The Arkhe Principle

by Maxwell Rudolf

  "There is something yeah. I don't wanna treat you like a piece of meat."

  Squinting and wanting to poke his eyes out, she shook her head. "Coming from a virgin, you have to admit..."

  "You're right." He looked at his drink. She pulled it away, making the choice for him. "I don't know about that person you mentioned, but do you want to know the name of the big secret case?" His breath reeked and she didn't care.

  He pulled back and put his hands in his lap. "It's weird, doesn't sound St. Georgian to me at all. But you know what?" His lids started shutting.

  "Hey, wake up! Do not leave me hanging like this, big boy. What is the name? I bet I know about it anyway." One of her favorite techniques, and something so simple. Its purpose was simple: minimize the importance of whatever secret he was holding back.

  He leaned in and pulled his finger like an air-trigger. She moved close, smelling him, looking into his eyes. She fought a kiss. If he wanted her, he was going to show it first. Her heart raced. Anytime would be a good time.

  "Arkhe."

  "What?"

  He held her hands tight and said, "I shouldn't be talking about it. In fact, I should be getting home." Reginald began shaking, and she reached and took his hands inside of hers. They were cold damp and beads of sweat poured from his forehead. His left eye spasmed, and his tongue fell out.

  "What is going on?"

  "If anyone finds out... Help me, my heart..." Grasping his chest and collapsing to the floor, snot and blood oozed from his nose.

  Rosie slammed the button on the table, summoning the waiter and rolled him on his side.

  "Call emergency services! Now!"

  "Will you be accepting the charges?" The robotic voice asked.

  "Yes! Yes! You have my information! Make the bloody call!"

  She spoke into her wrist, saying, "Management, there is an issue here. We need Tachmoa. Please stand by."

  A short teenage boy sprinted over with a medical bag and screamed when he saw the blood. He backed up, looked down, and puked on the floor.

  "Get a hold of yourself, by St. George! Help me clear his airway. I want to make sure he can breathe," Rosie shouted.

  The guests started leaving without paying, and one of them stabbed the greeter in the throat. Everyone got up and made for the door. Blood poured from his mouth.

  "No, Reginald. Stay with my St. George. Do not do this to me!"

  An urban camo medivac Predator-3 barreled in from the sky and thundered to a sudden stop in mid air. It floated down, and the bottom of the chassis opened up.

  Four cables dropped down, and four commandos rappelled, weapons scanning. They wore P-6 full body armor, Sinsii goggles, and LR pulse rifles locked to their back. One had K-0 explosives on her belt.

  They secured the area in a blur, moving everyone out of the building at the end of their barrels. After they had cleared the building and ushered everyone outside, a fifth and sixth person followed. The fifth moved in with a trauma kit, popped it, and used a flow tube securing Reginald's airway. He warmed up a heart stabilizer, glued it to his chest, threw a copper crown over his head, and cranked the trauma kit on. His vitals glowed alive on the kits monitors.

  The sixth watched, holding a pink crystal pyramid floating above his left palm. Blue-white smoke whisked from the bottom of the pyramid and ran laps around the pyramid where it pulsated to the top, disappearing into the air. In his other hand, he brandished a .50 Drell autocannon complete with a modified 20-round magazine and a L-Optic kit on the side. She froze.

  "What say he?" The sixth asked.

  "Hold on. Do not shoot. I am Detective Rosie Rex with the E.I.D. Are you with Emergency Services?"

  "What hath he said?" No one spoke like that anymore, not for at least 200 years.

  "He started bleeding out after we had been drinking."

  "Again, what hath he said?"

  "Get away from him. I command you right now under the authority of His Majesty King Edward..." She attempted to stand up. The pyramid lashed out, tagging her with a wrap of black smoke around her throat and pulsated in rhythm with her heart rate, squeezing. She fought panic as the grip tightened. Her eyes began bulging out of her sockets.

  Rosie grabbed at the smoke and burned her palms. She let go only after she couldn't take the pain anymore. They were beginning to blister.

  She slowed down, raised her hands in the air. Fear overcame her, and the pursuant adrenaline dump helped fight the pain. She had no intention of divulging anything to them that might get either one of them arrested.

  Standing, the medic searched her pockets and retrieved her wallet. Opening it and reading her name, he said, "Inspector Rex, I am ordering you under threat of immediate execution to confess to me what was said. You have five seconds."

  16 Friends of Dr. Yessei Al-Hussein

  D.K.E.

  Year 318

  Day 211

  Olde Londun

  Something tasting like toilet sauce, burnt oil, and dirt was crammed in John's mouth, lapping over his tongue. Gagging would be a relief, but he fought the urge. The idea of swallowing his own puke made him gag even more and he doubled over.

  Three pale, ovals washed through his vision and jolted into focus. Their hairless, sharp, lithe faces, lips as thin as a pencil line, made his heart skip. Wooden hand-carved chairs, magnificent Plasstien neon sofas, and wrecked bits of unrecognizable trash blanketed the warped floor.

  "You are awake." Her voice was feline, almost lisping on every word. She smiled, and her forked tongue fell out over her metal teeth, wedged between implanted needle spikes.

  The one in the middle snarled, its short nose sniffing at the air like a rat. Three short sniffs, a breath hold, then the release.

  Rounding them out, a curvy female on his right, spilling out of her gray parka. Her deep purplish eyes glazed over, Oracle White data running on the inside of her eyelids. He considered and scrutinized her as she brought her eyes all the way down his body, and he ripped his glove pulling back.

  He scrambled to his feet and rubbed the knot on his head. "Why do you look like that? Are you human? Am I still in Olde Londun?"

  Eying him, two of them tilted their heads. The middle one answered in a voice like crystallized, pressured gas. "Yes... You should be more careful next time, Captain John Rex."

  "Captain? That accent..."

  "...is unimportant." The purple-eyed woman stood and saluted him, American style, palm down, thumb in. She pointed to the other woman and nodded. "Instead, she will have the honor."

  Her accent came on like a sizzling egg white. "We have brought you to a safe place. As for who we are, it doesn't matter. 'A reflection.' Am I a reflection of you or are you a reflection of me? We all reflect something."

  "Where are my friends?" His mind spun, her voice piercing him.

  "We found an unconscious male, well hidden. No one else. He remains silent, but you might persuade him otherwise."

  "His name is Neil Nirvana. No one means you any harm."

  "Now that you have been disarmed, no. You have been neutralized, Captain."

  "I am not an officer. Call me John."

  Their hands signaled each other back and forth, and he watched for responses, personal hand accents, and tone. The gestures were primitive, but expressive, made for commerce and sales, and were quite complex, at least from John's training, and lasted over fifteen seconds, with several dramatic accents made through the use of a looping thumb motion.

  The woman rubbed his foot with hers and she purred. "You were lucky we picked you up."

  "Where are we?" He wanted to pull his foot away, but as he did, she ushered in an angry stare.

  "This is Hell Zone 15, lower district. We'll not be here for long. I apologize for being so aggressive at first. We did not know how you would react."

  They all started hand signing, fast, a blur from one to the next. The middle one sniffed at his crotch, and John brushed his knee against her chin. She flashed her eyes and closed them. She open
ed her mouth and chanted tones, and he remembered a dark, sexual blue.

  He shot back and tried to push the woman's face away. "I bloody well can. Quit with the sniffing."

  "There is nothing here for you in Olde Londun." The purple-eyed girl yanked him back by his throat and held him off.

  "This is not a game, cutie. This one," She said pointing to the female with the pointy teeth, "will teach you a word you must know. She will sign slowly and then faster and faster until we think you understand."

  The woman grabbed his hands and shoved them into his chest, knocking the air out of him. She squeezed down, forming a square using his finger and thumb, and brought her gaze to the stars. Her grip solidified and he froze.

  A white strobe shined in his consciousness, forming a new memory. His hands signed the word. A-R-K-H-E.

  The middle one tapped her foot and cupped her hands, going slow for him and signed, "Do you see it?"

  "Yes."

  "You will use this word, instinctively. You may think it, but do not utter it until you are for certain. The CEO will know the word. So will the Saxon. Others might know the word, too."

  It was a dim sunrise and the sky shared the hue of a rotten neo-whale.

  "We are friends of Dr. Yessei Al-Hussein." She stopped talking, her lavender eyes fell on his lips. "Why were you here? The old city is the most dangerous district in the Kingdom. You were approaching a forbidden section," she warned. Her accent was thick, with a hint of Roman and some form of American.

  A large crack in the wall lead outside looked promising. "Get back!" He said now half way outside.

  "Wait, Captain!"

  "Back or I am going to run out of here so fast..."

  All three tensed down. The middle one rolled her head for the other woman to move back, and she did while the woman stood by. They glared at him and signed again, groaning louder and more feral. The middle one, sniffing again, frothed at the mouth and snarled at the sky. The purple-eyed woman throated a noise back and petted the feral's head.

  "Neil Nirvana is resting in the other room... Come inside. You will only get killed out there in your condition."

  John's shoulders slumped, and he stepped in. "Was there a woman... girl, traveling with him? Blond? Long hair, beautiful and American looking?"

  "No..."

  "What are you here for?"

  "Perhaps the same reason anyone comes here." She put her arms down by her side, standing tall with her back straight. Her hairless head glistened with oils, and her shoes boosted her height by several centimeters.

  "Every time I ask you an important question, you evade me. You do not look like us... like a human."

  "And you do not look like us!" Her eyes brightened. "Sometimes your mannerisms and language are difficult for us to adapt to. You have to understand this is all in real-time."

  "Real-time..."

  "The translations will not be perfect." She signed. *Arkhe.*

  He moved back and blinked at the word. What? He saw something move above her head.

  245-ATCG-2465$>_Alpha_Original

  Maybe that didn't happen. She continued.

  "You have drawn it to us." The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out the Docker pistol. "This primitive thing will only annoy the Grendels out here. I have nothing to offer you other than good luck."

  They double-timed through the rubble where, in a dark corner of a broken room with a semi-roof, Neil Nirvana laid out flat. A white bandage concealed most of his face and the blood underneath it all. John nudged him awake.

  "Hurry! You must leave," she said to Neil.

  "And what is going to happen?" John asked.

  "It is different with everyone, but you cannot be here. Who knows what might happen to you or around you? Perhaps in the future, we will find you..."

  "Do you have anything we can put water in?"

  She tossed him an old American Plasstien canteen. "Both of you can have this. There should be about five hours of light left. This place, like I said—not safe."

  The woman gathered up a camouflage bag, opened it, patted around inside of it, zipped it back up, and tossed it over to John. "Go!"

  17 The Problem with Probability

  The room reminded her of the interrogation rooms back at HQ with its stench of stale bread, burnt Plasstien, and rotten meat. Underneath that rotten death smell something like dead flesh came almost imperceptibly out of the framework.

  Inspector Callahan, her favorite man to hate, wore an expensive Bartholomew black suit with matching black neo-leather gloves. Both sat at a steel table bolted to the ground.

  "Are you charging me with something? Who were those people?" She demanded.

  "Relax, Inspector. We do not owe you any explanations; rather it is you who will be telling us what is going on."

  "So am I being charged with something?" Rosie threw up her hands in disgust.

  "Not yet. Anything you want to put on the record before Chief Constable Dove comes in?"

  "My treatment has been horrible. I am an Inspector for the Kingdom! This is bloody outrageous keeping me in here like this. I called Emergency bloody Services and I get this?!" She hated Callahan so much. And his expensive suit.

  "Your frustration is noted, but this matter is highly sensitive. I hope the Chief can answer some of your more pressing questions." He never blinked and his even voice rang out like a carefree teacher in charge of his class.

  They waited a few more minutes and Dove strode in, his eyes bloodshot, his hair wild. With a cup of coffee and an E-Reader in his hands, he sat to her side.

  "Inspector Rex, you have been with us for a good long while. What did Reginald say?"

  "Nothing, sir. To be honest, we were drinking a lot." If she spoke about those events, he would likely be fired or worse and her along with him.

  "Did you know fraternization between a guard and an Inspector is forbidden?" He wore his standard dress blue uniform and had shaved his face, something he never did. At twice her age, with a finger-nail sized mole on his neck and a penchant for dark colors, he seemed more like a senior diplomat than a copper. Today was no exception.

  "Yes, sir, I do. A mistake on my part," she said.

  Dove waved his hand toward Callahan.

  "You have solved important cases for the Kingdom and your record speaks volumes about your tenacity and ability. You have an exemplary career, and we look forward to having you with us for the years to come." But she knew that was all just ovr shit for what he really wanted to say.

  "Why are you talking to me like you outrank me, Callahan?" She crossed her arms, giving him the best shit-eating stare she could muster.

  "Because when issues arise pertaining to Kingdom Security, I am in charge." He stood, glided behind her, and grabbed the back of her chair. "Now you and I have had our disagreements, and that is why I wanted to bring in Chief Constable Dove. Only you truly know if you are holding back data to assist in a Kingdom-wide investigation." Spittle splattered on her arm, and she wiped it away with her sleeve.

  "Is it regulation to hold an Inspector in the interrogation department? What happened to Reginald?"

  "Reginald is fine," Dove ambled over and poured himself coffee, drinking some before sitting down. "This room is not the most comfortable. Let us go in the documents room so we can speak freely."

  They exited and marched to Inner Files where Reginald sat, eating a Kameroun donut. He dropped his food in his coffee rising to attention.

  "Good afternoon, sir. Would you like to go in?" Rosie tried to tap on the walls and wave at him, but he wouldn't move his eyes.

  "Yes, and I am going to need you to go ahead and come on in too, Reginald."

  "Yes, sir." He unlocked the door, snapped his heels together, held it open for everyone until coming inside himself and closing the door behind him.

  "Both of you take a seat. You have both given statements about the events yesterday. Reginald, you said you experienced a physical sensation, a 'feeling of otherness?'"

&
nbsp; "Yes, sir. It felt like a quake or something in my brain. Sir, I need to use the toilet."

  "Hurry up and come back."

  "Thank you, sir." Reginald raced out the door.

  Dove surveyed the room as if he were buying a new house. "You should not have involved yourself in this, Inspector. Reckless, selfish behavior puts our entire Kingdom in jeopardy."

  "Sir?" Rosie's curiosity monster bit her on the neck. "Who were those people from Emergency Services?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Because people do not speak like that anymore. E.S. do not have Pre-Times tech. He held some kind of pyramid..."

  "I read your report. There is nothing to discuss with you. Frankly, they are above my clearance, and if I were you..."

  The door opened and Reginald came back inside and grabbed a cup of coffee. The Chief Inspector's eyes finished his sentence, and he waited for him to settle back in.

  "Reginald. Tell me what you know about this Arkhe case. You can say the word in here. We are protected from all outside influence. That goes for you too, Inspector Rex. If you need to discuss this at some point in the future ring me or Chief Inspector Dove. We will arrange for a meeting in here. Otherwise, let me be clear on something. Consider the word forbidden. It does something, and we have no damn clue what it does."

  She nodded.

  The E-Reader's audio meter activated with a swipe. "Alright then, go ahead."

  Reginald took a deep breath and interlaced his fingers as if to pray. "I read an article inside the cabinet over there about how technology seems to have slowed, according to the Tech-War curve. The author wrote that deliberate roadblocks are set up, slowing us down. A lot of this data is in the Underworld."

  "And illegal." Dove pulled out a 15cm serrated blade with an etching of St. George on it. "Do you see how this Arkhe thing... can be a problem?"