The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series

by Doug McGovern

  Dante broke off into wild laughter. The Court paused. Buchanan straightened the fancy white coat he wore as a master captain of the high seas. He was indignant that Fulton’s disturbed son would treat him as less than the others.

  Dante spun and leaned over Leaf. He took his chin in his hand and tilted it to look up at the roof.

  “I want you to take it all in, kiddo. Somebody’s got to see it. You’re the only one of the whole clan that ever made any good of it with that technology leak you mastered. I was the grand philosopher, the priest of their empirical doctrine. I taught them the ethics of taking over all the Cosmos. It’s through me that they managed to build this whole system, right? Call me the think tank.” Dante held Leaf’s chin and nodded his head up and down. Leaf’s eyes narrowed. Derek leaned forward sizing Dante up, wondering how he should attack him when it came to that.

  “These are the clowns I succeeded my empire to upon conspiracy and death. You know what they say happens to tyrants…Anyway, it might help you to know what this place really is, huh? Ever heard of astral projection, kiddo? Don’t be shy, son. I’m sure you’ll do just fine in my gauntlet. I’m proud of how you turned out.” Dante grinned. Leaf’s eyes floated nervously to Derek. Should he be concerned about his character if Dante was proud of him?

  “It’s when a person has like an OBE?” Leaf tried not to look at the ceiling or at his father. Dante smiled, laughing hoarsely in his throat.

  “It’s transcendence. The science of transcendence that’s what Occultism really is my young friend. I was the master of puppets when it came to transcendence. The whole bag, sports, lays in understanding this simple science. It’s something these fools never understood. They still want to build this city and fortify it, thinking somewhere in their foggy little brains that this equates dominance. I can’t wait to see this city sink in the oceans of their blood…” Dante’s eyes looked off, staring up at his father with barred brass teeth. He snickered and ran a hand through Leaf’s hair smoothing it back.

  “Collective consciousness. The ability to project one’s astral energies absorbed in the super complex partially discovered human body into other dimensions and ‘download’ one’s self into the organic program that made up the Cosmos. That’s what astral projection is, my young friend. Those codes, that self-correcting consciousness. The universe itself, the astral plane is made of that. If you were to triumph over the mechanics of organisms and their minds…You could rule the entire Cosmos. You could make them hop and move to your will. It’s all puppets, Sergeant.” Dante knelt beside Leaf. Leaf groaned. Dante snickered and slapped his knee caps.

  “Now you’re seeing it all, huh? This place is a program but as alive as you or I ever were and are. It exists because of the souls pirated to store it in the midst of some dormant plane. Now unless you crazy kids can make it to the finals and be our grand prize winners, there’s no way out of it. You’re locked up in Pandora’s Box, you see. Standing with Nero on the roof, watching the whole thing burn down to the sound of fiddles.

  “For every one of our actions in this manipulated universe, there will be a reaction somewhere else. That’s how the Order that the Fulton’s adopted to themselves and sponsored with all the mass material cash pooling they succeeded in managed to obtain temporary dominance for the time they did.”

  Dante slapped the floor, cackling.

  “There’s the answer to all your riddles, right there! Life’s work answered in thirty seconds. As a bonus, I’ll tell you the next big thing that’s planned. This place had a champion for a while. We always keep a monarch butterfly, huh? A queen bee to exploit and set up as the parading tyrant ruler while we pull intrigue strings to get what we want out of all life. We’re in the market for a successor and whoever that will be will need a wingman. You’ll have a job one way or the other sport, and in exchange, you can keep your humanity or what’s left of it. Because our technology has advanced again more than we ever thought it would. Maybe you saved your world and equipped it at the same time with the tools it would need to fight back when we came for them. Kudos to you boys anyway, but it’s not gonna matter for long.” Dante paused, snuffing the cigar against Leaf’s lips. Leaf squared his jaw. He wasn’t afraid of him and that earned Dante’s respect. It was a rare individual who didn’t squirm under his gaze.

  “Why’s that, wormhole?” Derek spat on the court. Dante spun, seething in his throat with soft catlike hisses.

  “Ah, look who’s gotten feisty on a sudden. Because we have taken the machine breakthrough wonder-boy came up with here, combined it with the DNA splicing we studied from Andromeda’s clones, mixed it with the same Frankenstein’s zoo experiments we made in creating little Jessop and all those kids…We found a way to breach the gap between machine and organism. Take the whole concept of android to the next level. Now we have organic mechanisms and weapons of immaterial destruction. Forgive me for gushing. I’m just so darned proud of my prodigies!” Dante curled his pink finger and giggled like a teenage girl.

  “Don’t take credit for it! Sure, so you and your team officially gave life to the Great Fish but it was I and my son that came up with the technology that gave it consciousness! It’s scrambling psychotic sonar will soon develop. We are at our prime now. What are we wasting any further time on these games and these mundane punishments for when we could let the thing out on the human skies? Send it back through the Bermuda Triangle sized whole your boys here opened over Washington. Why it’s the mother of all EMP weapons. You all know it! It would electron lift all the neurotransmission out of every human brain. Knock the whole place out like a power grid, blow the earth to shreds. Absorb all of their neuron activity and the earth’s energy in that same fell swoop and we would harness the ability to pilot ourselves back to the Father Realm.” Cyrus Manson climbed up on the rail, waving his arms to gather the full attention of the Court. Leaf and Derek exchanged a glance.

  “All this time, the purpose of this Nuclear Mafia was to find a way to rocket ship yourselves back to the Father Realm? What is that like where Lucifer lives? So the whole human race had to suffer just because you’ve been nipping at laced Kool-Aid?!” Derek spat, balling his fists.

  “Come to think of it, I will buy these off of you. For cheap, which is all they are. I might be persuaded to pay a premium price if I knew you were gonna demolish them. If not, then allow me.” Manson pointed an EMP device at Leaf’s forehead. Derek clenched his teeth. These guys knew all the right buttons to push. That’s what had essentially pushed them to the top of their food chain.

  “Go easy. Haven’t even test drove them, eh? Not worried about the brakes either, hotshot. I’m thinking a designer of the world’s greatest machines, particularly the Great Fish, would realize the beauty of such organic engineering as the Gemini could be and want to save them for performance alone. Too bad you’re blinded by your ego and the fact that your son got the best of you.” Dante swung the iron pole around again.

  “Fine, then. No more games. This ring’s not big enough for the test I want to put you to, boys. Take a walk below decks.” Dante hit a lever on the floor. There was a sickening moment like the split second when a man is standing on a gallows and the floor falls out from underneath him. Derek and Leaf slipped through another tunnel adjacent to the elevator system they’d climbed up. They plummeted into darkness and a giant octagon shaped cage halfway full of motor oil.

  “No quarter, boys! Not for love or money!” Dante was rioting enjoying himself. Almost so much that he didn’t notice the commotion of his audience or the clicking of chains from the rafters.

  “Check it, Sparkles! Somebody’s sitting in your designated spot!”

  A child’s voice echoed off all the brassy walls. It had been so long since a member of the Court had shown such audacity to the great Lord Dante. There was a gut-wrenching, impossible silence that quivered as if the air itself was queasy to hear it.

  Dante’s whole body flashed with static electricity that gathered from the poison that perme
ated his pores. Now the audience saw the true reason why his grotesque flesh was painted gold. He shrieked, blood erupted from his rage flaring nostrils.

  Reilly Riveaulx danced a swan’s ballet from the rafters, swinging about his throne.

  Dante leaped and started climbing the cage walls, back and forth bouncing like a hornet trapped in a beer stein.

  “Lord Dante! She’s the one I mean. If you destroy her-!” Buchanan put a handout. His eyes had gone wide. Reilly chanced a glance over at him. It was the first time she’d ever seen her biological father. Funny how he only wanted to save her to fulfill his own ends.

  “So is that what they call you, Ritz? Check it! I found the keys to your heart, baby. Don’t these belong to my mama now? Ooh, you’ve still got an old flame for her don’t you, despite all she did. Want a shot at the vengeance everybody else is vying for? Step right up!” Reilly twisted in the chains until she had a basket swing to sit in. She dangled her feet prissily and whistled, swinging a set of keys in the air. Dante roared furiously. He leaped, barring fingernails and teeth, making to tear into her. There was blood as he made contact.

  “Wooha, that was close! Alright, ladies, I’m bringing this party your way!” Reilly swung head over heels and started climbing to the arena’s walls again. She slipped the cords of keys over her neck again and bolted.

  “After her, you fools! Those keys are my remote controls!” Dante scratched his way up the walls, leaving fingernail trenches six inches deep. It dawned on the guards suddenly how grave losing those keys were. They were part of the design work that had linked Dante’s consciousness to the mindless Geryon beast in the first place. If someone used the tuning forks in the back of those keys, they could exercise mind control over Dante. The results would be beyond catastrophic.

  *****

  Chapter 16

  Kiara spun into action, kicking several of their assailants in the teeth. One dropped a pair of knives. Kiara snatched them up and tossed one to Kingsley. Kingsley jabbed it in a Medusa’s throat.

  Vincent and Jane went back to back.

  “Just like we rehearsed back in our dojo, baby.” Vincent linked arms with his daughter as they were surrounded.

  “It’s old times, huh, dad? Now I remember it all.” Jane used Vincent’s back as a springboard kicking a slow advancing team of her own doubles back into the ranks. They toppled like bowling pins and rolled away, burning, exploding in the distance.

  Dexter put his head down and ran into the fray. He head-butted a Pandora-Man double and ripped its gun straight from its belt. Turning, he shot several more, backing up until he was close to Vincent and Jane again.

  Leona cut through the line-up.

  “My plan is a simple one, child. To destroy the system I created is to redeem it from the hands of charlatans and cowards. To do that I must draw all the consciousness I have collected to one place and then disperse it to the four winds. I must unravel all the locks and bars I have made if I am to tear this place down with my hands. For that I need you. I need you to be the bait that will draw that consciousness to the machine I need. If you still have the faith it takes to save your loved ones, you will follow this road down to the Falls of Ice and Fire.” Leona grabbed one of the listless Andromeda doubles by its hair and drove her sword into its heart.

  It blinked, dying without a sound. It fell at Jane’s feet.

  Jane looked at her father. Would he bless her decision?

  “Go on, Janey. Follow up with what old bag’s plan A is just for now. I’ll have plan B served up fresh just as soon as I can.” Vincent winked. A battle-horn blew somewhere in the distance. Lucia was on ground level now, coming with his own team to take them.

  “He’s mine.” Vincent had always been a reckless sort. Over the years, with all the sacrifices he’d made, he was desperate to see this thing done. He’d even returned from the dead with all his secrets to put an end to it. He broke away from Jane and tore forward, headed for Lucia without heeding any of Leona’s actions.

  Lucia drew out a broadsword.

  “Stand aside, old man.” Lucia tossed his head. This little dog was no match for him.

  “Oh, look who’s talking, huh? You’re part of that race of super-beings that lives for eons, genius.” Vincent’s eyes burned a sunset red. His anomaly had kicked into full swing. He was ready for this.

  “Dad, wait!” Jane stumbled over her own doubles. They held her back, picked her up on their shoulders like she was their team hero. She struggled and cried out. Jane Lewis was helpless again! She thrashed, striking out with her teeth. It was no use.

  “You really want to cross blades with me, Lewis? As if that will somehow make all of the failures you’ve let slide concerning your family okay. Do you even know where your son is or who he is now? To say nothing of the Hell-heir that I’ll be collecting now.” Lucia made a move toward Jane. Vincent thrust out his hand.

  It happened in a few frames of a second. Jane shrieked, snapping doppelganger’s bones as she hit the floor with a loud crack. She lingered here on the ground, puffing for a moment. Everything moved in reverse in her vision, playing back slowed down by powers of ten in a vivid flashback.

  Vincent stretched out his hands, concentrating his full power.

  “There was a reason I came back to Earth, you know? A reason I went down here after you. I believed in her. I still do. One thing you don’t know about her because you don’t know me…” Vincent’s eyelids glowered with faint infrared. Blood tears fell and he groaned, whole body thrashing with the heat of lasers waking up in his veins.

  Lucia inched back and forth like a sound-mixer. His teeth gnashed and blood came up.

  “Jane had the gift of my genes. Science can’t even fully explain what caused me to be born this way. All my life, I tried to find a reason. The reason was her. The reason was this.” Vincent dove forward. His lights shot out.

  All of the doubles were frozen, mouths open, turned to pillars of salt. Their ranks were thrust backward, rolling together like giant thunderhead clouds and bubbling like seafoam against the walls.

  A center point of bright laser-red energy appeared in Lucia’s forehead.

  “My gift was to hunt killers, to stop bullies. I’ve traced rivers and oceans of blood back to you. Your power, your DNA…You wove it through the worlds. I might not be able to stop you in this moment from wreaking physical havoc on this place you hold together. But the spread of your cancer into the Earth and the Galaxies stops here.” Vincent grabbed Lucia by the forehead. An infrared beam shot from the medial nerve of his hand, straight into the light point in Lucia’s forehead. The priest of Poseidon’s Gates was driven back, thrown and magnetically stuck to the chest of the great statue of Poseidon himself.

  Jane stood up as the current world spun back into view. Pieces of burning doubles were coming down from the ceiling. Congregants of simulated hell’s dystopic marketplace scattered, shrieking with one tremulous voice.

  Leona shrieked. She set off, sword raised, headed straight for the stairwell that led up to the Athena’s Rings and the statue’s shoulders. Smoke was rising from that direction. A battle cry rose from the balconies of Hell. True and raw chaos like only the Underworld could roll out had risen from its arenas. No one was getting out unscathed.

  “Dad!” Jane dove forward, sliding in ashes and blood on the polished flooring. The smoke from the lasers and Lucia’s touchdown in Poseidon’s heart rolled over her, singeing her eyelids shut for a second. She shook herself and crawled to her dad, begging.

  “No, no! No-I just got you back…” Jane took his face in either hand, slapping each cheek. Vincent’s attack had saved them. Had crippled Lucia. Whether Leona got her revenge or not, he would never be able to excavate himself free of Poseidon’s bones. He’d bowed his shoulders and shook the mountains. Whatever the full sum of Lucia’s sins had been, he’d paid for them. Would pay for them for all Eternity in that position.

  “He’s…he’s got vitals?” Jane pressed her fingertips to Vince
nt’s jugular, eyeing Dexter with curiosity.

  “Can you die here?” Dexter looked at Kiara. The former assassin stood with blood-drenched knife poised in the air, trailing red droplets in a ring about Vincent’s limp form.

  “His spirit will lay unconscious that he ever lived until all of this is made right. There are many ways this can happen, but only one that is justifiable.” Kiara lowered her knife and looked at Kingsley. He crept closer, eyes tired and sad. Jane understood.

  “You have to repeat your sacrifice here, don’t you? That’s what the two of you were talking about before.” Jane cradled her father’s head. She felt so helpless and lost now. She closed her eyes and memories came flooding back. Memories of the days long before she started a hand to hand street brawl with Leona. In her waking mind, she could see her history with the She-Hitler that predated that fateful night she first slipped into the collective consciousness.

  These memories stung with acidic images of the days when Leona was the mod lord of Louisiana who ruled the night. She saw as her father fought valiantly even while dying of contusion wounds for years to stop that beast from rising. He’d had her at his side the whole time, even after Leona released a Kelley Pharmaceuticals neurotoxin that caused an epidemic of psychogenic amnesia that year. How else had Jane ever completely forgotten her life of crime fighting alongside Leaf and Derek? Or vice versa?

  Jane felt the weight of her entire life landslide down her shoulders in seconds. She trembled, bowing over her father, staring into space with listless, fish-cold eyes. Dexter knelt beside her and clutched her arm.

  Jane felt her friends around her. Their steadiness in the face of all this uncertainty was enough to overshadow her and give her some charge. Maybe she could lift herself up and go through with this ridiculous plan. Assuming it was still necessary.