by Lee Bond
Chadsik al-Taryin suddenly hooted and hollered and galumphed around the room, waving his cigarette in the air and generally acting as though he’d won the lottery. When he got tired of that, he hopped on an invisible pony and started riding it about the Armory, cheering and hollering ‘thank you everyone, it were well difficult to accomplish, but in the end, I should like to thank God, Jesus, and of course, me mam…’
“Fuck me.” Garth couldn’t believe his eyes. “Is that what I look like when I do that? Jesus. No wonder people get pissed off. Chad! Hey! Chad! I get it. You managed to bring something full circle and I am totally fucking impressed. How about you let me in on the gag?”
Chad rode his invisible pony right up to Garth Nickels, looked the man square in the eyes. “Like I is sayin’, N’Chalez, you is a fucking moron. Too fucking impatient by half. I should like to tell you a story of a mentally deranged sociopathic artiste-assassin hidin’ out, mindin’ ‘is own business, a super-telepathic insect Enforcer, and an AI remote-controllin’ a perfect clone body wiv no eyebrows who was an honest-to-gosh kidnapper and all the shit the three of them got up to, all in an effort to rescue you.”
Garth squinted. “You tried to rescue me.” Impossible.
“Oh, aye.” Chad took a long pull on his cigarette. “’struth. Though at first, I was not wantin’ to in kind of a big way. Anyways. There I was, mindin’ me own business as I always do as I am not some sort o’ ruffian ‘ho looks for trouble or nuffink…”
***
“That was a wonderful, heartwarming story of a couple of lunatics and a psychic space bug as they traveled through the Universe learning the meaning of true friendship and the value of always bribing more than one person when you’re in trouble,” Garth drawled, “but it in no way explains to me why the first thing out of your mouth wasn’t ‘Oi, mate, that were a well difficult fing you ‘as just done and I is wonderin’ if you is orl right’ instead of ‘Crikey wot ho, you flamin’ twat, you is a moron’.”
“Don’t do that.” Chad offered Garth a cigarette. When the other man declined, he looked at the second ciggy, shrugged, then lit it as well, then took a pull on both ciggies. “You do the absolute worst FrancoBritish accent I is ever ‘earin’. And, mister smarty-pants, I was just gettin’ to that bit when you was quite frankly embarassin’ yourself.”
“Well, then, get on with it.” Garth wished The Armory had windows. Who built a shop with no windows? The King was on his way down, and while the assassin claimed there was plenty of time yet for teatime, Garth wasn’t keen on wasting any more sweeps of the old Arcadian clock than they already had; Chad’s longwinded adventures of himself, Huey and an Offworld Enforcer named Gwyleh Ronn –even the abridged version- had run close to three quarters of an hour and had been filled with so many different levels of hair-raising lunacy that there was absolutely no way to tell what was fact and what was fiction beyond the obvious one.
Huey really and truly had gone out of his way to ‘kidnap’ Chadsik with the sole purpose of using the bizarre Arcadian to bust him out of Bravo.
“If you please.” Garth added circumspectly when Chad, lounging with his back against his destroyed prison, knees drawn up to his chest, adopted a scandalously relaxed pose.
Oddly enough, or not oddly at all when you took into consideration who his traveling companions had been since coming to Arcade City, it was easier than ever to be polite to someone like Chad; the Arcadian had been First Brigadier for thousands of years, and held an undeniably iron-clad grasp over King’s Will. Where Davram had been closer to a hedge wizard, Chad Sikkmund was the closest thing to Merlin himself. An unutterably bizarre, poorly cast Merlin, sure, but at the same time, it was all too certain that the Arcadian could zap a poseur-Kin’kithal into greasy soot if the mood took him.
“Well, my son, as I was sayin’,” Chad winked, knowing his laissez-faire attitude were driving the other man nuts, “you is a moron for being so impatient. There we was, Huey and me, right, ‘angin’ out in the backend of Trinity’s enormous fleet, yeah? I’m like ‘Yeah, this looks real bad, mate, we is not gettin’ in there and even if we is, they is got ships as are ready to shoot through the shield surrounding the system the very second it drops down, ‘ow about we find a place as does a nice fry up and consider other options’. Huey weren’t havin’ none of it, though. Got all sorts of upset a few minutes later when it were revealed,” Here, Chadsik indicated the lounging Kin’kithal with grand gestures which devolved quite quickly into a double-blast of middle fingers and a few Offworld hand signals of quite profound rudeness, “that you were not only makin’ a jail break, you were flyin’ your jail right at a shield which you had no idea existed.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” Garth shouted stormily. He’d been trapped in Bravo for so long! Didn’t matter that time inside the ship had stood still. Every second of every minute he’d been inside could’ve been days, weeks, months of real time on the outside. For all he’d known, the End had already come. “Everything and everyone was in danger. I had to do something.”
“Nah.” Chad drawled rudely. “You is a twat. Huey had it all figured out. As I is a very special boy stuffed to the tits with iterations of myself as are from different versions of this Unreality, one of me somewhere would’ve been able to build a weapon or drill or summink to cut right through that there quadronium ship of yours and that would’ve been that. Failin’ that, well, turns out a lot of wot I was doin’ on the outside was actually very subtle nanotech manipulation, yeah? And we all seen wot nanotech can do now, hey?”
Garth ignored Chad’s sly grin on the subject of nanotech. Given a moment to consider the dire assassin’s unique nature and his abilities on the Outside, only a single possibility concerning his continued survival had come to mind: somehow, the various … elements comprising that first Platinum Brigadier –exposure to Shattered Harmony, introduction to purest particulate, further monkeying by the ‘Priests- all that had given Chad the power to exert nanoparticulate control while gallivanting about the Unreal Universe.
Ordinarily, using nanotech as Chad did was a surefire way to get the banhammer smacked onto your forehead, but there was more to how the Arcadian did things than simple particulate tomfoolery.
Chad’s manipulation of matter occurred on a personal level.
Weapons, cigarettes, clothing.
That had to be the key!
The prote-makers in Latelyspace were small, simple, self-contained, creating only the one thing. The nodes, too, though they were off the fucking charts in terms of size, nevertheless used their nanotech processes for one thing and one thing alone.
Had Goreene been too big? Had things lasted only as long as they had because the HIM had been there, working to keep things under control?
As much as he wanted to probe the extent of this new understanding, there were far more important things to discuss.
“And then what? You whammy up a quadronium-busting supergun, you free me from my temporally locked prison, I see you and Huey standing there with stupid grins on your faces and everyone convinces me that you’re friends so I shouldn’t start kicking your ass. Then what? You fuck off and do your own thing because you’re an assassin and aren’t the nicest of people to be around, Huey sticks in Latelyspace trying to keep a lid on Fenris and the others, leaving me to wander around doing precisely what I’ve been doing this whole time. What, exactly, beyond freeing me could … would … you have done, Chad?”
Chad put a hand to his chest, feigning a mortal shot to his poor old thumper. “Well, mate, since you is askin’, I shall tell ya. Upon freeing you from your prison, the conversation would’ve inevitably come ‘round to where you was ‘eadin’ next, at which time, Johnny Arsehole, you woulda said in your stupid macho voice ‘by the by, I is going to be a total twat and launch myself at The Dome because somewhere inside is an evil King who is attempting to ruin my efforts at destroying the Unreality in ways that fall outside the optimal blahblahblah’. Then I would of said summink l
ike ‘Holy crap, my son, I is from Arcade City, and let me tell you, that place is not worf the effort as it is positively lousy with nanotech-ruint gearheads and monsters and all manner of shit wot is truly fuckin’ bonkers. You will not last one hot second in that place wivvout the assistance of someone who ‘as been there before, coz if you is goin’ in there on yer own you is goin’ ter be utterly fucked sideways’. Smart you would of said ‘oy, that is a good idea, mate, let us do this as I am the opposite of a moron’. Then you and I would of gone on our own awesome adventure, here, ‘neath The Dome, truly pissing my fucking awful Dad off every step of the way.”
Garth narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Chad’s nutshelling of likely events. It sounded too good to be true, most of all the part where the crazed Arcadian volunteered to return to the one place he hated more than anything else in the entire Unreal Universe. “You would have come back here of your own free will.”
Chad gestured to the shattered prison at his back. “Better to return of my own free will than as a prisoner, mate. The moment I tellyported away from Huey, I was snared. Summink out there in the void ‘twixt our glorious Unreality and everyfing else got in me way. Panicked, I did. Emergency tellyport sent me ‘ere, trapped. For everyfing I suffered under me old Da’s reign, mate, you bet your dirty arsehole I would of returned. Come in through one of them Doors, armed for bear, wiv a Kin’kithal at me back? Christ on a bicycle built for two, you bet I would of. Dear old Dad deserves nuffink less.”
The two of them sat there in silence, Chad smoking cigarette after cigarette while an unhappy Engineer considered the implications of his own impatience. Chad’s sincerity in suggesting he would’ve been more than happy to join the fight against Arcade City was absolutely earnest.
A fantasy played out in Garth’s mind, bright and vivid, of the two of them gallivanting across the shattered and broken world, the pale-haired assassin wreaking havoc amongst the population of monsters while his partner learned the ins and outs of how King’s Will worked until the two of them stood before the very doors of fair Arcadia herself, intent and ready to do valiant battle against Barnabas Blake. The Platinum and Onyx Brigadier.
Sounded like a fucking anime cartoon.
The whole journey could’ve taken, like, four days. Tops. With roughly three hundred percent less casualties.
“Fuck me that would’ve been a fucking helluva lot easier.” Garth groaned. He was an asshole.
Chad blew a very complicated smoke ring comprised of seventeen individual circles. “Yep. Ah well. Shit ‘appens.” The Arcadian clapped his hands and hopped to his feet. “Well, that’s about it, then.”
Garth raised an eyebrow. Rising smoothly to his feet, he confronted Chadsik. “What?”
Chad shrugged, smoothing the lapels of his fabulous new long coat. “Yep, I is done. Time to leave, me. Got to see about getting the band back together.”
“Okayyyyy.” Garth said slowly, suddenly completely adrift. “Five seconds ago you were professing your interest in helping me kill the King, your Dad, and now you’re getting ready to bugger off? What gives? The band? Are you being cryptic? I hate cryptic.”
Chad rolled his shoulders as he rummaged through the deeper spaces of nanotech. With the perverted and pervasive sentience driving the particulate destroyed –quite masterfully, he believed, silent kudos given to the Engineer for that- with no hope of resurrection, the systems preventing him from using Ye Olde CyberPriest method of quick transfer were absolutely one hundred percent free and clear of subversive elements. A quick zip on over to the engine room to free as many versions of him as he could before getting the hell out of Dodge was definitely the way to go.
The ex-assassin took a deep breath, then expelled it quickly. “Real fast, then, as you really ain’t got all that much time. Prior to me coming along and being so super-excellent it aren’t even funny, dear old Dad was using, errrm, entropic decay to fuel The Dome and all it’s systems. ‘s not the proper technical term. Like, ‘e’s got a spot up there in The Dome as is rubbin’ right up against the Void and all, and the interaction between our Unreality and … all right, mate, no need to get that pissy look on your face. I is not an engineer like some in the room, all right? You want to talk guns and whatnot, I is your bloke. Look. All that matters is ‘e had a stable if not terribly efficient way to power mostly everyfing. Roughly ninety percent of the power ‘e siphoned from the interaction went straight into The Dome’s exterior defenses, right, as everyone and their Uncle wanted to take a stab at the great clanging metal cap.
Then I came along, and King and I had a great big old fight and it were goin’ real well until I damn near kilt him, right, and then blam, suddenly I is ‘earin’ all sorts of voices in me ‘ead and I is capable of doin’ all sorts of fings and all that and the King hisself is all manner of disturbed and distraught. Well, then I is discoverin’ I can, under proper circumstances, bring them other voices out into the world. They is all like me, my son. Every one. Bright and pure … don’t you snort an’ roll your eyes at me, asshat, prior to ten fousand years of bullshit imprisonment I was pure as pure … and full of power. Dear old Dad started using those captured essences to fuel his great honking weapon. Get it?”
The Dome, designed to destroy the Unreality before moving on to the true Realities in the Sphere of Existence, fueled by paradoxical iterations of a madman. Garth shivered. That penultimate battle with Barnabas Blake, a disguised CyberPriest, had been the beginning of the end; somehow, the splinter of already fractured Harmony severed from the ‘Priest had driven a wedge deep into Chad Sikkmund’s mind, allowing him –as improbable as it seemed- to dig into the Engine of Creation’s logbook! To root through destroyed versions of the Unreality like they were filed trapped in an Existential desktop garbage can, only to be restored?
Garth scrubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. “And the centuries long effort to perfect Brigadiers?”
Chad scratched his neck. He really should be toddling off, especially since his old Dad was gettin’ within broadcast range, but … Chad knew Huey would be well upset were he to find out that his old buddy hadn’t done everything in his power to leave his even older buddy with the kind of information that might prove beneficial to destroying someone who really and truly could destroy the Universe, and well ahead of schedule, too.
“Well,” Chad said, “it’s like this. As I understand it from pokin’ through the user logs and such before you was wakin’ up, anyhow. We both know I isn’t a scientist or nuffink, so don’t be a prick about it if I is gettin’ summink wrong. The me’s as are powering this Dome properly ain’t strictly sentient, right? Me old Da did summat to ‘em as I was pullin’ them out of through the Soul Machine, stripped their brains loose, left ‘em as nuffink more than batteries. But Brigadiers, you see, they worked towards their perfection through the Kingsblood system, which was … yep, you got it all right, hey? The Kingsblood system is … well, was … powered by perfect versions of me, only it took them pricks longer to get … anyways. Dad’s weapon, right, totally destroys Unreality the moment it’s powered fully, but then what? Suddenly he is floatin’ through the Void between Universes, only ‘is brain is completely fucked cos you and I and he knows he ain’t got anyfing remotely resembling clarity of purpose and vision. But them Brigadiers do, right? They was to drive the bus to them other Universes out there. Metterphorically. Now, since nearly everyfink under The Dome is done for in a pretty spectacular way, Dad ain’t got the juice to do no destroyin’ of nuffink on the other side, so I is goin’ ter see if there’s any me’s in the Engine Room as would be agreeable enough to return wiv me to the outside. A brilliant side effect of that is that if they say yes, a decent amount o’ The Dome’s nanotech generators will stop working, right, making the fight ‘tween you and Barnabas roughly even. Well, that’s it. Gotta go.”
Garth grabbed Chad by the shoulder before the Arcadian could disappear or whatever. “I need your help, Chad. I can’t fucking kill this guy on my own! He’s got
Alpha level access to Cloud control. I’m getting there, but I won’t have the time. I need you.”
Chad sighed sorrowfully. “Mate, fink about it. Wot’s the first fing I did when I broke free of the Soul Machine properly a hundred years ago? Didn’t attack the King, did I? Didn’t hide out somewhere, marshalling troops, or, like, ‘avin’ a trainin’ montage, did I? I fucked off for the outside, is wot I did. Landed in the lap of the CyberPriests, which weren’t fun, but a better alternative still to the King. Didn’t try to kill the King because I can’t, Garth. Never could. Ain’t a single Arcadian as was ever born could do that. King could tell me to lay me neck down on the cold ground and I’d do so, willingly. King’s Will, my son. I mastered it, sure enough, but … it’s still me master. Sorry.”
Garth tried to stop Chad from disappearing in a puff of weird ‘Priest science and failed spectacularly. His mastery of Cloud particulate wasn’t –and probably never would be, now- up to the same level as someone who’d spent thousands and thousands of years figuring the ins and outs of how to use the stuff.
The Engineer for Reality 2.0 cursed.
What the fuck was he going to do now? King Barnabas Blake the One and Only was on his way –was probably uncomfortably close- and while the Platinum King Hivemind had done their level best to ensure that he had enough nanotech mojo to go hand to hand and toe to toe with the mercurial monarch, Garth really doubted he’d had enough time.
Garth snorted when he replayed his conversation with Chad. “I’d fucking love a training montage. I’d Rocky Balboa the shit out of a training montage.”
He kicked a chunk of glass –hopefully the one that’d given him the goose egg on his forehead- as hard as he could and watched it arc across the cavernous Armory. It hit a wall, bounced off and clattered out of sight.
He was missing something.
There was always something.
The Platinum King had been working patiently behind the scenes for very nearly half of Arcade City’s existence. It –like Chad- was incapable of killing Barnabas because the ancient bastard held all the codes, but it’d done something, somewhere, to ensure that someone from the Outside would be able to accomplish the task.