Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  Closing his eyes, Garth remembered the scene as clearly as the day he’d stood there, and for the first time since getting almost all of his memories back, he wished for the silence of amnesia. Griffin, unable to understand why his mentor refused to use the powers that he’d been given, had finally lost his shit and reached for his fire, a fire that burned brighter than the sun.

  Swaggering back and forth through blood and bone, Griffin’s hands had gleamed like supernovas, and finally, pushed past the brink of respect and into hatred over being told he wasn’t able to see past his own fucking nose, he’d struck, lashing out with streamers of super-heated energy capable of turning dozens of Harmony soldiers to ash.

  Only to see that heat, that energy, that … power held there, between them, twisting and flexing like burning snakes. Lisa’s cries of surprise still echoed in Garth’s ears.

  Yes, he’d been capable of anything back then. Yes, he probably could’ve ended the War there, on Earth, thirty thousand years ago. Except he hadn’t. He’d still decided to go through with his plans and the reasons for that were still hidden behind an unbreakable wall. They were the only things still unavailable and he prayed to God that there were answers in Bravo because he no longer had that power.

  Even if he’d somehow managed to hold on to the illogical power long enough to get inside Bravo –whereupon the sheathes would be removed- … well, even then it might not’ve been enough; thirty thousand years was a long time. The fissure was far away and sealed up thanks to the extended passage of years. There was no recharge so maybe, just maybe, that unbeatable power would’ve fallen short anyway.

  Garth shook his head, pulling his train of thought back in line; every time he woolgathered for more than a few minutes, he wound up thinking about the predicament he’d gotten himself into and that always turned his mood dark. He was thinking about Griffin, and his possible appearance on Hospitalis.

  Unlike everyone else, his amnesia had been intentional. Everyone else’s difficulties in remembering anything important had been because of Lisa; fully evolved past the need for a physical body after thirty millennia of conscious thought, she’d known years in advance that sooner or later, they were going to be dug out and had correctly gauged the situation. Super-soldiers or not, Kith’kin and Kin’kith abilities notwithstanding, they were in a time and place where they could –possibly not easily- be beaten. Or used. Or killed. Or ground into a fine paste for examination under a futuristic version of a microscope.

  Had Lisa intentionally removed Griffin’s amnesia or had it faded over time? Garth supposed it didn’t really matter. The poor girl had done what she’d done and had no doubt agonized over what she’d been doing for that entire year.

  One thing was for sure. If Griffin was on Hospitalis –and there was certainly no other explanation for people running around talking with badly rendered Texan accents- it had everything to do with him and Bravo.

  Watching Herrig and the mercenary complete their business, Garth found himself wondering what Griffin had been up to, how he’d survived that ex-dee jump out of Pluto’s inner core; of all of them, the youngest Kith’kineen had never been able to last for more than a few seconds inside the harsh conditions of the extra-dimensionality before needing to exit.

  More importantly, Garth wondered why –when he was the only person who was a paradox and therefore should be the only one ‘able’ to do so- Griffin was affecting the people around him with his own will. Oh, it was small, certainly subconsciously done and would never amount to anything dangerous, but it was there, it was noticeable.

  “Penny for your thoughts.” A gravelly voice said beside him.

  Garth blinked his thoughts away. Musing on Griffin’s presence would get him nowhere. Either the fiery Kith’kineen would show up or he wouldn’t. Hell, the guy’d probably come to Hospitalis because he hadn’t been all that secretive. The entire fucking Universe knew where Garth N’Chalez was. “Oh, hey Ute. Ahh, I was just thinking about … stuff. You know how it is.”

  Ute did indeed know how it was. He handed Garth a glass jar that Sa Orin had pressed upon him. “This is a gift from the Liberated Farmer’s Front of Hospitalis.”

  Garth laughed at the name. Yeah, that sounded just like something that Griffin would think up. He twisted the lid off and dipped a finger in, saying, “I’m glad we got that bul … what the fuck. Why does he get to remember fucking barbecue sauce? Jesus Christ that is bullshit. I get to remember Elvis Presley lyrics, but he gets barbecue sauce?”

  Ute watched Garth dip his fingers in again and nodded at the very disturbing look of obscene pleasure on his employer’s face with understanding; the ‘sauce’ –as Orin referred to it- was one of the most amazing things he’d ever tasted. The ex-soldier didn’t know who or what an Elvis Presley was or who this mysterious ‘he’ was, though. “It’s delicious, is it not? Orin claims he invented it.”

  “The fuck he did.” Garth screwed the lid back on and held onto the glass jar for all it was worth. He would fight to the death to protect this unasked for Godsend. This was manna from Heaven. “This is Doctor Monkhouse’s Special Tangy BBQ Wonder Sauce #3. It’s a rib sauce and the recipe is thirty thousand years old.”

  “If you say so, sa.” Ute chuckled at the way Garth held on to the jar. He would tell the blue-eyed weirdo tomorrow that the trunk of his car held thirty more jars from the LFF front man.

  “Damn right I do.” Garth jerked his thumb at Herrig, Candall and the other mercs, who were just sort of chitchatting now. “Why in the fuck weren’t these guys attacked? I mean, shit. We fought a running battle across goddamn miles of open road. We were full on Mad Max Road Warrioring it from Central, man. We had God soldiers in tiny little airplanes, we had gangsters in hotrods, we had mercenaries in tanks. It was like a fucking episode of the Laff-A-Lympics out there! Hell, we even almost got blown up by Orbital missiles! These guys fly their stupidly huge heavy fliers carrying a hundred ton bullet from somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and nothing. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m totally super glad it didn’t happen that way because I’m sure Vasily would show up at our doorstep, but still.”

  Ute shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.” In point of fact, Candall had bribed a fairly large number of people he knew in various positions of authority to look anywhere else but the flight path they’d taken from Orin’s farms to the UltraMegaDynamaTron complex.

  Garth cast Ute a dark look. He was pretty sure the lumbering behemoth was messing with him. “I’ll give you just lucky.”

  Ute bowed. “As you wish.”

  Garth wheeled around. “Herrig! Hey, Herrig. Offer these guys some cots. I dunno why they didn’t get airstriked into oblivion, but they’re past curfew now and whatever magic spell they cast probably ran out. I’d feel bad if they got blowed up.”

  Candall tipped an imaginary hat. “Much obliged, sa, much obliged. Don’t worry, me and my boys will be quiet as mice.”

  Garth gritted his teeth. “You even know what the fuck a mice is? Hah!” Garth pointed at Candall’s confused look. “Yeah, no. I didn’t think so. Fucking causality differentials. Jesus.”

  Griffin Jones was on Hospitalis and kicking up tiny little paradox-storms. Not enough to affect anything, but the questions of why and how burned through him.

  What could it mean?

  Nighttime Metallurgy 101

  The process to get him where he needed to be in terms of functional equipment was going to be time-consuming and Garth wasn’t all that pleased that the process was going to be a solo adventure; Sabellik was off in his own labs doing what the fuck ever it was that a guy poisoned by Reality needed to do and Garth wasn’t about to butt in and ask for help. It was too risky, meaning he was just going to have to rely on what he did have.

  Which was basically ‘just a bunch of robots’. The ‘bots would be helpful to a degree, but without AI to run things, a watchful eye on the avatars was necessary, which meant having to go much slower than … desirable.

  Ab
sentmindedly watching a few of the resilient construction robots clatter and clank around Acme’s warehouse floor, Garth considered the steps of the operation one last time.

  First, he’d taken control of the original gravnetic shield generators used to protect UltraMegaDynamaTron from the Chairwoman’s missile attack because the first thing that crazy broad or the OverCommander would do when they got their heads right was wander over to ask why his property showed zero signs of even incidental damage. Though not as powerful as the ex-dee ramped up field emitters, they had enough power to section up the duronium. Garth figured at least half would burn out from the abuse, but that was all right. The robots, with their incredibly fine tool-hands, were making more right that moment. They wouldn’t be ready right away, but that, too, was all right; the new gravny-gens weren’t necessary for something as simple as dicing up a chunk of duronium. They had something more impressive to do, which was kind of why Garth wanted an audience; he was going to be performing goddamn magic tonight, and robots were anything but appreciative.

  The new machines would turn blocks of freshly quartered duronium into ultra-fine sand. Once there was enough ‘sand’, the gravny-gens would –with a lot of swearing and elbow grease- be repurposed into their true form.

  A nanobox, a device sharing more than a few points of similarity with Proteus Creation Units.

  Similar, yes, but with one very notable difference.

  His nanobox would be hy-tech. Well, okay, two notable differences. His would be hy-tech and it would be able to make more than just a proteus. Technically, it wouldn't be a nanobox at all. More of a ‘gravity-induced molecular bonding machine’, really.

  “Nanobox sounds cooler, though.” Garth murmured.

  Using powerful gravity waves to press that duronium dust into a box –complete with circuitry and everything needed for complex machinery- would take an hour to do properly. If he rushed, if he pushed the emitters too hard or if the avatars running things went weird right in the middle, well, a gravnetic explosion would be bad.

  It’d be so much simpler if had one of the ex-dee fueled generators. One could reform the dust to spec instead of the five or six he was being ‘forced’ to use.

  Distracted by momentary worries over Oscar having taken possession of ex-dee powered generators, Garth twiddled his thumbs. Should he go and take a peek? It felt like a bad idea. He felt guilty enough as it was that Oscar was the way he was. Going over there would make him feel all weird and he’d never been very good at apologies. How would you even apologize for something like that? ‘Hey, sorry you got blasted with radiation from Reality and, um, I’m really really sorry your head is full of my batshit insane ideas, but hey, good news is you probably got some Rob Zombie or Nine Inch Nails soundtracks in there too, right?’.

  Garth snorted at his own assholery. Yeah, that’d fly real well. He refocused on the plan. The plan was everything.

  Once the ‘nanobox’ was done, it’d be time for the magic.

  Quantum field emitters. Twelve of them. The most powerful tool in all of Unreality.

  The very thing, the very thing, that’d enabled Alpha and Bravo to fly without engines, to stop time for thirty thousand years, to … to fold the ‘laws’ of their mutable Unreality into unrecognizable shapes. In this instance, though, the scope of the QFE’s was going to be very limited. Very, very limited; without access to his own ex-dee powers, these particular quantum field emitters were going to be running off the energy thrown out by some enriched duronium brought right to the edge of decay. A risky procedure and probably only the second most dangerous of the evening, but the power was essential go get to the next stage of weapon development. Driven by decaying enriched duronium, the restricted QFE’s lifespan could be measured in seconds.

  All he’d need was thirty seconds. Thirty seconds at one hundred percent output. Thirty seconds to dig safely through the Conquistador cap.

  Thirty seconds to drain the ultra-rich energy contained within.

  Thirty seconds to destroy all that remained of his life in Reality.

  It was necessary.

  As much as Garth hated using this particular resource, it was too impossibly rich to ignore. It’d take an even dozen standard-battery powered QFE’s to safely dig a hole through one side of the cap and to handle the torrential flood of volatile energy pouring through and two to be powered up and ready to ‘re-cap’ the hole the very second the twelve failed.

  And they would fail.

  It didn’t matter, though. The ultra-rich energy powering the smaller nanobox didn’t need to be on for long. Just long enough for everything to get up and running. Driven by Reality-infused energy, the small nanobox would be able to mass-produce Quantum Field Emitters in a stupendously short time. These QFE’s would be truly powerful beasts equal to anything in the Unreal Universe.

  All so he could build a bigger, better nanobox.

  “Maybe ten? No. Twenty.”

  The small ‘box would be used to build the weapons for the Versus 8, but on the far side of building a duronium whip and a few other surprises rest the best God soldier in the system.

  Gurant. Gurant loomed on the horizon like grinning Armageddon.

  There was no getting around the fact that he couldn’t beat Gurant. The monster was a truly superlative combatant. The Eight … weren’t going to be too bad. With so many on the field at once … it wasn’t going to be child’s play, but it was going to be a helluva lot easier than one on one. Especially with the weapons he was designing. Gurant, on the other hand, was, as they said, a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

  To that end, he was contemplating something foolish. Necessary, but … foolish.

  Necessity was a bitch.

  Garth turned and ran his hands across Acme’s Main controls and stared thoughtfully at the schematics he’d been working on all day. He flicked his hands and the holographic emitters burst into life above the heads of the robots.

  The whip was a thing of beauty. Soon to be folded into existence by intensely powerful gravity waves instead of the clumsily dangerous nanotech that Latelians used, the duronium whip would be a thing of micro-scaled quantum-state wizardry. The particles making this whip –indeed, all his weapons- were a thousand times smaller than ‘nano’.

  A flick of the wrist one way would send the dagger-sharp tip through layers of duronium sheathing, piercing the meaty goodness of a Goddie. A flick the other way would send a shiver down the length of the whip and those micro-scales would spin, ripping and shredding whatever was in the way, deadly sharp burrs gouging through metal, meat and bone without hesitation.

  The rules for the Game were quite specific. No complex moving parts. Nothing powered. Nothing that shot anything. The whip didn’t violate the laws, except that they did, only in ways that the Latelians hadn’t counted on. The whole fucking thing was a moving part, it was just that the mechanisms were infinitely smaller than anything they’d ever imagined. The whip would be a marvel of the modern age, a truly unique thing requiring nearly a ton of duronium to forge properly. It was going to be one of the most deadly things anyone in Latelyspace had ever seen.

  Garth flicked through the other weapons he’d designed, looking at them objectively, critically. He didn’t have a lot of time to waste and the last thing he wanted was to change his mind after he’d built something.

  All were devastating; all would be built using duronium sand as a base. All had subatomic-sized engine parts that would take the kinetic energy used to throw them or use them and do amazing things and again, the Latelians would see miracles. Their own equipment wasn’t –and never would be- sophisticated enough to look deep enough. Their scanners would see solid objects and they’d laugh.

  The darts, for example, would blow their goddamn collective minds. They’d see things that looked like standard darts. They were, like everything he made, anything but. Once baked, they could be thrown around corners, at sharp angles, in any direction he wanted. Blades would spring up when each body started spinning
fast enough and they’d bore through soft, meaty parts of God soldiers like hot knives through butter, and they’d chew through duronium like a fat kid through a plate of nachos. It would be grotesque. It was just the sort of thing that the Latelians thought they wanted to see. Even as the Latelians boggled ay what was happening, they would shout themselves hoarse for months over the violence.

  There was a horrendously toothed axe that would trap heat generated from the friction of being swung, heat that would burn through God soldier flesh at about a thousand degrees. He had a sword that would do the same; he’d wanted to go for a lightning sword, but again … it was about time.

  All of them, powered by kinetic energy using engines and machine parts smaller than anything the Universe had ever seen in thirty thousand years.

  Garth nodded. These new weapons of terror and majesty would perform well against the Eight. Alas, none would scratch Gurant.

  This was why he’d designed … what he’d designed.

  Garth flicked his hands again and stared morosely at insanity. It was elegance made manifest. It was why he was building a nanobox big enough for a man to stand in.

  It would use the remaining energy inside the cap and all the remaining duronium.

  Shimmering above robots who would never appreciate the graceful elegance of quadronium circuitry, Garth’s ultimate design beckoned. Based on but vastly improved-upon neural sheathes, the q-circuitry would –if he survived the process- be burned into his bones, laced across his organs, spread through his veins, drilled through every atom.

  It would transform him, turn him into God soldier Plus. There was simply no other way to survive to the end, to reach the goal he’d set for himself thirty thousand years ago.

  Garth laughed at the irony.