by Skyler Grant
That was true. Smart, no. Patient, no. But when it came to fighting Sylax, no one had done so as often and so far Jade was proving loyal. In fact her change in attitude since Sylax had lost her power was almost an example to the rest of the District Lords.
Hot Stuff seemed to be considering on her own and nodded after a moment. Nobody spoke their assent. Nobody was objecting either.
“It is a plan then. If Ares does attack we muster every energy weapon we can to bring him down and try to have Jade land the killing blow. I’ll build an Aegis suit just for her,” I said.
We had a plan. It might even work.
25
I was receiving an unknown transmission.
I still hadn’t reestablished communication with the world outside, so whoever was trying to reach us was local. The Divine, so far, had not shown any signs of technological expertise but clearly someone out there had transmission capabilities.
I tried to locate the source of the signal but they were being clever, bouncing the broadcast off the high-energy distortions that made up the edges of this bit of reality and masking their location.
The contents of the message were a challenge to determine as well. It was binary, a series of identical high or low peaks. Despite my origins as software I found this sort of thing rather unbecoming. Data compression could do a lot more with intermediate states.
A human probably would have been flummoxed for a long time by the message, but I quickly determined that a small section was focused on the atomic weight of the first several elements of the periodic table. It made sense that the rest of it followed the same pattern and that led me to conclude the entire thing was a puzzle of sorts.
Anyone who went to this much trouble to bedevil me with a puzzle seemed eerily familiar to a certain someone Mechos had described. I opened a comm line to him to share what I’d found.
“Can you solve it?” Mechos asked.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not one of your lovebirds chosen simply for their physical attributes,” I said.
“One is a mathematician, the other an engineer. You misjudge them and you misjudge me. Can you solve it?” Mechos asked.
“I already have. It is a chemistry problem, a simple one when you get down to it. Figuring out what it is proved only fractionally more challenging. I didn’t call you to boast. I called to see if this is reminiscent of Vattier,” I said.
Mechos closed his eyes and sketched a fingertip along the circuits on his arm. I was getting a data packet from him, it looked a lot like the message I’d just received. No, not quite. There was no reference area. It was very similar to the answering transmission I’d planned back.
“The answer to a puzzle he posed long ago. The key to solving it was in the interaction of various elements,” Mechos said.
“So you think it is him,” I said.
“I’m certain it is not. Vattier would never repeat a puzzle, it would offend him as the highest of intellectual laziness. It would not matter that he thought no one was left alive to recognize what he was doing,” Mechos said.
If it wasn’t Vattier, it had to be someone familiar with his work.
I’d been tempted for a moment to send Mechos’ solution. If it was the original Vattier it would send a powerful message. If it wasn’t, they would quite possibly simply think we were wrong.
I instead sent the correct answer. Less than a minute later I got a new transmission. They were quick at checking the work.
I shared the new transmission with Mechos.
“Gears. The first value is diameter, the second is the length of the teeth. They’ll need to be assembled according to some specific requirements and the answer will be the numbers or letters they form. It is like whoever did this isn’t even trying,” Mechos said.
Just who was this Vattier? Regardless, with Mechos offering his insight this puzzle wasn’t even hard. It was less than a minute until I was sending back my answer.
The answering data transmission this time was huge and went well beyond binary.
“I think I irritated them,” I said.
“You have that effect on people. You also caused them to drop any pretenses. This isn’t any Vattier puzzle I’ve ever encountered,” Mechos said.
I didn’t think it could be one at all. If it weren’t for my experiences dealing with Flicker’s unique dimensional properties, I don’t think I’d have figured it out at all.
Science of the old world was based around reliable, repeatable, events.
SCIENCE was a different sort of field, one often based around unique and possibly non-duplicable events.
The first part of the data was the same experiment being run in multiple different shards of reality, the various bands as identified by a jump engine.
I’d been to enough of them, performed SCIENCE in enough of them, that I could confirm a few reference set of results.
The final set of data was just the specifications of a new experiment. Once I knew that, it wasn’t difficult to run it. Whoever had crafted this was looking for understanding here, I sent the results.
After a few seconds I got a new blinking message along standard communication protocols. A request for an open video feed.
“Can I get in on this?” Mechos asked.
A good idea, particularly if someone familiar with Vattier was involved. I switched into a drone in his vicinity and joined Mechos so we could open the feed.
The transmission was coming from what looked like the interior of a vast library. Traditional books were so very impractical and yet they stretched into the distance in rows behind the woman on the screen. The woman was dark-haired and looked to be in her early twenties, every inch of her exposed flesh covered by ornate and interlocking letters that glowed with a dull white luminescence.
“Congratulations, you seem to be worth speaking to after all,” the woman said with a coy smile that flickered as her gaze settled upon Mechos. “Kenneth?”
“Claire. It’s been a long time. I like the letters,” Mechos said.
“I like the circuits—and it’s Minerva now,” Minerva said.
“Is there anyone in this world you haven’t slept with?” I asked.
Minera arched a brow.
“Side-effects of a recent secondary bonding with a Fire core. Emma, allow me to introduce Claire Vattier, daughter of Earnest Vattier,” Mechos said.
26
This was fascinating, it really was, but unfortunately there were other matters demanding my attention. I’d detected a good-sized force approaching the city. Ares must have gathered all the warriors who survived, as well as others he had guarding villages, because over two thousand of them were approaching Aefwal. Broadly spread out, they weren’t going to let me catch their entire force with a bomb.
I sounded alarms and ordered defensive personnel to their posts. Coming here was a mistake. They were formidable, but I was always strongest defending my own turf. There was little else I could do for the moment except to wait for them to arrive before I could make my move. I switched my focus back to the conversation.
“With all the lettering upon your flesh, you are doing a fine imitation of a book. Why someone would want to pretend to be obsolete and primitive speaks of a lack of imagination that was clear in your puzzles. I got the impression you and Mechos here used to be a thing, I take it he left you for someone more interesting?” I asked.
“Kenneth, who is this horrible person and why are you associating with her?” Minerva asked.
“You remember Emma,” Mechos said.
Minerva’s eyes narrowed. “He got her working?”
“The plan didn’t quite work out on schedule, but it is working out. I thought you were dead,” Mechos said.
I hated Mechos’s secrets. I particularly hated it when they were about me.
I said, “Still listening, and thoroughly unimpressed with both of you. I’m going to assume you are the Goddess of Knowledge who sometimes helped out Bast’s and Ares’ victims. A shame you were too stupid
or weak to put a stop to them permanently.”
“I quite dislike her,” Minerva said.
“That seems rational,” Mechos said.
“He praises me and calls me heroic. Sometimes he is a very stupid man. If you are calling to inform me that Ares is on his way, I figured that out already,” I said.
“I was going to commend you on what you’d done there. That was before I met you. Now I’m disinclined to ever say anything favorable,” Minerva said.
“Do you actually have anything useful to say or are recycled puzzles and being a mild amusement all you’re good for?” I asked.
“I can help you to take down Ares. I’ve long made a study of him, but I lack the resources required,” Minerva said.
“For which you’ll want some extravagant fee. Beam weapons will do the job, eventually. You aren’t useful,” I said.
Mechos reminded me, “You know who her father is. Claire, we’re here because your father hid something that we’re seeking. Do you know anything about it?”
“You’re looking for the sword. I don’t have the location, but I have the final piece of the puzzle I’m supposed to give to anyone smart enough to find me and survive the puzzlerinth,” Minerva said.
“Is that a deadly maze filled with puzzles?” Mechos asked.
“You know how Dad was. I harvested it for parts a century back, but saved what you’re looking for,” Minerva said.
“What do you want?” Mechos asked.
“You killed Bast and I think you’re about to kill Ares. I want to be on the winning side of this,” Minerva said.
This wasn’t my decision to make and I didn’t want to deal with her any more than necessary. I sent Anna a quick summary of what had been discussed and conferenced her into the call.
There was a half hour of negotiation and then Minerva was swearing her fealty.
What her father had left her would be forthcoming, but in the meantime she provided what she’d devised to take on Ares. What she’d figured out was that his invulnerability to kinetic weaponry had limits.
In the event of a strike, crystal fragments in his blood instantly rushed to the site of impact to create a powerful defensive field to send a bullet or sword bouncing off.
Energy weapons didn’t trigger this effect, although they had to deal with the naturally high levels of defensive crystals already present in his blood. That explained why they were able to hurt him, but far less than normal.
Minerva had devised a sort of complex spring trap that would simultaneously hit multiple points on Ares body. So many synchronized strikes would overtax the crystal presence in his blood and leave him vulnerable to at least one of the blows.
It was a completely impractical design that was smart in concept but poor in execution. I wasn’t surprised she’d lacked the resources to properly build something like that. To reliably score the impacts required, it needed a precision that was unfeasible due to the nature of combat.
What is hard to accomplish with subtlety is sometimes easy with brute force. I had a plan.
When Ares finally approached the city, I had Jade waiting for him.
“You’re not the one I want to make bleed. Send out the bitch and maybe I’ll make you a part of my harem,” Ares said.
I said from a nearby speaker, “With pickup lines like that it’s no wonder you’re only dating your own daughters.”
“There she is,” Ares said with a smirk. “You’re pretty good, but I’m the God of War. I am going to raze this city to the ground and see that every person in it dies screaming. I will unleash torment the likes of which you have never imagined.”
I could imagine quite a bit. The air around him flickered as several drones teleported in long enough to drop their cargo of fragmentation grenades before teleporting out.
They detonated and Ares was pummeled with shards of metal from all sides and wreathed in smoke.
When it drifted away he was still standing, but bloodied, a few gouges cut into his flesh.
“Like I said. Pretty good, but your best shot just isn’t good enough,” Ares said.
“I’m just the warm-up act. Jade, your turn,” I said.
The metal fragments scattered about Ares vibrated and hummed as the telekinetic field gripped them and they rose in the air to surround him in a swirling tornado of metal.
The screaming went on for a long time. I made sure to broadcast it to the forces surrounding the city. If they still wanted this fight, it would be their choice, not his.
27
It had been several months since Ares went down and in that time a lot had changed. Most of the warriors joined up with us once they’d had a chance to speak with those we had captured earlier. They had been raised to respect strength and we’d shown it.
With Ares’ fall we bought ourselves some much-needed time. Minera provided what we sought, but like most things in the quest so far it was of little help. It was a key crafted of power crystal, circuits carefully etched into the surface. Ornate and fancy, and completely useless without knowing the location of the lock it was meant to open.
I was done with the quest for the moment anyways. It was not that I was giving up, but I’d put this city through a lot in search of a single solution to all our problems and was increasingly of a mind that perhaps I should instead be focusing on smaller problems one by one.
Even without a power source capable of operating the shields, this city, if fully functional, would have the personnel and defenses to fend off anything a single Powered could throw at it.
I pulled up my city administration display.
Aefwal
Controller: Emma
Queen: Anna Berasi
Commander: Hot Stuff
Population: 1,350,000
District Zero
Controller: Emma
Role: Research
Major Projects: Tongue, Keystone, Compound BioReactor
District One
Lord: Crash
Role: Espionage
Major Requests: Rare Metals, Computing Cores, Teleportation Gates
District Two
Lord: Blank
Role: Manufacturing
Major Requests: Forge Core, Programmers, Energy
District Three
Lord: Crystal
Role: Education
Major Requests: Power Crystals, Crystal Dust, Combat Bots
District Four
Lord: Jade
Role: Construction
Major Requests: Low-energy shields, constructor suits, skilled personnel
District Five
Lord: Zora
Role: Entertainment
Major Requests: Enhanced data network, holographic projectors, sound dampeners
District Six
Lord: Professor
Role: Research
Major Requests: Research Materials, Biomatter, Growth-vat access
District Seven
Lord: Hot Stuff
Role: Military
Major Requests: Valkyrie units, Aerial units, Crystal Dust
District Eight
Lord: Ophelia
Role: Medical
Major Requests: None
District Nine
Lord: Flicker
Role: Administration
Major Requests: Distress Beacons, Trans-dimensional pens, Dimensional Stabilizers
The greatest change was the increase in city population. Before we took down Ares the city wasn’t technically deserving of even being called that with only ten thousand people. I’d managed to grow that number to over a million.
Mostly those were from my own growth vats. We’d found a number of villages and added their populations to ours, but all in all the residents from this realm still contributed just under ten thousand to our numbers.
With a steady supply of new workers we’d been able to grow quickly. We still didn’t have the systems I’d come to this place hoping to restore. The city defensive shields remained offline and the teleporta
tion gates were still disabled. Still, we made do with what we had.
None of the requests on the lists were new.
Crash had been asking for rare metals for awhile as part of building infiltration drones. His desires for computing cores to process information and teleportation gates to dispatch agent were also not news. I put a few new biocomputers into the production queue to send over to him, it was the best I could do.
Blank wanted a forge core, programmers, and energy so she could further production. Her district made use of Righteous manufacturing techniques which were well different from my own growth vats. I had a lead on a forge core from Minerva and I hoped to have good news for her soon.
Crystal was out of luck with her requests for everything except more combat bots. As part of her academy for the Powered she wasn’t just trying to train the ones we had, but to create new ones. That required supplies we simply did not have.
Jade had become even deadlier in a fight after killing Ares. In addition to controlling matter with her mind she could now create it, in limited quantities, with weapons materializing from thin air. Yet, she preferred construction to warfare. Her requests were all reasonable and with our rapid growth her district had become one of the most important in the city. I’d get her everything she needed.
Zora had taken well to her role of being in charge of the city’s entertainment. In fact she took to it so much I had some regrets about assigning it to her, I’d caught more than one of my drones drunkenly whispering secrets. As their numbers swelled it had become increasingly impossible for me to maintain a constant eye on every single one.
Hot Stuff was asking me for aerial units again. I’d put development of unnecessary military projects on a lower priority scale while rebuilding. It was probably time to rethink that. The city now had ample anti-air cannons, but little in the way of our own air force.
Ophelia, as usual, wanted nothing. After absorbing Bast’s powers her healing aura had been enhanced considerably, and so had those of her lieutenants. A touch from Ophelia would heal even the most exotic of diseases and a few minutes in a room with one of her followers would cure any mundane injury. I thought it was probably a mistake to be so completely dependent on her crystal, but I couldn’t argue with the results. The city was astonishingly healthy.