MetaGame

by Sam Landstrom

  Passing the human, Jacob scanned the citizen to confirm that he was not the target. He was not. Passing the startled man as a blur, Jacob then returned to flight, causing another sonic boom. He had to immediately slow down to negotiate the corners of the hallway, after which he accelerated again, creating another sonic shockwave. By the time he got to the door he had made four separate shockwaves, although they were so close together that to a human ear it would only sound like a single deafening blast.

  Jacob was now within scanning range of the target’s dwelling. His scanners penetrated through the walls, indicating there was nothing inside that matched mammalian tissue density. He did a quick calculation based on his pursuit algorithm. The woman who screamed out the warning did so only 0.8 seconds ago. Assuming that the target was in the reported dwelling at that time, he could not have gone far.

  Although alone in his home, his sanctuary, Todget did not feel safe. It was that female human he had seen in the hall as he was about to enter his apartment. There was something about the way she looked at him, something about how she walked away from him that made him uneasy. The only reason he had returned to his apartment at all and lingered there now was because he expected Lily to return. She knows not to wander after the sun rises, Todget thought. He had chastised her about her carelessness before. “Travel only when the humans sleep” is what they had agreed on. Yet, where was she? Todget did not allow himself to entertain his most awful fears about her absence. He assured himself that Star Sisters were, by their very nature, capricious and independent to a flaw. She had done this before.

  Nevertheless, he would not have escaped the reserve or survived as long as he had in the outside world if he had not learned to trust his instincts. Since returning to his apartment, he had prepared himself for the worst.

  Quickly, he drew his knife from his pant leg and slit the mattress open. This abuse of furniture was of no consequence, for the living fabric would mend itself in a week or so. He thrust his hand deep into the foot of the mattress and extracted the weapon. It was in the shape of a long rifle, nearly a meter long. It had a set of three canisters mounted side by side under the weapon, just in front of the trigger guard, running up to the front of the barrel. The weapon had no stock; it did not need one. Its recoil was minimal and it was only effective at short range, so bracing it for careful aiming was of little use. At over forty kilograms, the weapon was heavy-even without a stock-but this was of little consequence to Todget, who was stronger than any human male.

  The weight of the weapon was mainly due to its ammunition. In the middle cylinder there was a composite metallic mixture that had a boiling point of over thirteen thousand degrees Celsius. In the two flanking cylinders there were potent chemicals that, when combined, created so much heat that the resultant mix would melt any material known to man. When the weapon was fired, contents from all three chambers were injected into the ignition chamber. Although relatively stable apart, the combination of the two ignition chemicals would cause a tremendous exothermic reaction. This mass of rapidly heating liquid would fuse with the metallic slurry from the central cylinder, and long before the chemical reaction could reach its zenith, the contents of the ignition chamber would be expelled out of the barrel. Then, over the next few nanoseconds, after the superalloy slurry had burst out of the muzzle, its temperature would rise to its full potential. The superheated goo would stick to anything it hit, melting and boiling via its own unearthly heat.

  The weapon was called a BB gun. The “BB” stood for “bombardier beetle,” which was the inspiration for its design. Millions of years ago, the bombardier beetle had evolved a unique and ingenious defense mechanism. The beetles stored two separate chemicals, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. When the creatures perceived a threat, the two chemicals squirted out through two tubes. They mixed, along with some catalytic enzymes, and then underwent an extremely powerful exothermic chemical reaction. The boiling, malodorous liquid underwent flash evaporation, and when the gas was expelled, it created a loud pop.

  The BB gun had cost Todget a small fortune. Since it was a sin to buy, sell, or possess modern weapons of any kind, the excessive price was appropriate. However, its status as an illegal modern weapon was only part of the story, for the BB gun was in a class of blasphemy all its own. Aside from being a modern weapon, it was specifically designed to combat agents of the Divine Authority. It was well known that Divine Authority enforcers were only vulnerable to nuclear weapons, and even then, only if the source of the blast was nearby.

  But all solid matter, regardless of its “divine” properties, had its melting point, and so the BB gun was meant to exceed the melting point of all known things, thereby obliterating anything it hit. Even the nanotech crystallized metal that was used for the ammunition of the weapon could not withstand its own heat for long before it also vaporized. Because of this last point, a BB gun was only effective at short range-fifty meters maximum-and although the weapon would still kill an armored human at a much longer range, it would do little to one of the Divine Authority’s enforcers. Todget knew he needed to get near his enemy to be effective; however, Todget also knew that if an angel was that close, chances were that he would already be dead.

  His finger caressed the trigger. The weapon rested on one leg, hidden under his heavy cloak as he stood facing his bedroom wall.

  As was typical of apartments in this neighborhood, the apartments were connected directly together, and although Todget and Lily always kept the doors locked, Todget now left the door open to his neighbor’s living room in preparation for flight. He wasn’t exactly sure how the open door would assist him; perhaps it would serve as an exit or as a decoy. All that he knew for certain was that he didn’t feel comfortable being penned in.

  The man next door peered curiously through the open doorway. He and his neighbors had never met, and Todget briefly speculated that the hollow-eyed spanker probably wondered why his reclusive neighbor had left their adjoining door open. But the truth was that the neighbor had little interest in Todget himself or his unprecedented exhibitionism; instead, he was trying to catch a glimpse of Todget’s beautiful roommate-the girl that every guy in the mound talked about but rarely saw and never spoke to.

  His neighbor would have been taken aback if he had actually been able to see Todget’s face, for it was caked in a gel that was both fire retardant and heat insulating. Upon returning to the apartment, he had quickly caked his entire naked body with this gel and then shimmied into his fire-retardant clothing, making a sticky mess underneath. Such discomfort was trivial to him, however. If he did need to use the BB gun, most likely he would need some protection from its awful power. If he did not need it, well, then it was easy enough to clean up later.

  Todget waited nervously, but his wait was short-lived. Presently, he heard Lily shriek out his name, her voice radiating with such fear and intensity that he knew there was no time to think. He didn’t need to think anyway, having rehearsed this escape in his mind many times before. He expected they would surround him and come at him from all sides, so he needed an alternative exit. He pulled the trigger. The BB gun was set to spray a razor-thin fan of molten fire, which instantly vaporized a sizable fiery hole in his floor. Then, as casually as a swimmer jumping into the deep end of a pool, he leaped down through what looked like a shaft into hell. He fell feet-first through his downstairs neighbor’s apartment and prepared to bend his knees as he landed, so as to absorb the shock. He already knew where he would run from there. He and Lily had mapped out their entire apartment mound weeks ago, and with any luck, the layout of the living mound had not shifted much since then.

  Unfortunately, when Todget hit the apartment level beneath him, he ripped through the floor as if it were a thick, rotten web laid by some massive, long-dead spider. As it turned out, the dense, molten-hot alloy did not stop once it burned through his apartment’s floor, but continued to fall ahead of him, instantly burning everything it touched. The substance fell further and further
downward, continuously burning everything in its path. Clearly, Todget had not fully appreciated the power of this devastating weapon. Indeed, it would later be discovered that some of the larger droplets of metal had ended up burning through six stories of apartments, killing two people and injuring six, burning all the way down until it embedded itself deep in the soil beneath the mound.

  Todget continued to fall floor after floor, through the blazing shaft created by the BB gun blast, until at last one of the Swiss-cheese floors grudgingly bore his broad-shouldered frame. Fortunately, dro-vine was surprisingly elastic, especially under intense pressure. Nevertheless, Todget nearly lost consciousness as he slammed into the final floor and bounced off it again.

  He was in agony. Not so much from the fall, for his frame was built for punishment, but from the burns. The burns were intense and had eaten away his flesh, despite the fire retardant gel and clothing. And unfortunately, it was in the places he had been burned the least that he felt the most pain. His third-degree burns-the worst kind-did not hurt because where the skin had been completely incinerated, there were no nerves-nothing to tell him he was in pain. He rose from the floor, ripped off his burning cloak, and then, bloodied and smoldering, ran.

  It took Jacob a long time to find Todget, nearly six seconds. By that time, Todget had almost made it to the end of the hallway where, just as he reached for the door, he felt his legs go numb and his eyes darkened for a moment. When he came to, only a moment later, he was on the ground, unable to move, his eyes frozen open and his bladder emptying.

  Although there were several dro-vine tissue walls between Jacob and Todget, Jacob’s short-range sensors confirmed the creature moving rapidly down the hall was, with a probability of over 98.6 %, his target. Jacob could not confirm this with a visual ID, but the speed of the suspect (which was more rapid than any human), along with the massive body type and the shape of the object he carried (probably a modern weapon), gave Jacob probable cause to fire the stun pulse. The pulse, strong enough to temporarily paralyze but not kill, penetrated through the intervening walls, knocking the suspect flat. Jacob wanted to be absolutely certain that he could interrogate this one. The weapon he carried and his unusual method of escape was worth further study.

  When apprehending a dangerous suspect, the usual protocol for an angel was to first paralyze the suspect, monitor from a distance for some time, and then move in slowly. Jacob did not follow this protocol, however, having too much to do. First, he needed to secure the demon. Next, he needed to extinguish the series of devastating fires that threatened to consume the mound. Finally, there was the task of apprehending the woman who had called out a warning to this demon.

  Jacob assumed the first task of securing the prisoner was nearly complete as he rapidly sliced through the walls toward the paralyzed suspect. What the angel did not know was that the BB gun was waiting for him. The gun, a new design, had sensors of its own, sensors that detected other sensors, specifically the shortest of the electromagnetic pulses used by angels to see their world. And as the weapon “saw” its enemy close in, it injected all the contents of all three of its canisters into the firing chamber. For a millisecond, it sucked oxygen into the firing chamber to fuel the reaction and then clamped down on all the valves, allowing the pressure to increase until-in a terrific explosion of fiery, superheated shards-it obliterated itself, Todget, and everything else around it. The angel, had he been capable of fear and surprise, would have been full of both.

  CHAPTER 12

  Why are products not allowed to exceed a DNA similarity with humans above 96.3 %? Because anything above that threshold is no longer judged a product; rather, it is human. The percentage of 96.3 is not arbitrary. It is the approximate similarity between nature’s closest relative of humans-chimpanzees. I suppose the reasoning is that, historically, if chimpanzees were not considered human, then neither would a product having a DNA signature deviating at least as much as a chimp. Keep this number in mind. Personally, I shoot for no closer than 95 % similarity in the products I design. You know, to give yourself some breathing room.

  — Excerpt from “Musings of an Immortal,” by Dr. Stoleff Monsa

  Having shouted her warning to Todget, there was nothing more Lily could do but run. As she and Todget had discussed before, their hunters were numerous and formidable. To fight them was a fool’s errand, a last resort. Just as she began her sprint, there was a loud boom followed by a low rumbling roar as though lightning had struck dangerously close.

  The human she had just met-the one who talked about spankers, angels, and demons-was yelling at her. “Stop! Stop!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”

  She glanced back over her shoulder and was alarmed to see the human and his cat-machine running after her. It was no matter. Like every human, he was slow and she would soon lose him. Still, she did not like the attention. He might call upon other, more effective pursuers.

  “Stop! Let me help!” she heard him cry beseechingly.

  At first she planned on pacing herself somewhat. She knew she would need to be on foot for a while and so did not wish to push her long, powerful legs to their limits. However, this human had to be lost immediately, prompting her to open up into a full sprint. It was shortly after she had turned up the speed when the human’s cat became a problem. The furry, black quadruped machine was far faster than its master and quickly closed in on her, at which point the cursed thing began running underneath her legs as though to trip her.

  Lily soon realized she could not effectively escape with this automaton dogging her, so she slowed down and waited for her opportunity. The machine was fast, but not smart enough to anticipate Lily’s well-placed kick. Despite the fear of breaking her foot, Lily put all her formidable strength behind the blow. She was relieved to find the impact soft, as though striking spongy flesh, as her foot connected with the machine’s side. The force of her kick sent the cat through the air, but Lily did not look to see where it landed. Instead, she kept running. But certainly, the cat would recover and be on her again in a flash, or the man would call for aid. She decided that she needed to take the offensive. And so as she rounded a small mound which, although small, was thickly festooned with flowers and bulbous shrubbery, she hid and waited for a few long seconds for the man’s arrival.

  Flip, this girl is fast! D_Light thought. He fancied himself fast. He had trained hard and had his share of engineering in his ancestry that gave him an edge in a foot race. Swiftness, after all, was more likely to save one’s life during Rule Seven than fighting ability. But this girl was off-the-charts fast! Clods of grass and soft soil ripped up and were flung behind her with every stride.

  As D_Light rounded the mound, he was surprised to see that the girl was nowhere in sight since the path ahead was straight and stretched on for quite a distance. He’d barely had time to contemplate the girl’s whereabouts when he heard a sudden rush behind him, but it was too late. He felt a hard kick and one of his legs was swept back underneath him, sending him face down on the ground. The girl was on his back and he felt a cold, pointed object pressing into the flesh of his neck. His head was turned, his cheek pressed firmly into the grass. In his peripheral vision he could just make out the glint of the blade.

  OwnageTM! D’s getting spanked by the hippie! TermaMix texted.

  With a thought, D_Light turned off the feed entirely. It would piss them off, but he wasn’t going to let his family watch this in real time. He could resolve the bet later…that is, if he survived.

  He spat out his words as fast as he could. “Don’t! You won’t make it! I’ll help you! Listen to me!” Gasping for breath, he sucked in a mouthful of lush grass.

  Smorgeous, who had since recovered from the kick, trotted up to them, his stride uncertain. Lily’s face was flushed and her eyes were wide. She shot an upward glance at the machine, at which point he stopped advancing and sat back on his haunches as though entering feline meditation. She straddled D_Light and bent down over him, close, her legs gripp
ing him tightly-more tightly than seemed possible by her toned but feminine legs.

  From D_Light’s vantage point, he could not tell if anyone could see them. Even if one of the spankers in the vicinity was not jacked in, he or she would probably just assume that the two of them were actively engaged in a spanker game-perhaps a social networking game with a sadomasochistic bent.

  He could call for his companions, Lyra, Djoser, Amanda, perhaps even Brian, but they would certainly not reach him in time. He cursed himself for being so easily duped by this girl who, only moments before, had seemed so clueless. He relaxed as best he could to show her he meant no harm. She was a demon-he was sure of it-and as such, she probably had nothing to lose by plunging that blade down into his throat. He had to convince her otherwise, and he needed to do it fast.

  “I will help you, I swear it.” His voice was softer now and muffled, distorted by the fact that his cheek was being crushed into the soft dro-vine grass.

  Lily tightened her grip with her legs, pressed her lips violently against D_Light’s ear, and growled, “You did not help Todget.” The girl was breathing hard, perhaps on the verge of panic, D_Light thought. But there was a steeliness in her tone that told him to speak plainly and as truthfully as possible.

  “I was sent here to find him. I had no choice,” he stammered. “But not you. I know how to get you out of here, if you’ll let me help you.”

  “Help me? You must really think I’m a fool. Now you’re the one who needs help.” She bit her lip hard and pushed the tip of her blade harder against his neck. Her hands trembled.