The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  He saw this room, the bank of monitors, and the blackened throne before it, from his own camera.

  The chair turned, slowly, and he saw Tiberius.

  The world saw Striker.

  Tiberius hung from his chair, like a puppet nailed to the wall. His head rolled, side to side, and his brilliant blue eyes flashed in the dark. His voice, high and mocking, rang out, before it dropped into a growl. Striker said, “So… you brought an audience.” His teeth shone when he laughed. He added, “They can watch the end, with us.”

  For a moment, Berenson considered shooting first.

  The attack played out in his mind. He would draw, with lightning speed, and shoot for Tiberius’s center mass. Tiberius would see the draw, spin his chair. The armored back would disperse the bolt. Tiberius would emerge, from side, top, or bottom, and counter-fire. Berenson would dive for the conference table. The bolt would shatter the edge of it. Berenson would be below the table, with his vision limited to the space beneath its surface. Tiberius would have free range of the room to reposition. He would pick his attack, close in, and fire from a range neither could dodge.

  Tiberius spoke, his voice barely tinged with a wobble. “Seven moves. I have you in seven moves, brother.”

  He leaned forward on his throne, his left hand clutched around a small stone. He rolled it between his fingers when he talked.

  Time had not been kind to Tiberius.

  His white-blond hair was bedraggled, his imperial-blue eyes, wild. His simple uniform - Faction, duty dress - was pressed, but emblazoned with ranks and awards that had never been issued. Tiberius grinned, and the sides of his face nearly split with his maddening giddiness. In an instant, the child-like grin was gone, and cold fury froze over his features. With the voice of a disappointed father, Striker admonished, “You killed them, brother. You killed your own.”

  “You let me.” Berenson shot back.

  Tiberius simply tittered in response, and pinched his go stone close to his cheek.

  There were no words to describe that laugh. No words to describe the pit that fell away from beneath Berenson’s feet, or the horrible crushing disappointment that wracked him. He’d come here, steeled for battle. He’d bathed in a stew of apprehension, dread, and eagerness. He’d been prepared for fear, or admiration, or hate, but not for this. He’d come, to face the mastermind, the genius who had put the world under a gun. He had come, but not come prepared for this.

  For all that remained was madness.

  The villain, the great adversary, his equal and opposite, his brother, his otherself, reclined on a makeshift throne in a sensory overload chamber, and cackled along to the whispers of a stone.

  This was all there was. All sound, all the fury, all the layers of gamesmanship, when peeled away, revealed only this.

  This is how we end.

  Berenson’s stomach churned, and his throat caught. In an instant, he was more ill than the nanophage had ever left him.

  In the end, this is all we are.

  He forced it down, shoved it away. The camera was rolling, and he had moves to make. Calmly, he said, “It is over.”

  Tiberius laughed back at him, and shouted down, “Over? Over? You call this over? I am just beginning!”

  “I am well aware.” Berenson admitted. “You have won, so I have come here to concede.”

  Tiberius roared with laughter, then broke into a high wheeze. “Concede? You!”

  “You have me in seven moves, the world in one. I concede. Call off your men, end the game.”

  “Actualization is required.” Striker murmured, perhaps to himself, perhaps to his stone. “Actualization!”

  “You are going to kill a pointless number of people, and for what-”

  “Flaws. Sub-optimal lives. Misaligned dreams. Systemic errors that require correction. This system demands a reboot! Too much pandemonium. Too much chaos. Too much pain. Take it down. Slow it down. Simplify the equations. It must be done.”

  “You are insane.” Berenson said. The words came out wrong. He’d meant them as a charge, but they sounded like mourning.

  “I am well aware!” Striker snarled, and vaulted from his chair. He paced as he ranted, loped and bobbed like a predator. “I am Tiberius Berenson! I am Striker! First among equals! First of the chosen! A titan! I am the leader of a glorious future!” He paused, drew a breath, and screamed, “And I am totally, irreparably, mad.” His voice died away, and trembled near tears, as he asked, “Is that fair? How is that fair? Is it so wrong, that I wanted to understand?”

  “Understand, what?”

  “Everything.” Striker admitted, and then laughed again. “Everything, and more. The patterns are so simple, once you find the melody. Back, that's the key. Just roll it back, and you have an answer!”

  “I can help you. Please, just, let me help-”

  “Actualization!”

  “You are leaving me no choice-”

  “You? Kill me? Oh, no no no no, no! You see, this madness is a symptom of an improved system! Five moves and I have you.”

  Berenson ran the simulations. Five moves was a generous concession. If he moved right, Striker went left. Three shots, and he died. If he moved left, Striker went behind the dais. Three shots, and he died. If he drew, Striker drew faster, and he died. Tiberius's cyberware had been updated since Glavoor. His own had not. Fighting was a losing proposition. Instead, he argued, “If actualization is critical, why not kill me, now?”

  “Check yourself, brother. I think you might also have gone mad.” He taunted, “The game! How could I play against you if you are dead?”

  “I will not let you-”

  “Let me? Let me! No one allows me to do anything. I am! I will! This game plays, and then we talk!” Tiberius paused, on a sudden, halted breath, and added, “Your gambits, they have been impressive, I must admit. I should have had you on the Airship, but this?” He pointed to the screens, to the image of himself pointing at the screens. “This is hilarious!”

  “Thank you. I had hoped you might approve.” Berenson said, not untruthfully.

  “Erratic, though. Illogical. No chance of success, but intriguing.” Striker pointed to the monitors again, as if to stab them with his finger. “Why help them? Why not bomb me? So much faster, so much less risk?”

  “That would not stop your revolution.”

  “So... you are playing for the Authority, then? Trying to drag them from the flames?”

  “No.”

  Tiberius stood still for a moment. He studied Berenson, icy blue eyes staring from the dark. Without warning, he gasped, in mock horror, and then demanded, “No! You bought into their idealistic drivel? Suboptimal, the lot of them.” He paused, and pointed, not at Berenson, but at the camera on his helmet, and at the viewers watching, from beyond. He said, “This is not my doing. This is not the work of some schemer. This is the nature of the beast that sleeps in your bed. We are a group of overeducated apes, sharpening digital stones.

  “Durandal was just a high water mark. Bigger and brighter, louder and prouder, but we are still a bunch of violent instincts, wrapped inside of rotting meat and running on faulty code. We build a bomb, and then another, just a little bit bigger, until the weight of our failures crushes our cities to dust, and we start again. We never learn, we never change, we just sharpen and polish and do it all over again. They let me see! They made me see! But they would not let me change it!

  “The errors are systemic! Systemic! The Provisional Authority is flawed by inception! They try! Oh, they try! But they can not help themselves, you see?! They crave annihilation. It is wedded to them! And how could they turn away? They were conceived of fire! Right here! In this very spot! I have brought them back to the cradle, to strangle them as should have been done decades ago! They are an anomaly! They are a fault! The system crashed, and they did not shut down!” Striker howled. He panted, gasped, his eyes white and wild. He drew a deep breath, and added, quietly, “I will correct this oversight.”

  Bere
nson took one step closer, as his brother raved. One step, and then another. If he could get close enough, he might take Tiberius by surprise.

  Striker continued on his rant, “At first I thought, ‘the problem is Strand’. Perhaps, it was too much. Too much power, too much potential. We are stupid little apes in a Skinner box, pulling levers on the walls and singing praises to the gods when food lands on our plate. Such a primitive mindset could never safely handle what was coming. I thought to blame these disastrous last decades on overreach, but then I had opportunity to study the Collapse. Look what we did to ourselves with such primitive methods. Again, and again, we turn fire upon ourselves. The problem, brother, is us.

  “This is where the Authority was born! Before this fire, it was a state, but the crucible gave us empire. All republics become empires, did you know that? They reach and reach and grow, until they can’t stand the weight of it, and they tumble back down into the pit!” He paused, raised an eyebrow in amusement, and added, “I am here to help.”

  “Is that your plan?” Berenson asked. He was halfway there.

  “My plan?” Striker scoffed. “I don’t have a damned plan! Ishtan Radek had a plan! Niklaus Draco had a plan!” He glanced to the ceiling, like a martyr praying to the heavens, and called out, “The flying mook show over our heads has a plan! Even you, you traitorous little planner you, even you have a plan! I don’t! I have a point!”

  Berenson drew one step closer.

  “Nothing can stop it, not now. Fire and hell, brother. The endgame plays today, or tomorrow, and it need not be my hand that do it. We will turn rabid and kill ourselves, because our nature compels it. We are still feral. We scream at the horror that is existence, and we sharpen our stones!”

  Berenson finally replied. “I have a counterpoint.”

  Striker recoiled, as if slapped. He demanded, “And that is? You are outnumbered, out-gunned, and hemmed in. Your pieces are breaking. Your own allies have parked a destroyer over your head!”

  “My head? Perhaps.” Berenson offered. “If I save one, I save the world. Brick by brick, one stone at a time.”

  “You will not get the chance. You stopped my rocket. That was a sideshow. A dozen vices close, of their own momentum. Your men are dead. And that destroyer above? It is about to unleash hell. It will spew fire, and set the world alight. Just like the Airship, Antonius, just like then, they will kill themselves while they fail to hurt me. There is no other outcome. The world wants to burn. It slides down the final slope. Inertia wins. Actualization. Begins. Now!”

  That was when the first salvo landed.

  #

  “Two years ago, I promised you that would help you save your State. I will deliver upon my word. I will hunt down Striker, with, or without, your blessing. I will home in on him like a hound upon blood, and I will reveal his location to you. I will bring you to the cusp of victory, and I will offer you a very clear decision.

  “Unlike Tiberius, I have no love for cloaking the question, but I do enjoy the query, and so I offer you my test plainly: will you save the apparatus of the State, or the Charter upon which it stands? As we walk this road, I will defy you. I will avoid you. You will hunt me, plague me, hurt me, and hate me. I will bring you ruin, and our shadow dance will draw Striker's eyes. He will come to the wrong conclusion. We will trap him, and I will give you the final vote.

  “Destroy me and my allies, and you will have won the day. However, you will not have beaten Striker. He is counting on your routine, on your laser focus, to blind you to his goals. This is not about taking control, or even about launching a revolution. This is about showing you exactly what you are, about how far you are willing to go to save the corpse of the State, while turning your very dreams into a mockery. Turn upon me there, and you will prove him right. You will win the battle, and lose the war.

  “Chief, if you, in any way, can foresee a future better than what has happened in the past, when following your current course of action, then go right ahead. I, however, foresee revolution upon revolution, coup after coup, and if the Authority survives, it will be as a bloody dictatorship, as bad as those from whose ashes it emerged. I gave you a promise, and I deliver. The choice is yours, Chief. Save the body or save the soul?”

  In the fading light of midwinter evening, in the ashes of the Airship disaster, mere kilometers from Colonel William Halstead's freshly-dug grave, Section Chief Michael Raschel took a deep drag from his cigarette, and weighed the hand that the universe had dealt him.

  Across the table, Antonius Berenson waited, still soaked from the funeral rain. Berenson fidgeted, like he always did, measured every twist and turn of the air. Raschel took another deep drag, savored the little pangs of flavor. When he was finished, he blew the smoke up, into the air cycler, and watched it wisp away.

  Sometimes, the only option was all in.

  Raschel said, “We can deal.”

  #

  The bridge of the Cataphract came into motion with dizzying speed.

  One second, Velasquez was eying up the imminent fight. The next, the world changed. Right under her feet, and she’d never seen it coming. It made her sick, like a merry-go-round she couldn’t get off.

  Raschel gave the order. She saw it. She heard it. “Fire!” He bellowed it, like scream when a broken bone was set.

  That was wrong. His demeanor was all wrong.

  What followed was worse.

  Captain Sodineri, standing over the gunnery station, nodded curtly, and expanded the order. She barked out, “Full alert! All hands to stations! Gunnery! Strike package bravo! Target for ground support, and fire!”

  Ground support?! Velasquez snapped her gaze from the Captain to Raschel, back to the Captain, back to Raschel, to the wizened old Petty Officer by the hatch. She could see the relief on Sodineri’s face. Raschel was unreadable, as ever. The soldier by the door, though, was staring, his scarred jaw slack, like a fish gulping water. Velasquez understood the feeling.

  “Firing for effect.” The call came from the gunnery station, calm and professional. There was relief in the voice, though. Eagerness to do a job, even.

  The monitors around the bridge rolled with a waterfall of data.

  Behind her, she could hear the rising murmurs in the Ops Center, as they built to a crescendo.

  The ship rocked, ever so gently. Lights on the board went from green to orange to green. The port rail batteries had just fired.

  “Salvo away.” The report rose from the bridge, with the same cold professionalism. The holographic MacPhereson on the CIC table flashed, and wings of it were deleted from the rendering. “Anti-shipping neutralized.”

  Sodineri clapped the gunnery lieutenant on his shoulder, and barked out her next orders, “Chief?” She addressed her Petty Officer, not Raschel.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Get your men in the boats. We need them on the ground.”

  He nodded, bit his tongue a bit, and answered, “Aye, sir. Shouldn’t take long. We-”

  “Already prepped? Good.” She cut off his next words, and managed to not-glance-meaningfully at Raschel. The Chief answered with an open smile. Who? Me? Never. She added, “Thank you, sir. We can take it from here.”

  Raschel gave her one of his little nods, and said, “Good.” He glanced to the Petty Officer, “Have your boys bring me a rifle and vest.”

  “Sir?” Velasquez and the Captain asked at once. They glanced at each other, then back to the Chief.

  “I need to get down there, and make sure we integrate properly with our advance units.” He answered, smoothly.

  Bullshit.

  The Captain didn’t call him on it, either.

  “Commander?” Raschel asked her. “Care to join me?”

  She followed. She said nothing, looked at no one, not even the soldier who gave the Chief a gun. She kept her eyes straight ahead, her face neutral, until the elevator door whisked closed, and they started to descend. The moment that door sealed, she slammed the “stop” button.

&nb
sp; She demanded, “The fuck, sir? What the actual fuck?”

  Raschel let out a rueful chuckle, and leaned back against the wall. “Valid.” He admitted. With a weary hand, he pulled his dataglasses from his face, and let the rest loose between his fingers. He looked old. The pocks and scars on his thick skin made him look less like the smooth operator, and more a ragged survivor, a man who’d outlived all the others, and his own time. He saw her stare, chuckled again, and sighed. He admitted, “I owe you an explanation.”

  “Damn right.” She answered. “You told me you needed the truth. You told me you needed a right hand who shot straight. You lied to me.”

  “Lesson-”

  “Lesson number fuck-you-sir!”

  He laughed then, clear and honest. He pulled apart his cuff-links, and tossed them on the floor. He said, “Reyna, I deserve that ‘fuck you’. You have no idea how much I deserve it.” He pulled his suit coat off, handed it to her. He had his bracers on, and his holster under his arm. He continued, “But I never lied to you. I needed you for everything.”

  “How long were you working with Berenson?” She demanded.

  “With? Jesus. Never.” He answered. He pulled the duty vest over his head, let it fall heavily into place, like a turtle shell. He tested his arm movements, pulled the straps tight, and explained, “We played the same hand. Truth be told, I didn't know how it was going to run out until about three minutes ago. Going idea was, I was going to fuck him over, and then nuke him from orbit.” He paused, shrugged, as if he’d just remembered something, and toggled his radio. He ordered, “Vonner, fuck off and stand down.” He turned it off before Vonner could reply, and gave another shrug. He finished, “You know what did me in? When I looked over at you, and saw you finger-banging your sidearm. I knew I was fucked, then and there.”

  “Sir?” She demanded.

  “Look, you're the most goddamned loyal agent we got. You're piss and vinegar. You'd bleed on the damned flag to balance the pigment. You're me, twenty years younger, and about two livers healthier. And you were about to have a damned heart attack, wondering who you were going to shoot. If you were on that line, fuck the rest of them.” He sighed, checked his pistol, and re-holstered it. “Fucking well played, Berenson. Got me good.” After a quick pause, he added, almost like punctuation, “Bastard.”