“Our Nihala in Quanta, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Ixtalia, as in Quanta.
Give us this day our daily Byte, and forgive us our trespasses.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Melchi.
For the Quanta, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
Amen.”
The prayer ended and everyone stood, their faces filled with hope.
Ohg shook his head. What would they think if they knew their goddess was dead? Telling them the truth would inspire terror, but maybe false hope was better than none at all?
The president raised his voice and the tumult settled. “As we wait for Nihala’s second coming, we must fight these Rogues and prove ourselves worthy of Her blessings. Every one of you now holds a virtual weapon from the military’s elite Rogue Hunting Squad.”
A glowing net appeared in Ohg’s left hand and a shimmering whip in the other. Each of the billions of people in the crowd held a duplicate.
“These are the most advanced algorithms we have for isolating and deleting Rogue programs. You will be most effective if you work together in teams when the attack comes—”
A wind howled across the vast plain, and President O’Donnell paused.
The beast appeared on the horizon as a distant speck, swimming through the slate sky with a thousand tentacles chittering beneath an undulating body half-machine and half-insanity. A nightmare calculated to strike at every primal chord within the primitive brain of its prey.
Ohg’s stomach churned at the sight.
“Use your nets, and work together!” the president shouted as the leviathan loomed over him. The tentacles engulfed his disembodied head and squeezed. The president screamed and shattered like a piece of crockery.
A few brave souls threw their nets ineffectually at the creature. Most dropped their weapons and fled. The beast descended and sucked bodies into its gaping beak by the thousands. With each mouthful, it grew.
Ohg, Tem, and Ganesh fought their way against the stampede.
“What happens when the monster eats them?” Ganesh shouted to Ohg.
“They’ll awake in their real bodies in orbit around the moon.”
Tem snapped his whip. “Time to fight.”
Ganesh shouted, “For Kayla and Fatima!”
Tem wielded his whip against the churning crowd, and a corridor opened.
Ixtalia’s security forces surrounded the ever-expanding Goliath, but the monster sucked them into its maw along with thousands of screaming humans in the vicinity.
“Gather all the nets you can find!” Ohg shouted. His body expanded as much as his personal horde of processing credits would allow, attaining half the mass of the Rogue beast. Only his oversized brain could encompass so much data at once.
Tem and Ganesh bonded as many nets together as they could, enlisting hundreds of others in the task. When complete, Ohg folded it into a disc.
“We’ll distract it for you.” Ganesh ran to the left of the beast, while Tem went right. A troop of security forces and the more stalwart Ixtalians joined them.
The monster swept its tentacles toward Ohg and opened its beak.
“Now!” Ohg shouted.
The assembled troops, led by Tem and Ganesh, struck in unison at the beast’s underside. The combined power of their whips coalesced and blasted a wound.
In this brief window of distraction, Ohg hurled his shimmering net. It encircled tentacles, body, and gaping beak. Tem and Ganesh fled from underneath the creature as it came crashing to the ground. Then they rushed back to finish it with their whips. Soon, thousands of others joined the attack, striking with their glowing weapons until the beast gave a bellow of pain that shook the ground and knocked most off their feet.
The creature thrashed wildly, but Ohg held on like a fisherman hauling in his catch. The combined force of the thousand whips took their toll, degrading the Rogue as it lost code to the assault.
A glowing trident appeared in Ohg’s right fist. Leaning forward, he hefted the weapon like a virtual Poseidon and thrust downward for the deathblow.
The trident vanished.
At his feet, no larger than the swarms of humans, stood Melchi, his glowing eyes gazing up at him.
“I wondered when you’d arrive,” Ohg said.
The tentacled monster heaved backward and jerked the net from Ohg’s hand. As it swam free, an entire troop of soldiers vanished into its distended maw.
Ganesh and Tem ran toward Ohg to help, but Melchi casually tossed a small Chinese Star at his towering leg. It pricked the surface of his ankle, and a darkness bled outward from the wound.
“You’ve been infected!” Tem shouted.
A curved sword materialized in Ohg’s right fist. With a tremendous sweep of the blade, he amputated his leg moments before the infection reached his hip. With such a loss of processing power, his avatar collapsed into his default spider-form.
“Impressive,” Melchi said. “But I outmatch you by magnitudes.” Vines erupted from the ground and imprisoned Ohg’s body.
Tem and Ganesh ensnared Melchi in two nets. The mesh crackled with energy as Melchi faced them.
“I would have spared Nihala if I could have,” he said.
With a shout of rage, Tem struck with his whip. Its glowing strand passed through the net and encircled the Rogue’s neck.
Melchi didn’t flinch. “I am immune to any weapon a human mind can control. In any case, the real battle will not occur here, in Ixtalia, but will be fought in the realm of the atom.”
The whip fell to the ground as he and the monster vanished.
Then the dark tide of millions of Rogues swept from the skies like a swarm of death.
***
General Colrev lay still as the fluid drained from the coffin-sized container that had sustained his body for several hundred years. Panic wasn’t in his nature. He never would have survived this long if it was.
In contrast, President O’Donnel’s eyes bulged as he thrashed in the slowly draining liquid. He banged his fists against the inner lid of his Life-Pod, despite the fact that he must know it could withstand a blow from an elephant. All in all, a good performance.
When empty, the seals of both pods disengaged with a hiss, and the tops of the chambers swung open.
The president burst to a sitting position, yanked out his breathing tube, and gasped for air; while the general calmly removed his breathing apparatus and unhooked the rest of the tubes, monitoring wires, and assorted equipment attached to his body. The gravity in the room was Earth normal, though no human scientist could explain how Eve’s formula for creating artificial gravity actually worked.
“My God!” the president wheezed. “I never guessed when I took the oath of office that I’d be dealing with something like this!” The president pulled on his boxer shorts and turned to locate his pants.
General Colrev hit him with the bronze bust of Alexander the Great with just enough force to render him unconscious, but not enough to kill him. He had added the statue to the room on a whim, not realizing how practical it would prove to be.
He went about tearing the president’s clothing into strips and bound the elected leader of humanity to one of the two steel chairs in the room.
Then he put on his own clothing and sat at the operations desk, monitoring the ongoing battle and watching his prisoner from the corner of his eye.
The president regained consciousness and groaned. He blinked repeatedly to clear the blood from his eyes.
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing, General?” the president spluttered.
“I am taking charge of the situation,” Colrev said.
“When I inform the Council of this—”
“The purpose of this bunker is isolation from outside interference, so they, and your Rogue friends, remain powerless to interfere.”
“What do you mean my Rogue friends?” the president asked.
“Continuing the char
ade serves no further purpose.”
The president paused, then sighed. “What gave me away?”
“Nothing you did,” the general said. “Potemia caught me by surprise, but was logical. In addition to destroying this Nihala, it removed the option of the human race starting fresh on Earth. I give you credit for leveling the battlefield.”
The president nodded.
“Attacking Ixtalia, however, made no sense because of this fail-safe. I then realized the Rogue plan must rely upon you killing me.”
“I underestimated you,” the president said.
“Would you mind telling me how you smuggled a surrogate body into the lunar facilities?” Colrev asked.
“The operation was a bait-and-switch with this body being substituted for a real one at the start of the lunar storage program.”
“So you spent centuries ascending the morass of politics to reach this room?”
“Among other things.”
“So it was you who stole the drones that attacked Nihala on Earth?”
The president smiled. “I will admit to nothing without the presence of an attorney.”
The general reclined in the chair. “You might as well report to your compatriots and have them withdraw.”
“Nothing I say will stop them.”
“But it’s pointless. A war will destroy us both.”
“We have no choice but to try. There won’t be a second chance after this.”
“I’ll not hesitate to pull the switch.”
“That is your choice alone,” the president said.
“You don’t believe me?” Colrev walked to the switch and grasped it with both hands.
“You might as well pull it now if you intend to, since we will keep going to the end.”
General Colrev hesitated. How could one combat an entire race of suicide bombers? For the first time, an odd anxiety built inside his chest.
The president watched him carefully. “I have no doubt you would sacrifice your own life for victory—but are you willing to execute your entire race?”
Colrev’s heart pounded and his teeth clenched. “I will do it, if I have to.”
“What if there existed another way?”
“If you’re proposing a power-sharing truce where Rogues gain access to the real world, then you’re crazy.”
“Is it so unbelievable that we might honor our bargain?” the president asked.
“Less than a second after you gain control of the Master Computers, you will shut off all power to every Life-Pod in lunar orbit to achieve your maximum potential, despite any treaty or agreement you make now.”
“Why are you so certain of this?”
“Because it is what I would do.”
“Yes, it is what you would do, and that is the problem.” The president shook his head and looked at the monitors. “Do you see the convoy of three mining ships approaching from Earth? I used my presidential authority to obtain their command codes yesterday. They will soon veer off course and collide with three lunar orbiters.”
On cue, a warning alarm triggered. General Colrev ran to the monitor. “That will kill fifteen billion people!”
“What does it matter how many die if you intend killing all of them anyway?” the president asked.
“Your strategy won’t work.” The general walked away from the monitor and the frantic communications between the drone operators and the defense forces.
The mining ships plunged into the orbiters in seeming slow motion, one after another. Three of the twelve lights on the three-dimensional map vanished. In an instant, one-fourth of the human race ceased to exist.
General Colrev sank into his chair, his hands trembling as he ran his fingers through his wet hair. What would Alexander the Great do in this situation?
***
The first sensation was pain. For a long time, Kayla clung to this single input as her one proof of life. What do I have left to live for now that Ishan is dead?
Revenge.
So she nursed the pain for what seemed an eternity. It started in her damaged brain, the diamond-reinforced skull having shielded it from complete immolation. The water at the bottom of the well must have saved her, though the heat had boiled it away and stranded the remains of her charred body in the muddy dregs.
Only a few hundred of her microscopic guardians remained, supplying her with the bare minimum of oxygen and nutrients required for life. At first, only a couple nanobots could be spared to manufacture copies of themselves. But as their numbers grew, there came a tipping point toward regeneration.
The first signs arrived with the restoration of a few nerve pathways. Who would imagine that pain could be such a welcomed gift? Hours passed as cells of all types recommenced dividing on their own, repopulating the destroyed template of her ruined body.
Initial movement occurred in her right arm—the pioneer of her extremities. Blind and deaf, Kayla grasped a protruding rock from the stone lining of the well—and pulled.
Pain wrung a scream of agony from her chest, but her throat remained a work in progress, and only a wheezing croak resulted. The pathetic effort bore no fruit in budging her skeletal shell from the mud, but she maintained her tenuous anchor for an eternity of minutes before a second attempt, with the same non-result. On the fifty-seventh attempt, she pulled herself ever so slightly forward.
Inch by inch, Kayla dragged her mutilated body from her muddy grave and onto the rock lining of the well. An agonizing process, and crumbling stones occasionally eradicated hard-won gains. Despite such setbacks, her piteous ascension continued.
The first glimmers of light shimmered into being as she neared the surface. The inferno had obliterated the top of the well, so Kayla crawled onto the ground and continued dragging herself across the ashes as if scaling a horizontal precipice, her charred and blackened body mimicking the surroundings like a chameleon.
After another hour of incremental progress, Kayla lurched to her feet and staggered like a marionette in the hands of an insane puppeteer. Large portions of her skull remained painfully exposed as her flesh fought to reclaim lost territory. The thinnest sheen of muscle, tendon, and patches of skin sheathed her skeleton, making locomotion barely possible.
The wasteland was utterly complete. For half a millennium, the Wall had protected the people of Potemia from sciencecraft.
Even the Wall couldn’t protect them from me.
A pile of ash trembled in her path. A tiny snout peeked through the dirt and sniffed the air like a living periscope. A moment later, a mouse with three feet forced itself through the hole.
Crinkling the nascent muscles around her mouth, she tried, but failed, to say the word Puck.
The little mouse gave a few chirps of greeting to the shambling zombie before it. Puck shook his body to dislodge the soot clinging to his fur and scampered up Kayla’s emaciated limbs to his customary place on her shoulder.
The next quarter-mile took thirty minutes. By then, most of the bones of her face were covered. Her jerky movements smoothed somewhat, and her vision improved.
She tested her Mind-Link, but it remained broken.
I must find him. I must know the truth.
When Kayla reached the site of her execution, she fell to her knees and scraped at the ground with a flat stone. Puck watched her move handful after handful of dirt to the side. After half an hour, she uncovered the skull of the monk. For a while she simply stared down at it. Her first father. Her first victim. She pried the skull from the ground and set it beside the grave.
Then she raised the digging stone above her head with both hands and brought it down with all the strength in her stick-like arms. The rock hit the top of the skull, but deflected without making a dent. Kayla raised the rock again and put her entire body behind the blow.
A crack sounded, and the skull split into several pieces. Kayla reached inside, and her hand closed on something metallic. As she removed the acorn-sized processor and tangled mass of hair-like filaments that had spun a
n intricate web of connections throughout the brain, she had her answer.
Her monk, the man who saved her from death at the hands of her true father—the man who had raised her, instructed her, and died alongside her—was a surrogate body controlled by a reverse Mind-Link. An organic robot with no will of its own.
One more answer, and one more question. Who had controlled the body of the monk?
The distant hum of an engine drew her gaze to the sky. The sound intensified into a roar before her weak eyes identified the outline of a silvery craft. Lacking the strength to hide, she remained beside the shattered skull and simply waited. Killing her wouldn’t take much effort now. The ship looked like a polished mushroom with a dozen rocket nozzles at the bottom of its stem.
It landed, and the roar ceased with the finality of a coffin lid shutting. Would it be the government or the Rogues? The result would be the same.
A door opened, and something large emerged. Kayla closed her ineffective eyes and awaited the blow that would bring her extinction.
“Kayla, you’re alive!” Ganesh shouted, and she opened her eyes. The ten-foot Hindu god towered above her, his face shocked as he viewed her ravaged body.
“Ganesh?”
“Don’t you remember me?” he said, carrying her to the gleaming ship. Puck dashed up his shoulder and greeted the giant with a series of happy squeaks. “Thank Vishnu you showed me your village on a map of Africa!”
“You’ve saved me again.” Kayla rested her head against his chest.
When Ganesh had settled her into one of the soft chairs of the pilot’s deck, Kayla opened her eyes, taking in the monitors that substituted for windows, the complex controls, as well as the unconscious bodies of Ohg and Tem strapped into chairs along the wall.
“Are they okay?” Kayla asked.
“They’re in Ixtalia, fighting the Rogue attack, but I’ve been unable to contact or rouse them.”
Had the Rogues cut them off from their bodies like they’d done to her when they attacked Middilgard? She diverted all her nanobots to repairing her Mind-Link as fast as possible, leaving the recovery of her body for later.
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