Deathstalker Coda

by Simon R. Green

  Dr. Happy looked at him with his sunken eyes, and twitched his stiff fingers nervously. "There was no time, no time! Anne needed my Boost, if she was going to hold together. You have to remember, most of what I've done to her is extremely experimental. No one else could have kept her alive as long as I. I've used old Hadenman tech, Wampyr tech, and even some new options that came to me during my time with the Maze. I had no choice but to make her into a cyborg, after the appalling damage she suffered." He paused, considering. "I have to admit, I'm not always sure how or even why some of it works, but we learn by doing, after all. Still, tech implants, miracle potions, and my loving care can only do so much. Often the very things that keep her alive are at war with each other in her poor abused body. The Boost should make all the difference. I have the highest hopes for it. Come and see, come and see!"

  He pottered off again, and Finn followed him to the back of the lab. The living quarters were kept separate from the rest of the lab by a single door of solid steel. It was kept locked at all times, as much to keep Anne in as everyone else out. Dr. Happy spoke his name into the voice lock, and the door ground slowly open. Beyond it lay a comfortable enough room, with every amenity but no windows. Anne was standing before the full-length mirror again, studying herself. Her new self—or what had been done to it in the name of survival. Finn had offered to remove the mirror, on the grounds that it only upset her, but Anne had wrecked the room in protest, even denting the steel door, so he never mentioned it again.

  Anne stood awkwardly. She was still learning how to walk and move smoothly in her new, altered form. She wore no clothing, so she could see herself more clearly. Tech implants bulged crudely out of her flushed pink skin, thrusting out sharp and curved edges. One arm was longer than the other, and the power unit in her back gave her a slight hunched look. Her body bulged in the wrong places, to contain everything that had been put into it. Long raised edges of scar tissue trailed paths all over her body, like the map of a new route into Hell. She moved jerkily, without grace, and often her hands broke things without meaning to. Sometimes she broke them deliberately, out of rage and frustration. Her hair had grown out gray from the stress, and her face was gaunt and tired. Her eyes had the golden gleam of the Hadenman, and when she spoke her voice was a harsh painful buzz. She didn't look away from the mirror reflection when Finn entered, but when she spoke it was for him.

  "I was beautiful for such a short time. I wish I'd enjoyed it more. Still, at least now the outside finally matches the inside."

  "You've been brooding again, haven't you?" said Finn. "What have I told you about that? You have nothing to blame yourself for. Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

  Anne tried something like a smile. "It takes one monster to appreciate another. There's something new in me now, isn't there?"

  "Yes," said Finn. "It's a variant on the old Deathstalker Boost. It will make you stronger, faster, and hopefully a little more stable."

  Anne turned with awkward suddenness to face him. "Yes. I can feel it, like lightning in my veins. I feel… strong. I could probably knock down that stupid door of yours now, if I wanted. But where would I go? I don't sleep anymore, you know. I don't need to. Just as well, really. I had bad dreams."

  "You're alive," said Finn. "I promised you I wouldn't let you die."

  "My Boost is actually an improvement on what the original was supposed to be," said Dr. Happy, tottering in circles around Anne, and running his stiff fingers over the tech eruptions in her body. "My Boost is a continual thing, never stopping. You will never lose the benefits it gives you. My dear, you are practically superhuman. Of course, my Boost does have a regrettable tendency to burn up the host body, hence the new flush to the skin, but the various tech implants should balance that out."

  "How long will she last?" said Finn.

  Dr. Happy shrugged jerkily. "How long have any of us got? She'll certainly outlast me. And you too, if your ghost is to be believed."

  "Why have you done all this?" said Anne, staring at Finn with her golden Hadenman eyes. "Why is it so important to you that I live?"

  "To prove that even monsters aren't monsters all of the time," said Finn.

  "I miss James," said Anne. "I want James. Make me another."

  Finn frowned. "I think the people would know he was a clone this time."

  "Not for them. Make another James for me."

  "I'll see what I can do," Finn lied. He was wise enough to know that Anne needed a reason to go on living, but still selfish enough to want that reason to be him. A part of him was quietly sad that she couldn't see the lengths he'd gone to, just for her.

  "I'm tired," said Anne. "Tired of the pain, of the changes. Of not being human."

  "The Boost will change that," said Finn. "And there are still many useful things you can do with your life. Perhaps I should let Douglas know what's happened to you. He might like to come and visit."

  "Yes," said Anne. "I'd like to see Douglas again. One last time."

  CHAPTER THREE

  *

  IN THE GLORY DAYS OF EMPIRE

  Owen Deathstalker went dancing back through time, star systems whirling dizzyingly past like shimmering sands beneath his speeding feet. The galaxy spun around him, its many tiny lights blinking on and off like warning signs. Stars and comets formed an endless rainbow path back into the past. He could feel Hazel d'Ark's presence, always tantalizingly just ahead of him. He could feel other presences too, moving around him in the time stream. Some traveled into the past beside him, while others headed the other way, into the future. Some felt human, while others very definitely didn't. Owen could have reached out to them, but didn't. Perhaps because he wasn't sure they would approve of what he was going to do. And so he danced on into the past, alone but quietly determined, following the trail that Hazel had left behind her.

  Sometimes it seemed to him that there were other directions than the one he was following of simple past and future; other directions, other possibilities that he could follow. He wondered if these were the time streams from which Hazel had called her other selves, during the Great Rebellion. Other time streams, where he had not died and Hazel had never become a monster. They tempted him with the possibilities of comfort, but he continued on his chosen path. He knew his duty. And anyway, only one Hazel had ever really mattered to him.

  Finally the distance between the two of them began to narrow. She was slowing, and he was catching up. He slowed his dance, and the galaxy expanded around him as he sank back into it, focusing in on one specific location. He ran through enlarging star systems, pirouetting through the hearts of roaring suns and out the other side, unharmed. He was changing, just as Hazel had. He could feel the extent of her change in the presence only just ahead of him, indications that she was becoming something else, something other. Something he no longer recognized. He fought to catch up with her, but somehow he never could. Perhaps because she was driven by insanity and obsession, and he was still sane, if only for the moment. He knew he couldn't see the things he was seeing, do the things he was doing, and remain unchanged. He had to fight to keep from feeling overwhelmed just by the sheer scale of what he was attempting. It wasn't that long ago for him that he'd been just another tired and burned-out warrior, fighting a hopeless battle in the back streets of Mistport.

  He reached out stubbornly with his mind, trying to force a contact with the presence ahead of him, but although he touched… something, he couldn't make her hear him, no matter how loudly he called her name, and his. She had gone on ahead of him, on a journey and process he could barely comprehend, and for all the meteoric speed of his dance he was being left behind. But something came back to him from that fleeting touch of minds—a single memory, of the last hour of Hazel's life, in which she had still been merely human.

  After she left Shub, the metal world the AIs made to house their consciousnesses, Hazel d'Ark went to Haden, home of the Madness Maze. She thought she would need more power from the Maze, in order to travel
back through time. She materialized outside the Madness Maze, like a child come home seeking the approval of a parent, but the Maze ignored her. She called out to it, but the Maze refused her. She couldn't see or find an entrance anywhere. She couldn't even see her reflection in the shining cold surfaces of the outer Maze, and that disturbed her, on some deep and primal level. She screamed abuse at the Maze, and tried to force her way in, attacking it with all her power, focused through a mind already half mad with grief and horror, and she tore power from the Maze, wrenching it out, raw and potent, by the sheer force of her disturbed will. She was crying, tears running jerkily down her cheeks, though she was past feeling them. She was leaving Humanity behind, through her own will, even as she acted for the most human of reasons. Power burned within her, and like the phoenix she emerged shining brightly from the ashes of her old self.

  And so she let go of time and plunged back into the past, beginning the long journey that would make her into the Terror.

  Owen digested the memory as he slowed and slowed his progress, and finally dropped back into space and time at the exact location Hazel had chosen before him. He wondered what he'd find, and why she'd stopped here, of all possible places.

  In the beginning was the First Empire. It was wild and glorious. It didn't last.

  Owen materialized in open space, hanging in high orbit above the blue and gray planet that in his time had been called Golgotha. He knew that, in the same way he knew that he had traveled back almost a thousand years. The stars had stopped wheeling around him, and now sparkled solemnly in place. He should have felt exhausted, like the first time he'd traveled in time, pursued by the Recreated, but instead he felt… exhilarated. He looked around him, grinning widely, surrounded by the icy vacuum of space, which had no power over him. He felt entirely relaxed and comfortable, even though he didn't feel any need to breathe. It seemed he was beginning his own changes. He checked the pulse in his wrist, and was relieved to find that at least it was still there.

  Golgotha turned slowly beneath him, but it looked very different now. Against the blue and gray of its surface, huge magnificent cities blazed against the dark, vast as countries and as intricately shaped as snowdrops. They shone so very brightly, with all the colors of the rainbow, as though the whole world had been studded with precious jewels. Auroras of smooth, soothing colors wrapped the world, as though to keep it safe from all harm.

  On the other hand, Owen couldn't help noticing that the planet was surrounded by all kinds of orbiting junk. Satellites of every shape and size, built with function rather than aesthetics in mind, formed a metal ring around the world. Huge stardocks held half-built starships, assembled in orbit because they were too big to ever leave the ground. And everywhere Owen looked, starships came and went, in their thousands and their hundreds of thousands, flashing past him like so many fleeting thoughts or intentions. Golgotha had never known so much traffic, even at the height of its power. Owen focused his mind on a few ships at random, studying them carefully, but none of them resembled any configuration he was familiar with.

  He realized he still didn't feel any need to breathe. How much had he changed already? Was he doomed to continue to change, until he became another Terror, at the last? He felt stronger, more powerful, but still… human. And yet, if he was changing, could he hope to understand or appreciate the extent of the change from the inside? Would he even notice as his humanity fell away? Panic surged up, and he pushed it ruthlessly back. Human is as human does. As long as he still cared about Hazel, and hoped to put a stop to what she had become, he was still human enough.

  (And yet, where had the power come from, that had made his long trip through time possible, and filled him now? Why wasn't he feeling drained, like before? Owen decided very firmly that he'd think about that later. He had other, more important things on his mind right now.)

  Hazel had definitely stopped her plunge back through time at this point. For what purpose, or for how long, he couldn't tell. He could feel the trail start up again, heading even further back into the past, but he was curious as to why she'd chosen to stop here. Roughly a thousand years would put him in the time of the First Empire, before it declined and fell, for reasons long forgotten. His old historian's instincts kicked in, at the possibility of seeing the legendary First Empire in its prime and perhaps even discovering some clue as to why it fell so far, and so hard. Perhaps the greatest mystery in Humanity's long history. Owen laughed soundlessly in the vacuum. This was the kind of opportunity he'd dreamed of, in his younger days. He'd come a long way, to end up back at his beginnings. He reached out with his mind, trying for some sense of what lay in wait on the planet below, but the cities blazed with life: billions upon billions of minds roaring in a constant bedlam. It was just too big, too complex, for him to understand, even in his new changed state. He found that oddly comforting.

  While he was busy thinking all this, half a dozen orbiting satellites had detected his sudden presence, and were now homing in on him. They moved slowly in his direction, great rough metal shapes bristling with energy spikes and sensors, each one the size of a starship.They took up a preprogrammed position around Owen, and then all their metal spikes blazed with crackling energies, forming a scintillating cage around him. He looked up startled, as the trap closed, flinching back despite himself from the sheer power hammering on the vacuum all around him. The wild searing energies held enough power to light a city for a month. He could sense it. Just being this close to so much raw energy would have been enough to fry any normal creature. Owen cautiously probed the satellites with his mind, but there was no trace of even the simplest AI; only the basic binary codes of standard computers. Owen considered his situation thoughtfully. He could easily escape the trap by just dropping back into the time stream, but he was curious as to who had placed such a brutal trap in orbit, and why. He had a strong feeling it probably had something to do with Hazel.

  So he waited patiently, turning slowly this way and that in the vacuum by a simple effort of will, until finally someone came to inspect what their sprung trap had caught. At first all he could see were two small bright lights heading towards him, but they grew quickly in size. He'd been expecting some form of ship or flier, and so was surprised to see two human forms sailing towards him. They seemed to move under their own power, wrapped in shimmering silver force shields, like two suits of perfectly fitted armor. Their faces were blank mirrors, with no obvious sensors, but slight humps on both their backs suggested some kind of propulsion unit. The force suits fit closely enough for Owen to be sure his visitors were one male and one female. They slowed to a controlled halt a cautious distance away from the cage, and looked Owen over carefully. He gave them a cheerful wave. It didn't seem to reassure either of them.

  Pops and crackles sounded in his ears, through his comm implant, and he realized they were trying to talk to him. He waited impatiently for his comm link to find the right frequency, but when their voices finally came through clearly, he was shocked to find they spoke with an accent and a dialect so obscure and so extreme that he could barely make out one word in ten. Owen tried to talk to them, and it was clear they couldn't understand him either. A thousand years can change a language completely. So Owen reached out and took the knowledge he needed directly from their minds, so he could talk in their tongue. He hadn't known he could do that, until he did it. Apparently the changes he was going through affected his mind as well as his body.

  "Hi," he said. "I'm Owen. Just a visitor, passing through. Who are you?"

  "I am Dominic Cairo," said the male voice. "Defender of Humanity. My associate is the Investigator Glory Chojiro. From what far place have you come, and how is it you are able to survive cold vacuum without protection?"

  "Ah," said Owen. "You're really not going to like the answer to that."

  "And yet we must insist upon an answer," said the harsh female voice. "We defend Heartworld, and have responsibility for this sector. Under the authority of the Emperor Ethur, we require an
answer."

  "All right," said Owen. "I'm from the future. About a thousand years further on. Don't ask me how I got here, it would only upset you. I only have to think about the implications of what I'm doing, and I start to whimper. May I ask why you've bottled me up in this cage? Is this how you greet all your visitors?"

  "Just certain special cases, such as yourself," said Dominic. "You had better come with us."

  "Do I have a choice?" said Owen.

  "What do you think?" said Glory.

  She gestured imperiously at the six satellites, and they moved obediently after her as she started back the way she'd come. Dominic moved easily beside her, comfortable at her side, as though he belonged there. Partners, of some kind, Owen decided. He was a little surprised to find they had Investigators this far back, and what the hell was a Defender of Humanity? Was there a war on, with some alien species? The history of the First Empire was full of holes, on small and large matters. Owen's historian soul rubbed its hands together eagerly. The things he'd be able to tell his academic peers when he got back…

  If he got back…

  Owen allowed the energy cage to tow him along behind Dominic and Glory. He was pretty sure by now that he could break out of it anytime he wanted, but he was interested to see where he was being taken. The journey turned out to be a long, slow process, and Owen was soon bored enough to seriously consider taking charge and speeding things up a bit, but he thought he'd better not. He didn't want to freak out his new friends just yet. They seemed enough on edge already. So Owen just settled back and watched the stars, the satellites, and the huge ships coming and going. Occasionally he reached out and rewrote the markings on their hulls, just for the fun of it.

  The planet that would one day be called Golgotha but was now Heartworld had only the single moon, and that was apparently where they were going. Owen was mildly curious. In his time, the moon was just a dumping ground for toxic waste, in the great caverns under the surface. The moon loomed up before him, a great expanse of cold gray rock. A single huge tower thrust up from the surface, a solid steel block with no obvious openings or markings. Owen asked what it was, and Dominic curtly replied, the Spike, which wasn't as informative as Owen had hoped.