by Lee Bond
Politoyov eyed the being calling himself Huey outright; the need for secrecy or even basic caution was unnecessary. He’d been around enough cybernetically enhanced beings to know that whatever else Huey was, he was –as Garth would say- ‘stuffed to the tits and back again with some heavy duty shit’, making sly consideration and any attempt at physically overpowering the ‘man’ ridiculous.
That Huey knew Garth was also a given. The way the lanky, solidly built Latelian spoke, the odd bits of inappropriate humor, the obvious exasperation just there in his tone when talking about the blue-eyed devil … oh yes, Huey knew Garth Nickels, knew him well.
Huey sat back down, ignoring the thoughtful look in his counterpart’s eyes. This was stupid. There were more important things to worry about than even attempting to explain the whole bullshit ball of wax to Aleksander.
Things like the part where the dour sourpuss –who should be running the most unsuccessful military venture in all of history- was in fact supposed to decide –whether he knew it or not- which AI mind was better suit to be the one in charge of Reality 2.0. For all he knew about Aleksander, there was no way to guess which way the Offworlder would flop when presented with the whole story.
If Garth was successful.
When, Huey reminded himself forcefully, when Garth is successful.
There was no denying Orion’s power. It was impressive. If someone asked Huey to point to a guy –or, as in this case, planet-sized collection of rings and spiraling things- with the powers of a God, Orion fit the bill. Add to that it’s close proximity to Garth during the Bruushian Incursion …
Huey pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. There was so much going on. Almost too much to handle.
Which, he realized wryly, was intentional. Orion was playing them both very well indeed.
“Well?” Aleksander demanded, arms crossed. “I’m waiting.”
He gestured to the all-consuming black hole, the almost completely ravaged solar system, the phenomenally-sized Quantum Tunnel. “All of this is connected somehow. To you. And through you to me. And at the center, is our old friend Garth Nickels. Isn’t that right? I remember looking at this man when he was dropped off on my doorstep, Huey, I remember looking at him and thinking ‘Why on earth is Trinity taking such an active interest in one man, one ordinary man?’ Then the changes came. Bit by bit, inch by inch, he grew stronger and faster and then he started doing the most outrageous things to accomplish his mission objectives. The number of medical personnel I had to shuffle around, the endless amounts of paperwork and documentation chronicling Garth’s absurd transformation I had to destroy, or hide… The number of times I had to contact Trinity Itself for assistance alone! There were times I spoke more with the machine mind than my own men, Huey, and all because of a simple man who’d slept through the proper foundation of Life.
I remember Nickels that first day, trying to hide apprehension behind jokes. I wonder to myself now, often, how a man like that … easy-going, friendly … how could someone like that become Specter? There are systems out there, Galaxies, Huey, who require continual promises from me personally that he will never darken their skies again!”
Aleksander stared off into the distance. “I remember the first time he came back from a truly grotty Deep Strike mission, friend. I remember looking into his eyes and seeing something hard. Possibly the hardest thing in the whole Universe, and that is saying something, Huey, because in my time as Commander for the Specters, I’ve been face-to-face with cyborgs driven mad by the pressures of being beyond The Cordon. I looked into his eyes, listened to his explanation as to why he found it necessary to destroy that planet by launching it’s moon at the surface, and I filed it away. Mostly because I had no choice in the matter. Trinity Itself kept closer tabs on Garth Nickels than it did on the Home System. It told me to accept whatever Garth said, that It was grooming him for some massive, monumental task that he and only he could accomplish. He grew worse still, something I couldn’t have imagined. The destruction he left in his wake was never as blatant as the moon-drop, but it grew crueler. Harder. Angry. It felt to me as though he were going to burst. Then …
Then … then Nickels abandoned ship. Pulled up and ran. Disappeared into the one system in the whole damned Universe no one could go. And I knew. I knew that somewhere deep inside that horrible, savage monstrosity that Garth had become there was still that blue-eyed idiot who delighted in telling stories that made no sense to anyone but him. I was relieved, friend, more than you can imagine. I look at everything that’s happened in Latelyspace, now, and I find myself thinking … ‘What if whatever it was Trinity wanted Nickels to do is something he’s still going to do, only for other, different, better reasons?”
Aleksander locked eyes with Huey. “So, Huey, something is going on. Something big. The biggest thing, probably. Don’t insult my intelligence by insisting that I can’t handle it. You might be his best friend, but for nearly ten years, I was his worst enemy. I kept throwing him out there, beyond The Cordon. I followed my orders. I turned Nickels into Specter. No matter what blame he takes for himself, no matter that Trinity Itself picked the systems. Me. The dark thing he almost became was under my command. I carry that with me. It was all done in Trinity’s name, certainly, but I carry it all the same.”
Huey marveled at the man.
Aleksander Politoyov, born on an insignificant backwater planet to IndoRussian parents, raised to be a rough and tumble hard case –as most IndoRussians were- from the day he’d been able to head out into the streets had taken that inauspicious upbringing and parlayed it first into a stratospheric rise into the Army, rising to the very heights of Command and Control which he’d … promptly burned to ash, disgracing himself so thoroughly that the situation was almost something you’d find in a sitcom.
From there, he’d resurrected himself in the ashes of Specter, and from there, Aleksander Politoyov had transformed the ignominious and ignoble ‘washout palace’ known as Special Services into the go-to solution for anyone needing help that no one else could provide. That Specter had been –even in passing- attached to Trinity’s Military Engine loaned the pack of thieves, madmen and psychopaths the air of legitimacy. Garth N’Chalez, through passionate and diligent application of his particular brand of honor and warfare, assisted in transforming Specter into a recognizable brand name.
Watching Politoyov watching him right back, Huey suspected there was a deeper game at play. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it came, forbidding any subminds from doing any digging on the matter.
This close to the End of Days, everything seemed to carry portents, or meant something other than what it was. A man could go mad trying to unravel the knot and even madder trying to tie things together.
Huey decided that Commander Aleksander Politoyov –once a stone’s throw away from becoming a rebel and a terrorist fighting against an incredibly unjust religious tyranny- could quite possibly handle the ultra-weird shit that was happening just below the surface without missing a beat.
Huey took a deep breath, chose to ignore the triumphant gleam in the old man’s eyes. “Okay, here it …”
A submind sat up and went ‘what the fuck’ as it played back something Politoyov had said more than ten minutes ago. Huey listened to what it said, then slowly, almost painfully, spun on his heel until he was staring back up at the Mouth of Ages.
The shattered solar system was now just a few floating motes of golden dust, too far out from the black hole’s event horizon to be scooped into it’s eternally hungry maw. Those few tatters of matter would float in the emptiness –the true emptiness- of space from now until the end of time.
Which, several thousand subminds reminded Huey fretfully, was on schedule to happen in a year or two.
Huey told those minds to fuck off then turned back to Politoyov. “Hey, so…”
That close. He’d been that close to unveiling a secret he’d been trying to uncover on his own since Nickels had literally crash landed on 9-Nov
a-12 more than ten years ago. The look in Huey’s eyes had been unmistakable, but …
Aleksander tilted his head to one side and looked past Huey’s fretful face, intentionally letting the dangling, unasked question fall to the side. Mankind had never been so close to a black hole. Maybe it was doing something to the AI.
“Yes?” Aleks asked after a moment more of silence.
“Hey, yeah, um.” Huey ran a trembling hand through his hair. Orion wouldn’t be such a complete and utter fuckbag. “When … when you mentioned the name of the solar system being sucked down like a cosmic-sized Slurpee, how … how did you come to that conclusion? Like, do you happen to have Asperger’s when it comes to this kind of stuff? Like, you can recognize solar systems and shit by how they’re shaped?”
“No.” Aleks shook his head. “Our ‘host’, Orion, told me. He … it … he claimed that he’d chosen this spot so I could learn something interesting. Why?”
“Annnnnd,” Huey risked another look over his shoulder, petrified to the point where all his subminds were trying to come up with methods of Spontaneous Teleportation without a HIM Because Fuck This Noise Sideways, “you’re one hundred percent certain that Gliex is, uh, still beyond The Cordon?”
“Huey, Gliex is so deep into Cordon-space it will be another thousand years before Trinity expands It’s domain into this area.” The grizzled commander pointed at the few glowing phosphors that was Gliex-32-X-Alpha-12. “Likely never will, now. Not with that Hungry Wanderer.”
Huey tilted his head back and shouted, just cut loose with a bellow of unadulterated, agonized stress. “You have got to be fucking kidding me, Orion! What in the unholy fuck are you thinking?”
“What’s the matter?” Aleks demanded, catching on to the fact that Huey was more than just randomly concerned about a hungry black hole. No, this was worse. Far, far worse.
“That isn’t a fucking black hole, Commander.” Huey stabbed a finger at where the black hole should be. “That, my friend, is The Great Enemy. That is Kith Antal, Garth’s ancient father, and the ship he drives is as big as a galaxy. It eats solar systems for fuel. That is what Garth N’Chalez is trying to ready the Universe for.”
Aleksander stared deep into the empty blackness. “Impossible.”
“No, no, he’s quite right.” Orion’s smug voice appeared behind them. “That is Kith Antal’s Galaxyship. We’re really quite close. I can move us, if you like, so you might get a better view of things.”
Aleksander looked hard into Huey’s eyes. “You have some explaining to do.”
***
Chadsik al-Taryin stared into the monitors that were his eyes, which were in turn looking out into the real world. On them, the Mistresses –collectively known as The Matrons and an all-round pile of robotic bitches- were, well, freaking right out.
It were hilarious.
“And quite fuckin’ well deserved.” Chad said to himself.
Wasn’t it just?
For as long as Arcade City had been around, these maddened AI crackpots had been the literal handmaidens for the King, doing his bidding, making the lives of normal boys and girls spectacularly less fantastic than they could be, and all … all because the King himself was a right miserable twat.
From the moment of his incarceration, trapped inside his own spacious brain with the entirely hallucinatory Mistress Taint –Chad reckoned, when he were free, that he were going to have a quick chat with himself concerning the nature of that rather horrid bitch, and how she’d wound up being the boss of him- the cybernetic super-assassin had known that Arcade City was in dire jeopardy, and not just from the state of Arcadia itself.
No, the pale-haired ex-citizen of Arcade City had seen straight off –even though it were mostly hallucination, some of what ‘e’d seen through them windows and direct from Taint ‘erself ‘ad to be direct input from the Soul Machine he were trapped in- that Arcade City was in a right mess because of what the King had done a hundred years ago.
Chad watched the metallic bitches scramble back and forth, to and fro, little robotic mice scurrying about their grand control room, desperately trying to gain some kind of upper hand on what their King was doing, on what had been happening to The Dome for some time now, on … everything.
They were failing, and miserably.
“Still can’t believe me Old Da done for them Platinum Brigadiers, Bliss.” Chad knew Bliss weren’t real, might never have even really been real, but he couldn’t help himself. The wee little dolly was one of his strongest memories, and while he was now questioning everything he remembered about himself and his time working with and for King Barnabas Blake the One and Only, that tiny doll, her with the bee-sting lips and the knowing eyes, well, she were perfect. She had been strong and brave and true in ways he wished he could be when he weren’t busy being crazy, and she’d sacrificed herself for him.
Chad reckoned that were the saddest and most wonderful thing he’d ever personally experienced.
It were difficult to recall just why the King had worked so long and so hard to bring the Brigadiers into being, but Chad did know that with them men and women –all of them possessing powers just shy of the King himself- running around looking after the millions and millions of regular folk sandwiched in with all the gearheads and wardogs and beasties that feasted on them all, Arcade City had blossomed, properly and fully for the first time in a long time.
Chad recalled the few Brigadiers he’d met personally through the years, and thought them all effortlessly great. There’d been Davram and that drunkard poet Sonnensfeld, two great blokes who’d taken a young lad looking to get out from under his old da’s thumb for a bit on a great ride through Arcade City. The sights he’d seen, the things he’d done, the miracles he’d beheld.
Oh, Arcade City had, once upon a time, been a thing of legend and myth, all dashed to the ground in an instant, shattered beyond repair by a spastic old King who’d lost his favorite toy.
Through the monitors that were his eyes, Chad watched the ongoing destruction of a city the Matrons called ‘Ickford’ with great interest, marveling at the clean split of the pro tem ruling body’s emotional state.
On the one hand, they were keenly excited that their King had returned after nearly a century of stone cold silence. They knew they’d done a poor job of running the City in his absence, and were most regretful that they’d allowed the wretchedly disgusting mockery that was Ickford gain even the smallest foothold in their world and so they were well pleased the King had risen from his slumber or his self-imposed exile. His wroth was a mighty and wondrous thing to behold!
Ickford, the Nannies kept saying over and over again, their harsh, steam-driven voices chattering with electric pride, was done for. Their ever-shifting gear-faces kept sliding into the most horrific of grins, their mad, lighted eyes shining with nearly religious fervor.
With the King back, all the bad boys and girls of Arcade City were going to learn their lessons, yes they were.
Chad knew nothing of Ickford, but he knew the woman who ran it, knew her very well indeed. The Nannies themselves could barely bring themselves to whisper the Queen’s name, but his heart had hammered in his chest the first time they’d tried to pry through the strange electronic shield surrounding the city-within-a-city.
Agnethea. Oh, Agnethea the Vile, the Wicked, the Salacious. Him and Davram and Sonnensfeld had run into the immortal Obsidian Golem on one of their walkabouts far down to the South, oh, quite some time ago. By that time, a young and impressionable Chadsik had seen his two Platinum Brigadier friends do some really damn impressive things. He recalled being well put out by how that encounter had played out.
“Like doin’ for that Ogre fella, one ‘anded.” Chad chuckled at that. Davram, one hand literally tied behind his back, Sonnensfeld standing off to one side, reciting one of his ludicrous poems, battling a giant ogre that’d sprouted up out of the ground like a seven thousand pound murderous mushroom.
Good old Davram had taken a few lumps t
hat day battling the ogre, winning out in the end as all Brigadiers would. The three of them had fallen back to Arcadia on the quick to get good and properly sozzled, they had!
And so –and here, Chad remembered the whirlwind of confusing emotions battling for supremacy in his young mind- it had been with great confusion and surprise that Chad and his two babysitters had met with, chatted politely with, and then took their leave -with all due haste- from Agnethea the Vile, all without mentioning or doing anything about the fact that their temporary hostess had literally been in the middle of murdering an entire village of fishermen for no other reason than their wares had smelled like fish.
More confusing, more frustrating than all of that, had been their reticence in discussing Agnethea, her kind, and why they always treated the Obsidian Golems with the utmost caution.
“Now I think on it,” Chad mused, laughing as two Matrons collided into one another so hard that their robo-faces shuddered, “I do believe that were the last time I was allowed outside.”
Well, whatever the case, an intrepid Chad had done some digging on his own, had learned all about Obsidian Golems and their ‘evil, wicked ways’, and –oh so many years ago- had come to the conclusion that he’d rather be an Obsidian Golem, loathed and universally hated upon sight but still treated with wary respect than whatever he’d been to the King.
And thus had begun a decades-long effort to escape. An escape, sadly, culminating in the deaths of his few friends and the overall detriment of Arcade City.
“Though it seems my departure were not wivvout beneficial side effects, hey, luvverly Bliss?” Chad approved of Agnethea’s one-eighty. He couldn’t know the reasons behind the cruelest creature’s decision to build a free city, and under the circumstances, he did wish she’d not done so, e’en if it were likely done for the best of reasons.
For his old Da, the Mad Goth King Barnabas the Homicidal Psychopath, were apparently gettin’ ready to do for them all. And not just Ickford, neither, but the whole of Arcade City. Everywhere he saw as he peeped over Nannies’ shoulders looked to be a wretched shithole now, more than half the Estates looked to be completely empty and overrun with weird monsters. The whole middle section? Teeming with beasts and monsters and no gauntlet-runners about to clear the fields.