grew too. Just about double. And it let out a bunch of solar flares as well."
Abby furrowed her brow. "We’re not looking at different things, we're all looking at the same one."
Anabelle scoffed loudly, although she was aware that it might not make sense to doubt Abby, even if what she was proposing sounded insane. Still, it was difficult to wrap her head around it. "What do you mean, the same one? We can't all be seeing the same thing."
Abby nodded as she crossed her arms. "It's the same. Everyone is reporting the same phenomena at the same time. Sounds unlikely, but I think that's why we can't talk to it."
Terra rubbed her shaven head. "Not following here."
Abby turned away from her screen for a second. "Okay, give us some time to figure this out, and don't get too close to that thing. If anything changes, get in touch with us ASAP, all right?"
Anabelle and Terra agreed, and Terra and Abby disappeared from the holoscreen.
"Guess we're on guard duty," Anabelle muttered.
Abby sat in front of the sphere, her legs crossed as she tried to think of a solution. Her theory still seemed too far out there, even for her.
How could the same object appear over multiple planets at the same time?
It stretched her understanding of the planes of reality. Each realm being interlaced over each other was one thing. If the sphere had appeared over the different geographic locations that lined up with the alternate realm versions of New York, that would have been one thing.
But the sphere had appeared in wildly different places that only seemed to have superficial things in common, the primary one being that they were heavily populated.
Not counting hell.
Hell was different. There, the sphere appeared above the throne room.
Abby looked at Rasputina, who was also watching the sphere. "You said you've seen something like this before. What was it?"
Rasputina scratched her face, tearing a little bit of flesh off. "Never could say. Out there, nothing really makes sense. I thought it was an angel or something. Maybe a planet caught in a time loop. But you've been in between the realms. You know how nonsensical it is."
Abby knew exactly what Rasputina was talking about. When she had slipped between the realms and space-time, she'd seen some weird stuff. She still didn’t know what to make of all of it. "Maybe we're only getting a slice of it. You know, like fourth-dimensional interaction limited because we're three dimensional. That could be why..."
An idea flashed in Abby's mind, and she pulled Martin up on her comm. "Hey, those drone pods ever get installed in the other realms?"
When the integration process first started, Abby had thought it would be a good idea to work on a central communication hub. She'd built a handful of drones infused with her nanobots, those grown within her body, to use as communication p
orts between the realms, rather than routing communications through the older systems.
It had been a novel concept, but Creon had already been working on a system with the elvish and gnomish governments. Abby's project was a lower priority. As far as she knew, the drones were going to be installed as a backup plan in case anything happened to the main communication network.
Creon slid over to his computer and started looking. "Yep, they were installed a couple of months ago. They're running in sleep mode."
"Can you do me a favor? Broadcast my signal to all the drones."
Creon gave her a puzzled look. "Wait, you mean all of them? That's all nine realms, Abby."
"Yeah. We need to make a construct first, though. Give us...twenty minutes or so?"
"All right. Message me when you're ready."
Rasputina watched Abby as the young woman closed her eyes.
Abby concentrated on increasing her nanobot count as quickly as possible. She could feel them multiplying in her veins and the nanobot consciousness growing stronger. It felt almost like another person was in her skull, watching her actions. She hated the feeling, even though she knew the consciousness had nothing but her best interests in mind. It still felt eerie.
Martin appeared in Abby's peripherals. "Finally got something cooking?"
"Yeah. Could you reduce our bodily functions to sleep mode? Only cognitive after we finish constructing."
"Will do."
Abby knew when she'd reached her threshold. Her body could deal with more nanobots than a year before, but she still had her limits. She pressed her hands to the ground and nanobots flowed out of her pores, stacking on top of each other to build a satellite that pointed in the fiery sphere's direction. Then she sat down and leaned against the satellite.
A cord snaked out of the satellite and wrapped around her neck. She pulled her hair up in a bun, exposing a hole in the back of her neck. She grabbed the plug and jacked herself into the satellite.
Abby's body disappeared, or at least she lost feeling in it. Everything was dark. Nine lights shone in the darkness: her drones. She reached out to them with her mind.
The signal passed through the realms, boosted by Creon at HQ.
Suddenly Abby could see again. At first it was difficult to make sense of, but she started to get the hang of it. She was seeing through the eyes of all nine drones simultaneously.
Martin whistled. "Okay, that's pretty impressive."
Abby pinpointed the location of the spheres on all the planets, then she focused with everything she had and teleported the drones directly under their planet's sphere.
The voice from the sphere rumbled, Abby's drones picked it up and digitized it back to her.
"We will speak to the Dark One."
Abby's signal was broadcast by all the drones at the same time. "Hello. We are Abby. We want to talk."
There was silence, then the voice thundered.
"Abby. We will speak to the Dark One, but first, we will speak to you."
Chapter Four
The voice spoke, and Abby heard. It spoke not only in words but in visions, images that felt like they were stitched together from eternities that had come into existence and been snuffed out within moments. The visions reverberated through Abby's mind as she grappled with them, trying to make sense of what was before her.
It was like drowning. Every statement from the sphere hit Abby like a crushing wave. She wanted to pull away, to end all communication, but she knew that if she just held on a little longer, maybe, just maybe, it would all start to make sense.
Just a little longer...
"We will speak with the Dark One, Abby."
The inside of Abby's skull was vibrating. No, that couldn't be right. She couldn't feel the rest of her body. She was somewhere in cyberspace, a frequency free of physical form, yet there was throbbing pain somewhere, and she knew it was inside her.
Abby suddenly felt very grounded in her body. She opened her eyes. She'd been disconnected from the satellite. When she tried to stand, she found that she couldn't move her legs.
Rasputina was beside her. "Are you okay?"
Abby rubbed her face, and her hand was smeared with blood. "What happened?"
"You were talking to yourself, rambling as if you were having a conversation. Then you started convulsing and screaming. That was when I unplugged you."
Abby looked at the sphere. Or the Omniverse. She wasn't sure how she knew that was what it was called, but she did. "We need to see Myrddin."
Rasputina held out her hand and the reality around Abby split open, forming a portal.
Abby looked at Rasputina, confused. As far as Abby knew, getting in and out of hell was extremely complicated. "How are you doing that?"
Rasputina picked Abby up. "I've had a long time to be in hell. More than enough time to learn the necessary things."
The lich stepped into the portal, instantly stepping out on the other side.
The two of them were at HQ in the medical department. They were standing in front of an elvish nurse whose jaw dropped the moment he saw Abby and Rasputina.
Rasputina placed Abby on a bed and headed back toward the portal. "Wouldn't be good for me to stay here any longer. Keep in touch." She stepped through the portal and disappeared.
Abby sighed and rested her head on the soft pillow. "Could you find Myrddin and the rest of the DGA? We need to talk to them."
The nurse rushed out of the room as Abby tried to recall what had happened between her and the Omniverse.
Martin appeared before Abby. "Hey, how you holding up?"
"Terrible. Head is all fuzzy. What happened?"
Martin's paperclip body straightened out and then curled into a slinky. "Still trying to figure that out too. What I do know is that you interfaced with that thing. Nearly shorted out your whole system. It was some kind of direct link. I recorded what you were saying when it made sense, but for a lot of the time, you were dreaming. A lot of REM. I also recorded an imprint of what you were seeing."
"You can record our dreams?"
Martin shrugged. "Don't worry, I don't make a habit of it."
"Go ahead and play it back to me."
Martin disappeared. "You might want to grab some popcorn for this one. It's a doozy."
Abby closed her eyes and watched her dream while she listened to the recording of her mutterings. "Oh,” she murmured, “this isn't good."
Roy, Anabelle, Terra, and Myrddin gathered in Abby's room in the med-bay.
Abby was already sitting up, surrounded by a host of holoscreens.
Terra took a seat on the bed. "When did you get back from hell?"
Abby looked up at the clock. "An hour or two ago. Rasputina brought me back."
Myrddin's eyes narrowed. "She was here? How?"
"She opened a portal and brought me back after I spoke with the Omniverse."
Anabelle moved over near Terra so she could get a better look at the holoscreens. "Hmmph. You leave a lich alone in the Netherverse, and she’ll figure out how to become stronger. At least she seems like she doesn't want to start any problems with us. And what's this about an Omniverse?"
"That's what is hanging in the skies. It's called the Omniverse."
Abby activated the holoscreens. Her dreams were displayed on them while her voiceover played. There was a thundering noise in the background of the audio. "Have you heard about this, Myrddin?"
The wizard shook his head slowly.
In Abby's dream, she was standing before the Omniverse. The world was shifting around her. She could see the Netherverse. Suddenly, it flipped upside down, and there was another plane beneath it.
"You know that question we had about where good souls go? Apparently, they go to the Omniverse. We don't know the criteria for what a good soul is, not that we knew about the bad ones, but we do know they're sent to the Omniverse. By now, it should be apparent that the Omniverse wants to speak to the Dark One, but I guess we did something to upset it at some point. S
ending Grok to turn off the valve to mess with the way that souls are housed apparently rubbed the Omniverse the wrong way."
Abby posted the audio so everyone could hear her voice.
"The disruption of souls must be stopped," Abby's recorded voice said in a trancelike tone. "Restore the nature of the Netherverse. The souls will flood until this has been fixed. I will speak with the Dark One. The time for judgment is near. The dead will walk the land of the living. Restore the valve."
The holoscreens went dead.
Anabelle looked from Abby to Terra. "How did Grok say she was going to turn the valve off?"
Abby shrugged. "She didn't say, but she didn't leave until after the Omniverse arrived. This thing not only has something close to omnipresence but also omniscience. It knew what Grok was going to do before it was done."
"We're going to have to talk to it again. Figure out what it wants with the Dark One and what it's talking about with the whole valve thing. Probably should get in touch with Grok too."
Everyone in the room's comms went off at the same time. Creon's frantic voice came through. "Guys, we have a problem.”
Terra chuckled. “Let me guess. Little sun meteors with axe-wielding polar bears are attacking the Nine Realms?”
Creon didn’t laugh; his face was deadly serious. “The dead. They're…they’re rising. Everywhere. All over the world. And they're attacking people."
Intel was gathered as quickly as possible. The DGA waited in the war room as reports flooded in. Creon and Abby were trying to get as many video recordings as possible. It wasn't hard. From the looks of it, Earth was experiencing a full-on zombie apocalypse.
The first reports indicated that the undead were digging their way out of their graves in cemeteries throughout the city, their rotten bodies hardly holding together as they shambled after citizens. These zombies weren’t the fast kind from 28 Days Later. They were more the slow, ineffective ones from the Walking Dead.
People could outrun them and hide in their homes, but that was a temporary solution at best. Soon enough, people would run out of food and supplies.