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

by Lee Bond

  “I love Garth’s holographic display concept.” Herrig commented casually, giving the bastards a moment or two to truly absorb what it was they were looking at. As he seemed wont to do –at least in this particular meeting- Father Vasily was laughing out loud. Ute had a distinct look of concern on his face but it was those five men who lurked at the far end of the table that held Herrig’s interest.

  They looked … not worried, not concerned, but … something. Uneasy.

  “Completely revolutionized human/computer interfaces.” Herrig continued, pointing this way and that, causing small thumbnails to swell into full displays every time he did so. “Times past, every flat surface in this room would’ve required wiring, connection to the ‘LINK, which is both time consuming and not terribly easy to keep secret unless you decide you want to kill the technicians when all is done.”

  “It is arguably the best way to keep a secret meeting place secret.” Vasily marveled at the sheer flood of secrets. Naturally, owing to his ‘position’ within the hierarchy, most of Fenris’ dirty little tricks were already known to him in one fashion or another, but here and there, things that the ex-OverCommander knew the Harmony soldier would’ve preferred remained hidden flashed. “This wasn’t generated by any Ministry.”

  “You are correct.” Herrig nodded. “This is beyond even the Ministry of Examination’s admittedly expansive reach. They dig deep in other directions.”

  “You overstep yourself, little man.” Fenris growled. “This information is not for your eyes. What do you think you can do with this? Knowing something is a far cry from being able to do something about.”

  Sidra wished she could say something, but … discretion was the better part of valor. The five men who glittered and glimmered across Harmony like black diamonds lit with incandescent fire deserved a great deal of respect and admiration, not to mention thanks; without them, without their surprising levels of patience in guiding all the God soldiers back into the light –so to speak- … well, their futures had been positively bleak.

  That being said … spending time with Herrig had shown her the other side of their existence, the nihilistic side, the grim side, the side that filled regular men and women with utter stark, depression. The God soldier knew they knew she was still loyal to the cause and would, when the time came, fight alongside the rest, but there was little doubt in Sidra’s mind that they were also well aware that she didn’t particularly like them.

  No sense in poking the shubin. So now that her love had entered into his own Arena for combat, it was up to him. She yielded the floor with a slight nod.

  “The funny thing is, Sa Fenris,” Herrig took his glasses off and wiped them free of imaginary dirt, “is that I genuinely did not want to have to do this. Since coming to office, I have stumbled across more power and more secrets and more influence than any one man could dream of, and unlike my predecessors, manipulating those things to my own advantage is something I care very little for. I prefer … I prefer to run things like a bank. Everyone knows their job, they come in, they do it. Perhaps every now and then they, er, take a longer lunch or they try to do a little bit less, but at the end of the day, I know I can rely on everyone to do what needs doing with as little interference from me as possible.

  From businesses to governments to solar systems, that’s how things should be run. Yes, obviously, the metaphor is a little thin and there are all sorts of areas I’ve not touched on, but no one here wants to listen to how I think things should be done.” Herrig put the glasses back on, perversely hoping that Fenris and his ill brood had left.

  No such luck. They were still there, still exuding the electric chill of their wrath. They were smart, though; were he an ordinary man approaching them this way, he’d already be dead. Luckily they possessed enough wisdom to recognize –even if only to themselves- that no matter how hard they wished it, he was Chairman of Latelyspace and there was something they were missing.

  They believed that, once the secret was revealed, they could commence killing him.

  They were about to be sorely disabused of that idea.

  “The HIM.” Father Vasily blurted the answer out, drawing sharp stares from everyone at the table, but none as sharp as Sidra’s. “The HIM. It’s fully active. He said so. The machine is or was part of Garth’s master plan.”

  “What does a machine have to do with Harmony?” Solgun demanded, brow furrowed.

  Lokken cursed.

  “Your brother, Lokken, has figured it out.” Herrig hastened to continue before the Harmony soldier could explain; he and Sidra had practiced various forms of this ‘reveal’ for days on end and he’d be damned if he was going to let one of them beat him to the punch. “Since the discovery of both the HIM and the First Prote, Latelians have been extraordinarily reliant on technology. It’s reached into every corner of our lives. From the moment we’re born to the moment we die, the netLINKs are with us, wrapping us in a cocoon of interconnectivity that follows us everywhere. There are few men and women in this system who choose to live without a proteus on their arm, and even then, those that do must still use some form of machine to interact with the world at large.

  At the center of Latelyspace’s interconnectivity is, as I mentioned, the ‘LINK. Certainly, individual systems are connected to other systems by practical methods, but at the center, hidden, is the Heuristic Intelligence Model. The bandwidth it exudes in an effort to meet Garth Nickels’ need to understand the physical construction of this Universe us is an endless ocean. We are literally swimming in it, and we use a miniscule fraction of it’s power to fuel our voracious appetite for information, data, games, Screenshows, music. The same goes for troop transport, encoded communiques, black ops maneuvers, back room deals with less than savory elements. The list is boundless. Through the HIM, gentlemen, I know everything. It’s all right there.

  But the central ‘LINK has more than just all this flowing through it, gentlemen.” Herrig smiled briefly at Ute’s swift intake of breath; were the Harmony soldiers truly Latelian, they, too, would’ve bristled at the insult.

  The Chairman continued, gesturing once more, replacing the flickering thumbnails with headshots of God soldiers. “Thirty million thumbnails, one for every Goddie out there, Fenris. One for each man and woman directly under your authority.”

  “What does this…” Fenris clenched his jaw as Lokken raised a hand to silence him.

  “Brother, we have lost.” Lokken shook his head. It was nearly impossible to believe.

  Beaten. By a banker!

  Fenris turned to Lokken. “Have you suddenly taken leave of your senses? We are Harmony! He is a man.”

  Vasily clapped his hands in earnest appreciation. He could not believe it, but the small, balding man sitting at the head of the table was a true Chairman in every sense of the word.

  Better even than Alyssa.

  When Fenris turned his brooding, anger-filled eyes his way, the ‘Father’ of the God soldiers explained. “The method our God soldiers use to connect to Harmony is one strictly and solely maintained by the duronium implants buried in their flesh, Fenris. The miniscule bridge between this plane of existence and the one from which Harmony is powered operates only so long as the mechanisms inside each and every Goddie is functional. Long before you arrived and ushered them into Harmony, we knew they were inextricably linked in some way through the implants giving them their great strength, but locating and … and manipulating that connection was beyond our capability to achieve. With the HIM fully operational …”

  “Chairman Herrig DuPont has control over every single machine connected, even peripherally, to the ‘LINK.” Sidra interrupted, bristling frostily at the sour look on Vasily’s face. “From the protes on your arms to the ships you fly through space in to … to …”

  “To us.” Ute cocked his head to one side and saw that he needed to look at Herrig in a new light. The man had certainly had the office of Chairman thrust upon him, and had he been asked several years ago, Ute would’
ve sworn on his life that Huey had chosen the balding CFO of UMD for no other reason than to tweak the noses of the very men and women who’d been clamoring for the spot themselves.

  That was not the case. Not by a longshot. The man was doing arguably well as Chairman, especially during a ‘wartime’ setting, and he was definitely adroit in dealing with Fenris’ machinations, but the real test, the true test was this moment here, this very second.

  Revealing to a room full of beings who counted as Gods that a simple, humble man could take away all their toys with a single command was a task that few would be able to do, let alone managing to retain humility while doing so. Why, sitting there, Sidra’s hand resting on his shoulder, Herrig still managed to look embarrassed that he’d been forced into this corner.

  “Bah.” Fenris snapped, though some of the electric chill coursing from his end of the table lightened. “Bah.”

  “Not so convinced, not any longer, eh, sa?” Vasily all but crowed the taunt. Oh, when he’d been ousted out of command, when he’d been made to feel useless and baseless and all but worthless, why, he’d spent countless nights thinking up revenge scenarios between him and Fenris.

  None had come to pass, obviously, and so it was with special delight that Father Vasily memorized the stoic discomfort leaking from the Horsemen’s pores. Wonderful.

  “I don’t believe it.” Fenris looked to his brothers, and they looked back. “Even if such a thing were possible, you would never in a thousand years use such a powerful tool. It is not in your nature, Chairman. You are a coward, you refuse to allow this war to be run as it should, you deny us and our God soldiers the right to run rampant as we must. You even refuse to deactivate the systemic shield when, by all that is logical and real, you must know by now that it must come down when the Final War comes.”

  “The shield will fall when the time comes, Fenris, and not a moment sooner.” Herrig could tell the moment when his will would be tested was hurtling towards him like an out of control star cruiser. His heart sank. “Now…”

  The moment couldn’t be let go. It had to happen, here, now, in this room, with these people watching. They needed to see that he wasn’t –as dear Nickels would say, chest stuck out, chin thrust forward, smirk on his lips- not a dude to be fucked with.

  Sidra tried to will warmth and hope and strength and courage through the physical connection she shared with Herrig, saw the disgusted looks passing with fleeting indignation across the faces of her ‘masters’ and continued doing so anyways. They could fuck themselves; Fenris and his brothers were indeed the ones who would see the end of the War, when it came.

  But it would be Herrig DuPont who got them to that point, or no one at all.

  Sidra was a constant, firm reminder that she was there for him, and he felt from her grip that she was preparing to do as they’d agreed to do only last night.

  The Chairman’s heart sank a bit. He wondered how his love would react when things did not going as planned.

  “Now?” Acid dripped from Fenris’ tongue. The whole room grew darker.

  The brothers retreated from Harmony and withdrew into themselves. They wanted no part of the altercation, a fight that –inexplicably- the Chairman apparently wanted to pick.

  Some of them needed to stay sane.

  “Now, Fenris, be a good doggie and do as I say.” Herrig smiled a sickly smile and watched the fountain of shocked rage ripple through Fenris.

  Ute was moving before he knew what was going on, the glorious strains of Harmony flooding through him, pushing him along the wave of music and in the blink of an eye he was across the table, standing directly before Fenris, the oldest and most terrible of all the Harmony soldiers, standing in front of a being who held more power than was even safe to contemplate.

  Fenris’ eyes glowed with fury. The very atoms of his being simmered with heartfelt rage and the whole of Harmony echoed with volcanic shock. God soldiers by the millions were doing now as his brothers had done only a few seconds ago; unable to deal with their commander’s incandescent rage and unwilling to witness the murder that was going to occur, they were … making themselves absent.

  Good.

  “Out of the way, Ute.” Fenris words seemed to push through the air, sending cascades of boiling energy falling across the table.

  “No.” Ute shook his head. As the last two friends of Garth Nickels left in the solar system, he couldn’t let this happen. He couldn’t. When their departed friend returned, it needed to be to a home as he remembered it, not as the war-torn battlefield Fenris wanted it to become. “No, Fenris, I cannot allow this.”

  Herrig rose to his feet. It was a tiny gesture, especially because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t learn a Goddie’s trick of growing to whatever size was needed.

  It didn’t matter, though, because in this arena, every gesture counted. Every little thing made an impact.

  “Herrig!” Sidra gasped. “You cannot! We discussed…”

  Herrig raised a hand. “Sidra, please. Hush.” Happily, Sidra –for once- did as she was asked.

  Then he turned to Ute and Fenris, the former looking as doleful as always and the latter growing ever closer to that moment when all the respect and honor the most ancient God soldier was owed by the latter was burned to ash. He bowed, then saluted as those most ancient God soldiers once did, head dipped low in honor, one hand over his heart.

  Puzzlement filled the room.

  “Ute. Friend.” Herrig felt the HIM in the room, just as Huey had promised. When a subtle quirking of the ears indicated that the last friend he had in the world was listening, he spoke. “Sleep.”

  Ute instantly dropped to the ground, one of his vast arms crashing into the table and bringing it down with him, sending the remnants of their half-hearted repast flying.

  The room erupted into pandemonium. The brothers –Lokken, Solgun, Stride and Nalanata- shouted incoherent words in purest Harmony. Father Vasily –finding the whole operatic situation hilarious- laughed so hard he fell backwards out of his chair, slamming his head so heavily on the ground that he split the back of his head open. He gave one final, strangled gasp of laughter before falling unconscious.

  Sidra … Sidra couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears. This wasn’t how it was supposed to’ve happened, not at all. Herrig was supposed to’ve snapped his fingers and she would’ve fallen unconscious, willingly sundered from the machines connecting her to Harmony. She’d spent the entire night preparing herself for the possibility that –upon awakening- that connection, the wonderful and warm and sometimes sad and sorrowful connection to the rest of her brothers and sisters would be gone.

  A risk well worth taking, if, as a direct result of her sacrifice, Fenris and the others understood the true dynamic of power.

  But Ute … Ute had been unprepared. Even as her doughy love moved to confront Fenris directly, Sidra quested through the link all God soldiers shared towards his massive, unconscious form.

  Nothing. There was nothing there. The Goddie who’d lived for nearly five thousand years, all alone, watching loved ones grow old and die while he stayed the same forever, was … gone.

  “Who do you think you are?” Fenris growled the words again, though this time, they were laden with purest power drawn straight from Harmony. The air shivered with possibility, streamers of gossamer light casting shadows across them all.

  “I am Chairman.” Herrig repeated himself, careful to sound irritated at needing to do so. “Is your head full of Harmony and nothing else?”

  “Watch your tone.” Fenris growled warningly. He looked down at Ute, then at his brothers. They each of them signaled through Harmony that the entity they all knew and frankly admired –of them all, only Ute had stayed conscious for the whole of his life- was absent. “And bring that man back.”

  “No.” Herrig moved as close as he could to Fenris. “I will not. Not until you do. One. Simple. Thing.”

  “And what is that?” Fenris began drawing more power to his han
ds. He had grown tired of parlaying with this miniscule bug, this gasping, wheezing mayfly who aspired to heights so great that it was beyond laughable.

  The power of the HIM was formidable, true, and the realization that whoever was in control of it could, in fact, manipulate not only their machines but God soldiers as well was a bitter, oddly frightening one. Without the God soldiers, the War against the Heshii would go nowhere, and in a hurry.

  Which was why, Fenris decided, that Herrig was going to die.

  Lokken and the others signaled their agreement across Harmony. They simply could not allow a man –any man- with that kind of power to exist. He threatened the integrity of the Engineer’s plans.

  “Kneel.” Herrig heard Sidra’s gasping sobs. Once again, he’d deviated from their script, but there was no choice.

  Originally, following her abrupt descent into catatonia, he and Fenris were to’ve come to an uneasy armistice, wherein the latter recognized the former’s ability to know everything that was going on and that, while he did in fact possess the ability to intrude whenever he liked, the former would, in fact, communicate that action in advance, giving the latter opportunity to correct himself.

  Even as he and Sidra had worked out that plan, he’d known deep in his queasy guts that Fenris would never agree to an equal sharing of power, not even on paper.

  Therefore, an outright display of power. It was how animals in the wild did it. It was what Garth N’Chalez himself would do, when it came right down to it, though Herrig rather imagined his dear friend with the wild eyes would be doing so with more savoir faire than was inhumanly possible.

  Fenris laughed. He couldn’t contain himself. The laughter erupted out of him so quickly, so swiftly that he was honestly beside himself with amazement. The brothers joined in, filling the room with humor.

  And then, when the laughter grew raucous and the humor grew dark, Fenris unleashed all the power he’d drawn into himself.

  The meeting room grew dark, the lights flickered, the very air grew thick with a kind of invisible blackness, with the only thing they could hear being Sidra’s lament. Even as the last of the eviscerating power of Harmony flowed through his mighty hands, Fenris decided they were going to have to do something … terminal … with the female God soldier. None of them could understand how and why someone as powerful as Sidra had bonded herself to a weakling like Herrig, but now he was nothing but greasy atom…