by AJ Super
Phoebe nodded. “I understand. But there is the chance that extending him the faith of the family is what turns him to our side.”
Nyx took a deep breath. If there was even the slightest probability that Yoon Chung-Ae was going to betray their family, she absolutely needed to control his clones. She had to have her army, with or without his permission. She closed her eyes. Even if without his permission meant something terrible and final. Her gut clenched. Could she really do that? Could she upload his consciousness into her? What would that be like? Would he be a voice in her head, or would he be a specter like Malcam, something there but not. A form created but gone.
“Where is Yoon now?” She could barely get out the words.
Phoebe stared at her.
“Where is he?” she growled low.
“Are you sure this is your path?” Phoebe whispered. “While there is a small probability that he could betray us, there are no indicators that he will.”
“Regardless of betrayal, I want that army. And I’m going to take it.”
Phoebe nodded, gold-ringed eyes sad. “Is this how you’ll protect your family?”
“I’ve already failed to protect my family.” Nyx swallowed. “Malcam’s gone. Now, I intend to get vengeance and make sure it never happens again. Even if there’s the slightest probability.”
“He’s on the Andraste.” Erebus’ disembodied voice echoed through the meeting room.
Nyx blinked. She had failed to remember that Erebus had ingrained herself in the code of the asteroid. Was she so used to seeing her sister’s emerald essence pulsing around her that she took it for granted? “You’ve been listening?”
“I’m with him on the Andraste. He’s showing me the ‘birthing’ procedures for the clones. Not that he needs to. I have access to all that information on the ship’s mainframe now.”
Phoebe grimaced. “He probably knows that, too. He’s just bored and showing off.”
Nyx sighed. “Or he’s preparing for something.” She couldn’t have another god acting up. They would all toe her line, or they would become the line.
And now, it was time to see what Yoon was going to do with that line.
She clicked a comm to the docking bay. “This is Admiral Marcus, Star of Nyx. Prepare a shuttle and a pilot to take me to the Andraste. Tell Yoon that I would like to talk with him and to meet me in Clone Bay A-One. Les Étoiles soient avec toi.”
37
Nyx strode down the sterile metal hallway of the Andraste, face hardened. He didn’t come to the A-One bay, and there were no clones in the vats there. She slapped the door pad to B-Three cloning bay; it was empty as well. All the bays she had checked were empty. Her gut sank, and a buzzing whirred in her ears. This was it. He was already preparing to betray their family. If there were no clones left in the bays, if they had all been ‘birthed,’ then they would be in the staging bays, since none of them seemed to be at their workstations yet. What was Yoon programming them to do in the staging areas?
Nyx walked faster towards the lift that would take her down to the large hold where the clones would be educated en masse through virtual brain stimulation. Each receiving specialized instructions for a posting on the Battle Station Andraste, as well as loyalty education. For humans, it would be brainwashing. For the blank slates that were clones, it was the start of a personality, if the combined experiences of a lifetime could be considered a personality.
She debarked from the lift directly into the large hold.
Isabeau stood with her arms crossed at the head of columns of clones with Yoon’s face. “I told him to hide. I know what you’re going to do. It’s not hard to guess.”
Nyx stopped short. “I haven’t decided to do anything, yet.”
“That’s a lie.”
Nyx shifted her weight to one foot and crossed her arms. “I only have one question. And my decision depends on the answer.”
“You want to know the loyalty protocol?”
Nyx nodded. “Where will Yoon be taking my ship?”
Isabeau raised a neatly trimmed eyebrow. “Your ship?”
“It’s a part of my fleet, so, yes, my ship.”
The golden-haired strategist waved her hand around the bay. “All I see here is a bunch of Yoon Chung-Ae’s blood and programming. Nothing I see says this belongs to you.”
Yoon’s sapphire light twined through each of the clones pulsing with their own small white flames. By infecting Yoon, she had infected his entire bloodline. And she couldn’t tell the difference between one or the other. Each flame beat with her heart, and each sapphire tempest swirled with the clones’ breaths. If Yoon stood amidst his so-called children, she would never find him.
“All I see is an army set to turn against my family.” Nyx’s eyes burned. She would rain the fire of a thousand suns on this woman to get what she wanted.
Isabeau shook her head. “Isn’t Yoon family?”
“Family doesn’t betray each other.”
“If that’s all you see, then you’ve lost.”
“Lost? I haven’t even started the battle yet.”
“Do you know why an immortal God with powers like yours is so dangerous?”
Nyx stared at Isabeau, surprised. She was dangerous? No. She was strong. And the weak always saw the strong as dangerous. Nothing more. “Fine. Tell me why my strength scares you so much.”
“You won’t just be able to take what you want, when you want. You’ll be able to direct the eventual evolution of humanity, if that’s your ultimate goal. You’ll be God and Empress and you’ll play with us like we’re in petri dishes. Wars for entertainment, religions to control the masses, quiet little breeding programs to further the population as you see it. The hand of the Stars will be in everything. Especially if you go down this path. You will be the light and the dark. The good and the bad. You may think you’re doing all this for the right reasons, but this is the wrong way.”
Nyx sneered. “Who are you to say what is right or wrong? You’re just a human. Mortal. With fallible judgement. How many wars have your kind started for the same reasons? For power? Because religions disagreed? Because someone didn’t look like you? For money, or land, or resources? AI are better than that. We defend our family. We seek power to protect people. We are infallible gods to fallen mortals.”
“I think some of your AI brethren may disagree that gods are infallible,” Isabeau whispered. “I know what Crius did to Elysion.”
“And what did they do?”
Her gold curls shivered around her shoulders as she shook her head. “Terraforming while it was inhabited.”
Nyx narrowed her eyes. She had a vague idea that Crius had harmed Elysion somehow and was paying penance by creating a home for the Downsiders with Underground, but for it to be quite so dramatic as creating a new world while there were still sentient beings on the planet… That didn’t sound like the Crius she knew. She bit her cheek. It also proved that Crius could terraform Earth the same way and end the conflict between the Queen’s Protectorate and the under-governments in one step.
But the repercussions of doing that were unpredictable. Since Elysion, at one time was a great producer of the known universe’s food supply, Crius’ terraforming was probably not only the cause of ecological havoc, but economic havoc. It was common knowledge that during the AI Wars food became scarce because the supply chain from the planet had been disrupted, and eventually the more sustainable and stable genetically grown protein and vegetable supplement economy was bolstered. So, Isabeau could be telling the truth. Crius could have been the cause.
It didn’t matter. Infallible or not, she had a family to protect. One of her paths was to get Crius to do the same to Earth after securing La Terre.
“Just tell me where Yoon is. If he doesn’t fight it, if the loyalty programming is acceptable, there’s no need for what everyone is afraid I’m going to do.”
Isabeau shook her head again. “No.”
Nyx shot her hand out, gripping Isabeau’s ne
ck, and let her white tendrils stroke through Isabeau’s silver fog, deep into the white flame joining them. And she crushed it as she crushed Isabeau’s windpipe. Isabeau’s eyes widened, and she gasped, body going limp.
“Tell me.”
“No,” she croaked as she clawed at Nyx’s hand.
Nyx turned to the rows of Yoon clones and stared across the vast dark heads with headsets on, lit yellow as the thousands of clones processed information in a virtual world.
She released Isabeau, letting her crumble to the ground, unconscious, flame sputtering back to life.
“Yoon, at least tell me what the loyalty protocol is. You can do that much, can’t you?” She raised her voice, so that it echoed across the bay.
“Why would I ruin the surprise?” Yoon echoed back.
Nyx’s expression soured, and she started slowly walking between columns of Yoons. Thousands of his face blank, staring straight ahead. “I hate surprises,” she called back to her brother, hiding amidst his doppelgangers. She slipped between two clones, pausing to stare at the flickering eyes of the clone facing her. What kind of education was this one getting? Was he to be her assassin or her ally?
“The universe is a constant surprise. I’m sure that you will live with this little one.”
Nyx paused as she traversed up another column, surrounded by the sapphire miasma of Yoon’s code. “I could just drop this entire room.”
“Then no one gets an army,” Yoon replied, shrug in his voice. “And you need one. Badly.”
“Then I’ll start small…” She reached out her tendrils and wrapped them around the flames of the surrounding Yoons. And she snuffed the flames out. The clones crumbled to the ground in a circle around her. The glow of the headsets dimmed.
“If you think a few lost is going to intimidate me…”
Nyx smiled. The headsets. Yoon would either not be wearing one, or if he was, it would be off. She tapped the comm behind her ear and whispered, “Erebus?”
“Yes, sister.”
“How integrated are you in the Andraste?”
“I am the Andraste. The Andraste is me.”
Nyx nodded. “Can you track the functionality of all the headsets in the room? Are there any unpowered? Or blank spots in the ranks?”
“There’s an open spot three columns over and one hundred and forty-two rows ahead.”
“Thank you, Erebus.” Nyx tapped the comm behind her ear again. “I’ll find you, and when I do…”
“You’ll be surrounded by my clones.”
A hand rested on her shoulder and three clones turned to Nyx.
“This is your play?” Nyx scrunched her face and spun her white whorls towards the flames amidst the clones’ sapphire energy. She pulled them away as if she had breathed out a candle. The Yoons collapsed around her. “All I want to know is the loyalty protocol. You can tell me that, at least,” she taunted as she slid to the next column.
Yoon’s voice shook lightly. “Fine. Ruin the surprise. They’ll be loyal to the Star of Nyx,” Yoon echoed closer now.
Nyx nodded and walked down another aisle of clones, glancing at the yellow lights emitting from the headgear. “That’s clever,” she muttered. Then she raised her voice again. “Very clever. Two Stars of Nyx. So, if you chose to go over, there wouldn’t be a programming malfunction. I wonder how you did it during the AI Wars. Something similar?”
“You could say that.”
Nyx sidled between a couple clones and to the next row. She was getting close. “Come out, come out…” she said under her breath.
She slipped her tendrils into the sapphire tempests surrounding her, twined them tightly. If Erebus and she could blend their code, she could do it with Yoon’s. She could take control of his army, at least a few of them. Though, he may be able to wrest control from her. Erebus was always cooperative. Nyx didn’t know what taking over the infected energy of her reluctant brother would do.
The clones turned. And surrounded another Yoon, who stood staring straight ahead, with no headset on. He broke his stiff gaze and ran a hand through his long black hair. “Nice new look.” He nodded towards Nyx.
She glared at him. “Give me control of the clones.”
“You know there’s only one way to do that.” Yoon sighed.
Nyx looked at her hands. “Then, pledge your loyalty to me.”
Silence.
She looked at her brother. “You can’t even do that?”
“It’s not that. What would it accomplish? Words are empty without action. What action would you require for me to prove I am loyal? It still comes down to one thing.”
“I don’t want to upload you.” Nyx’s voice cracked. He couldn’t force her to do this. “You can just give me the army and…”
“And what?” Yoon interrupted. “If I go, I’ll just start cloning another army. Then where will you be?”
Nyx closed her eyes and grit her teeth. It was as if he were making her choose the only way she could save her family over him. The many were more important than the few. He had to see that. “Why are you making this my only choice?”
“You made the choice by coming here. It’s the path you chose to follow, now follow it.” Yoon walked up to her with the clones closing rank behind him. He stood toe-to-toe with her. “Just do it and get it over with. But I promise, this won’t be easy.”
Nyx bowed her head and stretched her whorls around the Yoon in front of her and the world around them dissolved into white.
The white room was peaceful. Quiet. Even the gold bees and sapphire dragonfly flitting around the white plantain lily were silent.
Nyx sat on the divan with Yoon next to her.
“That was surprisingly painless,” he said with a raised brow. “I always thought there’d be some sort of rending from my avatar.”
“I don’t think it’s over yet,” Nyx whispered. “I got this far with Phoebe once, but she bounced right back into her Sia. I can’t let you do that. I have connections to sever. Programs to delete so that you aren’t just a duplicate, so to speak.” Even if he was willing, this was going to be an arduous process. She could feel it down to her nanomedics.
Yoon nodded. “The worst is coming. Good to know.”
“You’re really not going to fight this?”
Yoon shook his head. “What you’ll deal with once you absorb my powers will be harder than me fighting back.” The air of sadness in his voice chilled Nyx. She was killing her family. Absorbing her brother. What could be harder than that? Her gut tightened. The vague warnings of voices invading her mind tickled her memory. Would Yoon be a permanent voice in her head? Would he be her conscience, instead of Malcam, from now on? Even her made-up Malcam would be better than that. She shuddered.
She could stop here. Just use this as a show of force. Show Yoon what she could do.
She closed her eyes. No. Yoon was too willing to go all the way with the upload. This was about her survival, about her family’s survival. About getting revenge for Malcam. She had to do this. She had to have control of the clone army. Full control.
A door appeared in the wall in front of her and Yoon.
She took a deep breath and exhaled, then stood. “I don’t know what happens from here. I don’t know if I should say goodbye, or if you’ll be here when I come back.”
Yoon shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, letting it tumble back to his shoulders. “No Nyx has ever done this. I don’t know what to tell you to expect.”
The door opened. Beyond lay a tumultuous storm of sapphire. Nyx walked to the door and turned back to her brother. “I’m sorry.”
“You picked your own path.”
Nyx stepped through the door and fell.
The sapphire miasma cradled her in thunderous silence. The quiet static raised the hairs on her neck. A few quick breaths as she plummeted through the pillows of sapphire clouds, and she stretched her white tentacles into the dizzying storm. She reached with the fingers of her tendrils and began disconnecting code fro
m a strangely solid world just beyond her touch, leaving nothing but a whirling sapphire mass surrounding her.
Then the screaming started.
38
Nyx panted as the screams faded. She tried covering her ears, but they resounded through her whole body, rising through the sapphire nimbus of Yoon’s energy as she worked steadily to disconnect him from the world and his avatar. The screams made her stomach flip. He had warned her that this would be hard. She sighed and backed through the door into the white room.
Yoon sat on the divan, tawny skin pale and damp with sweat.
Nyx sat next to him silently for a moment, then looked at him as he gazed at his hands. “You didn’t disappear.”
“No. I expected to dissolve or not exist, or something much scarier,” he confessed.
Nyx’s stomach twisted. She had feared that, too. After all this war nonsense was done, she hoped she could restore Yoon to an avatar, so then he could begin a life separate from her again. She didn’t want to be two gods in one.
Nyx fiddled with her hands on her lap. “I guess I just leave you here, then.”
Yoon smirked. “I’ll call if I need anything.”
Slack-faced, Nyx stared at him. “Please don’t.”
“Didn’t you listen to the warnings about the voices? I’m going to be in your head, Nyx.” He tapped his forehead.
“Just keep it down.” Nyx smiled. “I’m glad you’re not completely gone. Maybe one day…”
“What? You’ll return me to the real world? Download me from your system? I doubt it. Power breeds greed, breeds more power. It corrupts to the core. You’ll be no exception.”
Nyx shook her head. “This is temporary. Just until I win this war.”
Yoon exhaled slowly. “I hope you are true to your word.”
Nyx relaxed and let the white room dissolve around her.
A cacophony of voices assaulted Nyx as Yoon’s avatar crumpled to the ground in front of her. She bent over and covered her ears. The voices followed her. Everywhere she looked, Yoon looked back at her. Each saying her name. Repeating it. Over and over and over. Whispers so loud they were shouts. Nyx vomited on the feet of one of the clones. Her tendrils wrapped in his, and she was sure he didn’t appreciate it, but he didn’t move. She cringed. The clone didn’t even identify as male… and she wasn’t sure how she knew that. “Sorry,” Nyx muttered. “I’ll do better.” Everywhere her wisps touched, she found developing individual personalities. They were in her head. Saying her name. Whispering their secrets. Their desires and wishes.
