by Lee Bond
***
Lokken chuckled. “He is not pleased. In fact, were N’Chalez here, he would say our brother is ‘totes pissed’.”
Nalanata shrugged. “He passed the test with flying colors. Calculations place the troops at approximately 2.5 to 1 in terms of combat capabilities. We will roll right through them.”
“Yes,” Solgun countered, “but when the Enemy’s machines can produce clones at a million every three days, what does it matter?”
“Each successful encounter will see the survivors grow in power, just as Ute stated.” Stride riposted.
Lokken looked out over the Army’s ships. They were such busy beehives of activity. “I was not expecting the Enemy to speak out through that freak’s body. I didn’t think he was embedded nearly enough.”
Fenris snorted. “Do not forget. Our Illustrious AI That would be God sent Griffin Jones to him. He knows the location of Latelyspace surely enough, knew that there was an ascension here. Not that difficult to follow the threads and cracks of power through. Nothing to worry about, not yet. The Cordon is still active and the only one who can turn that off is Garth N’Chalez.”
“Speaking of,” Solgun laughed as one of the destroyers on the other side of the shield opened fire. It was something Trinity’s Army did every now and again. They believed that the tech was faulty, that if they kept trying to blast their way through at random intervals, sooner or later, it’d work. “Speaking of, shouldn’t you call our friend and fill him in?”
“We have a few minutes. I don’t want him to be able to think of another solution. Besides,” Fenris smiled darkly, “timing is everything.”
***
“Look, all I is sayin’, right, is we could totally kill all these fuckin’ twats an’, like, be on our way lickety-split, yeah? We is doin’ this and then we is freein’ your pal and I is back on my way ‘ome, yeah?”
“This is all your damn fault.” Huey muttered miserably. “If you hadn’t insisted on better explanations and more information, we would’ve been on Hospitalis something like six goddamn months ago.”
“Oi!” Chad shouted from his chair. “I is not the one who was only settin’ his Quantum Tunnel up for one last blast, is I? No. If I was designin’ a point-to-point teleportation system like that, I would be settin’ it up for, like, thousands of trips, yeah?” Chad looked over at Huey, who was busy chewing on his lip. “And I would be makin’ it less fuckin’ painful, right? Besides all that, yeah, it weren’t all my fault, were it?”
Huey pursed his lips. It was all going wrong. Huey could admit that to himself, now. He’d miscalculated Chad’s response to the offer, mistakenly assuming that the FrancoBrit would leap at the chance to be free of the CyberPriests and to have a grand adventure in the process. He should’ve realized that, following his agreement to work for Jordan Bishop and the resultant ass-fuckery that’d come from trying to assassinate Garth, Chad would not only want clarification on a few things but an absolute goddamn historical, Ulysses-sized breakdown on everything.
And as much as he wanted to blame everything on Chad, a guy who’d somehow become a friend, he couldn’t; most of their lag –in the beginning of their Yellow Brick Road tour of the Unreality, anyways- could be blamed on Gwyleh Ronn.
Who in their right mind could’ve even imagined that the Suit AI -panicking as only an artificial intelligence could- would reach out and grab hold of the Quantum Tunnel feed and come along with them? From literally the moment they’d exited the exorbitantly painful tunnel, the Enforcer had been on their ass, blowing up three square kilometers of real estate out of sheer aggravation. And thus had begun a semi-legendary flight across the planet, Huey and Chad on the run from Gwyleh Ronn, a terrifically pissed off and irate telempathic Enforcer with an axe to grind.
Oh, sure, fine, in the end everything had worked out and all three of them had become friends of a feather, but … it’d all been way off kilter. It shouldn’t have happened. Their escapades, the time it’d taken to make their way to the forefront of Latelyspace … none of that had been factored in to his original estimate for Garth’s freedom. There was no way of precisely knowing the time differential inside Bravo. Millions of years could’ve already passed. Or half an hour. No matter what the difference, Garth had been imprisoned for too long already and every millisecond they were trapped on the wrong side of the shield was agony.
“No, Chad, it wasn’t all your fault.” Huey fiddled with some data modules he’d been working on to see if there was any solution he’d missed. All his subminds were capable of coming up with were Omega Level solutions resulting in massive casualties. No, if he wanted an elegant solution, it was going to have to come from him and him alone.
Chad snickered at a random thought of Gwyleh Ronn being a regular old Offworlder; when the time had come for them all to leave the planet, the Enforcer had abruptly decided to stay, hanging up his Suit –as it were- to become a farmer. “Shame ‘e din’t come wiv us, yeah? Could use ourselves an Enforcer. ‘ave ‘im flit over an’ be all ‘Oi, you lot, look the uvver fuckin’ way for an hour or two, right? I is doin’ shit you ain’t be seein’’ and then we could, like, just mosey on in.”
Huey shook his head miserably. “Gwyleh earned his peace. Now shut your gob so I can see if there’s something I’m missing.”
He’d miscalculated, and it was costing them everything. The Army, led by the redoubtable Aleksander Politoyov –Trinity Itself’s number one commander- was firmly and thoroughly entrenched around the shield protecting Latelyspace. Even if he could time a shutdown of the shield properly, a small percentage of enemy troops were destined to get in; approximately fifteen percent of the force kept their black hole engines running all the time, swapping out every three hours to maintain maximum opportunities going. The rotation was being handled by a Beowulf cluster of 8’s and 9’s.
Huey could definitely bollix the rotation, but no matter that he was the most powerful artificial intelligence in the Unreality next to Trinity, there were too many AI minds present. They’d notice that and the six hundred thirty-three million four hundred eighty-two thousand and twelve things he’d already come up with. They’d notice, and alert Politoyov, and then it’d be game over.
Hell, it was taking nearly all his concentration to ensure that those other AI minds didn’t notice the HIM field, or his own brain.
Making matters worse, some of the Specter analysis teams working on busting the shield were smart. Field engineers always were. Many of them had worked with Garth during his service. While they didn’t think exactly like him, they were taking mad risks in an effort to come up with something that could either pierce the shield or shut the Tunnel down. Sooner or later they might come up with something he hadn’t thought of, and that was no damn good at all.
Chad sucked at a tooth. Truth were, he’d had a blast with Huey. He were a proper adventurin’ companion, to be true. He regretted not one bit of forcing the AI-inna-meatsuit to redirect their balls-out painful single-point Quantum Teleportation jaunt to somewhere other than Hospitalis, if for no other reason than that he’d had the first bit of fun in a very long damn time. Getting off the planet, finding a ship capable of making the long voyage to Latelyspace, stealing an Army ship to blend in with the truly colossal pile of warships surrounding a whole damn solar system … a wild blast of fun and all that.
But now he were bored off his arse. They’d been sittin’ in formation with a cluster of relief Army craft for just over a week now and he could feel the old antsy-in-the-pantsy gettin’ hold and just below that the quiet whisper of the ‘Priests. They seemed well pleased with somethin’ that they were up to. Chad wanted to tell Huey, but he knew the man better than anyone he’d known in a long time.
There was no way Huey was going to do anything but continue attempting to sneak into Latelyspace.
“So, mate, erm, wot’s the, er, wot’s the plan, then?”
Huey put his face in his hands and massaged his weary flesh, feeling a small twinge of happin
ess that his eyebrows had finally grown back. It was amazing how people responded to someone missing that one tiny little and seemingly insignificant feature. Strangers on strange worlds had been more inclined to talk to the obviously insane and blatantly murder-hungry Chadsik al-Taryin than one pleasant looking yet eyebrowless man. “I haven’t got one fucking idea that doesn’t include destroying an Army that Garth will eventually need. Fuck me sidew… oh Jesus wept on a bicycle built for two.”
“Oi, is that not one of them fella-me-lads as wot ‘angs out pretendin’ to breathe space and frighten the crew an’ all that?” Chad cocked an eye at the face that’d just appeared on the monitor.
“Chad, Fenris. Fenris, Chad.”
“You shouldn’t be with that abomination, Huey.” Fenris curled a lip at Chad.
“You can be suckin’ my cybernetic ballsack.” Chad smiled pleasantly. “I ‘asn’t manscaped in a while. It are a fuckin’ jungle down there. It will take some time to get where you need to be, my son.”
Fenris’ electronic disgust filled the cockpit. “Pleasant.”
Huey looked over his shoulder at Chad and bulged his eyeballs as if to say ‘shut the fuck up’. His companion waved a hand and pretended to go to sleep. “Yes, well, I need him. He’s the only who might have a chance of busting through quadronium.”
“Not necessary.”
Chad bolted upright and was beside Huey in a heartbeat. “He fuckin’ escaped on his own?”
Huey shook his head. “Not possible. Bravo’s dénouement is unbeatable. There is simply no way Garth could’ve defeated that trap. The intellects inside had access to everything the man knew. In the end, it was the kind of con Garth himself would’ve played.”
Fenris gestured with a hand, allowing that this was very true. “Nevertheless, you no longer need the assistance of one Chadsik al-Taryin to affect the freedom of Garth N’Chalez. He is … on his way to finding his own way out.”
The AI stopped. He shut down more than eighty percent of the subminds running interference against the probing threat of the Army’s Beowulfed AI minds. He cut them loose and let them come up with their own ideas, allowed them access to branching theory-threads fanning upwards out of the HIM’s own deep reservoir of power. They pulsed and shone and gleamed like the sun.
Chad sidled away from Huey; the processing power spilling up and out of his … dare he think the word ‘friend’ was … daunting. Physical space began to buckle under the pressure of such data and onscreen, Fenris’ eyes glittered with dark, hungry analysis. “Oh,” the assassin whispered so Huey wouldn’t get distracted, “oh I is not likin’ you at all, mate.”
“Be that as it may, Chadsik al-Taryin, I am in here and we will not meet for many years to come.” Fenris pointed at Huey. “He has come to the only possible conclusion. I bid you good day, Huey. We shall met in the flesh soon.”
The screen went blank.
“Wot is ‘e talkin’ about?” Chad demanded, heaving a sigh of relief when the power burning out of Huey dissipated.
“I …” Huey took a deep, ragged, breath, “I … I don’t know how he managed it … but … but … he did. Bravo,” Huey reached out with his mind and asked for access to the Quantum Tunnel’s operating system, “Bravo is … a ship, Chad. Bravo … he … he … they didn’t think he’d risk flying blind so they didn’t fully deactivate those systems. Who … who in their right mind would even try, and besides, to what … what point? Only they forgot one thing.”
Chad worked out what had Huey in such a panic. “Christ, mate, holy fuckin’ Christ! I hope you is getting’ ready to shut that shield down! If ‘e is ‘ittin’ that unbreakable wossname of yours wiv an unstoppable ship, there’s gonna be all sort of fuckin’ awful fings ‘appenin’!”
“I am, Chad, trust me. Just a minute or five longer. I want to time this properly so when Bravo comes zipping through the shield will only be down for a few seconds.”
Chad narrowed his eyes as he did some of this own thinking. “Wait a minute. Two fings. One, if ‘e is blastin’ ‘is way out of Latelyspace in ‘is ship, wot in the fuck is I doin’ ‘ere still? And two, where in the fuckin’ ‘ell is ‘e ‘eaded, then?”
Huey slumped in his chair. “There’s no need for you to be here anymore, Chad. I’m sorry for wasting your time. What Garth has decided to do is, quite literally, the definition of insanity. Even if he survives, he probably won’t survive. I didn’t even consider it because, well because it’s so damn insane.”
“Oh, I isn’t sayin’ you is wastin’ our … my … time, sonny Jim. It were well excitin’ and were a lot of fun. An’ you is teachin’ us the meanin’ o’ friendship.”
Huey burst out laughing. “That’s a load of crap. You tried to blow my face off less than three weeks ago.”
“That is well true, mate, but I was only usin’ local guns and not, like, other-Universe-me guns or nuffink.” Chad sighed at that. He had a friend. It was weird. “Now, wot is your mentor an’ supergenius doin’ that is all sorts of mennal?”
“There is a world out there, Chad, a world surrounded in a quicksilver shield that is the physical manifestation of a shattered realm not properly consumed by the Heshii. Behind that shield rests the last outpost of monsters known as the Bruush. They’re … they’re sort of like you. They’re other-Universe. Old. Garth … Garth is going to try and bounce Bravo off the quicksilver shield. Blind. If it works, parts of his ship will be absorbed and he’ll be free. Then he has to survive deep space, and being scooped up by whichever team has been assigned by Trinity to keep watch.”
“Crikey.” That was about the only thing Chad could think of to say. “That is well bonkers. Wot about you? You is finkin’ of followin’ along?”
Huey shook his head. There was less than two minutes left before he needed to shut the shield down. “The moment I shut the shield down, approximately thirty thousand troops will enter Latelyspace. Some of those will be Deep Strike. Even with all the Goddies and the Five, they’ll need proper assistance. That means me. And you.”
“Nah, mate.” Chad rose to his full height and stretched his shoulders out. “I reckon it’s time for me to be ‘eadin’ back to Ground Zero, see if I can be about rescuin’ that bim as wot the ‘Priests kidnapped, yeah? I bet your pal Garth would be finkin’ mighty ‘ighly of me, yeah?”
“What?” Huey blinked slowly. Thirty seconds.
“Oh yeah, no, it’s this whole fing I picked up from the bruvvers. Coulda fucked off at any time, but, like I said, I was ‘avin’ fun.” Chad clapped his hands and disappeared in a flash of fractured Harmony.
Utterly nonplussed, Huey commanded the Quantum Tunnel to shut down, cut his ship’s black hole engines loose and lurched forward with the rest of the invading force. His powerful connection to the underpinnings of the Unreality let him feel Bravo hurtle past at never-before-imagined speeds.
Huey prayed to God that his best friend’s plan worked.
Back Again
“Careful, brother.”
“I am being careful. This part is delicate. With you breathing on my neck like that, it makes it more difficult as well. It does not help that Enforcers are still looking for us.”
“They will never find this place.” Anode221 said boldly, his electric voice buzzing and crackling with surety. “Erg1 is leading them on a merry chase away from Ground Zero once more.”
Faraday901 paused in the cautious application of the next layer of receptors. What they were doing was, even in an Unreal Universe, perverse. But there was nothing else they could do, no other options. Their Savior was gone, ripped from the heights of Jordan Bishop’s complex by something many were calling the Fist of God; what other reason, those foolish mortals suddenly afflicted with the Holy Spirit after thousands of years of freedom from such notions, what other reason would such a glorious shaft of light scour Bishop to the ground?
Trinity was offering and had offered no explanations, choosing instead to send Its Enforcers down into the one place they’d never g
one before. Ground Zero was not technically apart from Its Domain, but It’d long known that mortals, especially those trapped on the rotten planet from which all life had oozed forth, needed a place to cut loose and go absolutely wild. But with the Fist –actually a Quantum Tunnel, though no one would believe it- came Enforcers, and thus their newly returned CyberPriest comrade, Erg1 had rediscovered reason to live.
He was out there now, doing things no ‘Priest of Watt had ever been able to do. He wasn’t strictly waging war with any Enforcer he came across, but he was attacking them, he was leaving some of them damaged in the streets to be attacked by the random predators that wore human skin. Erg claimed he was exacting revenge on Trinity for imprisoning him all those years, for forcing him to destroy the very sorts of things they, the ‘Priests, could’ve used in their upcoming war against the Heshii’s Harbinger.
That’s what he claimed. The truth, everyone save Erg feared, was simpler and much more complex all the same; Erg1 was crazy. Insane. Driven mad by being trapped in the psyche of a normal mortal human being, he was more than willing to go toe to toe and head to head with the worst Enforcers that Trinity could muster.
At the moment, ‘Priest tracking modules had Erg fighting Govurl Toman somewhere out near the blasted wastelands surrounding Arcade City. The two were flinging around terrible amounts of lethal energy, and, Faraday was certain of this, pissing Trinity Itself off even further.
“Still,” Faraday said aloud, “at least he is keeping Trinity’s focus on him instead of us.”
Anode scratched at his forearm. Recent upgrades to his armature weren’t taking as well as projected and the open wound along that arm wasn’t healing properly. It was no big thing, not really. Some of their self-divined upgrades took upwards of fifty years to heal properly. It was just … aggravating. “You are almost done, Faraday, why are you wasting time now?”