The Arkhe Principle

by Maxwell Rudolf

  "What?"

  "It's a timeless oral Pre-Times tale. I had to memorize the entire play as a boy, and if I don't recite it in entirety, I'm afraid I'll forget it. Besides, I think you should hear it. It's important. Follow me outside." He stood up, tightened his clothing down, activated the heating pads, and went outside. Erich flopped over the muddy driveway, withdrew a marble sized piece of metal, and flung it down away from him. And a flat metal surface appeared with a protective side railing and several defensive positions.

  The heat radiating from the perfect hexagonal structure warmed him, and melted the ice around it. Erich dug in his pack, finding several bolts of nano-cloth and sang out a series of notes. The cloth shot up into the air, and began interweaving with each other, forming a circular tent with orange and red butterflies flying across the burnt ruins of the American capital shortly after Victory Day.

  "Come inside. I don't want anyone else to hear this."

  They both entered and sat with their legs crossed. He pulled out an antique E-Reader and fumbled with bundles of loose wiring on the side until he plugged the last cable into a data box.

  "I'll recite the play while the actors speak. The audio has been deleted so only the poet can actually read their lips. And as this is a Pre-Times recording, with their old accents and everything, no one could possibly guess as to what they're saying. I'll start it in a second, but before I do, I want to say a few things without you murdering me."

  "I'm trying. Really, I am. But you make it very hard. The more I look at you, the more I want to suspend your neck from a rope."

  "Your eyes tell me you are holding something back. And it's not your vengeance. When the time is right, don't hesitate. Your chances are numbered."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Take this silver chain with you. I'm sure it is Pre-Times by the manufacture. See the heart here? Do you see those etchings? Can you see the tiny man and woman here looking across the stars?"

  "They're looking out a window."

  "Yes, and into the stars. Take this with you, and when you meet the right girl, give it to her. And before you ask me how much I want for it, I want you to not kill me if I try and talk to you."

  "Alright, but I make no promises. I'll try."

  "Understood. Then let me begin." He activated the device and "The Taming of the Shrew" spun up in 3D, and Erich's dubbed voice made the play enjoyable enough.

  When he finished, they nodded at each other, and broke down the tent and floor. Erich put his hands in his pockets. "I'm usually around here or out picking. The ruins are getting too dangerous, but if I find out anything, I'll inform you. But don't forget about Site 13. Out of everyone I know, you have the highest probability of making it inside."

  "I won't forget. Hope to see you again, and next time, I'll be the one paying."

  19 Urban Warfare

  D.K.E.

  Year 317

  Day 211

  Olde Londun

  Rosie's Lionheart 380T sped down the Olde Londun road passing titanic, melted ruins. Geometric skyscrapers pulverized the sky, disappearing into the clouds. Long forgotten monuments marked where some past event took place, the names lost to antiquity. Rusted wrecks of Plasstien fragments, rock, concrete, and glass littered what little room there was on the road.

  The interview with Shoehorn had been enlightening; her son, Tesla, and someone named Neil Nirvana snuck out after lights out, past the perimeter, and into the old city. He was data-less about Arkhe but he definitely understood her promise of quieting him permanently with her Remi should he dare speak about it.

  Her son was probably battling roving bands of cannibals by now. The Criers weren't allowed to report on the repeated attempts to eradicate them and now they owned swaths of territory. Between the war, the raids from the Americans, and internal policing, the Kingdom didn't have the Edwards to pay for the basics of security anymore. And when offered an extra 500 to go on an op inside to clean the filth out, she enlisted straight away.

  Years prior, Uther had asked Rosie out for her first date. What an offer he spun. Would you like a romantic walk through the Kyde Park, a dance at The Oaken Shield, followed by an escorted private hover flight over the major light parades in North Londun? And he delivered. His bragging about his own popularity was cute at first but the less he spoke the more fun she had. The whole city here was close to her heart, but now, after repeated American attacks, it was nothing but wasteland needing to be Planked.

  Two DNA bio-blips matching their boys' signature glowed on her tracker module, but Tesla wasn't with them. And the most direct path was blocked. Going sky born would make her an obvious target so she checked the heads-up holo display and clicked her Lionheart to auto-drive. Her finger traced a line to them.

  A burst of orange tracer fire screeched, and she banked the wheel left, dodging the spray. The shooter wasn't hidden well, hiding between a stack of concrete blocks 20 meters in front of her. She pressed auto down for her window and fired a spray of .50 caliber vengeance. The blast hit her in the face and shoulders, pulverizing her into mist. Rosie winked and reloaded.

  She breathed in and let it out slowly before something punched sideways into her Lionheart, slamming it across the street. Over to her left, something the size of her vehicle, black and shiny, pinned her against the side of an abandoned Clothesmart. She pushed the accelerator down uselessly.

  Everything narrowed; time slowed. Rosie pointed her Remi and let loose a three-round burst into its face. Blistering, bubbling organic juices sprayed from the creature's head. She squeezed the trigger again, and it pulled its body back. Wounding up the turbines, she manually overrode the auto-drive and propelled forward like a rocket bullet from a slingshot.

  Small-arms fire ricocheted off her right side, pinging into the ground. She pulled the stick hard again, scraping her vehicle against a burning toxic-removal truck. Rosie checked the mirror. Crouched behind a creme-colored Plassticrete block, someone bolted from their sniper's nest and took cover in The Maternal Museum.

  As she sped through at maximum speed, she expected more intense large caliber weapons fire any second. She jumped in her seat as a non-stop barrage of .65 mm cannon spray erupted from an opening across the street. The echo drove Rosie's instincts further. Something glared underneath the sun to the left, up ahead. Dozens of gun barrels emerged from behind rubble piles. Rosie screamed out in hate speech and emptied her magazine. They ducked and blindly returned fire.

  She braked hard, her chest mashing against the seatbelt. Ten more barrels protruded behind Plasstien sheets and Rosie gripped the throttle and pulled in reverse, grunting as she tried to maintain a sense of direction. The back end of the Lionheart full-thrusted and cranked hard in the opposite direction, and the chassis groaned, straining under the g-force turn.

  Rosie found her only jettisoning plasma bomb, and it shot out from her hand speeding off towards the building in front of her. Two gunners ripped out four bursts before the bomb exploded, and the three-story parking garage went up like white fire, causing other nearby buildings to shake and rumble apart.

  She screamed again, her muscles tightened, her senses baked in the Now. She threw the Lionheart into the next higher gear, feeling the thrust push her back in her seat.

  Something black waited behind a wall, but by the time she was able to turn, the beast slammed heavy into the side of the Lionheart again, flipping it over. Alarms blared, ordering her to exit. She throttled down the gyro stabilizer and righted her vehicle. Glancing over and grabbing a reload, she glimpsed the Grendel sprouting several growths where her shots had landed seconds ago.

  One of its horns grabbed the door and started to pry it free. Thrusting the window down, she quick-aimed and emptied the clip, point blank into its skull, and the Grendel clicked its mandibles, twitching. She reloaded, emptied another, and flew off before the creature could regenerate.

  Two blips flickered green on the north portion of the scanner. There they were. She thrott
led away. Rusted wrecks of military ground vehicles, large twisted stacks of burnt Plasstien, and fused Plassticrete blocked her way. Everything she remembered about the city was burned, melted, or rusted out. If this could happen to the city once, it could happen to the whole of the Kingdom. She pulled over and stepped out into the winter cold.

  Rosie holstered her pistol, brought out her FR-1 rifle, climbed the massive barricade, and scanned for activity. To the right, the old strip mall was a castle of built-up rubble with anti-vehicle gates set to block any would-be attackers. Dirty ferals sorted through mounds of plastic trash, probably looking for colors to recycle, but none of them took notice of her.

  She scurried away on the other side, searching for a vantage point. A maze of old blackened autocrafts blocked her way. Weeds and vines grew between breaks in the street, and entire stretches of buildings to the north were blackened by fire.

  Continuing on, silently, she dropped a few food traps along the way in case anything got the wrong idea. Finally, she humped through what remained of the St. George Victory mall and stealthed to the blips. According to a nearby monument, a bridge named "Paul Franklin" was destroyed in 359 in the Battle of the Tentavich Four but they never repaired it. Why wasn't the water frozen?

  She slid down the bank of the far side of the river when John and Neil appeared from behind a rock. They both limped.

  "John!"

  He turned around and held his hand over his eyes. "Who is that?"

  "Your mother! Stay down. I am moving to your position. Where is Tesla? We have got to get you across."

  "Not sure. We were attacked and ambushed. How did you find me?" he shouted loud enough for her to hear over the tumultuous river.

  "Institute data. You are lucky I convinced them to let me pick you up. Her eyes found his Docker pistol. "That loaded?"

  "Yeah."

  "You know how to use it?"

  "Basically. Look, we cannot cross here. We will have to go around. Stay here and we will double back around to you. We will hurry." John said.

  "You better."

  "Tell me about it, mom."

  20 Adda’s Ice Cream

  The ten-story Berlin Cancer Treatment Center was situated between Adda's Ice Cream and the CTC train stop. Fortified combat towers armed with long distance anti-air compound batteries protected the hospital, and Gungnir took note of the extra plastic used to fortify its walls. Angular Panther tanks prowled the streets, and military police directed ground traffic.

  He wore an extra-sized parka to conceal his identity because the last time he was in this part of town, everyone wanted his autograph or wanted to die. Med-soldiers waved a wand over his papers at the front gate, and he signed in at the local desk.

  "We need to see your E-card," the nurse said.

  Gungnir produced his special generic identity E-card, punched in Eyvindr Odinson on the patient terminal, and followed the map to his brother's room.

  His door held his condition report and before going in, Gungnir read the report. Another relapse—the Type Six cancer was attacking his colon, liver, and pancreas. The costs were astronomical—several times a person's 20-year salary. He praised Freyr he possessed enough metal to pay for the treatments. Most weren't so lucky, and the increase in cancer rates from the American diseases were affecting the Empire's ability to wage war.

  He rapped on the door before letting himself in. Eyvindr was a skeleton, his tissue draping over bones like a cloth. Machines wheezed life into him through Plasstien tubes and pumps. His long locks of dyed black hair had fallen out and his head looked weird as a shiny ball. If not for the name on the door, Gungnir wouldn't have recognized his brother in a line-up. He shut the door, went to the counter, lit a white candle, and chanted out a rune for health and recovery. Reruns of an old war cartoon played silently on the vid screen.

  "Wake up, little brother." He repeated a few times.

  Eyvindr sat up on the bed, grabbed a white cup of fruit juice and slurped it down. "No one told me I would be having visitors. Where have you been? They moved me in here last week."

  "Busy. Here. Got this for you instead, you little shit," Gungnir said handing his brother a silver box.

  "What is it?"

  "Find out." Gungnir grabbed the remote and turned the screen off.

  His brother unwrapped it and stared, his mouth falling open. "Wow!"

  The model differed from the others at the market, and the price matched its uniqueness. Delicate articulated joints held the MECHA model together, and internal Plank liquid was able to transform the plastic into several different variations. Its current incarnation held a Sabre-606 riot shield and a generic fusion rifle with a modded power pack mounted on its lower back.

  "After appraising it, the merchants couldn't cement me a price. So I bargained down with some pressure and gave them what I considered a fair share of metal. Here's the manual. You can scroll through 500 different camo patterns by pressing right here, to the right of his knee joint. Give it to me for a second and I'll show you a few things."

  "No way! This is mine! I'll figure it out, don't worry. Thank you so much! This is incredible." He reached up and they embraced. "So where have you been? You've been gone a while." He put the toy down on his lap.

  "I don't announce myself anymore," he mused. "Been around. Got some tech at a place called Pop Music." He signed to his brother and said, *Gave my initial report but left out a lot. If I wrote down what I witnessed, they would zero the file. Strange place.*

  "Pop Music?" Eyvindr raised an eyebrow, chuckled, and closed his eyes. "Ouch..."

  "Take it easy." He pressed the auto-ergo function by the bed and the mattress corrected. "They put up very little in the way of resistance. I'm probably going to petition to get a battalion together and go cleanse the whole place."

  "I like your stories. Mine are always so depressing." He played with his toy a second, moving the plasma rifle and clicking through dozens of camo patterns. "The new bill arrived. They want a lot this time. I appreciate what you've done for me and what you continue to do. I don't know how I can ever repay you. I'm lucky to have you as a brother."

  "You are. Because you will never be my enemy. Look, it's just money to me." Gungnir looked out the hospital window at the city. "The left-over metal in my bag is for the bills. I know how behind we are. You are my family, my only family."

  "Don't forget about mom."

  "Never."

  "Dad still asks about you, and I always tell him the truth. I'm going to tell him the truth about this conversation, too. Unless you say something should be a secret..."

  "I don't have a secret, and I didn't come to talk about dad, or even to have my name brought up. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping me inside the Empire is you. Otherwise, I'd wander the world until something tougher than me took me out."

  "The Wanderer. You'd be like the Old Man, eh?"

  "My saga has yet to be written. I was thinking about ordering us some protein ice cream. When was the last time you had some?" Gungnir picked the MECHA up and found a camo pattern he believed to be more realistic. And when he gazed at the weapon, he curled his lips. "I'm going to find you a replacement for this rifle."

  "I can't eat anything outside of the prescribed diet." Eyvindr turned the screen back on.

  "Turn that idiot thing off. I'll be back with two vanillas unless you want something else." He withdrew a few silvers from his bag.

  "Vanilla is fine, but be sure to sneak them in."

  Gungnir picked the MECHA up and laid it down out of reach. "Don't tell me what to do."

  He hovered down to the ground floor and exited out towards Adda's. Their new digi-sign drew his eye with its daring colors and sleek, retro design. Military-white stacked blankets concealed someone in the alleyway, their arm outstretched, holding up a beggar sign. Their ilk was becoming a problem, and maybe now was a good time to rid Midgard of one of them.

  Gungnir snatched the blanket off and grabbed the sign. "Beggar trash. Leave." The wo
man wore the civilian uniform of the 22nd Infantry. Her dangling sleeve held a small heating unit, blasting warm air inside her clothes, and when he pulled back the blanket, she curled and reached out for the only thing truly protecting her from the chill.

  She was missing one of her legs, too, and Gungnir threw the blanket back on her and smothered her down. "Why are you begging? You'll be arrested."

  "I have nowhere else to go. The shelter was destroyed by the Fanged Resistance." He didn't glimpse her face, but her defiant tone spoke of hardships.

  "Get up. I'll take you someplace. You can't stay out here. Come inside and get some food." He helped her stand and opened the door for her. The warm, sugary air, holographic digi-displays, and polished oak floor gave Adda's an advantage over her competitors.

  "You're not allowed in here!" The projection was a caricature of "The Chef," with cartoonish arms and a red-dotted suit seen at children's birthdays.

  "She's with me. And while I first thought about paying for your service, I see now how you treat veterans of this Empire. I don't even see a discount marker on your sign." Gungnir reached inside his parka and touched Asger.

  The Chef jerked his head back and his eyes became balls of flame and his voice changed to a Pre-Programmed variation of Authority. "Attempts at theft or threats to the establishment are not permitted. Further violations will result in your detainment. You have been warned."

  "Get your owner. Tell her Gungnir Odinson has a problem with her ice cream, and if she's not careful with her building personality, she won't have one to return to."

  A short pause ensued before the woman removed her blanket. "I didn't know you were back in Berlin."

  "Never mind. When was the last time you've eaten?"

  "Three days ago."

  "Then let's not keep you waiting any longer." Gungnir jumped over the counter and pulled a baked sausage from the warmer and handed one over. "Eat it slow or you'll get sick."