Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “Would you like to be restored to your former glory?” Fenris saw Ute start. Of course, the answer was ‘yes’. The ex-God soldier had been operating without a soul for just over two thousand years.

  “You can do this?” Ute asked suspiciously.

  “What can be taken away can be returned, Ute. From a dollar bill to the powers of a Titan. There is little difference. You have earned it. Your brothers and sisters survived being Sigma’d because of your long-enduring sacrifice.”

  “I … I don’t understand.”

  “The trap laid behind by … by an enemy was not for you to have found.” Fenris rumbled again, anger filling him at how terribly things had gone that day. “In point of fact, it was a trap left behind for your new employer, Garth N’Chalez. When my brothers and I discovered that you and yours had tripped it, we hastened to save you, but in so doing, we exposed ourselves. The vast majority of you were Onesies, and although barely articulate, one would have eventually discovered a way to relate what they’d seen. So … and so we engineered the Sigma that shut the horde off from the world. Secrecy concerning our survival was paramount.”

  “I understand.” Ute nodded slowly. He could barely remember the details of what they’d found, and wondered briefly if that was thanks to the passage of time or another gift from Fenris that made it so. “And me? Why?”

  Fenris smiled toothily. It was an unkind answer, of sorts. “Truthfully, for the most part, curiosity. Could a God soldier exist without access to the majority of his cybernetic components? How much of what a God solider is was due to implants and metal bones? Looking at a God soldier from our point of view was to see … a mockery. Straw dolls made by children.”

  “And the answer?” Ute had spent nearly a hundred years thinking about that. He’d only managed to spend so much time considering the imponderable facts of his enduring life because, as a Twoesie, he’d possessed a nearly unbreakable ability to stare at his bellybutton for hours on end. The ex-God soldier was unbelievably grateful that his … de-Godification … had happened as a Twoesie and not a Onesie. The thought of living life as a simpering moron struck him as not only terrible, but implausible. Someone would’ve noticed a massive simpleton standing in a park smelling flowers for a thousand years.

  “Very little.” Fenris clapped Ute on the shoulder. “And that is a good thing, sa. It means you and the others have just enough of a connection to the Harmony to be useful. With time, patience and training, that usefulness will grow and swell to become critical.”

  “War?”

  “Oh my yes.” Fenris answered, grabbing hold of Ute’s head between his hands and pressing. “A war that will rage across the heavens, a war to blot out suns and destroy galaxies. A war of Existence, a battle royal for a New Reality, Sa Ute, and God willing, you will be at the forefront.”

  Ute tried to open his mouth to utter some comment on how that pleased him just fine but a trembling agony welled up from his bones and screamed through every blood vessel in his body. Contact points and embedded avatars long dead rose from their two thousand year slumber to bring him back to full efficacy.

  xxx

  “When is a door not a door?” Garth muttered angrily to himself, listening to the crazy-ass Latelians enjoying the hell out of the mid-game show. They were losing their minds over something. “When it’s a fucking plum. That’s how much sense this makes.”

  Over the loudspeakers, pop sensation Indra Sahari stammered out an obviously forced statement of congratulation to the winner of the 8 vs. 1 category before launching into a cover of a song Garth thought he’d never hear again; his own recreation of ‘A Little Less Conversation’ by none other than Elvis Presley, hammered into submission by L-Pop.

  Garth put his head into his hands and started laughing until the tears came. At the very beginning of his odyssey in Special Services, he’d been ‘given leave’ to deal with an irate branch of Tynedale/Fujihara, a trek inevitably taking him to the horror-show known as Gorensworld.

  He’d spent as much time recreating that Real song as he had trying to figure out a way to deal with Tynedale/Fujihara, a feat that Trinity hadn’t appreciated at all. Failing to recognize the song as impossibility, the vast machine mind had nevertheless warned him most severely about the punishments for resurrecting anything from the past that ‘wasn’t still around’.

  “Not too bad, though.” Garth nodded appreciatively once the song got into full swing. L-Pop was a wonky collision of house music combined with orchestral Regimist martial instrumentation, but the King’s influence was undeniable.

  And then he heard it. A thin, pure note twining its way through the overpowering din. A thread of sound so powerful that –once you heard it, if you could- there was nothing else to hear.

  “Oh shit.” Garth fell out of the chair. “Ohshitohshitohshit. This … this is … b-bad.”

  The slender thread of Harmony reached out and tickled the first of the Quantum Field Emitters buried inside the vast quadronium form existing inside Garth N’Chalez.

  xxx

  In agony himself, Ute nevertheless found himself running towards Garth’s changing room; the bone-chilling shrieks filled his veins with ice water.

  “No.” Fenris put a hand on Ute’s shoulder, and the God soldier stopped moving. “No.”

  “But … but he needs,” Ute groaned against the pain and the desire to move, “he needs help.”

  “If he is who he appears to be, this is a thing that must be done on his own, Sa Ute.”

  “What if he fails?” Ute demanded, panting against the changes ripping through him.

  “Then,” Fenris said simply, “he dies.”

  xxx

  Garth writhed on the ground, mentally forcing the raging torrent of power to heed his commands. He’d found the route –the only route- that would accept the particular flavor of Harmony evoked by Indra’s passionate cover of the Real song. Now it was just a matter of getting everything going without dying in the process.

  A deep click rattled his bones as if he’d been thumped by a big hammer. It left his head ringing and his tongue stinging from where he’d bitten it.

  … Stage one complete gross physical enhancement online …

  Garth rose shakily to his feet and looked at himself in the mirror. “I wouldn’t call me gross.”

  The power flowing through his veins –well, technically not his veins, but the machinery lacing his entire body- was … different. Because the power coming out of Indra’s song was an echo plucking at the slender threads of the true song he’d recreated on Gorensworld, there was barely enough to get the augments working. He knew before the operating system came on-line that he was nowhere near as powerful as he’d been while under the sheathes. The power coursing through him right now had brought him up to Kin’kithal levels, but it wasn’t permanent; the QFE controlling the ‘gross physical enhancement’ protocols was barely spinning. Sooner rather than later, it’d stop.

  Garth read the very simple, much unadorned output cautiously, reminding himself that nothing had gone the way it was supposed to’ve. In short order he learned some very unsurprising things.

  First and foremost, the machinery he’d built for himself was now officially and one hundred percent unrecognizable. Adding the complex quantum field emitters and the coding to work them alone had completely rewired the main OS and everything associated with it into something unrecognizable. Hell, the OS lacked the capacity to identify what was what, let alone what each thing was supposed to do.

  Suddenly wishing he’d spent more time working on the control mechanisms, Garth did his best to make heads or tails of what he was being told. If he was reading the raw data properly, he was in a world of trouble; each sequence of QFE’s –Garth still couldn’t get over their unlikely positioning at the chakra points and probably never would- required massive bursts of energy to spin up to full power.

  Theoretically, Fenris or one of the others could assist him in discovering a safe path to Harmony, but the ex-Spect
er thought that was the most unlikely thing ever. Fenris was a dick.

  How did one go about finding Harmony without being introduced to it by someone else? The original soldiers had had the Hesh, Fenris and his cronies had gained their connection to it by their machines … it wasn’t going to be easy. Recreating the joyous, tumultuous sounds of rock and roll from Reality would give him temporary power, but nothing more.

  No, if he wanted the Quantum Field Emitters powered up properly, he needed to find Harmony on his own.

  “What a fucking drag.” It was painfully ironic. He’d spent his whole life avoiding Harmony and now he needed it. Garth shrugged and continued digesting what the pathetically underwhelming OS was spouting.

  There wasn’t much, and what was there wasn’t encouraging.

  His original intent had been to create a ‘body’ mimicking the powers and abilities of a Kin’kithal coupled with the imperviousness provided by quadronium, turning him into an unstoppable juggernaut.

  That wasn’t the case. Not by a long shot. Each QFE bisected a major ‘intersection’ of enhancements and machinery, neatly preventing him from accessing entire ranges of abilities until the emitter itself was functional.

  That was it. Raw data was giving no clues about the form, function or nature of the new enhancements. Staring at the configurations meant little when you didn’t have a goddamn clue what you were looking at.

  Oh, the basics of what he’d tossed in were still there. Strength, speed, endurance, agility. That was bargain basement stuff, the absolute lowest tier of powers available to a Kin’kithal. Things like telekinesis were buried behind a QFE and again, if he was reading things properly, the emitters had to follow a sequential boot procedure. In short, there’d be no skipping superhuman strength to the top tier, where telekinesis was undoubtedly placed.

  Still. A little was better than nothing at all. For the time being, he had enough juice to survive some of Gurant’s attacks. The new plan was to survive long enough in the ring to come up with something else.

  Garth flexed a couple times in front of the mirror. He still had no clue how he was going to defeat Gurant. Then he remembered that Fenris was … well, Fenris and that Huey and Ute were outside.

  xxx

  Huey slapped Garth’s hand away, glowering. “You slap me again, boss, I’ll slap you back.”

  “You is welcome to try, mate.” Garth shook his head. “That was a bad idea.”

  Huey snorted, looking around the commons area. He’d already downloaded all the recorded footage, so he knew what’d transpired between Ute and Fenris. The AI was surprised that he could find no historical records of this ‘trap’ that the Sigma Five referred to, not even in the HIM’s own databanks. The same went for any mention of this ‘enemy’ that Fenris had mentioned. “Yes. Mimicking the man who almost killed you and who isn’t dead is … wrong.”

  Garth wrinkled his forehead. “I remember poking an ex-dee finger through his chest. That’s the kind of thing that kills a dude.”

  Huey turned to Ute and pried open an eyelid. “You see a body?”

  Garth pulled open Ute’s other eyeball. His online scanners went beep and nothing else. Lame. “Well, no.”

  Huey considered the stream of data rushing through Ute and back out into the HIM’s quantum field. The man was undergoing what was best described as spontaneous evolution; whatever hijinkery Fenris had exposed Ute to so many thousands of years ago to prevent the man from gaining access to the upper-tier augments of a God soldier had been undone in the blink of an eye. The ex-God soldier’s central nervous system and all the bundled nerves connecting to the augments –which had grown, regardless of access- were alive with a tremendous amount of neural activity. “You see the big flash of light in the sky?”

  Garth looked around for something to bend. The only thing he could find were the God soldiers staring stupidly. “Uhuh. Hey. Yes. Yes I did. And I saw a purple flash, too. What was up with that?”

  Analysis showed Ute was going to be okay. Even though he’d never had conscious access to the plethora of weird machines sprouting like mechanical mushrooms throughout his massive frame, each of the distributed ‘LINK-systems had. In all likelihood, Ute had learned of each new addition to his God soldier body the moment he’d reached an evolutionary stage, a fact that was aiding in the infodump he was currently experiencing. Huey let go of Ute’s eyelid, satisfied that it was just a matter of time before Ute opened his eyes and was his stoic self.

  “Purple flash?” Huey mimicked Garth’s wrinkled forehead perfectly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t do that.” Garth said, pointing an accusatory finger at Huey. “I recognize my own forehead moves. That’s creepy. Learn your own.” He dropped the line of questioning quickly; after dealing with Lisa and her continued impressive impassiveness, it wasn’t as hard as one might think.

  “So.” Huey shared the wall with Ute. “What, uh, happened in there?” There were no cameras or spEyes in the change rooms, and besides all that, Fenris had gone out of his way to shield the conversation.

  Garth shrugged. “I think … I think those Harmony Soldiers are on our side. More or less.”

  Huey found that statement funny enough to laugh. “Harmony Soldiers aren’t on anyone’s side, boss. They’re literal devils, interested only in destroying. Even the Kith and Kin had a hard time controlling them.”

  “One day,” Garth clapped Huey on the shoulder, “one day you’re going to tell me precisely how you know shit like that. Right?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally. Right after I tell you how they made Caramilk bars.” Huey poked Ute in the chest. Stone cold silence.

  “I still think they’re on our side.”

  “Spill.”

  Garth eyed the GigantiSheets overhead; on them, a Foursie was either being attacked by a hundred midgets or exceptionally brave children, all to the endless amusement of the crowd. Each of the midget children were kitted out with big foam swords and the Foursie was finding himself continually swamped in a sea of multicolored Nerf attacks. “When the conversion chambers were discovered, the geeks in charge saw they couldn’t remove the loyalty programming entirely, and believe me, I bet they tried. What they did discover was a way to reverse that shit. I can see them thinking…”

  “Any loyalty that is the opposite of Universal destroyers has got to be the same as being loyal to the Latelian Regime.” Huey rolled his eyes. Latelians. “When I invent time travel, I’m so going to find out who filled those guys’ heads full of ideas. Jesus.”

  Narrowing his eyes at being interrupted, Garth continued. “In reality, hah, sorry, bad taste. In actuality, if I’m right, that whole ‘reverse the polarity’ dealie resulted in five super badass dudes interested in …”

  Garth faltered, for a number of reasons. One, Ute had opened his eyes, which was pleasant.

  The second –far less enthusiastic and pleasing- reason? The destruction of everything as the basis behind his sleeping for thirty thousand years zoomed up and out of the darkness in his heart in response to the reasons for the Five being ‘helpful’.

  The Heshii had been at the game a long time. Fenris and the others were ‘loyal’ to the opposite of destroying the Universe for the advancement of the Heshii’s long-term goals …

  What did that mean for him? Fenris had literally choked a horrible admission from him, that he’d come this far into the future to destroy everything.

  But why? What … what fucking purpose would that serve? Why would he destroy everything? That was antithetical to everything he believed in. Assuming his clutch response to Fenris’ demands was true –and Garth fucking hoped it wasn’t- and everything laid down thirty thousand years ago was to aid in the destruction of their Unreality, how was that a worthwhile goal? How could Fenris find that acceptable?

  Garth promised that if Bravo didn’t supply the answer to that severely aggravating question, major asskickings were going to be handed out to everyone. He would literally fly
around the Universe kicking everyone’s ass.

  Everything centered on Reality. That much was obvious. A Reality he no longer had access to, which broke his heart every time he thought about it. No more chance for rock and roll, no more sci-fi movies, no way to figure out how to sneak Naoko across.

  But more than that, if he didn’t have the power to kill the M’Zahdi Hesh before they destroyed the Unreality, how in the ungodly fuck was he going to do the same damn thing for –he hoped- ‘nobler reasons’. Garth shouted incoherently. He was going in goddamn circles.

  The ex-Specter turned his attention to Ute, who was showing all the classic signs of coming back to the real world.

  “Hey, man, how do you feel?” Garth wiggled a finger back and forth in front of Ute’s dilated eyes and the man responded by rolling those same eyes.

  “I am fine, sa.” Ute flexed and felt a thrill of joy rush through him. It’d been a long, long time since he’d felt … whole. It’d been so long, in fact, that he’d started thinking that he was complete. In command of the systems that made him a God soldier after two thousand years told him that’d been a necessary lie. “Better than fine. I am me again.”

  “Hah!” Garth flexed his own muscles. “Me too, kinda. So, you met that guy before, I guess?”

  “A long time ago, on the edge of this galaxy, during a training mission. My brothers and I awoke an ancient trap. They rose up and defeated the … enemy, but in so doing, were forced to arrange the Sigma-ing of us all.” Ute closed his eyes for a moment. Even as a fresh Twoesie, still partially numbed by the drugs assisting in slowing down the already evident evolutionary process in God soldiers, he’d been filled with sickening sorrow at the speech Fenris had given them all. Necessary, the Five had called it. Important. “I … I was the only Twoesie. We were rarer, back then. Fenris asked me if I was interested in aiding my brothers and sisters by seeing if I could live as a man, if it was the implants that made a God soldier or the thread. I … I did not want to die. I knew that the Five could not hide what’d happened out there from the Chairman, that, eventually, what we had all seen would bring the Sigma. We had already seen regular men and women suffer under the Sigma, watched them slowly die as the machines in our world refused to recognize their presence.”