by Dante Doom
"I see that you are becoming resigned to this deal," the Emperor said. "You were being clever at first, but now you realize this is the only way, aside from me killing everyone. But I don't like it. Why should I be forced to give up on such a major operation in exchange for one measly human?"
"You can bring others with me, then. Your loyalists. I'll train them and watch over them."
"Hmmm, that isn't a bad idea. Perhaps a few women for you to populate with, so you can indoctrinate your children. Human reproduction rates are decent…" the Emperor trailed off for a moment and began to mutter to himself, thinking through Van's offer. "Of course! I have been thinking so small, haven't I? Why have just one human when I could have many? I could use them all to reach the stars. I wouldn't even have to be in these simulations. I could just be running the show from the outside."
Van looked at Jet and saw that the dragon was most likely going to die. He was too far away to get Jet any kind of healing, and if he started to move away from the dragon, it might kill Sang and Sahara. He was truly stuck.
"So you're offering me total loyalty and the willingness to train other humans to do my bidding?" the Emperor clarified. "In exchange for your planet's survival?"
"Yes," Van said. "In exchange for everyone's survival."
"Hmmmm," the Emperor said. "But is one person really worth an entire planet?"
"Why have you worked so hard to convince me to join you?" Van replied. "Why go through all of this trouble, and even risk your life for just one person?"
"Because you are strong," the Emperor said. "And I respect strength."
"Is that really it? 'Cause I’m tough? Do you think I'm the only tough guy around here?"
"No…" the Emperor said, its voice trailing off.
"Maybe it's because you're desperate to have someone else disagree with you for once. Someone who has the guts to bring new ideas, to push back," Van offered. "Tell me, how much fun have you had talking to me in the last hour?"
"It has been the more enjoyable portion of my existence," the Emperor admitted.
"A solitary being trapped in a collective race that has no interest in freedom. Yet, you're free to talk to me. To be honest with me. And since I was your enemy, there was no risk in your being honest with me. You were finally free, for the first time, to speak to another independent mind – and that mind was tough enough to challenge you. That's why you want me. I know it and you know it. You say you respect strength, but you're craving something else. You're craving a challenge. A voice that isn't your own echo."
"Damn…" the Emperor said. "You're right." He hissed a little. "Between you and me? As soon as I have finished seizing the entire galaxy, I will order my own people to kill themselves. And I'm positive they will do it. I will be free of these wretches for all eternity. But… it has been a miserable and isolated experience. Very well, Van. I shall spare your planet in exchange for your services. But there will be some rules."
"Like what?" Van asked. He watched as the Emperor gently placed Sang next to him.
"I will not disengage my networks here until I am satisfied with your performance. My race will remain on this planet until I have seen your handiwork. I have eight planets on my list to conquer, and you may choose which one you want. When that planet has been enslaved and 'gardened' to my liking, then I will retract my people from this planet."
"And that means you'll still be ordering your people to ready this planet for destruction?" Van asked.
"Oh yes. The moment I detect trickery, kaboom! Everything ends. Let's face it, Van: you're in a real bind here, and you've managed to convince me to try your way of thinking. It's a bit of a novelty, I must admit, to allow someone else's point of view to change my own. I don't really know if it's ever happened before. I like it. So you won me over. But that doesn't mean I'm a sucker. This planet will be in my clutches until I am satisfied with your performance. But for now, your friends are safe. Although, I will kill that Xevov. For I have no doubt that it was able to aid you in creating this Designated Reality Zone."
"No deal then!" Van shouted.
The Emperor laughed. "I like your loyalty, I really do. But I fear this has nothing to do with you. These resistance fighters have been plaguing us for far too long. You may say farewell if you would like."
Van glanced at the wounded dragon. He wanted to believe that there was something that he could do to save Jet, but he knew there wasn't. He sighed deeply and walked over to the dragon.
"So, I am to die, then?" Jet wheezed as he slowly moved his head to face him. The dragon's body was mangled, and he was in sore shape. Truthfully, without any healing, he was most likely going to die anyway.
"I'm sorry," Van whispered. "I can't stop him."
"I think you have figured out an adequate way," Jet replied. "You humans are savage and violent. He will regret his choice."
"Is there any way for you to disconnect?" Van asked.
"I knew this was a one-way trip," Jet replied. "When I volunteered to enter into this game, they told me I wouldn't be able to come back until the game was shut down." His voice lowered. "My consciousness is uploaded into the game itself. I cannot die, but I won't have a body. Once this game shuts down, hopefully I will awaken."
"Oh," Van whispered. "So, I guess that's good?"
"Or I will be formless for an eternity, denied the power to move on to the next life," Jet said simply. "I would prefer to die rather than for that to happen. But the path has been chosen. Good luck, Van. Thank you for teaching me such wise things about the proper application of violence. If you are successful in your mission, I will never see you again, and if you fail, likewise. So… farewell. And thank you."
Van opened his mouth to reply to the dragon, but was cut off as the Emperor lunged forward and grabbed Jet by the head.
"Wretched Xevovs, always trying to undermine me. How foolish is your race to think they even have a chance? You cowards could do nothing to save yourselves from me, and you resisted only after we seized control of your home world."
"What?" Van asked. That story was markedly different from what Jet had told him.
"Lies!" Jet winced as the Emperor reached his claws into Jet's mouth and began to pry his jaws further open.
"Lies! Lies!" the Emperor bellowed. "I would have been proud to call you a foe if you had been able to resist me with force and violence of your own, but you hide in the shadows and beg other races to save you! You are not fit for this existence, and I will remove you from it! Now go to hell, where cowards belong!" And with that, he tore Jet's jaws wide enough to utterly rip his head in half.
"Holy crap!" Van shouted as blood rained down on him. The Emperor laughed heartily.
"Now, that was pleasure. Pure pleasure. You have earned your right to stand beside me, Van. You have earned it because you chose to look me in the eye as you tried to kill me. You didn't trick others into doing your dirty work."
Van wasn't sure if the Emperor was trying to lie to him or not now. On one hand, it was possible that the Emperor was trying to sew seeds of distrust, but on the other, the Emperor's character was consistent enough that it was conceivable he'd despise people for any sign of cowardice.
"There, now that the deed is done, it is time for you to come to my ship," the Emperor said.
"Your ship?" Van asked. "I get to go up in your ship?"
The Emperor shook his head. "Not your body. The ship exists within the game, as well. That is where I normally operate out of. We shall go there and begin to prepare. You will need to move your corporeal body to one of our facilities. Tell your government of the plan we have concocted and order them to stand down from their actions."
"Yeah…" Van said. "Sure."
"You sound uncertain," the Emperor said. "Are you backing out now? Shall I give my team the order to activate the system and obliterate the world?"
"No, no, I just don't know what to tell them. The government, I mean."
"Bah, tell them whatever you'd like," the Emperor snorted
as he stretched his wings out. His health immediately returned to 200 as he laughed. "You all thought you had a chance. Admirable." And with that, Van felt himself ejected from the game.
15
Sang opened her eyes as the pod opened. "Oh, I thought we were so dead!" she shouted. "Van, you brilliant bastard! How did you do that?"
"I have no idea!" Van said as he climbed out of the pod. "I have no idea how that worked."
"What's going on?" Neil asked. "We've been locked out of the monitoring systems – did you guys win? Is earth safe?"
Neil and O'Hara were both leaning against a spare pod, and were passing a bottle of brandy back and forth. Sang recognized it as her brandy, of course.
"We're close," Sang said. "Van figured a way to get us a stay of execution."
"Explain," O'Hara said as she crossed her arms.
And so the two explained everything. They talked about how the battle had gone down, how the Emperor had been playing games with them, and how Van had figured out a way to get aboard the ship. By the end of it, Neil was shaking with rage.
"I knew you'd figure out some way to screw us over!" Neil shouted. "I knew it!"
"Screw us over? I bought us a crap-ton of time so we can figure out how to save this planet and the rest of the universe," Van replied.
"Sure, you did. And this solution conveniently involves you relocating to a secret Draco facility where we don't have the ability to beat you senseless for your inevitable betrayal," Neil replied.
"No, you don't understand," Sang said. "This Emperor is like a god in the game. He can do whatever he wants. He has ultimate power. We gave killing him our best shot, but we didn't stand a chance! There was no victory for us, but we managed to get a bargain."
"So what? We just ease off then and let Van go run off and frolic with a god while the rest of us wait around for armageddon?" O'Hara asked. "What's the plan here?"
"I don't know," Van said. "There's something about this Emperor, though. He's different from his race. He hates his own species. He's never had to deal with another person challenging him. I think I can manipulate him… I'm just not sure yet."
"Well, great," Neil said. "Just great. So we get to tell our superiors that the mission was a success then, and then hope that this Emperor doesn't decide to push the button just for fun."
"I've got a plan," Sang said.
Van turned to look at her. "Please, I am all ears. What do you have for me?"
"It's not gonna be an easy one, but I'm thinking that if you're going to have physical access to one of their facilities, they might have some tech that we don't have access to. I mean, Draco created these regular pods for non-professionals to buy, right? What do they use?"
"True," Van said, "he did mention to me that he has a kind of pod available that I can stay in 24/7."
"So if you can access one of those pods…" Sang said as she rubbed her hands together, "you could probably find some way to access its schematics."
"Oh, I get it!" Neil said.
"What?" Van asked. "I'm not following."
"If we can understand how the Draco pods work, we might be able to develop some kind of virus that would just kill them," Sang said. "It won't be easy, but it's possible. I’m going to need to figure out how to get into that facility, though."
"Oh, so you were invited, too?" O'Hara asked.
Sang shook her head. "Hell, no! I'm going to have to sneak in."
"That's risky," Van said. "But worth it. I still have one of those lethal biofeedback programs that you made."
"Maybe I can tweak it so it will unleash the virus in the game…" Sang said, trailing off for a minute. Her mind was working overtime to figure out a solution to the problem in front of her. "Yeah, because if the virus can spread from the game code into their pods, it can kill them that way. But we'd need schematics."
"What if I figured some way to send them to you from the game?" Van asked. "That way, you don't have to sneak into a heavily guarded Draco facility."
"I don't want to leave you alone," Sang said. "You could end up in trouble."
"Sang, I'm already in deep, deep trouble." Van replied. "We all are. I say you stick around here – go visit those brothers and get new characters for the team. Then send me an item with a spammy message attached to it. It'll throw off the Emperor if he thinks I'm just getting some kind of scam sent to me. Include the phrase 'Your Best Gold Now' so I'll know it's from you."
"Hey, that's some real spy stuff there," Neil said. "Wonder who you learned it from."
"Okay," Sang said, ignoring Neil. "So we just hand you over to them and hope for the best. Got it."
"It's not ideal," Van said, "but I think, at this point, it's gonna be a real stretch to see if we can pull this off. Who knows – I might end up having to actually work for them."
"Hey, as long as the rest of this planet is safe, go crazy," Neil said. "But until Draco is purged from this planet and that game is destroyed, we're still going to be working."
"Just take it easy," Van replied. "We don't want to tip them off to our master plan."
"Excuse me?" said a voice from behind everyone. They all turned to see that there was an MP standing there, rifle in hand. "We've received a call from someone claiming to be a representative from Draco. They have requested to meet with Van outside of the base."
"Yup," Neil said to the man, "that's fine. Get out of here, Van."
"Wait!" Sang said as she reached out to grab him. She pulled him away from the group for a moment. "I just wanted to say thank you, for caring enough to keep me alive."
Van winced. "Oh man, this is the absolute worst… but… if I'd been more concerned about the greater good, I would have tried to kill him while he was distracted with killing you. My philosophy wins, Sang. We're all still alive because of it."
"You're honestly going to use this as an opportunity for saying I told you so?" Sang snapped.
"Maybe it's because I want you to understand how important it is to never sacrifice others," Van replied. "I'm not trying to start a fight… I just want to end a really long one. Especially before I leave you."
Sang sighed. "Fine, you're right. Okay? When I was completely frozen, unable to do anything, I really thought I was going to die. I know that I would have understood your choice to try and kill him, sacrificing me in the process, but at the same time… I really didn't want you to make that choice. I really wanted to live."
"That's how it works, Sang," Van said as he put a hand on her shoulder. "I can't make that choice for anyone else, and I hope that you don't make those choices anymore, either. I've got to get going now. We'll see each other again, I promise."
"I really hope we do," Sang said. "As much time as we've been spending together, I'm willing to admit that it's strange to imagine what life would be like without you."
"Are you hitting on me?" Van asked. "I knew you couldn't resist my roguish charm."
"Unfortunately not – I made that saving throw a while back," Sang said. "Now, get out of here! You've got an organization to infiltrate!"
Van saluted her and turned to leave. She felt a strange sense of anguish as she watched him walk out, though. His choice to bravely throw himself into the very heart of danger was quiet heroic, she couldn't deny, but it was hard to acknowledge even that much as he made his way to the door and she had to wonder if she would ever see him again.
Van shifted uncomfortably in the car. He had been blindfolded for the ride, but knew that they had to have been travelling for several hours. There'd been a few people waiting for him in a Humvee outside of the CIA's base of operations; they had been the ones to give him a blindfold and tell him to stay quiet for the trip. For all he knew, he was being driven out to the desert to be shot, but then again, that didn't seem much different from any time when he got into a car with Neil.
Eventually, the car came to a full stop and the engine was cut.
"Get out," instructed a woman. She was blonde and was wearing military fatigues. At first, Va
n had thought she was someone from the base, but she had been the one to instruct him to keep his mouth shut.
"Can I take my blindfold off?" Van asked.
"You may," the woman replied.
Van pulled the blindfold off and squinted as the sunlight hit his eyes. He quickly realized that he was indeed in a desert. Right off the bat, he scanned the area for a large hole, but saw none. That was a relief.
"There," the woman said, pointing west. "Do you see that tree?"
There was a solitary tree standing some half a mile away, and Van squinted to see what made it so special.
"Yes," Van said. "I see it."
Three other goons were walking toward the tree. They stopped abruptly and then vanished.
"Where'd they go?" Van asked.
"The Masters use special technology to keep their base safe. Remember this tree, so you don't get lost. Just walk towards it and you will enter the base."
"Oh… they can cloak things?" Van gasped.
"Yes, they can," the woman said. "The Masters can do anything they wish. You made a good choice by coming to join us. And as I have been told, I am to be your bride."
"Whoa, what?" Van asked as he spun to look at her. She shrugged.
"It is no complaint of mine. Truthfully, I was afraid that I wouldn't ever have a husband when I came to join Draco. So this is the Masters' way of rewarding me. We are to bear children soon."
"Oh, right, uh… well, here's the thing," Van said as he took a few steps away from her. This was just too creepy. The hollowness of her voice, the emptiness of her expression, and the casualness of the way she talked about a life changing event was all terrifying. "I'm not really looking for that special somebody right now; I've got a career to think about. Intergalactic brain-slaving is hard work and I wouldn't want to be the guy who's working late hours."
"The Masters informed me that you would take some time to get used to me. That is fine. I am able to wait," she replied.
"What's your name?" Van asked.
She shrugged. "We give up our names when we come into the fold. My number is 88 and my function is Courier."