The Arkhe Principle

by Maxwell Rudolf

  After sighting an overhanging rock preventing the snow from hitting the ground, Gungnir spun the buggy around and parked it a few minutes away. Camouflaging took over an hour, and when he stood about 10 meters away, the vehicle blended in with the surroundings. He pulled his primary weapon out. Standing over two-meters tall, Asger, his Pre-Times artifact spear, was segmented and bio-locked to him.

  Asger, though, came with a trial. Pain tolerance, endurance, spiritual acumen, cultural resistance training, hand-to-hand combat, specialized spear Wotanic Destruction Forms—those he mastered in days, sometimes hours. Boring classes followed those, and the efforts strained his temper. When the Wotan gothis gifted him Wotan's spear, he had stood naked and greased in front of the Freya cult. They bathed him in the blood of human sacrifices, and granted him Tyr Authority. He spent those weeks raping for fun and drinking himself into reckless, violent rampages. The Empire tracked him and warned the surrounding blocks to close their shops and take refuge, but he moved faster than the warnings and did whatever he wanted.

  And now he held Asger like an extension of his arm, a piece of unspeakable power and energy in his hand and spoke from the Wotan's Havamal. "Let a man never stir on his road a step / without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise / of a spear on the way without."

  He set out on foot, referencing a map he bought in Nifleheim. The digi-print display gave a steady flow of climate data, and he raised the internal thermals inside his Vetrix Blending battle armor. The outer layer compensated and leeched out the cold, cooling it to blend in with his surroundings. A thin layer of translucent Plasstien covered his face, and he brought it in closer until it formed a seal on his face. The breathing apparatus clicked and warm air filled his lungs.

  Gungnir's legs ached, pressing on, each step heavier than the last until finally, he spied a small clearing. He tasted blood, cutting his tongue as he tore open more of his rations. Four honey-covered calorie bars, an American bag of barbecue sunflower seeds, and a dozen stim chocolates awaited his hungry mouth. He finished, put the wrappings inside his side pants pocket, and threw his eyes on top of the hill. He bent and picked up Asger. A set of footprints led off down on the other side and to the east. Keeping a safe distance, he dodged from tree to tree until looking over.

  Ahead of him, a long cabin, made from interlocking logs, red clay, and old recycled Plasstien acting as a roof. The woman outside the door rocked in a chair, smoked a cigar, and stared at the smoke rising into the air. The furs of her neo-animal skins cloaked her shape, but they were all dyed the simple American gray color so common out in the wild.

  He unbuttoned his holster and aimed his silenced 12mm down toward to the tip of her nose. His right eye focused. He squeezed the trigger. Scatterings of skull and brains blew out the back of her head, painting the wall. He smiled to himself and waited. Now, the fun had started.

  After ten minutes, the door opened and another woman stepped out, dressed the same. In her hands, she held a primitive sniper rifle, and when she saw her dead compatriot, she almost had time to get back inside. But not quite. His next shot hit her in the forehead, blowing her skull cap off. Before she hit the ground, Gungnir was halfway to the door. Someone inside slammed it shut, and he heard something slide across the rear, barricading themselves inside. Time to kill these people.

  Gungnir ran straight through the door, popping the wooden beam like a twig. The faint smell of basil and curry from inside made his mouth water, and made him want to murder even more. A man ducked behind a barricade and behind him, a younger woman held an infant with glazed over eyes and hairy, yellow warts ducked down with him. A surge of adrenaline pumped through his veins upon hearing the click of a safety from behind a block of Plasstien.

  "We've nothing here, Saxon. Please, don't," she asked in vulgar Tradespeak. Gungnir laughed and spagettied the baby with a piercing thrust to his belly. He threw Asger into the woman's chest, piercing her heart in one well-aimed throw. The man rose, two-handing an old rusted-out revolver. Gungnir spun, pulled the spear from the wall, and severed the man's hand before he could react. His bloody stump dropped the revolver, animals sounds echoing out of his mouth.

  He leaped over a stack of empty St. George ammunition crates and kicked aside the Plasstien container.

  "I can make the pain go away," Gungnir replied in lower Saxon, standing over him, a grin locked on his face. He brought Asger to the man's throat. "Or I can pop your head off with a single stroke."

  The man nodded, blood spurting out of the top of his wrist. He clicked a button on Asger, setting it on fire. Gungnir thrust his weapon down before the man could pull his stump away, and the stench of burning flesh filled the room. He inhaled before stabbing the pain suppressant application button, flooding the man with endorphins and DNA-matched pain blockers.

  He spun his head around. Inside the cabin, strings of blinking lights hung from the walls, and furs of large animals, some extinct, covered the floor like rugs.

  Grabbing a fur, Gungnir asked, "Where did you find these?!"

  The man shrugged.

  He checked to make sure they were real, looking in the mouth, looking for tags anywhere or Plasstien inserts or tubing, and he was shocked when he discovered them to be real. Cardboard boxes littered the storage room to his right all stamped with the St. George flag. Around the house wooden frames displaying the word, "DNCR*musikpop+@#$@1157" hung on cheap Plasstien fiber frames.

  Gungnir emptied out the cooling unit and cabinets. Old audio vid covers of every color plastered the walls. Inside the cabinets he found what expected: Pop Music foodstuffs: jellies, bottled water, canned neo-meats, organo veggies, Burgerhouse Long Distance Service cans, synth sugar, happy foods, and canned protein soups. He shook his head.

  "You people live like ferals!"

  The man's eyes began to tear, a look of death reflected back into Gungnir.

  He found some Primary Wax Colors on the floor, scooped up a handful, and picked up a handmade Pop Music coloring book off the kitchen table. The inside of the book was sparse, showing simple line drawings of the surrounding forests, and a group of buildings surrounded by several old Pre-Times roads. He brought out his map and compared the two. The roads weren't lining up, and huge areas of forest overlaid clearings on his map.

  "Which one is wrong? Show me!" Gungnir barked. He brought Asger up to his throat and started laughing. He threw it down, placed his map next to it, and shoved the colored wax cubes into the man's remaining hand.

  The man pulled the book closer to him, his bloodshot eyes fell upon the page, his hand barely able to hold the color. He filled in the town and added more buildings around it. He grabbed a black cube and drew quarter notes around the perimeter.

  "What disco are you from?" He asked in a slanted Saxon, his eyes praying for life.

  Gungnir drew a bead of crimson on Asger's tip, dragging it up to his bottom jaw.

  "What kind of DNCR*musikpop+@#$@1157 do you like? Please let us rock. We live K%^ so no one coppers us. Take everything. We have coupons!"

  "You degenerate American. Where are they?" Gungnir dug Asger in deeper.

  "?? //! No peppers! Narghel lid struggles! Stay on main!" He pointed to the road leading towards the town. "Pop Music!" The man shrieked and started singing something about "beating it, just beat it." He paused and repeated the chorus slowly in his waving Saxon. Gungnir bared his canines and kicked one of the animal hides on the floor, cracking its skull.

  "The jammers? You ignorant filthy vermin! You have no idea what you're saying in Saxon, do you? Jabbering away without meaning. You're local. You should die for that alone. Where are they?!" he asked.

  Tears rolled down his face, and he kissed Gungnir's boot, licking the snow off. Gungnir screamed back. The glass windows cracked and shattered, and popped into trillions of pieces. The audio vid covers adorning the walls rose, and the front door blasted out of the cabin and into the awaiting outside white. Blood oozed from the man's ears.


  "Time to hang." Gungnir dragged the sobbing mess outside by his jacket, found his noose in the back of his buggy, tied the one and to the back of his vehicle, threw the rope over a tree limb, and fastened the noose around his victim's neck. He broke both of the man's legs with a fist-sized rock and dangled him over his buggy enough so he couldn't scramble away.

  "Lord Wotan! I offer this American to you, my Lord. Accept this sacrifice as it was meant to be given with all the respect and adoration you deserve. Allow me to be your weapon in this life and the next." He mashed his foot on the accelerator, and his victim was pulled high in the air and died immediately.

  The rest went up; a blazing funeral pyre, and when it did, he basked in it, within himself, reaching out into Midgard, into the world, and felt glory and power radiating about him.

  He held up Asger, flexed every muscle in his body, pointed to Sunna, and bellowed, "Hail Wotan!"

  6 I Abhor Contractions

  John sat inside the Core Redundant Learning facility polishing his E-Reader. Something to do while looking at Victoria Tesla. Her face reminded him of someone, but he couldn't mark where. She was a complete failure of a student both academically and socially, but his thoughts of her were carnal in nature. What kind of girlfriend would she be? A troubled one.

  Her scores registered so low, he was sure there had to be an error in the data collection, and he double checked in case the node wasn't feeding back incorrect data, but the readout came back the same. With these scores, she's going to be expelled anyway. Why bother to tutor her at all? But her face was so perfect. Her arched brows, her lips—not too full or too narrow—and her chest... What was going on there? How were they so full? Amazing. He explored ahead again in her military discipline report. Red marks filled the entire page and so John flipped back.

  A side note indicated a severe speech impediment. Broca-Wernicke vocal-brain suppressants were administered as an attempt to restructure her brain. He clicked on the medication and a password box opened. Oh well.

  He menu'ed over to watch her work out. Her body was tight. Oh, very tight. Moving past that vid, the screen flashed green. Her tactical training digi-prints were flawless, and she out shot every student her age at the Institute. Maybe she could be used as a front line shock troop or something.

  Adjusting the brightness, John pressed the clock. 13:51:13. 21 minutes and 13 seconds late, enough to be fined 20 hours of hard, outside labor. Rosie's nagging voice came to mind. "Do not to waste time on people who will not help you move." Move what? He wasn't wasting his time; he was doing what was in the best interest of St. George. How could doing anything benefiting the Kingdom be a waste of time?

  The sliding door whooshed aside and she strolled in. Her black dress uniform was wrinkled, her hair loose, her name tag angled and pinned sideways. And her shine-less boots were unlaced and loose. But she was hot.

  "Report to the nearest confession booth, right this instant!" John raged.

  She strode in and gently closed the translucent door.

  "What is the meaning of this?"

  "Hi, I'm here to meet... You?" Her eyes opened wide. She chewed on her bottom lip and whispered, "I'm Cadet Victoria Tesla. Let me sit down here. There. We. Go. Okay then."

  "What in the hell is wrong with your uniform? Filth! What a disgrace! Look at your bloody wreck of stitches! Do you own a polish kit? Your hair... Wow! Your bloody name tag! Learn respect for the uniform! And did you just use a contraction with me?"

  "Sorry. I... uh... had to prep this one. I just woke up..." She said, using her hands in wild accents.

  "You are late. Just... go ahead and sit then. I am Cadet Rex." He adjusted his tie. "Now, before we continue, I need a favor from you. I absolutely abhor contractions. Ab. Hor. People who use them are the lowest form of life in the Kingdom."

  Something delicious was coming from her. Her blond hair, frayed as it was, matched the digi-print. He cleared his throat. "In fact, did you know in studies of citizens aged 18-39, those using them in their speech are twice as likely to be criminally inclined?"

  "I'm not a criminal, and I don't appreciate you calling me one."

  "If you would not mind, could you avoid them when we meet from now on? I would appreciate it. For your sake and mine."

  Zeroing his question, she rolled her eyes and brought her eyes over into his E-Reader. "You're reading my files?"

  "Of course, I am. They are an absolute mess. Your answers are incoherent, your grammar is barely... I cannot understand what is written in some cases. And in some of your test questions... did you draw little flags of saints? Read some of your own sentences. They are completely non-operational." He frowned. "I mean, did you expect to get credit for this... well, whatever you call this? Did you receive your dyslexia vaccine?" She wasn't a feral, and he regretted insulting her as soon as he asked.

  "How long have you been such a dense, rude, jackass?"

  "What was that? What did you say?"

  "I think you bloody well heard me. I come in here for help and you talk down to me? Well, that's rich ain't it?" She reached into her pocket and popped a breath mint. "Want one? You probably should..."

  "You are no one special. You are less. You are a failing Cadet."

  He shoved the E-Reader into her hands and pressed a few buttons. "I am looking at your mathematics. Simple algebra mistakes riddle everything." He clicked a few more times. "Your St. George history is pathetic. You answered some of these correctly, but others were so far from established truth I laughed when I read them. Did you study?" She was quiet.

  "Well, I'm so, so sorry my files are in such a bloody mess that you're having to tutor me. You can see what I need to pass: St. George, History, and Algebra. What is your problem?"

  "I have a time sheet for your tutoring. I know these hours take a lot of time, but you need a long time to prep for these tests, and time is in short supply. So, we are going to change the plan. Instead, I am going to teach you how to take them because there is no possible way you can retain the data necessary to pass. Your best bet is to game the questions."

  "How much they payin' you?" Victoria asked, nulling out the E-Reader. "Also, don't you think I can learn whatever you got? I ain't wanted to learn it."

  "You know, you really sound an American. Sitting here and listening to you..." He stopped and took back the E-Reader. "Some. I do it for the Kingdom. Also, I took the time to call Ralphie's and Oxford Theater today about two hours ago. They are giving you time off so you can study."

  "You contacted my work, too?"

  "That is part of the process. Your movement liberties have been restricted to student zones. Where would you like to meet and study?"

  "Thanks a lot! Yeah. And you shouldn't go 'round judging people by how they talk. You don't know me," Victoria said. "I'll let you know through the E-Network." She rose to her feet and placed her hand on the handle of the door. "And another thing. I don't remember you being so super ugly."

  7 Mega CEO Katherine Dueva

  Domain of King Edward (D.K.E.)

  Year 317

  Day 206

  1st Edwardian Military Discipline Institute Lodge Library

  The Lodge Library was one of the few places on campus where co-ed interactions were permitted, but the cost of admittance was high. At two Edwards for a week long pass, Victoria was making every minute worth her time and spent her extra free hours on studying her weak subjects herself. If John thought she couldn't learn these subjects on her own, he would be in for a real shock. But as the tutored hours filled chapter after chapter about grammar and spelling and history and all the rest, she was at her wit's end. John's cuteness thinned so much, she started hating him and his annoying little ticks. Like constantly staring at her chest.

  "Why do you speak like that?" John rubbed his chin, his eyes glowed, and she couldn't look away.

  "Just the way I do," she gushed. The sneezed concealed her giggle.

  "Please, stop. Do you want to pass your finals?"

  "Why? W
e're talking."

  Rubbing and squeezing, John's pimple pussed out on his hand followed by oily blood.

  "Do you mind not doing that?" She touched his hand, and he didn't pull away. Not immediately. His hand was warm, and she guided her forefinger across his.

  "Sorry." He pulled his hand back and adjusted his chair. "What were we talking about?"

  "The usual. My speech. It's like the one thing you keep obsessing over rather than my boobs."

  "Uh... I would hate for something to happen to you if they overheard you talking this way—like an American."

  "I been caught talking like this my whole life, pretty much. Why you think I'm here now?"

  His eyes fell on her chest again. "Because you are an awful student?"

  She sighed and touched his chin to make him look at her eyes. "Why you think I'm really here?"

  "Please... I do not want to have to confess on you."

  "Quiet!" Victoria whispered. Looking over her shoulder, she glimpsed a few students glaring. One walked straight past her desk, aiming for the Confessional Booth. Cadet Deena Cubberblossom. Weasel. That bitch would get hers once she could find a permanent exit that didn't end with her in a grave.

  "Where are you from, anyway?"

  "Why?" The air stilled. Propping the E-Reader up so Victoria couldn't see the screen, his eyes moved up and down the digi-screen not locking on anything in particular.

  "Why does it matter? Look at me!" Her first memories jolted her and made her mind race. Blackened ruins. Massive eight-legged Grendels with hooked mandibles and wilted, patchy fur. Simpering as those things eat her friends while they screamed out for help while the adults tried in vain to save them. The reek of melted Plasstien. Automatic fusion fire, and explosions. Having to put on an over-sized yellow suit because the ground and air was too poisonous. Stabbing an old man in the throat when he ripped her pants off and was ready to pee on her. Or at least, that's what she thought back then.