by Rien Reigns
I kissed her forehead.
So much for there being no residual affection.
‹“Kali, time,”› I said without thinking, having forgotten for a split second what had happened.
And then when I did remember, I wished it had all been a dream, or that maybe she had just been hiding out until she was sure all the thugs were destroyed, and now that they were, she’d returned.
Silence.
I felt empty.
Alone.
Kali had been with me for almost two decades. I’d grown accustomed to her always being there. I hadn’t realized how much she’d meant to me, how much of a friend she’d been, a constant companion, always with me.
The things we take for granted until they’re gone.
I wasn’t sure what would happen. Would I be given a replacement? As far as I knew, no one had ever needed to replace a CerA before. Would the replacement be different? Assuredly, but how much so?
I knew all CerAs started out with the exact same programming, and were designed to alter themselves over time based on their host. It had taken me years to get to a point where I didn’t want to slam my head into a wall on a constant basis.
I knew that if I did get a new CerA, I could give it the designation Kali, but it wouldn’t be the same. It’d be like replacing a pet that had died and giving the new one the same name. Except Kali hadn’t been a pet. You couldn’t have a conversation with a dog or a cat, not yet anyway.
In hindsight, Kali had been very much like a child.
My child.
In a weird sort of way, I’d raised her. Sure, she’d started out with more book knowledge than I would ever possess, but she’d been just a machine, a computer which tried to act human, but was far from it. Or so I’d thought. It’d taken years of me instructing her how to behave more like a human than a machine. I knew some people preferred their CerAs to be more computer like. I had initially.
It’d annoyed me when she’d acted and sounded like a real human, yet she’d get some common every day interaction wrong. I’d wanted her to be more computer like, not realizing it had actually freaked me out just how human like she really was, even from the beginning. I hadn’t realized before then that she’d reminded me too much of Blyss.
I was so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t realized Sam had awoken until she said, “How long have you been awake?”
I looked at her and thought how beautiful her eyes were.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have no sense of time, and there aren’t any clocks that I can see.” Normally I wore a watch, but I’d decided against doing so with all that had been going on. All the watches I owned were very expensive.
“Good god,” Sam said. “It’s been almost five hours since we came in here.”
“So it’s sometime after three in the morning?” I asked.
“3:46 to be precise,” she said.
“It seems Kali really is gone. She still isn’t responding.”
“I’m sorry, Travis,” she said, and turned her gaze away from me.
I felt the spark of anger catch. Kali was gone and it was Sam’s fault.
I didn’t want to feel angry. I didn’t want to feel anything emotional, not at that moment. So I didn’t. I just laid there and listened to my breathing, wrapped myself in the warmth shared between our bodies, and got lost in the smell of Sam.
Finally, she said, “Inquisitor Noble should have woken up. Lillian has probably already interrogated him. We should go see.”
She pushed herself off me and got to her feet.
With her gone I realized how cold the floor was. I got up. Sam had started to gather her clothes, so I did the same. I reached down and picked them up. Something small fell to the floor with tiny clang. I reached down and picked it up.
It was a small square piece of metal with a raised surface that looked like –
It was the Kali Yantra.
I held it in the palm of my hand. I had no idea where it’d come from.
“Did you put this with my clothes?” I asked.
I turned towards her, she was already in her body suit. As for me, I was still naked.
She shook her head. “Wasn’t me. It’s not yours? That is the Kali yantra, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t recall ever seeing this before.”
“Can I take a look?” she asked.
I handed it over to her. She took it between her thumb and forefinger and brought it close to her eye, then raised it to get a better look in the light.
Sam grabbed a myte scanner off a nearby table and waved it over the yantra. She turned and smiled at me.
“Can you guess what this is?” she asked.
I had no idea and said so.
“It’s Kali!” Sam said excitedly, almost jumping up and down.
“What?”
“This isn’t just some piece of metal. It’s made out of CerA-mytes. I can’t say for certain that it’s Kali, but it’s her symbol. It has to be her. She must have left your body somehow and then brought all the mytes together to form this so you’d know it was her.”
I wanted to believe it was Kali, but with all the recent talk of rogue CerAs and people being hacked, I was skeptical.
“How can we find out if it’s really her?” I asked.
“Haven’t you ever interacted with her in a virtual lounge?”
“I didn’t know I could.”
Even if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have.
“Did you ever listen to me when we were married?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Occasionally.”
She shook her head. “We can load her into a virtual matrix and you can interact with her. You know her better than anyone, so theoretically you should be able to tell if it’s really her.”
“Then let’s do it,” I said.
Sam and I finished getting dressed and went to the virtual lounge in the next room. Apparently, the bunker was more like Sam’s personal lab, and she liked to interact with Buddha on a regular basis when working.
I imagined her programming her little thugs, while a rotund bald man sat cross-legged on the floor behind her spouting off enlightening pearls of wisdom.
Sam decided it would be best if I was alone in the lounge when Kali first materialized, since it’d be the first time the two of us came face to face. I’d named her after the Hindu goddess who always seemed to be depicted with a man’s severed head. I’d never actually thought of my Kali even having a body. Would she take the form of her namesake? I was about to find out.
I stood in the empty room feeling anxious and uneasy, like I was on a blind date. I didn’t really want the image I imagined brought to life in front of me.
Lights flashed, indicating the holo system was activating.
A shape started to materialize in front of me.
It wasn’t Kali.
At least not how I’d imagined, anyway. But it was a woman, and damn, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She looked a little like Sam in a way, just with a darker complexion. The two of them could have been sisters, or cousins. They definitely looked like they were related. She was wearing a long golden dress.
“Kali?” I asked.
Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye.
I turned and there was the Horseman Death. In an instant I’d taken up a defensive stance and had my kamas in my hands.
“You can put your weapons away, Inquisitor, they won’t hurt me,” he said.
“They’re sharper than they look,” I said. “How’d you get in here? If you decided you wanted to kill me after all, I’m not going down without a fight.”
“He’s a projection,” the woman said with Kali’s voice.
“Are you really Kali?” I asked, not lowering my weapons and still keeping my focus on Death.
“Yes,” she said.
“Forgive me if I don’t trust that you’re telling the truth,” I replied.
“Inquisitor Yan, I need your help,” Death said.
>
Sam came into the room. “You can put your weapons away, they’re both constructs,” she said.
I didn’t like virtual lounges. They were too realistic. I wasn’t sure it was actually Sam and not another construct. Granted, projections were nothing more than light, therefore they couldn’t hurt me, but if one of them were real, I could be. Sam could have been created to put me at ease and as soon as my weapons were lowered Death could strike. I kept them raised.
I let Sam approach, and she put a hand on my shoulder. It really was her.
“He’s not here physically,” she said. “He’s a projection, he can’t hurt you.”
I lowered my kamas hesitantly and put them away.
“How, and why, are you here?” I asked, looking at Death.
“He’s here, because without him, you’d be dead,” Kali said.
I turned to her.
“Same goes for you,” I said. “How are you here? How did you get out of my body and create the yantra?”
“Your sweat. It was the only way to ensure neither of us died.”
“So, you are responsible for almost killing me?”
“It was him,” Kali said, pointing at Death. “It was his plan, but I enacted it.”
“So you two are working together?”
Rather than answering, they both looked at each other like they weren’t actually sure.
“Okay, care to explain what you are doing together?”
“The more important question is, how did you come across the design for the mytes you calls thugs, Ms. Matsuzaki?” Death said.
Hadn’t she designed them herself?
I turned and looked at her. The look she had told me she hadn’t. I was even more confused than ever.
I took a step backwards so that I wasn’t directly in the middle of the three of them.
“I think you know where I got the designs,” Sam said.
“Which one of us are you working with?” Death asked.
Sam was working with a Horseman?
“I can’t say,” she said.
“You shouldn’t have those designs. They’re extremely dangerous and outlawed. Who gave them to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you come across them?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated.
She sounded weird, like it was a programmed response.
“Sam?” I asked.
She turned and walked out of the lounge.
What the hell was going on?
I followed her out, leaving the projections of Kali and Death alone in the room.
“What the hell is going on?” I said. “What aren’t you telling me, Sam? And why the hell was Death there?”
“He’s a Celestial.”
“So that was Death’s CerA?”
“No, Death is a Celestial.”
“What does that mean?”
Sam explained Celestials to me.
Aliens? Computers even?
“And they’re responsible for ChronoGen tech?” I asked, still not quite believing everything.
“It’s one of ChronoGen’s biggest secrets. I’m not sure how many Celestials there are exactly, but rumor has it around a dozen.”
“And you got the design for the thugs from one of them?”
“Yes.”
“And Death is another one?”
“Yes.”
I continued to question her. A couple times she gave that robotic, ‘I don’t know’ response. I questioned her about it.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “You don’t have the thugs anymore.”
“You can’t tell me because I don’t have thugs?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not making any sense Sam.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve told you what I can. You should go back in the lounge and talk to Kali and Death. Maybe you’ll find some answers there.”
I stared into her eyes, trying to glean something, but came away with nothing. I took her advice and headed back to the lounge.
Kali and Death had been talking, but as soon as I entered they went silent.
“I believe Death and the other Horsemen are dead,” Death said after a second.
What was with everyone saying crazy nonsensical things lately?
“You think you’re dead, yet you’re here?”
“I’m a clone, made hours ago when Ranger Alvarez and Death had you detained.”
“What was the deal with that anyway?”
“At the time it was believed you had been overtaken by a rogue Celestial.”
“And you let me go because you realized I wasn’t?”
“Yes.”
“So again I’ll ask, how, and why, are you here?”
Death turned to Kali, giving her a look like she should explain.
“I took him prisoner,” she said.
“You took him prisoner?” I said, not believing.
Was she saying that because she was under his control?
God, I was paranoid. Could I ever trust her again? Could I trust anyone?
“They were going to kill you. I took him prisoner. We came to an agreement. They let you live and I agreed to let him mentor me.”
“And, why would you do that? Because to me it sounds like you went and let one of these Celestials inside my head.”
“If it weren’t for his guidance, you’d be dead right now. So far it has proven to be an acceptable, and beneficial risk.”
“And you trust him?”
She gave me a look like she didn’t completely trust him, but that she was comfortable with whatever the hell their agreement was.
“Well I still don’t trust you,” I said.
“You never have,” she retorted.
“Not true. I trusted you, I just didn’t always like what you had to say. But now I know you’ve been lying to me, or at least the real Kali has.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Personality Improvement Updates? Sam tells me there’s no such thing. Care to explain?”
“She’s right. I lied to you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve never liked me. I thought that if I changed how I sounded, and tweaked my personality, eventually, you’d like me.”
I mulled over what she said. I hadn’t liked her initially, but she’d grown on me. Now I needed to decide whether I had come to like her, of if my feelings of losing her were simply because I’d grown accustomed to having her around.
“So that’s your assessment, I never liked you?”
“You came to accept me, but you didn’t like me in the way that I wanted.”
“And what way is that?”
“Like Sam.”
“You’re jealous of Sam?” I said with a laugh, before I realized I’d done it.
Kali took a deep breath. Then she transformed into that image of Kali which I’d feared. The image of the demon like goddess with fangs, and four arms, with one of them holding a decapitated head. I realized then that the head was my own.
Somehow, in that moment, I knew she really was Kali.
I looked to Death. He was unfazed by the sudden change.
Had he seen her in that form before? How had they interacted? He’d been in my head and I hadn’t even known.
That was very disconcerting.
I turned my attention back to Kali.
“Is that why you took a form like you were related to Sam?” I asked.
“I took the form of your perfect version of what you wished Sam looked like, because I thought you’d appreciate it.”
I hoped Sam wasn’t watching or listening in. I wondered if she’d caught on to that. Women somehow have a sense for those sorts of things. Hell, it was technically my own fantasy, and I hadn’t caught on.
“I did appreciate it,” I found myself saying.
“You are not as afraid of this form as I thought you would be,” she said.
“It’s because now I know you’re really you.”
“And
which form do you prefer?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“I’m not inside your head anymore. I can’t say for certain.”
I looked at the Kali goddess form she was in. Really looked. She was frightening, but she was actually very beautiful. And I wasn’t just thinking that on account she was topless and mostly nude. Take away the grotesque and morbid accoutrements, ditch the fangs, and I probably would have slept with her.
That thought made me feel uneasy, but only for a second.
My mind then wondered what she could do with four arms. Then I wondered what I could do with four arms. I liked that idea even more. I stopped my wayward thoughts there before they got too out of control.
“Would you like to be inside my head again?” I asked.
Without hesitation she said, “Yes.”
“Good, because I want you back.”
“What about him?” I asked, nodding my head in the direction of Death.
“He has been beneficial so far. I think we should continue to keep him around for information.”
“And you’ll keep him in control?”
She smiled and raised one of her arms which held a sword. The head in her other hand changed from mine to Death’s.
It felt good to be acting superior to a Horseman. In all probability I wouldn’t have if he could have done something about it and wasn’t just beams of light.
I looked at Death. “You were ready to kill me before, how do I know you won’t try again?”
“I can give you my word, but I’ve read your psy-val and know you wouldn’t believe me. Besides, I am two separate entities now. I cannot say that the physical Death won’t try again, if indeed he is still alive,” he added. “The only comfort I can give you is by informing you that you can program your own thugs to protect you.”
“Not very comforting, considering you managed to outmaneuver the ones Sam programmed.”
“True, but you can make some alterations. For starters, you can program them so that either you and/or Kali are in control of them. Another change I’d suggest you make is that they don’t destroy themselves upon your apparent death. You could also station them in key areas, such as your heart and brain, so that the pitfalls I pointed out in the immunos, won’t be able to be used against you.”
I had to admit, his suggestions were good.
“All right. I guess this means I’m now going to have two CerAs in my head. Will I be able to communicate with you as well?”