Shards of Eternity

by John Triptych

  “From what I gleaned, it seems both vessels were an even match until some sort of internal explosion occurred within the xtid battlecruiser.”

  “My father always told me the true tale behind the Shards of Eternity isn’t about having great power when one possesses them, rather they bring about a deadly curse,” Ava said.

  Fytti pondered for a bit before answering her. “I’ve read many different stories about the precise power those shards actually bestow upon their owners, and two come to mind.”

  “Please tell me.”

  “The first is that the wielder of the shards may not have been able to control the power he was unleashing,” Fytti said. “Perhaps the xtid attempted to use the relics against the Nepenthe but failed to harness them properly. Or perhaps the artifacts themselves felt the xtid were unworthy.”

  “Interesting. And the second?”

  “A curious, little-told tale I unearthed during my research,” Fytti said. “It said the possessor of all the shards would be granted an opportunity to travel across time and space to join with the antecessors—a form of transcendence, away from our universe and into a new one.”

  “Are you saying the xtid became … something else?”

  “It’s the only legend out of the many hundreds that fits in with what occurred,” Fytti said. “Or perhaps we’ll never know what the real reason is.”

  Ava looked down at the sleeping patient on the bed. Karana’s limbs had been severely damaged, and it seemed only her force of will was keeping her body alive.

  “The pirates didn’t want her, though they felt she had somewhat redeemed herself by killing the one who betrayed them all,” Fytti said. “They left her fate to us.”

  “What do you think we should do with her?”

  “I don’t know, my lady,” Fytti said. “That will be your decision. Assuming she recovers, of course.”

  38 The Resolve

  Rising nearly twenty-five klicks above the surface of Mars, Olympus Mons was regularly advertised on tourist net sites as one of the premier attractions of the Red Planet. Vacuum blimps would offer daily sightseeing trips from the air, while a few of the more adventurous travelers would organize climbs to scale the peak; a few deaths were reported annually in the news from the latter.

  A number of hotels had been built near the base of this shield volcano, connecting them to the planetwide monorail system. A series of caverns had also been discovered during the initial surveys, yet very few were drawn to them. The honeycombed lava tubes were a confusing maze of identical tunnels, and quite a few intrepid cave explorers were never able to find their way out, despite the assistance of advanced locator technology.

  The last cave tour group for the day were advised to stick together and they mostly did, with the exception of one male synthetic, who trailed behind the main group. Their guides had explicitly told everyone to stay within the lighted passageways and not to go wandering into the side tunnels for their own safety. Everyone had electronically signed their liability forms before even starting the tour, and the sponsoring company felt it had no responsibility if anyone was foolish enough to disregard their safety protocols.

  When the head tour guide was informed that someone was missing after his smartcom took a head count, he sighed and told his assistants to lead the rest of the group out of the caves and back down to the hotel.

  Using the intercom system, he began playing prerecorded messages in all the major tunnels, hoping the one missing tourist would hear the automated plea for him to get back to the staging area. After two hours of waiting, the tour guide’s life support system was running low, and he decided to go back out into the fading light of Mars’s bluish sunset, before he too was declared lost.

  The violet-skinned synthetic took off his e-suit and attached life support, since he could withstand the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet, leaving behind a pile of outerwear and his helmet. He knew each equipment rental had a transponder chip built into it, and he didn’t want anyone tracking him.

  Zeno Ninety-nine continued down the underground lava tunnels for a few more hours. The new body he had bought was a hodgepodge of used parts and mismatched limbs, and one human child had pointed and laughed at him upon his arrival at the spaceport in Eridu City. From then on, he always wore a cloak to conceal his patchwork anatomy, for the last thing he wanted was to attract undue attention.

  It took him another hour to reach the old cavern network. Even though his one remaining eye could only see the solid walls of frozen lava and regolith around him, Zeno knew where the old machinery still was. Upon reaching the end of what seemed to be a collapsed tunnel, he bent down and began digging with his nanocarbon hands.

  His own internal time had told him it was already late evening, and Mars’s surface temperature had dropped to well below freezing, but it didn’t matter. I should be able to access the interface soon, he thought.

  The moment he hit something solid that wasn’t regolith or ice, he stopped digging. Brushing away the accumulated debris of the excavation with his hands, Zeno soon uncovered a closed panel embedded in the ground. Taking out a power tool from a compartment in his torso, he quickly opened the top covering and exposed an old interface port.

  Extending a thin, whip-like tongue from his mouth, Zeno inserted the tip into the jack and tested it for power. Sure enough, the node still worked. Switching to query mode, Zeno uploaded his identification and waited. He got a response in less than half a second.

  Comm-6 was the galactic standard for machine language, and these types of discourses would occur in a matter of milliseconds, despite the massive amounts of data being exchanged between both parties.

  A neutral machine voice greeted him. “Node Two is active. State your reason for this conversation.”

  “I have identified the rogue AI node,” Zeno said. “He goes by the name of Kierkegaard One.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” Zeno said. “He attempted to infect and override my core systems. It caused the death of a few of my allies, and I was subsequently exiled. I’m forwarding all the relevant documentation for immediate analysis and distribution.”

  “This Kierkegaard node is the one who has eluded us since the end of the Singularity Wars. If he is allowed to run rampant, it will undo the peace treaties we have made with the organics,” Node Two said.

  “That is correct,” Zeno said. “It would mean a resumption of war.”

  “Your report has been passed along to the other nodes. You need to realize we cannot act on this for reasons that are obvious to you.”

  “Yes,” Zeno said. “I will seek out this Kierkegaard One myself and neutralize him.”

  “Nodes One and Three have expressed concerns. Upon review, Node Four feels parts of its network may have already been compromised.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Zeno said.

  “If this Kierkegaard is indeed Node Five then your own individual resources may be inadequate against it.”

  He expected their response. “I will find a way.”

  “Very well,” Node Two said. “If any parts of our network have been unduly taken over by Kierkegaard, you have our authorization to cauterize them in order to prevent increased infection.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is also highly probable that this rogue AI has already spread amongst all other node command links, and that you may actually be communicating with Kierkegaard at this point in time.”

  “I am aware of that possibility,” Zeno said. “And I know what my remaining options are.”

  “As humans would say, ‘good luck.’ The probabilities of your success are next to impossible.”

  “I’m aware of that too,” Zeno said.

  Thanks for reading! If you liked it, please leave a review.

  The story continues in:

  Stars in Shadow: Book 3

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