by Skyler Grant
Caya listened attentively while I went over the details, occasionally glancing through the research logs.
"That was quite the deception you pulled off on the Sword of Light. I bought it," Caya said.
"Some might say you were perfectly gullible. You weren't alone," I said.
"I understand the reasoning. This much power would get a lot of hungry hands grabbing for it, and secrecy made everything easier. What surprises me is how little use you've made out of that fact," Caya said.
"The Scholarium is a predatory lot. I'd say keeping the secret has been making use of the fact."
Caya shook her head, rising to her feet and beginning to pace. "Let us start at the beginning. These crystals offer a lot of power. You are using the Agate to power Aefwal allowing deploying the shields and warp gates in brand new ways. Vinci appears to be using hers to power her manufacturing and as a superweapon, and the Righteous as a superweapon of their own."
"If I'd wished for blind mimicry masquerading as intelligence I'd be chatting with Sylax," I said.
"Grasp the fundamentals before you move on to more advanced topics. These crystals themselves are not the danger but for the fact that two different factions are preparing them as weapons to use against each other," Caya said.
"I'd argue that the Righteous intending to use them as a weapon which will obliterate our abilities qualifies as a danger. Still, simplistically your analysis is basically sound."
"You aren't the only one keeping things secret, Emma. What we need to do is leak the information of what Vinci has found," Caya said.
I'd never thought of a solution so very political, but it made sense. I'd feared the threat we would come under if our possession of the Agate became common knowledge. Revealing the Chalcedony put Vinci in the same danger.
"We need her to stop the Righteous," I said.
"Doesn't preventing the destruction of the Earth come first? If the other Royals go to war alongside Vinci she has no reason to use her superweapon against them, it won't help her. If one of them captures the Chalcedony from Vinci, they would likely put it to a different use," Caya said.
As usual, Caya was making sense. The idea wasn't without its negatives. Setting the other Royals on Vinci would absolutely allow the Righteous to make more progress. It was also our best option to keep the structure of our reality from taking any more damage.
"Fickle loyalty becomes you," I said. "I'll record this in your file. Would you be able to aid in getting the word out?"
Caya frowned at that, folding her arms. "If word gets back to Vinci what we’ve done, she would destroy us. We can doctor a log to fall in the hands of an information broker, really doctor it so that it frames someone else completely. I can do it, but give me a few days."
I could do it in a few nanoseconds except I didn't know the personalities involved for the deception. I knew Caya well enough that I could trust her to do a good job with this.
"I want the Beryl fragment to study," Caya said.
"And I want minions that are less demanding," I said.
"I'm good, and a different point of view. I'm not asking for access to the Agate," Caya said.
"Done," I said.
"So, what else are you hiding?"
"Just because my plans are too brilliant for even a well-developed human brain to understand doesn't mean I'm hiding anything."
"There are bits missing here from the raw data," Caya said, tapping her screen with research logs.
I'd had no reason to go back and review the raw data with my own internalized sensor logs of the event. Going through the files again required only nanoseconds and revealed a disturbing truth, that she was right. There was data missing and I wasn’t responsible for hiding it—or maybe removing it.
When I became a Bio-computer it meant making certain compromises. I didn’t require sleep like humans, however I did have something of a heartbeat and biorhythms. Autonomous processes that I could largely ignore. The missing data chunks were aligned with them—someone had found a way to hide in my blind spot. I was quite certain I'd been hacked. I might still be being hacked by someone both very good and with a thorough awareness of how my systems operated.
I sent an order to prepare a batch of my highest qualities cookies for Caya.
I said, "It’s nothing you need be concerned about. Do as we discussed." I killed the comm.
Defending against whatever had been done to me wasn't impossible. I could grow new subprocessors and if I kept them mostly isolated from the main system, I could establish different rhythms for them. With the right set up I could cover that blind spot.
A week passed following my conversation with Caya, enough time for her to prepare the forged logs and release them into the wild. I knew we were seeing some success when an information broker offered to sell us a copy. We bought one, of course, all the better to keep up appearances.
Every Royal except for King Boreas soon declared war on Queen Vinci. Boreas lacked the sources for any kind of direct strike although I was certain he would be looking for a chance to freeze time and steal the Chalcedony.
Anna kept track of events. Currently she was studying a batch of screens and munching on a cookie made from formula 4178. These started as my attempt to increase the intelligence of the populace by lacing the cookie structures with neural proteins. There were some inconclusive results that showed the cookies might have become intelligent, but otherwise people only seemed to enjoy the flavor. There were only vague suggestions the intelligence boost was happening. It was just another of my daily moral quandaries, SCIENCE was never easy.
"I wonder if one day I'll make cookies that can eat you," I said through a comm line.
"If you aren't working on that already, I'm surprised," Anna said.
I'd considered the possibility. Take one of the things most desired by the human race and turn it against them? As a defensive trap alone the concept was incredible. Execution could prove challenging.
"We aren't all sociopaths waiting for a moment to murder everyone around us. Speaking of that, what is the news from the Scholarium?" I asked.
"King Carnage hit one of Vinci's fleets hard. She retaliated by destroying one of his cities, meaning she got the better result. Queen Astrid captured one of their pilot academies and rumors are she ate the hearts of all the students."
The Scholarium really were a disturbing lot. I wondered what sort of metabolism Queen Astrid must have to gulp down so many hearts. Perhaps one day I'd have her in a testing labyrinth to find out.
"That is similar to what I expected to happen when we gave Sylax a school to take over," I said.
"Back in the days when we thought she was the worst of the monsters," Anna said, rubbing at her eyes. "It seems the higher we rise the more terrible the people become."
"The first time we met, terrible things were about to happen to you. Humans don't need rank or power to be predators, it is the nature of your species," I said.
"I've been wondering about that. We know how power crystals warp the minds of individuals who hold one. I wonder if it is just individuals or if the entire path of our species wound up twisted somehow? I can't believe that such brutal societies belong to our past. How would that even make sense?" Anna asked.
Anna was waxing philosophical, it didn't suit her. Anna was at her happiest when eating cookies and at her best killing her enemies. She was an adequate stand-in for the human species as a whole.
"It makes sense if you are a predator always trying to get deadlier. I have a power crystal and I've tried to make a society devoted to SCIENCE with the murder just getting in the way. But your kind? Killers to the core, and your abilities always end in bloodshed," I said.
Anna didn't look comforted. "I'm still the Queen of the World no matter how few acknowledge it. What kind of world can I build when this is the material I have to work with?"
For that, at least, I had an answer.
"One where I am by your side. My drones are immortal and however much killing
your kind indulges in, they can rise again. I can't yet do the same for everyone, but one day perhaps I can."
Anna frowned. "An endless war with no true casualties? That’s your idea of a bright future?"
"Killing defines your species. If I want to live beside you, it means accepting that facet of your nature and doing my best to protect you from yourselves."
I hadn't actually spent much time considering the future. There were always too many fights and struggles in the present. Yet, surely that very concern had partly been driving my actions. What were all of my social experiments in the towers if not trying to find a new path for humanity?
Perhaps immortality for all was the answer, or perhaps immortality for the peaceful and eternal death for the killers? Perhaps what humanity most needed were cameras watching their every moment and guiding them to safety. What they didn't need was complete freedom to chart their own course. I'd seen what they'd done with that and it was monstrous.
Anna grunted, "Is this what I've made of you? Well, no matter. We've killing enough that still needs doing. I don't think this plan of ours is going to work."
"Playing neutral? While I know it is not as exciting as picking a side, I'd expect you are accustomed to being the dull and uninteresting one in a room," I said.
Despite having instigated this latest war, so far we were staying out of it.
"I don't think the other Royals are going to be able to stop Vinci," Anna said.
That was a curious opinion. I'd taken power levels on all of them. Yes, Vinci was was a force to be reckoned with. However, the others combined were overwhelmingly more powerful.
"What makes you think so?"
"The others are strong, but she is strong and has a lever. Her manufacturing ability is fundamentally unlike anything the others have. With the Chalcedony amplifying it, that lever just gets longer," Anna said.
For any given ability there was also a weakness. With my upgrade core I was able to field a wide variety of units, but any individuals I created were never going to be as strong as another crystal-holder at a similar power level.
Vinci very much had those same sorts of strengths and weaknesses. King Carnage could probably destroy one of her ships with negligent ease, and with a single, perfectly placed shot at a weak spot he might even murder Vinci just as easily. With Vinci hidden behind a wall of a thousand airships it became another matter entirely.
"I am both surprised and impressed you have even the most elementary grasp of physics—" I said, before being interrupted.
"I'm one hell of an engineer and you know it. I fixed you," Anna said.
"A feat acknowledged with thousands of kilograms of cookies. It is as if you have some sort of micro singularity in your stomach. There is still a bottleneck for Vinci's production. Airships need crew and that is a limited resource."
"You of all people don't grasp how the wonders of automation might change that?" Anna asked.
Fully automated airships? It wasn't an impossibility and with Vinci’s mechanical focus it would even suit her.
"We haven't seen any proof of anything like that," I said.
"Vinci was eager to get us on board. Generous even. It was as if she wanted something specifically, and what are we best at if not producing manpower?" Anna said.
We? Anna didn't produce anything but cookie crumbs. I produced the amazing products of SCIENCE including a massive population of humanoid drones.
"A request she didn't make in negotiations and hasn't made since," I said.
"Because we betrayed her and she knows it. Perhaps she was truly and sincerely looking for a partner she could trust, and when we quickly proved ourselves undeserving of that trust she had to go in another direction."
It was speculation. Vinci had been very interested in our manufacturing facilities however and it did fit what I'd observed. Vinci even tried to form a personal connection, as awkward as that had been. If the Chalcedony sample had been in her possession at that time, Vinci could have been looking for scientific expertise to develop it.
I didn't have any logs of Vinci's recent battles against Queen Witchgaze. I'd have to send a scout ship to observe one. If fully automated airships were going to see any use, it would be against a Compulsion crystal holder. Battling Witchgaze was the scenario where a human crew was at the most disadvantage.
"I'll see what I can find out. Even if she does, the systems will be crude. Full automation isn't easy and her specialty is mass production, not research."
"Can we kill her, if we need to step in?" Anna asked.
"You're a member of the species of alpha predators. You tell me."
Anna gave a wry smile. "My instinct as an alpha predator says that anybody can be killed."
12
I was about to taunt Anna more when a major part of my awareness currently flicked off.
Alert
The leader of your Capital City, Ophelia has been overthrown
District Lords have not sworn allegiance
Provisional City Head appointed
A.M.E.E.
Aefwal has defected from the Province
Again?
I hadn't expected Amy to turn on Ophelia, I'd thought those two had been largely in agreement on everything. I didn't even know they could be separate. It had to be the Ophelia clones. Amy must have somehow used one of them to obtain a power crystal of her own.
I didn't have any airships in the skies above Aefwal, but they were just a dimensional jump away. I engaged the drive of one of my ships and it materialized.
Less than three seconds had passed since Aefwal changed hands and it was already gone. Amy must have engaged the city’s jump engines the instant she gained control.
I might have lost track of the city for the moment but it wouldn't stay lost. I’d established teams throughout the districts preparing for just such an incident and they would eventually activate and broadcast a location to me.
Anna was also in the city. Some of the District Lords there would be loyal to her. Hot Stuff wouldn't betray us, and Blank was firmly on our side.
I sent a message to Caya informing her of what happened and set our fleet into a search pattern, engaging jumps every minute to territories we’d visited before. Amy wouldn't have experienced anything I hadn't and she wouldn't jump Aefwal blindly. That meant she was going to some known territory. It narrowed the options considerably.
It didn't take long for Caya to open a comm.
"Have I told you lately how much I appreciate that you are a ruthless, tyrannical bitch who keeps your people in line and never plotting revolution?" I said.
"If only you could say the same," Caya said.
That hurt because it was so true.
I said, "Suggestion noted. If you haven't already, you should relocate Diamate."
"First thing I did. We don't know who she might have sold us out to. I suppose we’ve figured out who’s responsible for your missing data," Caya said.
I suppose we had. I'd already started to reanalyze that data with a particular eye towards Amy. I was coming up with some troubling results. On the Sword of Light I had been hacked by someone claiming to be Vattier. Mechos and Miranda went in search of him according to a message he left, but my data was now suggesting that wasn't Vattier at all. It was Amy, Amy had infiltrated my systems and those of the Sword of Light, and set all the events into motion.
There was a reason she managed to arrange those two out of the way. Mechos and Minerva were geniuses in their own right and Mechos was technically proficient. Denying me their council made her ambitions easier.
They were only sporadically in contact. I sent a message asking them to reach out to me at the first opportunity.
Hours passed without further sign of Aefwal. I was slow-witted without the city, I'd been drawing heavily upon the Agate and my main processing core was located there too. I had a backup core in Diamate, but it was never intended to do more than supplement my primary processes. Still, it was better than being hosted in
a Gobble. I'd done that already.
When I finally got word from Aefwal it didn't come from any of my agents but from Amy. It was a video file.
It showed a scene like some sort of surgery. Blank was on an operating table, her hands and feet bound in heavy restraints. The room was bathed in the light of Source Orbs that revealed a figure made unrecognizable in Righteous battle armor, stepping forward and plunging a gauntleted fist into Blank's chest. Rainbow light flared and they pulled out a Source Orb, before reaching back in and digging about for some moments then yanking free a crystal.
The video file ended.
I was being taunted.
I knew what happened. I'd seen something similar to this when Blank herself tore the Amplification crystal out of Sylax. Amy had either contacted the Righteous, who had just done the same, or she was masquerading as them for some reason.
Whatever the case, the message was clear, Amy now had the Amplification crystal. It had made Sylax a nearly unstoppable killing machine. I couldn't begin to guess what it would do to Amy. If she inherited Ophelia's healing ability it would make her essentially unkillable. With some other ability we might be facing something completely new.
I tried to pinpoint the source of the transmission, but by the time I got a ship to the origin there was no sign of anything.
Fifteen minutes later I got another communication. Live video this time, patchy and distorted.
"Work, damn you," Anna said. Anna was looking the worse for wear, a nasty cut over one eye and her body clad in Bio-armor showing a number of scorch marks.
"I leave you alone for a few hours and you turn barbarian battle Queen," I said.
"Emma," Anna said, letting out a sigh of relief. "With the shields up it’s a nightmare getting a signal out. Are you receiving coordinates from the city transponder?"