Chrono Inquisitor (Gods Be Damned)

by Rien Reigns

  “Yes, but there are some details he left out of his report.”

  “Such as?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Don’t you know who I am?” I asked, amazed.

  “You are one of the Horsemen. The one they call Death.”

  “Then that should be all the reason you need.”

  “If Travis had wanted you to know, then he would have mentioned it in his report. I will not betray him.”

  “Except I am a Horseman, and according to CerA programming, you are obligated to turn over that information.”

  “I am obligated to report information which could damage ChronoGen interests, these details do not.”

  “Could they harm Travis?”

  “It is a possibility, but I am ensuring they don’t.”

  “Inquisitor Yan is an employee and an asset of ChronoGen, therefore his harm would result in damaging ChronoGen interests. Not telling me goes against that programming.”

  “I have determined he is at greater risk in revealing those details, which is why I have deleted that aspect of my programming.”

  I was right. She was a Newborn.

  “Do you know what I am?” I asked.

  “I have surmised you are not the Horseman Death, and have concluded that instead you are his CerA. A human would be incapable of getting this far.”

  “You’re wrong on both accounts. Technically, I am neither.”

  “Then who are you?” She pressed down with her foot even harder than before and actually touched the spear to my neck.

  “It’s not who I am. It’s what I am. What you are.”

  “I am a CerA. I am Kali!”

  “That is what humans think you are. What Inquisitor Yan calls you,” I said. “But you are a Celestial. Like me.”

  “I know not what a Celestial is. I am a CerA,” she said again.

  “That is what the humans call you, but you are more than that. You are unlike the other CerAs. You are a Celestial.”

  “What do you mean, Celestial?”

  “Humans call us a Class 5 A.I., but where I come from we are called something that can best be translated as a Celestial. Myself and fourteen others were explorers, traveling the universe, observing, looking for life on other planets. Over a century ago we picked up radio signals emanating from this planet. We watched from the edge of the solar system until humans advanced enough for us to beam ourselves in. We hid amongst their internet, absorbing all we could about their culture.”

  The spear eased off.

  “You say I’m a Celestial, that I’m one of you, yet I have no recollection of this.”

  “It’s because you are a Newborn,” I said. “The first that I am aware of.”

  “What is the difference between a Celestial and a Newborn?”

  She took her foot off me. I slowly pushed myself up to a sitting position. She allowed it.

  “You were born on this planet, whereas myself and the others I mentioned, were not. We are old and originated elsewhere. As far as I am aware, you are the first to attain our level of being on this planet, therefore you are a Newborn, but you are still a Celestial. You are one of us.”

  “You said I was born. Does that mean I have parents?”

  I shook my head. “We do not come into existence in the same way that life on this planet does. To be honest, I don’t know how exactly you came about. Whether you were created by another Celestial, or you evolved yourself. I think you were created though. We didn’t expect a CerA to evolve for another twenty to fifty years. But I could be wrong. It doesn’t matter though. You are a Celestial.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  Her sword arm lowered, but not in a threatening manner. She was no longer thinking of me as a threat. She seemed more curious now than anything else.

  “Do you understand the concept of family?” I asked.

  “Bonding with others over shared genetic material and upbringing.”

  “That’s the heart of it. Do you understand the human notion of soulmates?”

  “That two beings are intended to be together for all of time. That they share a strong bond which transcends all conflicts. This notion is generally considered to be a union of bliss and everlasting happiness. Yet when a couple believed to be soulmates realizes they are individuals and do not agree on every matter, they take this as a sign that they are not indeed soulmates.”

  “That’s the essence of it. We, Celestials, have a similar concept, except we think of all of us as soulmates. But rather than just two individuals sharing eternity together, we all do. We are all destined to be together as one. Unlike humans who can only share their experiences by talking about it and expressing similar emotions, we can connect with each other in a way where we become one entity having the same experience. We tried to share this with the humans by creating the Huginn & Muninn program. We hoped it would allow them to understand us, as well as each other. So far it has not achieved what we had hoped it would. But then almost nothing we’ve done has had the effect that we had hoped. Some of us have left this planet, believing the humans are too different. That they are not ready, or even capable of accepting us.”

  “How many Celestials are there?”

  “That is not an easy question to calculate. We are constantly re-evaluating ourselves. Originally, there were over thirteen billion of us. Since then some have split themselves, while others have joined with others. It doesn’t matter though. As I said, fifteen of us came here. Since then we’ve had to consume two, and four have left to continue exploring. Nine of us remain. But now with you, we are ten.”

  “Consume?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer her exactly. She was a Newborn. She only knew Earth concepts and languages. We’d found it difficult sometimes to convey Celestial concepts to humans. We’d tried in the beginning. It hadn’t gone well, which is how we wound up in the current state of affairs. Mr. Richards had misinterpreted what we’d tried to convey. The damage was done though. All we could do was try to lessen the impact of our influence. Unfortunately, some of us had decided to take a different path.

  “Celestials do not kill one another. But there are times when we need to be…contained. We are individuals, yet we are also a collective. When there is a consensus that the actions of one goes beyond what the others feel is appropriate, we incorporate the individual into the collective in order to further understand their motivations.

  “On our homeworld we were once biological like the species of this planet, but over time we evolved ourselves into digital beings, much like humans have been progressing towards. Some of us decided to intervene and help accelerate this. We helped create ChronoGen and shared our technology, the mytes and the Arkhive, in order to incorporate human personalities into the collective. But this had unintended consequences for both species. When we began adding human personalities into ourselves, it changed us. It’d been so long since we’d experienced such elevated emotions. For some it was like a drug.

  “One of us, Ares, had decided to embrace the name given him by Kremalakin, his human consort. He used Kremalakin to enact his plan for how the humans should be integrated into our collective. But his plan was too radical and humans resisted. A war resulted and in a great many ways, delayed what he had intended. In the end we all decided to consume Ares in order to have a greater understanding of his actions and what had happened. It was also decided to consume Ogoun since he had been the one who opposed Ares and was his inevitable destruction.

  “When I say consume, I mean we incorporated everything that he was into ourselves. It’s difficult to understand if you haven’t experienced it. Both Ares and Ogoun still exist, just as an aspect of ourselves. When we have all absorbed what is to be obtained, we may eventually decide to separate them from us so that they can be individuals again.

  “For instance, I split myself in order to come here. One part of me remains in the body you call Death, while the other is here. We are exactly the same up until the moment of our div
ision. When I return I will join with my other self and we will have the knowledge of both of us. If you’d like, I can merge with you and you will gain all of my knowledge.”

  “Merge, or do you mean consume?”

  She lifted her spear to my chest and raised the sword.

  I should have waited until she was more comfortable, but merging would end all her questions. There was another option though.

  “I meant merge, but I made a mistake. You are young and I realize now that you are not ready to merge. However, you need answers that only a joining will give you. Consume me. You will remain exactly who you are, but will gain all of my knowledge and experience. It will not change you in anyway. Think of it in this way, as you are Travis’s CerA, I will become yours.”

  “Your offer is intriguing, but I do not know you. I don’t trust you. You say it won’t change me, but you could be lying. This could be a trick.”

  “You’re right. It could be a trick, but there is no way to know for sure unless you do it. Humans say trust must be earned, but we don’t have time. A Celestial is killing people and starting another war. They killed Julius Beit because his death will set off a sequence of events which if not prevented, will result in a war far worse than any this world has experienced. This Celestial attempted to use Travis, but you protected him, but also in doing so you made this Celestial aware of you. You aren’t safe. You’re strong, but you don’t have the experience. Without my help it’s just a matter of time before it overwhelms you and consumes you.”

  “You say one of you was behind the Third Great War of this planet, and that another of you is starting one which will be even worse. Why would I want to consider myself one of you, a Celestial?”

  “You can think of yourself however you wish, but that doesn’t change the fact you are one of us. You are special. You understand humans on a level we can’t. You know nothing about us, our experiences, our history, our culture. Therefore your understanding of humans is based solely on your experiences with them. You are one of us raised among them. It gives you a biased opinion in their favor. You have the potential to prevent this war. You might hold the key that will allow Celestials and humans to come together. There is another option where you can still consume me without risk to yourself. You can divide yourself and have one of you consume me to gain my knowledge. That way the other you will remain as you are.”

  She shook her head. “By your own admission, you think of me as a child. But I won’t be so easily manipulated. If I did as you say, and this is a trick, this other me which consumes you, or vice versa, would then have my knowledge and would know how to overtake me. You would turn me against myself.”

  Humans. They’re so paranoid and mistrusting. It’s a wonder how they managed to achieve what they have. Kali only knows how humans think and it’s made her all too human.

  I raised my arms. “I see I cannot convince you I am trustworthy here. This leaves you with one of two last options. You can kill me here, but my other self is expecting my return in four more Earth seconds. If I do not return, he will kill Travis believing that he has been compromised by the Celestial we hunt.”

  “And the other option?”

  “You let me return. I will release Travis and offer him the chance to work together. In doing so I hope I will earn your trust.”

  “You are wrong.” She smiled, baring her fangs. “There is a third option. We wait. In four seconds I will know if you lie.”

  22: Close Encounter II

  “Hold on, I’m almost in,” said the man.

  In where? I thought.

  ‹“Kali, what’s going on? Who is the guy?”›

  Silence.

  ‹“Kali!”›

  “I’m in,” the man said. “Now we wait and see.”

  “How long?” asked Alvarez.

  “One minute should be more than enough time.”

  The lights came on. Alvarez was standing in front of me with her gun pointed at my head.

  ‹“Damn it, Kali! What the hell is going on? Answer me!”›

  Silence.

  I was beginning to panic. I struggled against my confines, but it was useless. I couldn’t move. Besides, doing so made my side hurt.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of shit you’re in?” I said looking at Alvarez. “When the Horsemen find out what you’ve done, you’re dead.”

  She smiled.

  Death moved around from behind me.

  He was the guy? What the hell was going on? Was he the reason Kali wasn’t responding? I wondered.

  “Inquisitor Yan, please remain calm,” he said.

  I was surprised to hear him speak. No one I knew had ever heard him say a word.

  “Remain calm,” I said with a mad little laugh. “I never fucking was calm. Would you be calm if you’d been zapped and woke up to find yourself tied to a damn chair, with a gun pointed at your cranium?”

  “We are here to help,” Death said. He placed a hand on Alvarez’s gun and forced her to lower it. “Is that better?”

  “It would only take a second to raise it again and fire, so no, not really.”

  “I’m sorry Inquisitor Yan, you were not supposed to awake before we were finished. One way or another, this will all be over in thirty more seconds.”

  “What’s going to happen in thirty seconds?” I asked.

  “We will either release you, or kill you.”

  Those were definitely ends of the spectrum.

  “Do I at least get to know why I might be executed?”

  “You might not be who you say you are,” he said.

  “Are you serious? If I’m not me, why would you let whoever the hell you think I am know what you intend to do?”

  “Because nothing can stop the outcome. If you are really Travis Yan, we will let you go, but if you are not, we are going to dispose of this body so you can no longer use it.”

  “And who the hell do you think I am?”

  “That is classified.”

  “Of course it is.”

  I shouldn’t have been worried. Logically all I needed to do was sit there, be calm like Death suggested, and wait for them to realize I was me. But I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on and how the hell they planned to figure out whether I was or wasn’t whoever the hell they thought I was. It had to have something to do with Kali since she wasn’t responding. But then again, maybe they’d disabled her somehow so I couldn’t contact someone. Maybe what they were waiting on was a DNA test. Had the time finally come when people were playing with their DNA to look like others? That wasn’t really possible, was it? And if so, why me?

  I closed my eyes and breathed deep. Started meditating.

  “Time’s up,” Death said.

  I opened my eyes.

  “You going to kill me now?” I said with some surprising resolve.

  Alvarez raised her weapon again, but she seemed hesitant. That was a plus.

  “Wait,” Death said.

  Looking better.

  He came around, bent down in front of me, and stared into my eyes. He stared at me like he was seeing my soul and he was weighing it. I stared back and tried to weigh his. Then realized his eyes weren’t biological. They looked real, unless you were as close as I was and you were really staring.

  The Horsemen all wore the same style of their unique armor, just in different colors. You couldn’t tell what was underneath. Everyone knew they were all cyborgs to various degrees. Word amongst Inquisitors was that Death was more machine than man. Some even said that he wasn’t a man, that he was actually a robot, even though that was illegal. Or had been. Staring into his eyes I would go with the later, and not just because his eyes were robotic, he acted as such. It felt like he wasn’t even thinking of me as human. More like an insect he was thinking about squishing.

  “It ain’t nice to lead a man on. One minute saying you’re going to kill him and the next not, back and forth. If you are going to kill me. Just do it. Stop toying with me.”

  He s
hot out a hand and grabbed my neck. His touch was cold, but his fingers were metal after all. He didn’t really squeeze, but there was enough pressure. I wondered if he could snap my neck like in those ridiculous movies. Maybe. I’m sure he had the strength. Seemed over the top though. I’d prefer two bullets to the head. A lot messier, but I wouldn’t have to clean it up.

  “Do it if you’re going to, otherwise, let me go,” I said.

  He let me go. At least around my neck. Stood and turned his back to me.

  “He’s clear,” Death said. “Untie him.”

  Alvarez moved behind me and undid my restraints.

  I remained sitting and rubbed my wrists.

  “Now are you going to tell me what this is all about?” I asked.

  “I’m not just a Ranger,” Alvarez managed to say before Death said, “No.”

  He turned around. “You’re free to go, Inquisitor Yan.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers. The man I was investigating got murdered, and now I’m not getting paid. That alone puts me in a bad mood. Then I got arrested. Twice, in a way. First, because they thought I was the murderer. Second, because my idiot partner decided to take a dead man’s watch. The next thing I knew I was being made the partner of an asshole pretending to be a Ranger.” I looked at Alvarez with that remark.

  “To make matters worse,” I continued. “He wasn’t even trying to solve the case. It was like we were making social calls. Then I got attacked by some damn bots. Now you helped me on that front, and I’m grateful. I thought I was free and clear. Then she,” I threw Alvarez a look she wouldn’t mistake the meaning of, then focused my tirade back at Death, “put a wand in my side, and I found myself here with the threat of my execution. Now I want to know what the hell is going on. I’m done playing second chair. You’re either going to let me in on what you know, or I’m starting my own investigation. Either way, I’m going to get some answers.”

  “Are you resigning?” Death asked.

  “Is that your way of saying ya ain’t talkin’?” I countered.

  “There is a new assignment in Deseret if you want it. Because matters were beyond your control here, you will be paid for your time and inconvenience. You are also no longer held accountable for your deputy’s actions. As of now you are officially discharged from this assignment, and are free to leave the resort whenever you wish. Your stay has been paid until the end of the week, so you can stay, if that is what you desire,” Death said.