by Lee
“You didn’t want that.” Huey said softly, knowingly.
“No. No I did not.” Ute held his hands at his stomach, picking at his fingernails. “Fenris made it sound as if, one day, if I were to live, my living would help the others. So I said yes. He … turned something off inside me. The … access paths … to what made me a Goddie. After a few hundred years, I began doubting he, or they, would ever return.”
“So he turned you back on?” This kind of Harmony Soldier –no matter how helpful, how beneficent- disturbed Garth entirely.
They’d known thousands of years ago that the men and women of Earth, tuned into the poisonous Harmony issued by the M’Zahdi Hesh, would be capable of miraculous things, but … it was impossible to dismiss the atrocities. Even the Kith and Kin had been appalled, and that was one of the most ironic things ever; originally human themselves, by the time the War against the Hesh had risen to full tide, they’d passed so far from the appetites of mankind that they’d forgotten how vicious they themselves had been. Even his father, Kith Antal, the bloodiest monster the world had ever seen, had paled at the sight of his new soldiers being about their business.
Different allegiances or not, willingness to restore Ute to glory notwithstanding, the viciousness resting deep in the bosom of all men had to be the same. Fenris and the other four … Garth shook his head.
He wasn’t … he hadn’t … there was no way in hell that he’d traveled this far into the future, subjected himself to the pain he’d endured, forced Lisa into thirty millennia of unendurable madness … all so he could destroy it all. There had to be a better answer.
Ute nodded, eyeing Garth. He wanted to commiserate, but wisely held his tongue; he was in a rare club, now, and understood why Huey –who was privy to things he should not, could not, know- worked so diligently to keep certain things from Garth. Their friend had a task, a most unwholesome task, and he needed to follow the breadcrumbs on his own, he needed to … to see the light of day with his own eyes if he was to understand the necessity.
“You know what?” Garth said hotly. “I am sick of people getting that look in their eyes. The one that says ‘We could totally tell you everything you wanted to know about whatever, but we aren’t, because we are dicks’. You,” he pointed a finger at Huey, who flinched comically, “know way too much for anything to make sense. You weren’t there and Christ help you if you Vulcan mind-melded me. I will be amazingly unhappy. And you,” Ute looked at Garth’s tiny finger with a wryly bland expression on his mug, “know shit about Fenris and his four stupid ass friends that you aren’t telling and it all ties together and you can all go to hell. I have to go get my head pulled off now. If you will excuse me.”
Ute and Huey watched Garth stalk off towards the incredibly nervous Game guards who’d arrived to escort the man back to the arena floor, bemused.
“Do you think he’ll survive?” Ute asked when he was sure Garth was out of earshot.
“I really don’t know.” Huey answered honestly, remembering Gurant’s display of viciousness and power during ‘training’. “Gurant is much more than a Foursie now. Garth is definitely stronger and faster than before, but … no. It isn’t enough. He’ll figure something out. He’s the boss.”
Ute nodded. As far as answers went, it was as truthful as anything. It wasn’t a pleasant answer, but it was the only one that could be spoken. “Why do you and Garth keep laughing when you say Fenris’ name?”
“Well, see, way back a hundred berjillion years ago, there were these guys called Norsemen. You’d get along really well with ‘em. Crazy bastards, lived in the cold…”
“I hate being cold, sa.”
“Shut up. I’m telling a story. Anyway, they believed that Fenris would destroy the world.”
“This is not a good story.”
“It gets worse.” Huey gestured towards the stands. “Let’s go bully someone for good seats.”
The Scene is Set
Uncle Sa looked at Granger wearily, and the older man returned a look of grim satisfaction; they’d managed to get through the last hour without the seething auditorium transforming into a massive eruption of enraged Latelians looking for their pound of flesh. Putting children down there to wallop on a Foursie was purely inspired genius that’d calmed the rowdy crowd just enough.
It was an art form, manipulating a crowd like that, and no one would ever recognize that the two men had painted their masterpiece, had recorded their virtuoso performance, and had saved the Final Game.
“When this is over, I am getting blown. By a team of skilled professionals.” Uncle Sa nodded seriously.
Granger shook his head. “Are you forgetting we’ve got one last Fight to do?”
Uncle Sa looked at the feeds and laughed. “Look at that guy, just standing there, waiting for Gurant to show up. He looks like a speck of dust.”
“That speck of dust killed three of our best Foursies with weapons we’ve never seen. Weapons we cleared.” Granger reminded, memories of that fiery ax slashing the air filling him with excited dread. “And then the rest went down on one fucking knee and yielded.”
“A fluke.” Uncle Sa replied offhandedly, perking up when the ‘all clear’ sigil on his readout came to life. It was a bit of an odd request on the Army’s behalf, the sudden addition of infinitely more complicated and impenetrable layers of security surrounding Sa Gurant. The new protocols read like they were transporting a criminal to The Peak, not letting someone walk up the three flights of stairs it took to get from the changing rooms to the arena floor. “A fluke and nothing more and in three minutes, Sa Gurant is going to separate that man’s spine from the rest of his body.”
Granger kept his mouth shut. Deviant though Sa might be, the man had a point, a point he personally found difficult to believe. Garth Nickels was just standing there, staring at a hundred thousand people who were shouting, screaming, jeering and chanting various forms of ‘Die Garth Die’ and he had a smile on his face. That was either the look of a man already broken by impending events or a man who knew something no one else knew.
“All right, cueing last Game’s footage for the Gameheads and ‘LINK-freaks.” Granger slapped a few buttons
Uncle Sa slapped his cheeks a few time, made noises with his mouth. He shook his head one last time. “I really do hope the Game is done after this. I really do.”
“If the rumors are true, it is.” Granger watched the countdown, hoping that whoever was marshaling last Game’s winner up to the arena floor was paying strict adherence to that same countdown. They had no ability to slow things down or speed them up to accommodate any deviations because –as part of the new security measures- all cameras, spEyes, and monitors from Gurant’s private area to the arena itself were off.
Uncle Sa puffed out three ho-ho-ho breaths in rapid-fire succession, put on that wicked gleam that’d gotten him on a few magazine covers, and hit the switch. “Ladies and gentlemen, sis and sas, dying times are here. You know him, you hate him, he’s the Devil Incarnate, the Destroyer of Lives, Taker of Worlds, the System’s Most Hated Man. Rumor has it he wasn’t born but torn screaming words of bloody vengeance from the womb of a Dark Age monster and trained to eat children by the handful. He’s vile, he’s loathsome, he’s inexplicably handsome…”
Granger slapped Uncle Sa on the back of the head.
“He’s Garth Nickels!”
xxx
Garth heard his name and blinked; they’d called him to the arena ten minutes early, and, after realizing that they’d done so to fuck with his self-confidence, had immediately chosen to relive the highlights of the Monsters of Rock Tour of ’99. Much more preferable than to stand there absorbing all the misplaced hatred and rage of a people who didn’t actually hate him.
It was a final parting gift from the Ministry of Pride. Garth knew through Herrig that the average Latelian saw nothing wrong with him, and knew for a fact the every family he’d given money to in compensation for their losses over the Spaceport held no grudg
e. His truly massive Conglomerate had already vomited a ton of money into the local infrastructure and while he and everyone working for UltraMegaDynamaTron had only been able to assist Port Cityfolk during the Chairwoman’s ludicrous Martial Law restrictions, they adored him. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t here to be adored. He was here to help.
Aware that he was expected to give some kind of display, Garth waved sheepishly, wondering all the while what would happen if he acted up like he had when he’d kicked that scout’s ass so hard he forgot his name.
“Ahhh, fuck it.” A wide grin split his face. Garth … began to act up.
xxx
“What is he doing?” Greuz demanded. “Is … is he dancing?”
“Oh my.” Naoko hung her head. “It … it is his victory dance from when he defeated Sa Antonio Yrtzog months ago. He thinks he is being funny.”
Seta laughed so hard she snorted, which set Sandlak and Alligorni off. “What is that thing he is doing now, with his hands?”
“He is pretending to ride a horse.”
“And the smacking his ass part?” Alligorni asked, tilting his head to one side, then the other.
“I am afraid I do not know.” As Naoko watched, the crowd’s reaction magically began to change; slowly but surely, hisses and boos became chuckles and then outright laughter. He was making himself a fool on systemic television, a last moment of comic relief before The End. “And that … he called it ‘popping and locking’.”
“How is he doing that with his arm?” Greuz demanded, jumping up from his seat. “Did he just break his elbow?” The captain of the Zhivago brought his arm up, dangled his hand from the elbow, and tried to mimic what he’d just seen.
Naoko laughed at Greuz and suddenly everyone was up and dancing with Garth.
xxx
Griffin leaned up against one of the Arena’s outside walls, watching Garth’s antics from a Sheet he’d ripped from someone’s hands, laughing. He couldn’t help himself. As much as he hated Garth, as much as he really had tried to bash the asshole’s head in with a chunk of stone a while back, the man had a way about him, he surely did. Not everyone in the crowd was getting in on the gag, but enough of the children and parents were laughing and dancing along with the fool that the mood had definitely changed.
“Well, son, fer whut it’s worth,” Griffin commanded his Suit to start ripping through the layers of security in the building in search of Chairwoman Alyssa Doans, “Ah hope ya’ll kick that Foursie’s ass in. ‘course, once Ah’m done with securin’ the HIM fer mah own nefarious purposes, Ah plan on comin’ back an’ killin’ ya’ll. Oh Christ, the moonwalk?”
The roar from the surprised crowd could be heard all the way to Port City.
xxx
OverCommander Vasily watched the monstrously formed Gurant shoulder his way through an archway that, five years ago, the Foursie walked through with plenty of room to spare, deciding that he had made a terrible mistake. He should’ve … well, he didn’t know what he should’ve. Certainly, he couldn’t have allowed Hollyoak access to whatever new and frightening genetic anomalies the God soldier’s body was now home to, nor could he have disposed of the body without anyone being the wiser.
Because one thing was certain; Gurant was behaving –had behaved- only so that his appearance in the Final Game remained free of jeopardy. The freshly arisen giant had an inexplicable personal vendetta against Garth Nickels. Once satiated, it was all too evident that it was only a matter of time before Gurant turned against people he knew. Vasily turned his head to where Fenris was sitting. It was impossible to make out individual features with the naked eye, but he amused himself by imagining that the legend was looking back.
Their worlds were at an end. If Garth won, the Five would attend to him, whatever that impossibly vague sentiment meant. If Garth lost, Gurant would become a monster, raging across the landscape. Sandwiched between those two combatants was the ever-present threat of Alyssa and her unnamed assassins. For the first time in his life while ‘on the job’, Vasily poured himself a drink. He stared at the gleaming amber liquid he’d poured into the glass then started drinking right from the bottle. They were actually in the middle of a situation where any outcome was just … awful.
xxx
Chairwoman Alyssa Doans, tyrannical and despotic ruler of Latelyspace, was the first person to see Sa Gurant as he lumbered his way through the cramped confines of a passage specifically designed to accommodate the largest God soldiers they’d ever seen. Narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, her hand flew across her prote, demanding answers.
The Prometheus Device, about the only thing in the entire solar system still loyal entirely to her and her own, spat the answers out a few seconds later; Sa Gurant had undergone some changes since the last time they’d seen him, only a few days ago.
Alyssa was torn. The hulking beast was now obviously more than a match for Garth. So much so, in fact, that she rather mourned her decision to make betting illegal. Gurant was going to tear Garth in half in record time and then they could all heave a sigh of relief and go about their lives as if the last few months had never happened.
On the other hand, it was obvious that Gurant had achieved ‘Fivesie’ status. Even more obvious was that her staff, including both Vasily and Hollyoak, had chosen to keep it a secret. That was worrisome and distressing indeed; the ratio of sane to insane Foursies was 10000:1. They’d become experts at discerning which Threes on the cusp of transformation were going mad and start attacking their brethren with alarming vehemence.
Alyssa would bet her kingdom that the ratio of mad Fivesies to Foursies was even more appalling and –to be quite frank- they’d all been having such a terrible run of luck lately that the chance of Gurant being sane was quite slim.
Still, though. Alyssa watched the crowd’s slow, rippling awareness that Gurant was on the floor. It was a tidal wave of shock.
Still. Gurant would definitely kill Garth Nickels. Then they could figure out some way to deal with an insane Fivesie. It might cost her a city or three, but she was already on record as being willing to lose the planet to be rid of Nickels.
Beyond that, there was something that could be dealt with. She thumbed her all-points button and her loyal servants –none as great as Hamilton, true, but efficient and deadly all the same- signed in immediately. She allowed herself a smile. True Latelians, these. “Find me the OverCommander. Bring him to me.”
xxx
Granger squeaked and looked for some place to throw up. Finding none, he bravely swallowed what wanted out and pointed at the monitors with a pale, trembling hand. Uncle Sa –whose real name was Morrison Maines- laughed at Garth and his antics.
“What’s got you in such a mood all of a sudden, dear friend Granger?” If they weren’t on microphone, the witty banter would’ve been less witty and far less banter-y.
Granger shook his head, slapped his hand over his mouth and threw up anyway.
Uncle Sa looked at Granger’s monitors. “Are you fucking serious?” he demanded loudly, forgetting all caution. “What in the ungodly hell is that?”
xxx
Ute stood bolted out of his seat, ready to fling himself over the heads of thousands of Latelians in order to defend Garth from whatever it was that Gurant had become. Intimately aware of Gurant’s progress across the long centuries, Ute instantly understood the dire threat the monstrosity represented.
Huey grabbed Ute by the elbow. “No.” he said softly, sadly. He’d been dreading this moment since the second he’d caught sight of Gurant’s ‘training’. Even with a body stuffed full of quadronium, there was a vanishingly small chance Garth would win through with brute force.
Gurant was older, faster and stronger. He’d been a soldier for four thousand years. He’d spent centuries fighting across The Cordon, destroying solar systems and Galaxies in service to a Regime purchasing protection from Trinity’s colossal hunger from the AI. The God soldier had been a mirror reflection of what a Harmony Soldier could become, bu
t exposure to extra-dimensional energy had turned ‘maybe’ to ‘is’.
Garth was a consummate soldier. He’d been trained by Kith Antal, the oldest warrior on Earth. He’d been tutored on how to defeat the M’Zahdi Hesh, shown how to capitalize on the weaknesses of Kith and Kin, had even discovered methods to route fledgling Harmony Soldiers.
This was different. Gurant … Gurant was an example of what waited beyond The Cordon. If Garth couldn’t defeat Sa Gurant, he couldn’t win the war. Right here, right now, the entire Unreal Universe was going to see if Garth N’Chalez was any kind of match at all for the M’Zahdi Hesh.
Ute looked back at Huey and saw the quiet torment on the other man’s face. “No?”
Huey shook his head. “No. He needs to figure out how to defeat Gurant unaided.”
Ute threw a hand at the lumbering atrocity, exasperated. “No one man can do that! Look at him! Sa Nickels hasn’t even figured out to use his implants yet. He’s down there dancing and acting the fool!”
Huey shrugged, a smile on his face. “He’s making the crowd laugh, Ute, laugh collectively for the first time since he landed. If anything else, they’ll have that. Their laughter will see them through the darkest times imaginable. If he loses. Now, please, sit your ass down and watch our friend get his face pulverized or I’ll make you sit.”
Ute bristled. “What makes you think you can make me do anything, sa?”
Huey ignored the threat; freshly gifted with senses and abilities barricaded inside his body for two thousand years, Ute was no doubt feeling more … vigorous … than he had in quite some time. Probably felt a lot like puberty. “You, sa, are a cybernetic entity sharing –whether you know it or not- a field of ‘LINKspace. You have a profile that echoes through the HIM’s communication field. All God soldiers do. Even that fucking freak down there. I can shut you down. I can make your weapons overheat. I can make you sing ‘I’m a little teapot’ and do the whole dance and everything. I am a level 11 artificial intelligence and for right now, I am totally the boss of you.”