The Arkhe Principle (Book Book 1)
Page 33
Her giggle morphed into a cackle. She danced, frolicked, and zapped everything with her wand, turning everything into Planks. Ebony puddles splattered over the ground and walls, and when the liquid hit something, a new object would form, almost like a growth. His entire house was changing into something on the inside. His furniture transformed into magnificent elegant antique designs, the walls filled with pictures of St. George. All around his house, new statues of his god formulated and solidified.
She aimed the wand at the Remi, and it liquefied down as Plank liquid; gone. She laughed again. Elizabeth pointed the wand at Neil's mouth and...
"Arkhe!" John leaped over and tried to get in the way of her aim. Reality stopped.
The entire room blanketed in Oracle White and glittered under the glowcubes. The sparkling white bled outside, cutting into roads, trees, buildings, dirt for hundreds of meters up into the sky, all radiating from him. Elizabeth put the wand in her pocket, unaffected.
She spun like a tornado and transformed, wearing an all black officer's uniform, and across her beautiful full chest, a huge red one glowed brightly. A fist-sized golden star was pinned in place just above her right breast.
Restarting in E-Network Speak. Consciousness Gate Function.
The city can never otherwise be happy unless it is designed by those painters who follow a divine original. — Plato.
Captain Johann Edward Rex!
DNA Number: 245-ATCG-2465$>_Alpha_Original
Establishing a link with The Great Arkhe is necessary for your functions to exist.
Access File #000100100100110001001001001010010100010110*
Summary:
1. Unification through violence is Progress. You are adapting. Quantum Prediction DeEntanglement Procedure Inoperative.
2. Site 13 is going to be under attack.
3. All rebirths are canceled. Site 13 is going to be under attack!
4. Site 13 is going to be under attack!
SITE 13 IS GOING TO BE UNDER ATTACK!
5.Gungnir Odinson is attacking Site 13. CEO Katherine Dueva is attacking Site 13.
6.Spartacus is attacking Site 13. Pop_msk*dncr+1 is attacking Site 13.
7.Apache Vick is attacking Site 13. Personality 4,073,472,234 is attacking Site 13.
8.$$Pol_Pot_)@LOL.com is attacking Site 13. Clerk #001,999,666.!^$$% is attacking Site 13.
9.Registered Model GVR-234s23d is attacking Site 13. Consumer 345,345 is attacking Site 13.
10.Marshal Isoroku Yamamoto is attacking Site 13. Baron E. is attacking Site 13.
11.Thomas Jefferson is attacking Site 13. Genghis Chaka Khan is attacking Site 13.
12.Shiva Oppenheimer is attacking Site 13. Lord Commander Ghandi is attacking Site 13.
"Tell me what you are!" John shouted.
Captain Johann Edward Rex!
I AM THE GREAT ARKHE!
50 Site 13
District 8
Labor's Park
Gungnir launched himself at the American as two neo-mountain lions do when they are prepped to fight to the death, their blades shinking upon impact, sparking, Planks flying. Apache, wearing a full crown of feathers, teeth blackened, his septum, eyebrows, tongue, lip, all heavily pierced, parried Asger and slammed it into the ground. Gungnir pulled up with a chink, clicked a button, set the tip ablaze, and made a mid-level sweeping motion at Apache's torso, missing. Apache ducked, got inside, and landed an uppercut hard enough to ring Gungnir's ears and split one of his molars.
Their fists flew at each other, each trying to grab the other's weapon. None of Apache's men helped, and Victoria was ready to kill should any of them try. Each pounded furiously with their fists in a fight to the death, each calling out battle cries and grunting in pain.
Apache pointed his tomahawk at Gungnir and clicked. It glanced his shin, and as he went down, he stabbed at Apache, missing both times as he kissed the ground with his face. Standing akimbo, Apache brought down the tomahawk to scalp him, but he stopped centimeters from his nose. Gungnir was far from being finished fighting, and rather than ending the fight, as his enemy should have done, Gungnir rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, Asger flaming in his hand.
His Saxon veins burst with power. The need to shed blood tore and clawed at his soul until his heart was ready to explode out of his chest. His mind reached out into savagery, and his skin crawled with violent animal-like insanity. He spun the war runes in his mind, but needed to wait to use them for Site 13.
"I am not here to kill you! I am here to enter The Ancient Hall of Mysteries. You, too, know it has been recently discovered! According to our shaman, it has many names, but perhaps you know it by Site 13. Our sacred Constitution foretold this prophecy," he said in Saxon with an Eastern-Ghetto Berlin accent.
Victoria exhaled and remembered her war katas. She reached inside herself and felt the intense heritage of her ancestry in every cell. Her teeth clenched. There were 20 other Americans besides Apache Vick. Like a Plasstien orb in a Londun pinball machine, she planned out every move, understanding the direction, angle, and precision for a one-hit kill and was confident her battle skill far outweighed all of them. Planks dripped from her hands.
Apache glanced at her and back to Gungnir. He spoke in Basic Ameri-glish, using both of his hands, rubbing them back and forth. "Tesla. Where's Captain Johann Edward Rex? Your communications from the Land of the Nothing told us he would be here. We must all be here in order for this to work. You were told!"
"The message was relayed. You should have received it. I... uh..." She said. "I don't know."
"Have you sent me into a trap?" Gungnir screamed. "I'm not sure which one of you I will kill first!"
She looked at Apache, waiting to see if he wanted to answer, but he didn't. None of them did. He leaned forward, challenging Gungnir's authority like a neo-wolf. "If you were in a trap, you would be dead, Saxon. You fool. We are not here to fight! We are here to work together and destroy it!"
Gungnir had heard enough from him. He launched himself at the savage, nicking his neck with his weapon, and when he did, he landed a perfect uppercut under Apache's chin, breaking some of his teeth and landing him on his back.
"Stop fighting both of you!" She pleaded, getting in the way.
"You said nothing about this! Who is this person?!" He held his spear at Apache ready to impale his throat, but he clicked off the flame and stared down at his defeated enemy.
"I don't have time to explain," Victoria blurted out. "We have to go if we're to make it on time."
"We should be going then," Apache suggested, gripping his tomahawk off to the side of his body.
"Not with them." Gungnir raised his chin. "You can send them home, or I can hang them to Wotan. Your choice."
"Gungnir please..." Victoria cried out. "I told you, we must stick together."
Gungnir brought up his spear and let Apache get to his feet. "So this other person... is he not coming? This Rex you mentioned in our transmissions? He is a key component in defeating it. You know that."
"We are going to meet him at Site 13, American." Gungnir closed his eyes, bent forward, hailed Wotan, and sniffed the air. Planks. Smoke. Military-grade Plasstien-12. "Site 13 is to the northwest. Send your men and women away."
"Return home," Apache said. "All of you have done well. It is now time for you to return to your homes. The prophesy is nearing its completion. Soon, it will be the time of turning our swords into plowshares. The war is ending. The time of the eternal peace will come upon our people."
He raised his tomahawk into the air. "Soldiers of the Burgerhouse Empire! Where there were once 101 of us, now there are only 21, yet we have survived. Go back home and tell our kinsmen how our brothers and sisters fought to bring about this peace. Tell them everything! We are Americans and will never surrender! We will always fare to do what is right and just. Now be gone. I will be doing this alone." Apache said. His troops fell back into the snow and disappeared.
"Now. On me." Gungnir snapped.
"We should scout ahead. We're close." Apache moved to a tree, turned, and bounded forward.
"Be right there." Stab.
Victoria scrambled up the frozen incline. Apache made it to the top first and used a broken mirror to see what was over the crest of the ridge and Gungnir followed behind him. It was a glorious display of wanton violence. The men in orange were attacking the Knight's Martel with short-ranged sonic weaponry. Energy negators shook the ground, canceling out frequencies.
The famous Spartacus with his famed gladius parried $$Pol_Pot_)@LOL.com's staff while $$Pol_Pot_)@LOL.com's Khmer Guard initiated a hand-to-hand attack against Consumer Number 345,345 and her forces.
The battlefield was caked with corpses and their various weapons. To the south, through the trees, The Bullet Khan descended down into the melee riding a massive horned ovr, its spined tails throwing needle barbs ahead as it thundered over the frozen landscape. His men rode all manner of neo-animals, and they came crashing into the arrayed forces, spearing them and lobbing their heads off.
Beyond the fighting, their target, Site 13, lit up like an Atomic Winter Solstice Tree with multi-colored floodlights aimed at different portions of the unearthed tech crypt. There it was, their target, the thing they had been seeking for weeks.
Apache closed his eyes and prayed. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form the perfect Earth, establish complete and total rule and order, insure domestic justice and peace and security, provide for the common defence [sic] of the Constitution and ALL [Truth] that it stands for [Profit], promote the general welfare of all Americans [Surveillance Grid], and secure the Blessings of Ultra Liberty [Power] to ourselves and do ordain and establish this Constitution for America!"
He vaulted over and blasted Registered Model GVR-234s23d at the waist, cutting him in half. Victoria saw the remains of him. His guts, green, clear, and brown, oozed out of his body. 234s23d's eyes blackened, and he gripped the bottom half of himself and reattached his legs to his torso with a sucking sound. Apache rolled on the ground, ducking low. He weaved. 234s23d grabbed the lower portion of his own jaw, mashing it open, bones cracking, until it became a maw, taking up his entire head. His flesh popped out, and he grew another set of limbs. His skin cracked and morphed into reptilian flesh with rainbow fishlike scales. His fingers bent into claws, and his arms stretched out and dragged in the bloody muck.
Victoria turned to Gungnir. "Apache's in trouble!"
"Let's see what he can do by himself."
"Please! He's going to die if you don't help!"
"So? He should have waited for them to thin each other out more."
234s23d made fists, slammed them into the ice, and he shot up in the air, a giant razor-toothed mouth. He crunched down behind Apache and tried to bite his leg. Apache turned and somersaulted, chopping down with his tomahawk, leaping back like a neo-rabbit evading his bite.
"Gungnir! For me!"
The words stopped him, and he felt his heart rise into his throat. She had never spoken to him like that before, and his soul wanted to say yes. Just to say 'yes' to anything she wanted to keep her safe. Her voice was powerful. Too powerful. "No. Where's this idiot Captain Rex you've been talking about?"
"I don't know! But if Apache dies, we all lose! I'm going in then!"
He growled in defiance. "No, Victoria! I'll go. Don't ask me to do anything for you ever again. Wotan, I call to you! All Father! Lord of the Gods! King of Asgard! Bring me victory!" He sprinted over the ridge.
When he got into the maelstrom, he regretted not listening to her sooner. Here it was. The carnage he had been wanting his whole life. Everyone was fighting for their lives, and the slaughter was like something the gods would enjoy watching. He gnashed his teeth. This thing had Apache by the leg at the knee and was biting through his thigh. Blood spurted out of Apache's mouth.
Gungnir aimed the spear and threw it. The shot hit the inside of 234s23d's mouth, shattering hundreds of teeth, and rammed into his brain and out the back of his head. 234s23d flopped down and started spasming. Apache's eyes bled tears of crimson, but he grabbed his tomahawk and scalped 234s23d. Then he collapsed down in the bloody snow.
Before Gungnir could call out Victoria's name, she was there, looking into Apache's bloody eyes, cradling his head.
"He's been poisoned. Don't let any of his blood get on you." Gungnir stood up and retrieved Asger. "Come. We can't do anything for him. Let's get inside." He shot a look of approval into Apache's eyes. "You fought well, Apache. Your gods will welcome you into their halls."
The Knights had slaughtered hundreds, but had taken so many casualties, most of them were incapable of fighting. The Bullet Khan's forces were in full retreat from the battle, and most of his army lie dead on the battlefield. Hundreds of bodies screamed in the snow, bleeding out, crying for help that wasn't going to come. The snap-fire bursts of auto-fire rose in the air, drowning out the war cries and echoing into the surrounding forest.
"There's the terminal!" Victoria cried out.
"Hurry!" Gungnir said, protecting her with his body.
They sprinted to the bio-terminal next to the ten-meter wide door to Site 13, the ancient vault begging to be opened at last. It was unlike anything either of them had seen before. Two Oracle White concave Plasstien grav scanners were set a meter apart from each other and spun like a whirlwind. It vibrated the air and hummed.
"Step away! This vault is mine!" Something said in Basic Ameri-glish behind them.
Both of them turned to see who was challenging them.
Its feet were bare, its toenails painted with Pre-Preprogrammed Planks playing vids of the great creature destroying everything in its path. It wore golden, brass, and Plasstien ankle bracelets, and they sparked on the ground as the gargantuan monster stepped forward. Its muscled legs pounded the ground as he walked, its flesh rippling with the unnatural adaptations. Its third eye, set at a 90-degree angle, glowed a deep neon scarlet. Binary chunks moved, blossoming out into digi-lotuses, and folded into his other two blue eyes. It took six of its eight arms to hold its ancient Pre-Times weapon. It had the shape of an egg with fins on the back to stabilize it. Painted across the middle of the device, the symbol of the ancient Pre-Times red and yellow triangular symbols of death glowed prominently—the symbol of ultimate death. One of the hands had its finger on the activation toggle.
The monster's fat forked tongue spilled out of its mouth.
"Site 13 belongs to me!" It spat.
"Shiva Oppenheimer..." Apache gasped. Neither Gungnir nor Victoria had seen Apache crawl forward, but somehow he was still alive, bleeding out of his ears, mouth, and eyes. The monster turned to see what was behind him, and Gungnir saw his chance. He launched Asger true, striking Oppenheimer in the neck, tearing its head off. Its plump, oversized head sent meat chunks and neck-gore over the device, and as the creature fell, it dropped the bomb, toggling the switch. Asger flew and stuck in the ground, far off in the distance.
The timer blinked.
10
9
"Open the door!" Apache gasped.
"Wait! I have to get Asger..."
"No time." She entered between the two grav plates, and whisks of polarized Oracle White light encased her.
*Accessing*
Quantum ripples floated around her as she struggled against the machine, she bit down. Planks swarmed through her veins, redirecting the bio down to her cellular level, but it fought back, sending clouds of complex counter-data streams forming around her. She screamed out in pain as the machine was sending neural impulses through her brain, trying to kill her. They swirled back, bleeding into the Oracle White and di
sappearing, enacting new Arkhe Protocols.
Gungnir rushed to Apache, helping him to his feet.
"You've made it this far. Don't fail, Apache. Hold out. We'll make it inside. There will be something in there to help you, I promise." Gungnir knew he was fighting for his life and gripped him tight. "Don't die now!"
"Leave me. Get your spear. Protect her." He said, yellow sticky fluid foaming out of his mouth and eyes.
"I'll find another. Come on!"
6
5
Victoria felt her body start to collapse, and she gripped the sides of the device to hold herself up. She knew she was going to die. This was the end of her life. There was nothing else for her now. She would never be with Gungnir. She would never have the life she had dreamed of. John wasn't here. The entire mission was a failure. All that was left for her to do was open the door and save her love.
Site 13's doors slammed open for the first time in over two millennia.
Gungnir picked Apache up and launched himself inside the vault. He spun and saw Victoria on the ground, her chest collapsed, tears running down her face. Her newly adapted magenta hair flailing in the cold.
"No! Please!" Gungnir shouted to the gods of Asgard, up to the All Father himself. "Victoria! I love you!"
3
He picked her up and jumped towards the vault. There was nothing without her. No purpose to life. He would give anything for her to live, even forsaking the gods themselves.
2
"Hurry!" Apache shouted.
1
Gungnir held Victoria and was inside.
Apache slammed the Emergency close button.