Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5)

by Lee Bond

  “Well, that does make things easier.” Huey commented drolly. “All of them all in the same room together. So very polite.”

  The ‘minds agreed before –since they were no fools- departing the general mindscape vicinity to leave their overmind to consider what it was he really wanted to do. His options remained the same, though he had yet to settle on which outcome was more preferable, now.

  In his current bleak mood, Huey was of the mind to mess with Trinity more than a little bit: where before taking the whole ship out of play had been off the table, Huey felt quite strongly suddenly that it was back on, all in the hopes that the multi-systemic artificial intelligence would just get it through It’s thick stupid fucking head that this was the way things were going and called an end to the abortive war on Latelyspace. Then they could all well and truly get cracking on things that needed doing. The ‘war’ wasn’t doing anything more than tying up valuable resources, prolonging preparations for the true engagement –one It knew was coming- and making it goddamn difficult for the only man in the Universe capable of handling things properly.

  That stupid, boneheaded ignorance was one of the prime reasons why something as horrific as what’d happened to Vorpal Cannon had happened in the first place!

  Huey nodded firmly to himself as he stepped through the portal into Engineering. Hopefully when the powerful ship went supernova, the loss of one of It’s most powerful resources would be a wakeup call.

  “It’s a done deal, then. Fuck Trinity in It’s ass. This whole ship goes up like a Roman candle and then we can have all the Enforcers and Adjutants it … can … heyyyyy, buddy … who’re you?”

  Huey the Deific AI stared long and thoughtfully at the dark-skinned man working the controls of the black hole AI manipulators, rapidly absorbing everything there was to see in a literal flash of light; whatever the unexpected and completely … un-mushroomed … surprise visitor was doing, it was causing quite a bit of electrical discontent amongst the miles and miles of extremely –some would say absurdly- dangerous and delicate equipment.

  First, the man was AfroEgyptian. Huey mentally dismissed those ‘minds leaping forward with information as to the last known sighting of the elusive race of Humans, choosing instead to simply marvel at the rarity of the moment; as the only pre-Exodus strain of Humanity to forcefully and willfully maintain their sovereign independence since before Trinity’s rise to power –Latelians could only claim Sovereignty for the past five thousand years- Huey found the history of the AfroEgyptian … separation fascinating.

  Unlike the stupendously xenophobic Latelians –who’d used their might and superiority not to mention a long-standing agreement with Trinity- to keep unwanted visitors out, the cluster of solar systems belonging to the AfroEgyptian Nation had done nothing at all. They didn’t want visitors, no one visited them. They were self-sufficient, governed themselves better than most galaxies and rarely –if at all- had any need to leave the confines of their own worlds. Why Trinity allowed them such freedoms was something Huey had never been able to root out. Surprising and yet, not all the same: there were a handful of dark info-clusters seeded throughout History, all of them cautiously and diligently manufactured by Trinity. The effort meant It imagined them to be of extreme importance.

  When pressed, though, they were as vicious as any Latelian. They didn’t always win, but they’d pushed back several different aggressor-species down the long years and with such great skill that whole Ages would pass before anyone thought of trying again. ‘Local’ Universal data stores held little else on the AfroEgyptian Nation because of all the scenarios Huey’d run through before hopping through the shield, running into one randomly hanging out in the engineering section of a spaceship stuffed to the tits with mushroom zombies had actually fallen below ‘Encountering Doctor Who’.

  Second, Huey saw what the man was doing, and decided not only was it nearly impossible to believe, it was quite possibly the most recklessly insane thing he’d personally seen since shooting himself through the Latelian shield. Before that, basically anything Garth did –including ordering breakfast- typically fell into the ‘holy shit that’s nuts’ category but this….

  Whoever the man was, however he was doing it, he was recalibrating the black hole AI in precisely the same manner he’d just decided on.

  Thirdly, and this last tidbit came fresh from subminds who did nothing more than focus on the local substrate in search of things only a level 11 AI mind might need to know: the dark-skinned intruder, looking so much like an AE citizen on walkabout wasn’t…

  The AfroEgyptian flicked one last switch and greeted his visitor with a hearty bow and a sardonic smile. “I am not human at all. Well done, Huey. Well done, indeed. That took far less time than I imagined it might.” Orion flashed the AI a grand smile.

  Huey narrowed his eyes, willing the army of ‘minds to dig deeper and deeper, forcing the edges of the Unreality to twist this way and that as he pulled at the façade before him. This man was there, right there, in front of him. He’d manipulated the machinery by touch. He was shielded by some of the most complex encryption software the AI had personally ever imagined, forcing the subminds to redouble, hell, triple their efforts. He had physical substance, yet …

  Orion clapped his hands again. “I am not even here! You are a great deal more fun than stodgy old Aleksander Politoyov, Huey T. Roboticus. This is marvelous.”

  Huey grinned wolfishly. He was rapidly discovering that he really and truly hated being left in the dark, a situation exacerbated by this nowhere man’s improbable existence.

  Regardless of the phantasmal state of the AfroEgyptian, Huey had one thing going for him; he was clad in impenetrable armor and he was, well, who he was. All the ship’s internal defenses were accessible with a simple thought. As puissant as the stranger was with black hole mechanics, engineering had no practical connections to the security systems, so even if connectivity could be made between the two systems, there was no way that could be done quicker than an 11’s desires.

  Ever keen to plumb the depths of something that’d managed to keep itself hidden from the HIM, the AI subminds continued toiling against the strangely impenetrable buffer surrounding the AfroEgyptian.

  Huey eyed the man warily. “If you’re working with…”

  Orion staggered back against the control console, clutching his chest with both hands. “You wound me, Huey. To even imply that I am working with Fenris is a grievous offense.”

  Huey bit back a foul curse and stepped forward properly into the room. “You keep finishing my sentences like that, fucker, and you’re gonna find yourself offensed right into that goddamn bulkhead. Now how’s about you tell me who you are, what you’re doing here, and why you’re doing it?” He remembered something the ‘man’ had said. “And tell me precisely what the fuck you meant when you said I was ‘more fun’ than Aleksander Politoyov.”

  Orion waggled a finger back and forth like a schoolmarm admonishing an unruly student. “If you could but give me a moment, Huey. These machines need activating. There will be a slightly disorientating second where the generated shields will lift you off the ground. It will only last a second. I assure you, you shall float no higher than an inch or so, so please be calm.”

  Without so much as a by your leave, Orion whacked the control button with an elbow, moving so quickly the suddenly doubted he could’ve stopped the man in time.

  He stoically braced himself, not for ‘slight levitation’ but actual death, watching on as the endless rows of machines barked with a strange, growling sound that in no way seemed like a good thing. All the indicator lights went on and for a brief second and, Huey was perilously lifted off the ground, just as his still unnamed host had predicted. Even as the world was temporarily discombobulated, the ‘minds continued trying to burrow past the … ‘man’s’ defenses.

  Orion smiled again and dusted his hands clean. “There. We can talk like adults. Oh, and do feel free to inform your other selves that they will l
earn nothing without my express permission. It will save on energy. We have so much to do, and little time, I think, in which to do it. Things are already moving quickly and they will almost certainly speed up.”

  “Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?” Huey grated, ordering his ‘minds to shut down, hating the fact that the entity before him was right. There was supposed to be nothing in the Unreal Universe that he couldn’t crack given time and freedom to pursue the effort, and yet the … being … standing there so casually defied explanation.

  “Allow me to introduce myself.” Orion bowed deeply. “My name is Orion. Well, that is what I call myself. Officially, I have no proper name. I never have. As to what I am doing here, well, I was hoping that would’ve been obvious to someone of such great intellect. Do I really need to explain what it is I’ve done?”

  Huey shook his head. “No. You’re here to burn Tendreel Salingh.”

  Orion nodded. “Just so. I’d call it regrettable, but truthfully … things played out precisely as I’d planned. It was tremendously difficult to, ah, engineer Commander Politoyov’s awareness of Tendreel Salingh without him being aware of the manipulation. Her old commanding officer had been keeping her very well hidden. You see, I nee…”

  Huey made the connection instantly. Anger seethed out of him. It took all his self-control to keep the meatsuit from launching at ‘Orion’. “You arranged this? That’s…”

  “Impressive.” Orion shrugged his shoulders. “I know it. There were a fair few factors that I wasn’t precisely happy with, in all honesty. There was no accurate way to predict Tendreel Salingh’s viral efficacy, for one. All that happened much quicker and far more savagely than anticipated. Then, of course, there was your man Fenris’ attitude towards the whole affair. For a long while, I worried that he would push you too far and that you and he would get into it right there in that diner. It was so important to get you here, past the shield, just far enough away from the power of the Him that, had things gone another way, I would’ve felt … cheated, I suppose. Woefully, the only thing I managed to accurately predict was the strange interaction between the Mycogene’s talents and the man she hunted.”

  “There are,” Huey said, keeping his anger reasonably in check, “precisely three entities outside of Trinity Itself even moderately capable of knowing who I truly am, what I am doing, and the things that are happening inside Latelyspace. One of them,” he continued, ticking off a finger, “is, as it turns out, the Eldest Myco, and I’m willing to bet all of the money everywhere that she’s wise enough to know that fucking around with the stuff that’s going on right now is stupid. There is also the Graendel Complex, that’s at the other fucking end of the Unreal Universe and again, a sentient solar system isn’t going to mess with the formation of a new Reality, not when it has every chance of being real. And third, well, third is hypothetical and theoretical and even if the fucking thing had any true intelligence, the goddamn Engines of Reality has a vested interest in Garth doing his thing, which in turn, makes what I’m doing equally if not more important. Wasting my time, tricking me out of Latelyspace … rookie move, whatever you are.”

  And with that, Huey reached out to grab hold of the ship’s security systems, of which there were plenty, and quite powerful. He might not be able to identify the inexplicably well-informed thing, but with the weapons at his disposal, he could quite easily destroy it. Access was granted. Every deadly internal defense mechanism inside Vorpal Cannon powered up and …

  “Shit.” Huey muttered.

  Orion smiled sympathetically. “Yes! Everything you might bring to bear against me is currently behind a tremendously powerful force field. All you would be doing is firing inside the shell. Now, before we leave, I must ask you in all seriousness if you truly want to destroy Tendreel Salingh and her harvest.”

  Huey narrowed his eyes. He was all the way in the dark. No matter what he tried, Orion had the better of him. Which was –all humility and attempts to be as human as possible aside- supposed to be goddamn impossible.

  “What do you mean, ‘do I truly want’? Of course I do! I can just barely wrap my head around the virus interacting with the N’Chalez Effect powerfully enough to spontaneously mutate, but she has no fucking way of protecting herself properly from the worst that can happen. None of us do! But her least of all. If the Hesh catch sight of her digging through the extra-dimensionality, they won’t even need to find a way through The Cordon! They can just come through her. We were lucky with Gurant because of the HIM and as you so deftly figured out, with the shield between it and me, I couldn’t stop anything like that from happening!”

  Orion stepped forward, eyes blazing so intently they shimmered like stars. “Are you certain? She’s one hundred percent loyal to Commander Aleksander Politoyov. Still. She honors him to the point where he may as well be a god. Everything she is doing is for him, and in less than a day, her harvest will be properly and purely melded together, forming something new and strange and wonderful. The Universe’s first true organic AI. In time, with training and effort, it might surpass even you, AI who dreams of being a god. With that kind of networked organic intelligence, Huey, you could achieve much. You could discern enemy tactics in seconds, and work up counter-tactics within milliseconds. When they are ready, they will, in truth, be able to see the future! How could you voluntarily throw away such power? You may know all that has passed in this place right up to the moment of your elevation, but Tendreel and her kind can know so much more!”

  “The future,” Huey replied doggedly, “is set. Tendreel only knows about Garth. For now. The moment she sees the M’Zahdi Hesh threat, lingering there in the dark places, she will seize those threads and pull for all they are worth. And then the future we’ve all been working towards for thirty thousand years will fall unravel. They’ll follow her through to this side ahead of schedule and they’ll win. Garth has no counter for an unscheduled arrival. They burn. And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “I think you are, Huey.” Orion switched tactics. “There is one other reason for them to remain alive, my friend, though not all of them. Tendreel herself doesn’t even need to remain living for the other benefit they could provide.” Orion caught the glimmer of interest in Huey’s stolen body, and continued. “She did it. Tendreel Salingh accomplished something none of the great Mycoidal minds of the previous Age could. In her fear, in her haste to discover answers, in her … ex-dee affliction…”

  The words fell out of Huey’s mouth. “Spontaneous inorganic infestation.”

  “Just so.” Orion gestured wide. “Imagine it, Huey. Harvest one of the least acumen, least important of the brood in that room, barely more than intelligent than a toaster but possessed of a Mycogene virus capable of transferring itself to machinery … think of it. Viral warfare. With something like that, something never seen before in all the Universe, not even at Tannhauser’s Gate, Shoemacher’s Grave or Goreene, you could tear through the Heshii invasion forces like wind through a crevasse! The war would be over before it started. Garth N’Chalez wouldn’t even need to complete his trial within The Dome, nor would he need to brace the Emperor in his castle, or Trinity! Oh yes, Huey, Trinity Itself could fall sway to the Mycogene Technovirus! All your ducks in a row, as they say. All your ducks, in a row. What say you, Huey? Would you be the one to throw away a chance to end this war without a shot being fired? It took so much effort to arrange all this.”

  The idea was an attractive one, certainly. How could it not be? One of Garth’s overriding concerns was the death toll.

  In order for Reality 2.0 to be fully ‘stocked’, as many living beings as possible needed to make it right to the End, making their side of things one hell of a tribulation; the M’Zahdi Hesh were notorious for targeting civilians over opportune military installations, either slaughtering them in the thousands or converting them with Harmony. His great mind spun a fantasy where they went to war early, using the HIMs to teleport bombs seeded with the Myco T-virus at Kith Antal’s impossibly larg
e invasion force, almost instantly stripping the ancient warrior of his most important asset. Hot on the heels of that fungal attack would come the final prong of that particular variation: the fungicide deployed by Trinity to oust the rampaging Mycogene-Alzants in the first place.

  The Heshii would die without ever achieving anything.

  And yet … Huey licked his lips. And yet … Tendreel had proven herself capable of impossible things. Even were they to use the least infected, that afflicted mushroomy body was, by association, just as influenced by Garth’s chaotic need for assistance. Coming in direct contact with forces tainted by Heshii-controlled ex-dee energy … things could flare like wildfires, all across the Unreal heavens. The whole stretch of … of … everything could transform into one vast mushroom farm.

  “No dice.” Huey shook his head firmly, keenly aware that –whoever Orion really was- the ‘man’ was testing him somehow. “No. The plan has and always will be as Garth N’Chalez wants.”

  “With you as God for Reality 2.0?” Orion wondered, amused. “A level 11 AI who would rather spend as much time being as human as it can, when in fact, if N’Chalez’ ludicrous plan to create a new Reality comes to fruition, you will become the least human thing of all? An artificial mind, spanning what will likely be a true infinity, as opposed to what we presently have?”

  “Who are you?” Huey demanded, this time not with anger, but fear. “What are you?”

  Orion gestured, and the standard engines burst to life. Fire scorched all around the, held at bay by the masterfully controlled gravnetic shields. In no time at all, everything –except for Engineering, of course- was bathed in the impossibly hot fury of Vorpal Cannon’s mighty engines. It was eerily ominous, being surrounded by all that frenetic power, yet hearing nothing.