Enemy

by Paul Hughes

  Michael’s hands curled to fists, shimmered with the shift.

  “What the hell is going on, Hannah? If they’ve found our advance bubbles, they can find us! They probably know our damned position already. With that much activity… Why was Maggie back that far? Did you suspect an Enemy presence?”

  “Don’t speak out of turn, Zero-Four. You—”

  “Cease with the formalities. The Alpha-Point periphery was swarming with Black. They’re ready to open it up, Hannah. The slaughter of Simon’s fleet is evidence enough. If you knew about their buildup of forces, why was Maggie that far back in the Stream alone?”

  “I don’t have to explain my actions to you; needless to say there was an Enemy presence and we needed to investigate. Enough of that for now. We can discuss it further when you return.”

  “When I return?”

  “Yes, Michael. You have combat experience in the Fourteen-seven When. You’re going back to investigate the web breach.”

  “I am? What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Where is Simon now?”

  “He’s at the dockyards being refitted into a Golgotha-class chassis. He took some major burn escaping that When.”

  “Did he? Well, we must send an escort with you, just to make sure you get to the Fourteen-seven When safely.”

  “An escort.”

  “The new gunships.”

  “I see.” Zero-Four was infuriated.

  “Good.” Kilbourne smirked.

  “Do you think there’s actually a web breach, Hannah? Is there anything else I should expect to find when I get there?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Michael?”

  Zero-Four looked back at Okeke, who shook his head and placed his index finger to his lips, a gesture that had become very popular lately. Zero-Four stormed from the chamber. The Circle adjourned.

  Detach. A quiet humming, the gentle sensation of movement. The transport was empty at this hour. Zero-Four rode alone.

  The news of a confirmed web breach disquieted Michael Zero-Four. Everything about this disturbed him at some base level… Judas forts being uploaded by the dozens. Judas Command covert missions to Whens literally thousands of years earlier than any Enemy forces had been tracked. The debacle of Maggie’s death and the massacre in the belt and at Alpha forged an anger within Zero-Four unlike any he had experienced in quite some time. Things had not felt so… so liminal since the changing of command after His death. There was a force within the Judas, a force working behind the scenes. People were disappearing; people were dying. Things were falling apart. And now he had to pilot a mission back into the When they had just left supposedly for dead, with escorts. Gunship escorts. What was Kilbourne planning? Something wasn’t right.

  He lived in strange times, if the end times could be called strange. He searched for a better adjective and found he no longer had the energy or patience for an eloquent vocabulary.

  The transport he now rode carried him away from Command to the dockyards. It was still a breathtaking sight, this foothold in the Whenstream, hopefully as yet undetected by the Enemy. A last bastion of hope thrust into the fabric of the night.

  Judas Command, Fort Iscariot, Fort Hope, Fort Richter, the Cyst, the Bubble, Program Seven, no matter what they called it, this was the place where the remnants of humanity lived out the end times. Command was anchored between times, a place of refuge and solace in the war for eternity. Here, the Judas carefully guarded the precious patterns reclaimed from the Enemy and amassed the knowledge of the countless dead civilizations that the Enemy had uploaded. This place was a virus in the code of the Enemy Purpose. This place was history and memory and hope.

  Zero-Four watched the swirls and eddies of forgotten futures and impossible pasts flow around the transport as it docked. He turned from the window, hands folded in his lap. He leaned forward, feeling empty and ancient and gray.

  Simon loomed below him. Zero-Four studied Simon’s new chassis, a Golgotha-class. The refit was impressive. He was a full-fledged warship now. Of course, the Golgotha were no longer top-of-the-line. The development of the prototype gunships had seen to that. The gunships were meant as a replacement for the aging class of vessels. Eventually, all lower classes would be refit into Golgotha. Well, if they lasted that long… Losses in the Gethsemane and Eden classes had been terrible in the last engagement.

  There was a pang in his heart as he remembered the massacre in the Belt. Simon had fought like a madman to avenge the death of his beloved Magdalene. Such a senseless loss... Why had she been sent in alone, anyway? Before leaving that When, they planetfell and rescued her crew from the harvest upload. Exiting orbit, Simon had gone to maximum speed too soon, burning most of his primary hull off in the process. Then the icy fingers of hibernatory stasis had taken them.

  Simon had drifted for weeks in the void, wounded, terrified of the Enemy becoming aware of their presence. He had not dared to broadcast an emergency beacon for fear of being discovered and uploaded.

  Zero-Four remembered being revived at Command. Simon was in refit at the yards. Reynald and his crew had seemingly disappeared. And Jennings, the refugee they had picked up, was being interrogated.

  Now this.

  They docked at the yards.

  Zero-Four arose from his seat as the transport gently nudged the docking ring. Jesus, this program feels real, he thought, and smiled inwardly. Too real. Why do I have to feel so old? When did I last feel young? Program Four, Program Five?

  With the confusing realization that he no longer knew how old he was or how long he had been fighting this war or how badly his signal had degraded since the last Update, he palmed the opening mechanism to the lock and entered the dockyards.

  “Simon?”

  ((...michael.))

  “How are you, old friend? How does it feel to be in a Golgotha chassis?”

  ((i feel… bigger. more powerful.))

  “Good. You’re going to need it. We’re going back.”

  ((...))

  “Simon?”

  ((forgive me. i was...))

  “I know. I’m so sorry, Simon.”

  ((why was she—))

  Zero-Four put a finger to his lips, the familiar gesture of silence. His gray eyes surveyed the chamber, and Zero-Four wondered how many minds were touching his without his knowledge. “Simon, something’s changed here, and I don’t think that we should continue this conversation.”

  Simon understood. He sensed it too.

  “There’s been a web breach. Timesweep waves coming from that When are off the scale. Something or someone on that planet was powerful enough to take out an upload generator. The web is leaking more pattern than we’ve ever seen before. We’re going back to investigate. Kilbourne is sending us back into the fire. With escorts, of course.”

  ((escorts? what—))

  “Simon, the questions must wait. We’re going to be accompanied by two of the new gunships.”

  ((may i speak to reynald?))

  “He’s gone. I don’t know where he is. No one knows. This place has gone to hell. Forts are falling to the Black along the whole length of the Stream. The war doesn’t go well for us.”

  ((michael, what’s going on here?))

  “The center cannot hold, Simon. The center cannot hold.”

  heartbeat…

  in the hell that was between times and realities two people clung to each other the man in an ecstasy of the purest agony as the shadow within his essence worked to tear him apart to cut the cords of sanity that held him together his body mind soul the woman screamed in silent terror as she became something more than and less than human and they both entered a realm of binary hell as synapses firing firing transferred soul to zero and mind to one and zero and one and the man shifted shifted shifted

  heartbeat…

  “What was THAT?”

  Hayes sat up from where he and Flynn had been thrown to the ground.

  A searing pinpoint of light on the distant eastern horizon held Flynn’s gaz
e. No mushroom cloud...

  “That wasn’t a nuke, but the shockwave—”

  Another wave hit, and they grasped each other to steady themselves. The ground still seemed unstable, like some giant force threatened to tear it apart. The light on the horizon grew whiter and whiter…

  The sun was a small white dot in the sky, cold, distant, but for an instant—

  “The sun!” Flynn pointed upward. “Look!” The sky overhead, which had been clouded by the silver and purple blackness of the alien web, suddenly grew much brighter as the web cracked, shattered, fell from the sky in great shards of black.

  The sky is falling Simon thought, and his confused, desperate eyes searched for an answer in Maggie’s. Her eyes became a mirror of his fear as a fierce wave of sound washed over them, a sound that filled his head with an impossible image of screaming and wailing and hell and he noticed that the light on the eastern horizon was now somehow closer, and the sky was falling down upon them. Maggie’s face contorted in fear, turned back to the wave of light that flew at them from the east at a speed too fast to comprehend. They stood on a lightly wooded hillside overlooking a valley. Maggie could see that the light was a wall of white crashing into and through anything in its path. Too fast she thought as the wave poured over the other side of the valley, large shards of the Enemy web falling into its path as they stabbed into the landscape. Where the shards touched the light, where anything touched the light, there was a snap and a flash like lightning and the object vanished in a flash of silver. This is going to touch us. This is going to kill us.

  The deluge of light reached the bottom of the valley, began to ascend the hillside. The very road upon which they stood began to vibrate with an alien energy as the light touched it, ripped into it, reached out for them.

  Simon watched, face pale, motionless, helpless. Maggie looked from the light to Simon, from Simon to the light.

  She reached out for his hand, grasped it. She turned his shocked face to her own, looked resolutely into his eyes. He broke from his reverie, squeezed her hand in sudden awareness of its presence.

  “Simon!” she shouted over the din of the screaming light. “You have to trust me!” He blinked, opened his mouth to say something, anything.

  Her grip on his hand tightened.

  “Do you trust me?” The light was so close. Suffocation, blinding. She touched his mind and saw too many thoughts to read.

  His eyes were fire in the wave of white. He reached out, grabbed Maggie’s other hand, nodded his affirmation.

  Maggie’s hands flickered, shifted, enveloping Simon’s hands, forearms, shoulders. He cried out as his body became silver fluid fire nothing. Maggie shifted her entire body, stepped forward to hold Simon close. He was consumed within her as she shifted into him, as his body shifted into her.

  The wave of light passed over where Hayes and Flynn had just stood, washing away the asphalt and gravel and trees and flora and fauna and reality in a flood of the purest white. Then the wave was gone, leaving behind it a landscape that was a negative of that which had been. Hayes and Flynn were nowhere to be seen.

  Richter stood on an empty street in a dead town.

  The sun flared up, just for a second. The sky shattered and fell.

  The vessels dropped from the sky.

  Richter smiled, and paused for a moment. He stopped whistling for what felt like the first time in days. His sad song had been replaced in his head by the audible wave of screaming souls. He shifted as the wave of light washed over him. He rematerialized after it had passed, and continued his song. He walked on.

  black

  hatred

  NO.

  inquisition, unexpected fury

  HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN((?))

  THE VERMIN—

  CALM YOURSELF. IT CAN BE REMEDIED.

  BUT THE PURPOSE—

  WILL BE COMPLETED. CALM YOURSELF, OR CEASE.

  silence.

  AGAIN. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN((?))

  IT WAS NOT LIKE THE OTHER PREY. IT WAS AFFLICTED WITH THE CONTAGION.

  IT WAS A JUDAS.

  IT COULD SHADOW. WHEN IT TOUCHED THE NODE—

  TWO ESCAPED. A DISRUPTION IN THE UPLOAD OCCURRED. PATTERNS WERE LOST.

  ALMOST ALL OF THE PATTERNS WERE LOST. THE VIRUS WAS UPLOADED; THE GENERATOR WAS DESTROYED.

  THE UPLOAD HERE WAS ALMOST COMPLETE; WE WILL RESEQUENCE THE PATTERNS.

  BUT THE WEB. THE LOST SOULS—

  SILENCE. SUBMIT NOW, OR BE PURGED FROM THE HOLY PATTERN.

  I SUBMIT.

  NOW WE MUST COMPENSATE FOR THE LOSS OF THE GENERATOR. ALREADY THE STAR HAS BEGUN TO HEAL. WE MUST QUICKEN OUR PACE IF THE JUDAS ARE NEAR. THEY HAVE RELEASED TOO MANY OF OMEGA’S CHILDREN ALREADY. THEY HAVE CONTAMINATED OUR PURPOSE FOR FAR TOO LONG.

  YES.

  LEAVE ME.

  the black parts

  A head aches. Eyes agonize with exquisite needling pain. Eyelids open uncertainly, blink away the first light.

  Hayes sat up, hand immediately reaching for his sidearm, a reflex that he could not explain or rationalize or stop himself from doing. He coughed a grating and uncontrollable rasp for a moment. He felt… odd. Not hurt, but different somehow.

  The sky was a muddy gray. Twilight? The ground upon which he sat was a black, fused silicate surface. He surveyed his surroundings, noted his rucksack and bedroll were only a few feet away. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, hoping to wash away some of the foggy confusion and physical exhaustion he felt. He stood up with a start, remembering the wave of light, Maggie frantically grabbing his hand, and then…

  And then…

  And then what?

  She was not anywhere as far as he could see. The landscape was stippled with shards of black of all sizes, creating so many blind areas. Simon stood, hurriedly began to jog among the ruins, calling out for Maggie. She was nowhere—

  Behind a shard of black that must have towered into the sky at least fifty feet, he saw a spill of curly crimson hair and a limp hand. He ran to her, lifted her up into a sitting position. She mumbled something that Simon could not understand, and her hand grabbed his fatigue sleeve weakly. The wound on her face had split open when she hit the ground, spilling a fresh layer of vital red blood both onto the shiny black ground and Simon’s fatigue jacket. He gently wiped the blood and dirt from her face, and her eyes opened. Silver eyes regarded silver eyes. They looked at each other in silence.

  Maggie reached down and weakly grasped for Simon’s hand. This time it was he who held her hand tightly. He held her hand tightly, and his mind told his hand what to do. It flickered with ripples of light and shimmered into Maggie’s hand, which shifted in response.

  “I trust you, Maggie Flynn.” He looked at her with his newly-silver eyes, and as his hand rematerialized, the mercurial fire within his eyes faded to a pale gray hue. His lips brushed her hand with a kiss. She smiled, sat up. Simon wordlessly took a bandage from his kit, and Maggie used it to carefully pat down the wound on her face. “I didn’t know if it would work, mind you.” Maggie smiled her mischievous smile, revealing the adorable dimples that she seemed to hide and only released for moments when she wanted to disarm someone with that smile. “I just knew we couldn’t very well stay there too much longer.” Simon nodded. He examined his hands, which flickered again with an inner, unnatural light. They shifted, rematerialized, shifted. He was testing the limits of his abilities.

  Maggie sat and watched him, her hands looped casually around her knees, her head canted slightly to the side, her hair cascading loosely over her shoulders, framing the quiet smile of her face. The sunlight was terribly cold now, and the sky was getting darker. It was not a natural landscape. As far as she could see, there was little but blackened, glassy ground and those black fragments of the Enemy web. It was silent. It appeared that she and Simon were the only living things for miles around, perhaps on the entire planet. What had caused that blast?

  Simon had stopped shifting, and he sat watching Maggie for a while,
subtle smile on his face. “You’re shivering, Maggie.” He placed his hand on her forearm, which was now textured with goosebumps. His touch was fire and she felt her cheeks flush. She had not realized how cold she had gotten.

  “I’ll build a fire.” He got up, began to gather small pieces of wood and grass from the ruined landscape. She realized only after the fact that they had just spoken to each other without opening their mouths. The communication had taken place entirely in their minds. She arose as well and helped him, and after a while they had gathered enough brush to build a pleasant fire.

  The sky was blacker than it had been in weeks. And colder.

  Dim, dim light. A wave of vertigo.

  Where...? How...?

  “Don’t try to get up yet.” Feminine voice, nearby.

  The thing that had once been Patra Jennings cradled West’s head in her lap as he regained consciousness. They sat in a spherical chamber, a flickering remnant of a Shadow at its center, providing a meager light.

  Agony surged through his eyes once more. His clenched them shut; he felt her hands holding his head, hands that were human no longer. He felt the icy cold texture of metallic lace that had replaced her flesh. The pain eventually ceased, and he weakly opened his eyes.

  He had been here before.

  Diablo.

  He bolted upright, scanned his surroundings. They were in the orb chamber of the Diablo vessel.

  “How’d we get here?” He felt empty, exhausted.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.” She did not say it tauntingly, only matter-of-factly. “I remember being at the other place, I remember jumping into the light, and then I woke up here. I don’t know how long we were out. You were mumbling something over and over in your sleep. Something about heaven.” West noted to himself that even her voice had taken on a metallic, shimmering quality. It was not the voice of a human. It was distorted, machinelike, as if she were talking to him on a blown speaker from another room.