by AJ Super
Nyx breathed hard, pulling the jagged code with tendrils of white fog. She swirled them around their bodies, a vortex combining into glitter and dust. Nyx narrowed her eyes in concentration as the queen squirmed underneath her, clawing at the hand around her throat.
The vaulted black room dissolved. The star-scape disappeared. The hovering Earth on the horizon beyond the arching glass windows vanished.
A brilliant light flashed around them, and the white room coalesced. The mauve and lavender peace lily stood on the table next to the divan in the smooth, shining room with no windows. Nyx relaxed and sat back. She eased up and perched on the edge of the white divan, hands in her lap.
The queen laid on the floor. She pushed herself up, ebony hair draping over her tattooed jaw and neck and glanced around. “Where did you bring me?”
“Into my code.” Nyx said softly.
37
The queen struggled to her feet. Her gold dress shimmered and clung to her body, pooling around her thighs and calves, forming a liquid gold jumpsuit that glossed in the light. The liquid fabric crept up her silky, ebony hair, then hardened, contorted, and forged a shimmering crown of spikes with saw-like edges. Bee stingers.
Nyx tipped her head towards the queen. “A little ostentatious.” The low hum of bees filled the shining white room. She glanced down at her own black jumpsuit, her Thanatos uniform.
The queen’s mouth ticked into a sneer. “I want you to know who exactly you are dealing with. I am the God of War, the master strategist, the truth-sayer and seer of futures. I am Phoebe. I am the queen.”
Nyx fiddled with a leaf from the mauve peace lily. “I don’t think you understand where you are.” She was relaxed for the first time since walking into the Queen’s Hall. This was her space. She could program it to do what she wanted. “Your consciousness, code, energy, is in my space. Where I can use and manipulate it. Your Sia body is useless out there.” Nyx waved her hand to empty space. “I can do what I want to you in here. Change you. Make you bend. Make you break.”
A shot of bright periwinkle traveled from the tip of Nyx’s finger across the mauve leaf’s veins and bled through the wide, leathery bract. The pale purple-blue inched through the plant’s stalks and to the tips of its other leaves, variegating the plant. Nyx leaned over the yawning lavender flower. A little gold bee crawled down the throat of the flower. She raised an eyebrow.
The queen scoffed, “Nice trick. But you don’t know what you can do yet. And I’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, with other Nyxes.” The buzzing around her grew louder.
Nyx grinned maliciously. “Phoebe, you’re in my code-world now.” She lifted her hand and a swirling black hole ringed in lavender appeared behind the queen. The empty void of the solid-state drive lay beyond the horizon. “I will force you in if I have to.”
The queen widened her stance and lifted her hands. “That’s not how this works. Has no one explained this part to you? You’d only get part of me in that, and sheer force is the only way you stand a chance.”
Nyx grimaced. It didn’t matter if she didn’t know everything yet. She’d settle for containing even a part of Phoebe. Hobbling the queen meant freeing Erebus.
A humming cloud of gold surrounded the queen. It expanded, breathed.
Nyx stepped back.
The lily reset to its natural emerald shade and a thin stream of gold peeled from the cloud and surrounded the plant. It coalesced into a swarm of gold bees, buzzing loudly. Her control over Erebus’ leftover code had faded. Having the queen inside her space had diminished it.
Another thin stream of gold poured off the cloud covering the queen. It snaked through the air towards her. Nyx stumbled back. She glanced around the empty room. The divan was gone, all that stood near the center of the room was the lily on a table, surrounded by bees.
The snaking mist droned. It dove.
Nyx ducked, putting a hand in front of her face. A flash and white tendrils scattered from Nyx’s palm as a swarm of bees splashed against the brilliant light emitting from her hand.
Nyx stared at her hand, the light on her palm dying.
The queen stepped out of the gold mist and motioned forward. The miasma gathered and hummed. The cloud merged into tiny, buzzing bees. They swarmed to Nyx, surrounding her in a dark cocoon.
The space suffocated. There was no way out. No seams, no light, nothing. If she couldn’t beat the queen in here, she would be no match for her out in real space. She had to find a way. She had to control the light, control the code. All she needed was a single wisp, a single crack in the code. Nyx stared at the palm of her hand through the darkness.
The gossamer fluttered onto her fingers. She opened her eyes, feeling the warmth of the white light. She concentrated on the light on her palm and pushed it, let it spill out from her, filling the buzzing sarcophagus. Her smoky tendrils coalesced inside the encasing bees. They swelled, pushed, and shining cracks formed in the gold cloud of bees.
The wisps were aurora in the black, and Nyx was floating. She willed the tendrils to push harder. They exploded outward, a shower of white sparks amidst glimmering gold dust.
The queen stood inches from Nyx, gold bees buzzing behind her.
Surprised, Nyx stepped backward. Nothing was there. The black hole ringed with lavender sucked at her. She tottered, precariously perched on the edge.
The queen raised her hands to shove her. Nyx grabbed her and twined her arms with the queen’s. The queen’s cedar eyes widened.
Nyx tilted her head. “If I fall, you’re coming with me.”
The queen jerked back, pulling Nyx back into the white room. Nyx stutter-stepped forward. The queen balled her fist and slammed it against Nyx’s temple. She fell to the ground, and the bees plunged toward her.
Nyx raised her hands and a blast of light filled the room. Gold dust sprinkled from the air, salting the ground. Nyx reached above her and grabbed the queen’s ankles. She pulled hard, wrenching the woman off her feet. The queen fell with a crash, her crown clattering metallically on the shining white floor. Cheap shot, for cheap shot, if that’s how it was going to be.
The glowing light in Nyx’s hands ignited. She stumbled to standing and grabbed the crown. It melted slowly where she touched it as she held it in her glowing hands.
She tossed the half-melted hunk of metal into the eddies of the black-hole.
The queen crawled to her feet. Nyx grabbed her by the throat, her piercing light burning a hand-print into amber skin. She clawed at Nyx’s fingers, tears gathering in her gold-ringed eyes.
Nyx pushed her back to the precipice of the swirling black hole. She would be done with this once and for all.
The queen gripped Nyx’s arm, gasping. “You can’t.”
“I am,” Nyx hissed. “Your empire will fall. And you won’t ever be able to touch Erebus again.”
“You can’t.” The queen scrabbled at Nyx’s arm. “She’ll never be the same. Cripple my program like this and the virus still lives. It may have part of me in the design, but it’s not attached to me. Only I know how to disengage it.” She glanced over to the peace lily encircled by a thin trail of gold bees. “Do this and Erebus will always be fettered by my virus.”
Nyx pushed the queen closer to the whirling vortex. “Let my sister go.”
The queen smiled maliciously. “You have a choice. You can download the virus’ main code in the drive and destroy the rest, so it doesn’t replicate, or you can download a mere part of me.”
Nyx swallowed. She had to save Erebus. She was family, and if she wasn’t fully functional, she couldn’t get the Thanatos’ crew off of La Terre and away from Earth.
Nyx eased the queen from the edge of the solid-state drive singularity. “How?” She relaxed her hold on Phoebe’s neck, letting her hands drop to her sides.
The queen held a gold ball in her hands. “Just toss this in,” she nodded to the black hole, “there. And then destroy any code you can see.”
Nyx snatched the gold b
all from the queen, her hands sinking into the soft, sticky surface. She pulled her hands from the gooey, liquid gold ball, the ooze trapping them like manacles.
The queen snickered. “You, of course, won’t be able to do that. Only I can handle the code without getting stuck in it.”
Nyx yanked her hands hard, the goo sucking them back in.
The queen’s smile broadened.
Nyx burned. Her hands heated, white-hot. The ball bubbled. Slowly, she pulled her hands from the oozing gold orb, fingers wreathed in bright light.
She stepped past the queen and tossed the boiling ball into the lavender-ringed void.
The queen gaped.
Nyx brushed gold dust off her hands. Fingers still glowing, she snapped and the circlet of bees ringing the lily pot turned to fine glitter and fell to the ground. She turned to the astonished queen and grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved.
The queen tipped into the open space of the swirling black hole, ebony hair streaming around her, reaching out.
The singularity disappeared.
The queen crashed backward into a gleaming white wall and slid down. She settled on the floor, laughing. “You still don’t get how this works. You have to take the Stars into you to contain us. But you’ll never be able to deal with our voices. You’re too human. Too determined to keep your people safe. You wouldn’t be able to keep them safe from you once you started to take us in.”
Crius had said she was an operating system. But Nyx wasn’t just an operating system: she was the operating system. The system that controlled the Stars.
The queen’s laughter rang through her head.
She didn’t know if she could keep that sound from ringing in her ears if she left her behind in the white room. Because, that’s all she had to do, leave Phoebe behind and return to real space.
The queen sat on the floor and continued laughing.
A gun pressed to her temple. The black, glass-domed room focused.
“Get off Mademoiselle la reine,” Coeus growled, blood dripping down his chin from a broken nose.
The star scape overhead glimmered, the blue, green, and gold Earth looming on the horizon with white clouds sailing across its surface. The black platform rose before her, the queen’s Milky Way Galaxy-etched throne topping it. The black marble floors gleamed. The white room was gone. The queen lay beneath her, silent, her laughter still ringing through Nyx’s head.
Coeus pressed the muzzle of the pistol into her temple harder. “Get. Off. La reine. Filth.”
Nyx raised her hands and eased onto her haunches. She stood slowly and backed away from the energy weapon.
Phoebe gathered her gold skirt. Coeus gave her an arm to lean on as she stood, straightening her liquid dress, squaring her shoulders, face smeared with blood. “I knew you couldn’t do it,” she whispered. “None of you have been able to deal with the voices.” The queen ripped the solid-state drive from behind her ear and handed it to Coeus.
Nyx glanced up the platform to the extra black throne where Erebus perched, clad in red velvet. She sat poised, quiet, gold code still encircling the emerald whorls around her. Nyx’s heart sank. The virus must not have been put on the drive. Erebus was still fighting it. Nyx turned to the queen and Coeus. “Salope, you tricked me.”
The queen grinned. “I can’t help it if you didn’t destroy all of the virus. I need Erebus right where she is. That wouldn’t have stopped me for very long.”
Coeus held up the solid-state drive in two fingers. He dropped it.
Nyx lunged, grabbing for the drive. She needed that to capture the virus at least, to free Erebus even if she couldn’t contain the queen with it.
Coeus dropped the pistol slightly and pressed it against Nyx’s forehead as she reached for the little piece of tech. He bent over and smashed the drive with the butt of the gun, shattering it into tiny pieces.
Heat rose in Nyx’s stomach to her chest. An angry red thread pulled, blossoming into burning anger. She grabbed the chip knife from the holster and sliced her hand open. Throwing the knife to the ground, she leapt at Coeus. He pulled the trigger of the white and gold pistol, shooting wild as Nyx screamed and rushed him. The shots sprayed gold on the blue energy screen at the base of the platform.
He put his hands up, cringing as Nyx dashed forward. She stopped in front of him, grabbed his bare left arm, and left a bloody smear. She stripped the pistol from his right hand and threw the gun across the room.
She stepped back and stared at the jagged ochre energy running through Coeus.
He had destroyed the shot she had of helping Erebus be rid of the virus. He had destroyed her chance of downloading the queen, shy of finding another drive in the immediate vicinity. Not bloody likely.
Nyx wound her white smoke into the jagged lines of energy surrounding Coeus, lines of certainty and belief softening at the edges. She twisted herself in them. She mixed her bending, slithering mist in his cracks and spaces and squeezed.
Coeus fell to his knees.
“You’ll die slowly,” Nyx hissed. “Very slowly.”
Nyx grasped his ochre lines and twisted.
A hand rested on her shoulder and wrenched her back. Phoebe’s face contorted in a form of sympathy. “Don’t do this.”
Nyx sent her tendrils along the channels of gold code running along the tips of the queen’s fingers and bent them back, ripping them off her shoulder. She whipped her white coils through gold and pushed. The queen stumbled, stepping away, and knelt. Nyx curled the code, pushing harder, ripping the spine of it through the queen’s stomach. Phoebe howled.
Nyx snapped her eyes to Erebus, emerald whorls wreathed in gold. She traced the emerald and fit her white wisps into the filigree. She followed Erebus’ code through La Terre to the air ducts and vent hatches. She danced in the power of the energy surrounding her.
“I am the Star of Nyx. I am the god of gods.” Nyx trembled. “You tricked me. Now you’ll both pay. Everyone will pay.”
She gathered her tendrils around ochre and gold.
They would scream. They would suffer.
They would die.
She would have revenge for Erebus. For her sister.
Nyx spread her hands wide, seeping the white firmament through the queen’s gold and Coeus’ ochre, her breath ragged.
“Nyx,” Erebus croaked from the platform.
She jolted and snapped her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms. She clamped her white wisps on the ochre traces of energy and gold boundaries of code. Coeus and the queen writhed and screamed. The vent hatches opened and leaked air into the vacuum of space. La Terre shuddered. It would be the Kokou all over again. Only this time, it wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands, it would be millions of people.
“Please don’t,” Phoebe whispered, gold-ringed eyes wide. “Not my people.”
The room’s oxygen thinned.
Nyx looked from under her brow to the platform.
Erebus descended, a red-velvet figurine, brown skin glowing, gold-ringed eyes fiery. She stood arabesque and stately, hands in fists at her sides.
Nyx relaxed her hold on the two on the ground and the code in the city-ship, and straightened.
“You’re okay?” Nyx whispered. “But the virus…?”
The queen moaned. “You assumed I tricked you.” She chuckled. “Give your enemy what they desire, and you only put off the inevitable. War comes no matter what.”
“This isn’t war,” Nyx said.
“Isn’t it though? A second AI War. A War of the Stars.”
“If this is war,” Nyx mused, “then there will be casualties. Aren’t you afraid to lose?”
Coeus inched away. “Casualties?”
“Who said we were fighting each other?” Phoebe smiled. “Is that what you’ve thought this whole time? That you need to fight me?”
“I can’t let you have us.” Nyx stood in front of Erebus.
“I see that,” the queen frowned. “But I need her at least. You’ve done
too much damage to my predictions to be useful anymore.”
“If you don’t let us both go, I’ll vent this entire ship,” Nyx threatened.
Queen Phoebe closed her eyes. “I’m trying to keep everyone safe. I’m trying to save my people. And you’re going to ruin everything by killing everyone.”
“We won’t die.” Erebus spread her fingers. “The people here to kill us will.”
Nyx turned to Erebus. There were people here to kill them? She slowly looked through Erebus’ code, peering at the movements of people on other decks and found strange groups moving towards the Hall of Stars.
Nyx sent a white tendril to twine into Erebus’ soft emerald whorls of code. The code hardened, pushed back.
“Don’t make me stop you,” Erebus whispered. “You can’t kill everyone on this ship.”
“Why not?” Nyx demanded. “I have the power. And it will get both of us off this putain de starsat.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nyx trembled. “Why are you sorry?”
“I have to stay.”
Nyx hesitated. She stared at the Erebus. “No. You’re coming with me. Something is going on, and she’s not telling us the whole story. I’m not leaving you in danger.” She wrapped her tendrils around Erebus and pushed. “I’ll make you come.”
Nyx started towards the enormous black door and Coeus picked up the energy weapon she had thrown across the hall.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re too dangerous. A threat to all the Stars.” He held the gun with both shaking hands. Nyx’s white mist was still twined with his energy. She made ready to pull the light from him and snuff out the flame, and Erebus stepped in front of her. Coeus pulled the trigger with an electric pop.
Erebus stumbled backward, and Nyx reflexively uncoiled her white tendrils from Erebus’ code as she caught the Sia-unit. The air thickened, no longer seeping from the vents into the black.
“You fool!” the queen screamed.
“No, no, no,” Nyx stammered.
Erebus blinked hard. “Primary avatar severely damaged.”
“I’ll fix it. Erebus, I’ll fix you,” Nyx said softly as the gold ring around Erebus’ eyes dimmed.