Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  So much time had passed.

  The plan –the original plan, following some sneaky sideboob action and possibly a little smoochy activity in the bedroom with Naoko- had been to head out to Port City after a meager five or six hours of sleep whereupon the mistuned duronium could’ve been dealt with in a safe manner.

  Well, by ‘safe’, he meant ‘less potentially threatening to the whole planet but almost certainly still gonna wreck parts of Port City’, but it was all about those acceptable levels.

  That plan was thoroughly fucked thanks to a rifle butt to the skull. Twelve hours later, the situation had the potential to be infinitely worse than the loss of Port City. The machine Ute was so terribly disdainful of was determining if capping the mass of metal was even an option. If it wasn’t, if the stuff had gotten too far along, it was going to be ‘keep calm, carry on, everyone grab a spaceship and run the fuck away’.

  Back in the day, during those first duronium-into-quadronium tests, capping had been … common. About the only good thing arising from those domes of sealed-in-death was that they’d also started leeching the energy back out, using the awesome and unrivaled power of that … that … other place to create and power some of the most amazing things.

  Garth smiled regretfully. If the scientists working on the subject had only contacted him sooner, had told him they’d discovered a way to transform duronium into quadronium using nothing more than sound and energy, he would’ve probably killed them all and buried the research under a thousand kiloton nuclear bomb. A harsh response to an elemental solution that’d shoved the War against the Heshii into overdrive and given the Armies of Man an edge they’d never had, sure, but even after he’d explained what quadronium really was, no one had listened. No one had understood, or even worse, no one had cared.

  “What’s it trying to solve?” Ute looked over his shoulder when someone started banging on the doors.

  “I like you, pal, a lot. You’re a solid guy.” Onscreen, the equations were beginning to pare down into the final solution. “I’ll tell you, but …”

  The banging grew frantic. Ute looked down at his disabled proteus and wondered what kind of messages he was receiving. He looked at Garth, tiny, half-naked, staring intently at the Screens, a look of such utter consternation on his face that it would be apparent to a blind man that he was terrified of the answer he waited for.

  Ute knew what he should do. By law, he should attempt to apprehend Garth Nickels and subdue him until the proper authorities arrived, whereupon he would begin the litany of charges.

  But he had seen something amazing. He had seen Garth Nickels standing inside a maelstrom of moving parts, pieces of equipment moving and connecting themselves together according to his whim. He could see that same man, right there, sparing no less than half his concentration on keeping the thin paper gown he was wearing covering his ass. The other half of his focus was locked onto the Screens, where the complex equations were dwindling down quicker.

  There was a mystery surrounding Garth Nickels.

  Ute knew the right thing to do. “I’ll keep everything you say to myself, sa, and I’ll follow where you lead.”

  Garth closed his eyes. He’d wanted Ute to say something exactly like that because he knew he couldn’t do what needed doing on his own. If the data already present on the Screens was any hint of how much time remained before they really needed to start shaking ass, they should’ve already been gone. Sadly, there was about fifteen minutes left before they got to the final answer.

  Just enough time to get the bare bones out for Ute.

  “Okay,” he said, drawing out the word, “here’s the deal. The duronium struts from the Museum are close to going critical worse than anything you’ve ever imagined. One of the attacks … set about a subtle atomic change very close to the steps required to transform duronium into quadronium.”

  Ute opened his mouth to interrupt, but Garth silenced him with a raised finger. “We don’t have time. Trust that everything I say is kinda sorta the truth enough for us to get through this and we’ll be all good. Now, the mistuned duronium is really super bad all on its own. A badly performed transformation process from one to other results in an awful lot of spare, um, atoms and ions and shit. Typically, all those extra bits start whipping off the chunk of duronium at about the speed of light, tearing holes through everything and generally causing quite a big ruckus. The material being shed will be … variable.”

  “Variable?” Ute frowned. It was bad enough Garth was suggesting that sometime during the attacks on the Museum someone had somehow managed to inadvertently begin the process of duronium conversion; following Guillfoyle’s eventual admission of guilt that quadronium was impossible, metallurgy companies the system over had collapsed.

  To hear Garth suggest it’d been done, badly, by accident, and that the improperly done procedure was threatening the world was more than his admittedly poor understanding of metal making could tolerate.

  There certainly seemed to be more ‘threat of imminent explosion and global catastrophe’ than one would expect from refining alloys. Certainly, there’d be a lot of heat and splash damage if you weren’t careful, but … atoms? Shooting off?

  Garth eyed the ‘countdown’. “We don’t have time, but … fine. Duronium is mostly comprised of exotic elements, right? Most of the stuff is easy enough to find, I suppose. I mean, you guys didn’t have any problems. Anyways. Once combined to form duronium, the metal … resonates with certain …” Garth pulled on his lower lip and made a popping sound. If he started getting into Harmonies and Realities now, they’d be stuck all day being bogged down in what it meant to be ‘real’. He’d had a long time to think about it, and the truth of their existence still fucked with his head. “Resonates with a … dimension, but on a less than microscopic scale. That’s why it’s such a damn fine metal for building warships. It’s inherently energy ablative; a good portion of the energy is funneled into this … this other place. Refining the process refines that interaction.”

  Garth opened his mouth to continue when a realization slammed into that space right between his eyebrows. Duronium was the source of Latelian ‘gigantism’!

  Unbelievable!

  If it’d been a snake, it’d’ve bit him. Long-term exposure to duronium’s low-level interaction with the extra-dimensionality was exactly the same as if every man, woman and child in Latelyspace had been seeded with Heshii crystals. Minus the overriding compulsion to … well, no, that wasn’t entirely true either, because for nearly four thousand years straight the Latelians had demolished solar system after solar system, but there was definitely no signs of Heshii loyalty. A voracious need to conquer, sure, but that was entirely different from an all-consuming need to destroy.

  It was mind-boggling. Naturally, no scientist anywhere in the system would’ve been able to divine the source, starting with their absolute lack of artificial intelligences and ending with the unavailability of the hy-tech equipment to detect the subtle harmonic vibrations emanating from everything made with duronium.

  Garth shuddered. He didn’t know how or why the exposure to ex-dee energies hadn’t made the Latelians rabid Heshii-monsters. He just thanked his lucky stars. That … infection … of energy did explain why Bravo was –had been- trying to destabilize the entire infrastructure of Latelyspace, though. As Lisa Laughlin had said about him being ‘too much the Kith’, so to with the Latelians, only on a smaller scale; to the defensive measures built into that ancient vessel, it had to seem as though it was surrounded on all sides by Harmony soldiers. What a nightmare that would be for the minds inside Bravo.

  “Sa?” Ute put a hand on Garth’s shoulder. “You say we do not have a lot of time.”

  Garth blinked the revelation away. He grinned an easy grin, suddenly –minutely- ill at ease; Harmony soldiers had been an upgrade on the Heshii war front and were essentially responsible for the loss of that war, prompting him and his to leap thirty thousand years into the future. He prayed that the men
and women of Latelyspace weren’t just biding their time.

  “Anyway. Harmonic resonance, right? The process to transform duronium into the next state is less about volcanic heat and worrying that you could drop flaming hot liquid metal all over yourself and more about realigning the atomic structure of that metal into an even more harmonic framework. Quadronium is less a metal, Sa Ute, and more … a solidified physical representation of … of an existence. You could no more shave a sliver of metal off the Box than you could destroy an entire galaxy with a pick ax. No.” Garth shook his head. “We don’t have time to debate the nature of life, the Universe and everything.”

  Images of singing dolphins tried to crowd his mind and he chuckled before going back to the explanation. “Now, the explanation behind the … mineral known as quadronium, the nature of the existence it represents and all that is way too fucking much for you to deal with right now. I promise. So, to resume. Improperly tuned duronium is metal carried halfway through the restructuring process and then left alone. It begins decaying. Since what we’re looking at isn’t a metal but solidified energy, it is in between states. Its own decaying matter is fiendishly destructive and represents dangers to the whole of Port City. Atoms flaring off from the pile can launch themselves up to six miles before dissipating, and each of those little bastards is like a … missile. A tiny, invisible missile capable of ripping down buildings. That’s bad enough. Regular old exotic particles like tachyons and shit are attracted to the pile like fat kids to free candy. They’re, like, whizzing through the Universe thinking how awesome they are and then suddenly they see this glowing, throbbing pile of metal that is a complete violation of physics and time-space and they decide to check it out. This is when shit gets real, Ute.”

  “I would’ve thought it was already real, sa.” Ute replied drolly.

  “No, Ute, we’re not even close to real.” Garth answered darkly, far more moodily than he intended. Gratefully, Ute ignored the accidental revelation and motioned for the story to continue. “These exotic particles are transformed upon collision with the mistuned pile, Ute. They become something else entirely. Each collision results in a new, never before discovered and never intended atom or particle or quark or neutron or whatever, and at any given moment until that pile is capped, it is possible that any one of those changed state particles could mutate into something capable of eating Hospitalis like an after dinner mint. It happened twice. Back on Earth a berjillion years ago.”

  Ex-dee mutated atoms were just like ex-dee mutated human beings, only on the quantum level. Garth had indeed seen the destructive capabilities. He’d also seen what happened to people struck by those atoms, and it wasn’t something he wanted to see repeated here on Hospitalis.

  Last time around, they’d had Kin’kithal and Kith’kineen kicking around to stop those damnably dangerous particles from shredding much more than a few square miles of real estate. Naturally, he’d been working behind the scenes, using his hidden talents to assist without anyone being the wiser. That wasn’t going to work this time around; the only way he could use his ability to prevent the worst things from happening was to illuminate the Universe a second time.

  Garth didn’t want that to happen. He needed the overriding power buried deep inside for a much greater purpose.

  “Capping the pile will stop that from happening?” Ute asked after a long, stretched-out moment of silence.

  Scrunching his face up, Garth eventually just shrugged. They’d never once let a duronium pile decay this long. Every test but the first one had happened under insanely controlled circumstances with innumerable backups, safeties and redundancies in place.

  The machine beeped. The Screens flared with an answer.

  Garth looked at Ute, who was looking at the door, which juddered heavily under massive impact. “So … do you feel like saving the world today or what?”

  “How much time to do we have?” Ute asked.

  “Maybe ten hours?” Garth laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Ten hours. It seemed impossible. “Probably less, with my luck.”

  Ute thought about everything that’d been happening lately. He thought about the Spaceport explosion, the Museum being taken hostage, all the random eruptions around fair Hospitalis. He thought about the shattered Gunboys and what he suspected had been the cause of their demise, he thought about the maniacal and harrowing Chadsik al-Taryin. He thought about Chairwoman Doans declaring war on Trinity.

  If the vast machine mind didn’t already know what she planned, It soon would, and then… and then war. Real and true war, only this time they’d be on the defensive, on the receiving end of technologies and weapons far in advance of theirs.

  From where he stood, staring vacantly at the door as other security personnel tried to batter their way through the reinforced metal, it seemed like his world was already finished.

  Then he thought about Garth, standing in the middle of a blue whirlpool of light, the objects he needed moving of their own accord. He thought of a computer seeming to build itself. Nickels was no fool, either. He had to know what the Chairwoman intended. Had to know, yet was plainly invested in saving the planet. Hopefully, when Trinity came knocking, Nickels would answer the door.

  The door thumped, and the frame cracked. Ute nodded. “It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything crazy.”

  A grin split Garth’s face from ear to ear. “Awesome.” Then he rubbed an ear. “Hey, uh, we need to swing by my Hotel room. I’ve got to get the main I brought.”

  “It’s going to take all I can do to convince the guards on the other side of this door not to shoot us both dead, sa.” Ute replied, desperately trying to come up with something to say that would prevent that. So far, he was up to ‘please don’t shoot us dead’.

  “Tell whoever is on the other side of that door they are goddamn fucking lucky I haven’t blown this building into outer space for letting my girlfriend being kidnapped from my goddamn rooms.” Garth replied blithely as he stuck his hands into the guts of the computer that he’d burned precious power to create. “Tell them that, and make them believe it, sa, or there will be shit to deal with that is a lot fucking worse. They’ll have to deal with me. And that, Ute, is not something anyone in this Hotel, or this fucking planet, is ready for.”

  Garth yanked for all he was worth –which, without the sheathes, wasn’t nearly as impressive as he’d hoped- and watched the machine he’d created with his mind fall to pieces. Then he turned to his new comrade and crossed his arms patiently.

  Ute swallowed. The door burst open and Sa Vari and Si Stockman rushed into the room, weapons drawn. As they’d been trained by him, they considered the disaster, shouting to one another things they noticed.

  Vari took a quick assessment of his fallen coworkers while Stockman assessed the limits of the damage. As one, the two of them oriented on Ute and Garth, weapons drawn.

  Ute raised his raised. “This doesn’t look like what it seems, people.”

  Vari and Stockman exchanged glances. They didn’t know what to do. They knew what their protes were telling them. Management wanted Ute and Garth … disposed of. That being said, between the two of them, they’d worked with Ute for over a decade and Garth was, well, Garth Nickels.

  “It seems like the two of you blew up this room, Sa Ute.” Stockman made a point of looking around the room a second time. “And one or both of you knocked Ferreget and Smith out cold.”

  “Hey!” Garth shouted. “They’ll wake up. Tomorrow. Probably. Or ... um, maybe the next day. It’s been a long time since I did that move. Give ‘em lots of liquids and … and maybe let them watch cartoons for a day. They’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  “Move?” Ute raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s going on here?” Vari demanded, eye on his prote for commands from Management. A heartbeat later, the screen flickered a bit then went on with orders from on high; Management had accessed their prote cameras. The damage was appalling.

  “We ain’t got time f
or this, Ute.” Garth made a big explosion noise with his mouth. Ute grimaced. He didn’t blame the big guy at all. If he walked in to a room and some other dude said ‘hey, by the way, everything is going to die in a little bit if we don’t do something about it’, he’d … well, no. He’d probably go out and steal a car so they could get to the scene faster. Either way. He guessed he understood Ute’s conundrum.

  “Why is he doing that with his mouth?” Stockman asked nervously, pointing her gun at Garth’s head.

  Ute sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Fuck this.” Garth said. They really didn’t have time to waste. It was bad enough they needed to waste the ten or fifteen minutes it’d take to rescue Huey’s Main from the Ultra Suite. They were going to need to spend serious time acquiring a massive amount of duronium and a bunch of other shit if they were even going to have half a chance of capping that decaying pile. The longer it took, the deeper the … hole … through to the … other side … grew. About the only thing working for them was the fact that this was happening on one of the highest tech planets in the Universe. If this was all going down on Dirtworld #37, he’d hightail it for the aforementioned Spaceport, jack himself a cruiser and be gone in the twinkle of an eye.

  Garth opened the floodgates connecting him to the ex-dee and tried to ignore the pain searing beneath his skin. Now that he remembered nearly everything, it was child’s play to sort of skim ‘across’ that place, using the wildly different physical laws to augment his speed to the levels he’d become accustomed to. The one thing he couldn’t do –again, because of the sheathes- was do the same for his strength, but with the freedom of recollection came one other truth: with speed, you didn’t need strength. Still, the sheathes versus his Kin’kithal heritage made it rough going. He wondered if he was going to survive this inner war.

  Before anyone knew what was happening, Garth was standing in front of Stockman and Vari. He tapped the two Palazzo security guards on the forehead and they fell down.