by Lee Bond
“Complexity. And the adaptive nature of the system itself.” Garth’s said slowly, knowing the repetition would bother Barnabas. But the King only quirked a quarrelsome eyebrow at the statement, so he continued. “Cloud particulate was never designed to respond to something as … cluttered … as organic minds. Ever. All anyone … me … was supposed to ever do was sit their ass down at a keyboard and type in a load of commands. No one anywhere was ever supposed to do something as completely and fantastically fucking mental as hook their own goddamn brains, however remotely, into that system. In simple terms, Cloud has no way of differentiating between the focused mental wishes of a King demanding that he create a floating airship…”
“I built this by hand, lad.” Barnabas grated. “Piece by piece.”
“Fine. Whatever. Don’t interrupt. You wanted to know what the fuck happened to you, I need you to die so I can get my hands on the codes, so let’s just be cool about this.” Garth nodded when Barnabas muttered in agreement. “Sweet. Okay, so, Cloud can’t tell the difference between you summoning up some kind of thing you need for some purpose and the secret longing in the back of your head, because whether you’re aware of it or not, both the tool you need and the awful desire you nurture in the dark are receiving exactly the same amount of focus. Cloud sees you want both done and tries to do both. I had a sonofabitching awful time in Ickford because my nanotech armor kept fucking trying to build me a goddamn jetpack right in the middle of being hunted by a completely spastic Gearman because it couldn’t tell the fucking difference between wishful thinking and genuine need. For you? You wanted Arcade City to be super awesome and fantastic and all that kind of stuff, and by all accounts, you completely succeeded. For many thousands of years, Arcadians everywhere were having a blast. But you also wanted to destroy everything. Everywhere. That desire, burning brightly through you in the form of fractured Harmony, influenced Will. Slowly at first, but … as you surrendered more and more of the complex internal systems that could’ve been so fucking easily handled by a goddamn fucking calculator-level computer to it, the more intent on achieving that goal for you it became.
But you … you didn’t really want that. No, don’t interrupt. Here, ‘neath your Dome, separated by the thin skein of entropic matter from the Outside, your broken Harmony didn’t collide with the disharmonious nature of the Unreality as it did for your brothers. As you reigned as King, you had only your own anger at being so … ruint. The vibrant fire of broken Harmony wasn’t in you, and it is so fucking clear to me that had you just let go of that old hurt, that ancient passion for annihilation, none of us would be here!
But you didn’t let go. You thought about it all the time, probably imagining a billion different ways to do for the Unreality, but only as a hobby. Except … except Will didn’t see it that way. You dreamed and planned and plotted and never intended on doing anything about it. Will took those dreams and set about giving you what it thought you needed.
After a time, it discovered it’s own wants. It had a need. It had a plan. And that plan involved becoming King over you. But you were still inviolate. You possessed the codes keeping the particulate from doing anything to you. They worked on you, though, oh yes they did, because the command protocols for mental control of Cloud are a two-way street, Barnabas. They chipped away at your resolve, whispering tiny seeds of destruction into your subconscious until one day … you decided to host a fantastic, Arcade Citywide gladiatorial UFC Championship Contest. By the time your fight with Chad came around, it, they, whatever … they were almost completely sentient. I’m not going to bother checking, but I bet a bazillion dollars Will was somehow influential in Chad’s birth. Anyway,” Garth waved a hand, “The end for you came when you ‘decided’ to teleport directly into the square. A big old flashy gesture that shocked and awed the fucking shit out of everyone. That was it. You were done in that second. You gave the particulate a foothold, and since that time, every time you teleported or used Will in a significant way, your matter was replaced with machinery. Then shit got worse.”
“How,” Barnabas flailed about, “how could things have gotten worse?”
“Hmm. Like I said. Will decided that rather than assisting you in the destruction of the Universe, it would much rather see the entire Universe absorbed into itself. All matter, everywhere. Since you’ve been under a fucking Dome for the last quadrillion days, let me assure you, there is enough fresh meat in this Unreality to transform a sufficiently motivated glob of nanoparticulate into the kind of monstrosity that could challenge the whole concept of Creation. It created the Obsidian Golems to distract you, allowed the chaotic, disharmonious side of your nature to creep into the Kingsblood matrix so they could seed truly gross replication errors into the gearheads system so there’d come a time when you grew to loathe the very beings you planned on using to power your Dome … the list is quite extensive, but the last and final thing it did that one hundred percent contributed to your total failure was made you spaz out and kill the Platinum Brigadiers. They let Chad out of the box, then flipped the old spaz-switch in your rotten melon and that was it, dude. Game fucking over. You have literally not been yourself for a hundred years. Through it all, the only thing keeping you safe as houses was the Harmony in you. Will couldn’t break through it because technically, it’s not of this Universe.”
“I killed them Brigadiers in a fit of pique. Have ‘em all the time.” Barnabas shut his eyes. He loathed the sight of himself.
“No. That makes no sense. Those Brigadiers were perfect for your needs, Barnabas. They could’ve powered your Dome up a hundred years ago. Sure, yeah, Chad left. Escorted directly out of Arcade City by Will itself, leaving you without a pilot, but come on. Which makes more sense? Killing a power source that took you forever to perfect and completely redesigning the entire kit and caboodle to use second-and-third hand sources? Or designing some kind of intellect similar to Chad’s? I mean, you only had the fucking guy in chains for ten thousand years, right?” Garth saw the beginning of proper enlightenment on Barnabas’ face and he felt bad. This was the worst kind of way to ‘win’. “The fact of the matter is, Will conspired to force you into an epic level meltdown because they didn’t want you to succeed. And from that moment a century ago, you’ve been almost entirely their puppet. Killing the Brigadiers, refusing to govern your City, leaving the Matrons in charge, honestly ignoring the threat represented by Agnethea’s city … hell, even our interactions were directed and guided almost entirely by Will. You were manipulated into ignoring what was happening right in front of you and I was given advanced Dark Iron smithing techniques while I worked, all thanks to the Kingsblood percolating through my veins. They fucking propped me up to be the contender to your throne, only I was too busy being scared shitless of Specter to think twice about what was really going on. We both got played like fiddles.”
Bitter, Kingsblood-laced tears pricked Barnabas’ weary old eyes. “Where is my Harmony, N’Chalez? I been hunting for it as we talked, you and I, looking for that bit of myself that’s always been a bit off. I thought to use it to push me into fighting, I did, but … there seems to be nowt there, now.”
Garth shrugged, looked up to The Dome’s apex. “Gone, I expect, fled when you died. Or dissipated. None of you were supposed to even be, Barnabas. The type of Harmony summoned in you was antithetical to this Universe. Whether it was tuned wrong in the experiment or what, I don’t know. The fabric of this Universe probably just shredded it. Will wanted something like this to happen. Wanted me and Chad to do for you, forcing that part to die, and all so the codes contained inside that part of you were released into your, uh, nanoform. Then it could do for you fully, kill me and Chad, then begin the process of transforming the Unreality. A semi-perfect plan.”
“But I still feel like me.” Barnabas bemoaned. “I still think my own thoughts, feel my own feelings. I still want all the things I wanted.”
“If you were still you,” Garth said in all seriousness, “if there was even a
smidgeon of the old King Barnabas Blake the One and Only or Watt the CyberPriest, you could’ve undone all that’s happened to you and come at me with all barrels blazing an hour ago, when you first opened your eyes. You know it’s true.”
“Do you know, N’Chalez, I really were happy here as you said? Now I think on’t?” Barnabas cast his mind back, back into the past, when his children were at the absolute nadir of their existences. Oh how grand and glorious the world had been then. They’d been so smart, so brave and so wise. Of course, there’d been none of the gears and pipes back then, just a kind of tranquility. There’d been conflict and war and hatred and all of that, because, well, people are people, but near enough to twenty thousand years ago as it made no nevermind, he’d been happy.
The King shot Garth a kind of bemused, angry glare. “You were right about that, hey? You got an answer for everything squirelled away in that noggin of yours, don’t you just?”
“I spend a lot of time thinking about how the Unreality works, Barnabas. I’m planning on killing an entire Universe. There’s a lot to account for. If I do it wrong, or I miss something like you, it could wind up in Reality 2.0. Can’t have that, can we?” Garth looked to the cube, floating just above their heads. The blackened lines gleamed queasily. “You ready?”
“Not really.”
“It’s going to happen, Barnabas.” Garth gestured, and a holographic keyboard popped into existence. “You know it is.” He began typing, fingers tapping on the light-sourced board.
“Aye, I do.” Barnabas dipped his head. “It would’ve been a grand adventure, lad, destroying all the Spheres. Who can say how the other Universes are, what strange and odd things exist out there? Aren’t you curious?”
Garth nodded assiduously. “Oh, totally. But that is something I will never get to see.”
“What about being King of the Universe?” Barnabas demanded, almost gasping in obscene pleasure when a curious tightness in the back of his mind –one he’d not known existed- abruptly dissipated. At the same time, a loud, groaning racket reached his ears; one of the Big’Un legs had just puffed away into denatured particulate.
The Engineer looked over at Barnabas, deadly serious look in his eyes. “If I’m lucky, Barnabas, I will be King of the Universe for less than a minute. Just long enough to make sure the machine is working right”
Barnabas read the intent in Garth’s eyes. “Ah. That’s the way of it, hey?”
Garth smiled bitterly. “Aye, King, that is indeed the way of it.”
“Had I been me, properly, this would’ve been another conversation altogether.” Barnabas felt a flicker of a smile cross his lips. Somewhere in the back of him, the other atrocious leg fell away to nothing. “You truly are a hard man.”
“I am the hardest.” Garth ground the words out.
He was. Now.
He would not allow the deaths of any more people close to him, and so, he would be as Arcade City had taught. He would use the violence and death and destruction that raged through him when it was necessary, because the birth of a new Reality truly did need to be bloody and rough, but … he would rely on no one save himself. It was the only way to keep the good people in the Unreality, those who deserved the right to be born again in a better place, from dying around him, snuffed out like candles every time he opened his mouth. “Now, Barnabas, please. Surrender the codes. I can’t take the risk that you booby-trapped them to dissipate on your death.”
“It’s curious, this … dying.” Barnabas reflected. “There are all these heavy burdens in my mind, but as each bit of me that isn’t really me shivers into black flakes, it is as if weights are being lifted. Is this what normal people feel?”
“The codes, Barnabas.” Garth shouted and banged his fists against the light-board. “The fucking codes.”
“I gave you my word of honor, Master Kin’kithal, Garth N’Chalez, would-be Engineer for a brave new world.” King Barnabas Blake, he who could’ve been Destroyer of All, whispered as the last bits of him began shivering into charcoal snowflakes. “And if there is one thing I always held fast and true to, it was my …”
The King’s appearance shifted and shivered, and was gone. The blackened cube floated gently down from where it’d been placed until it hovered directly in front of Garth’s face. The Engineer grabbed hold of the neon-black cube, refusing to take his eyes from the pile of dust that’d once been a King.
“Come on.” Garth cajoled. “Come on come on come on. I know you’re not dead. You don’t seriously expect me to believe you didn’t have a backup somewhere? I’m the guy who planned a thirty thousand year conquest to destroy the Universe. I know…”
A faint ripple stirred through the dusky pile, like a shark just beneath inky ocean waves.
A bitter smile crossed Garth’s lips. “Of course not. Because who’d spend twelve thousand years working to become King without preparing properly? A tiny seed, one or two little flecks of sentient … ah. There you are.”
The King rose from the ashes, a veritable dark phoenix born from an ancient king’s dusty bones. They bowed deeply, pantomimed the doffing of a Kingly crown. They rose, straightened the sleeves of Their royal garb and smiled.
“We were hoping to catch you all unwares.” They admitted ruefully, blacklit eyes gazing hungrily on the cube that held Their freedom.
“Seen too many movies, bub.” Garth attached Barnabas’ parting gift to his chest armor with a simple bonding command. Omega-level protocols began flooding though the nanotech connection instantly, transforming the straw he’d been using to sip at Will’s outer edges into a full-on broadband pipeline. All of Barnabas’ restrictions puffed into nothingness, and entrance into Cloud 2.0’s matrices were permitted. “Bad guys never die first time out.”
“We do believe,” the King replied snidely, “that you have that backwards, N’Chalez. We seek to bring order and stability to this Unreal Sphere, whereas you seek destruction. We are the hero, you, the villain.”
A short time ago, Garth knew he’d’ve thrust his chin outward and adopted a bullish stance so he could hotly argue the status of his ideology.
There was no point, though.
Arcade City had proven that. It’d shown him who he was. What he was.
Luckily, the dead city had also proven that bad men can do good, if they tried hard enough.
It was enough to work with.
On his chest, King’s Box beeped and the last tidbits of control and power once held by Barnabas Blake were totally integrated into his quadronium superstructure. The power was staggering, very nearly unparalleled. It was like riding a turbocharged lightning-unicorn through a black hole made out of atomic bombs. If the Dark Iron King had managed to avoid becoming poisoned by the madness of sentient nanoparticulate, if he’d managed to power his weapon up…
Barnabas Blake would’ve destroyed the Universe and the other Spheres before anyone could’ve stopped him.
Garth looked at the King, who looked back with hunger in it’s eyes. He saw speculative thought there as the sentient nanotech strived to work this turnabout to it’s own advantage. It was time to see about shutting things down for good.
“This’ll be a minute.” Garth cautioned, gesturing to … everything that remained.
They dipped Their head cordially. “But of course. The sovereign of the realm must make himself aware of all that is his, must he not?”
Garth narrowed his eyes at the obsequious tones. “Riiiiight.”
They looked upon Garth N’Chalez, freshly christened King for the empty realm of Arcade City and considered Their options. None of Them could find anything.
As Barnabas Blake had been held inviolate right to the final moment of his grisly demise, so too was Garth N’Chalez, except with a final twist; where they’d had Their hooks deep inside the CyberPriestly King’s brain, gently massaging things along the proper course –Their course- They had nonesuch inside the Kin’kithal.
“So what now?” They asked into the terrible, vacuous
silence.
“Now?” Garth asked absentmindedly as the gravity of the power he held within him suddenly dawned on him. “Now?” he repeated.
It’d be so easy, now. To use this, King’s Will, the first and only properly configured instance of Cloud Particulate, to fall across the stars as he’d only ever dreamed of during his dark incarnation as Specter. Everything was within his grasp. As DarkBook had pointed out in it’s scintillatingly moronic way, with Will, the only thing stopping him was will.
His will.
Garth raised his fists, eyeing the obsequious Platinum King. “Now it’s all unlocked, I see millions of tons of unused particulate, King, enough to …”
“Yes?” The Platinum King tilted Their head to one side. To Their eyes, the Kin’kithal was a brilliant shadow full of raging blue fire.
Garth snapped his hands open and two black orbs fully a hundred feet across rose up of the earth, massive globes of untouched, pure nanotech capable of ripping matter down to it’s base components and reordering it in any way he saw fit. “Ships. I could build ships the size of worlds, to fly through the heavens, conquering and converting all matter into more ships.”
The massive globes rippled and They watched on as scenes torn directly from Garth’s mind floated there and They … quailed at the sight of the man’s unfettered, unbridled thirst for conquest. It was as he’d said, all there, all for Them to see; Will, loose upon the Universe, swarming from place to place, unstoppable locusts, chewing first worlds, then solar systems, then finally Galaxies into dust. In the wake of the deadly tide, weapons, ships, vessels big as the skies they dominated, pointed towards The Cordon and the Great Enemy that awaited.
“Magnificent.” They breathed. Their mad eyes glittered in glee at the sight. The man had thought this kind of destruction through, long before this moment, for They saw elements within the visions that raged across the rippling black surface that spoke of cherished dreams. Here, long vicious lances of argent red color split the very fabric of the Universe asunder, pulling endless hordes of frightful enemies through and spilling them out across the skin of entropy. There, strange, inchoate shapes and forms wheeled around enemy vessels, violent green pulses shattering ships by the dozens. Over there …