Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  The ‘Priests had considered Spur long and hard. What Chadsik said was true. Spur wouldn’t let the kidnapping go. Trapped as he was inside BishopCo’s massive holdings, the unique android wasn’t as limited as many thought. The EuroJapanese android would hound them just as fervently as Trinity. Still. The risk had to be taken, regardless of any trials that arose later. “Nevertheless. She is needed. You will…”

  “Yeah yeah yeah, I get is. I will acquire ‘er. Jesus, mate, you is a fuckin’ broken record today, yeah?”

  Ohm239 turned to confront Chadsik one last time, to remind the assassin specifically why he’d been transformed into a singular and unique entity with memories spanning hundreds of thousands of iterations of Unreality and the power to summon forth things from those shattered realms, only to see the FrancoBrit mooning him from a hundred feet in the air, dangling precariously from the side of his hoverbike merely so the angle would be perfect.

  Ohm239, CyberPriest and thirty thousand years old, danced out of the way to avoid being hit in the head with offal. “I hate that man.”

  Warm thoughts from his brethren echoed the sentiment.

  Once Naoko Kamagana was kidnapped and forced to hack Chadsik’s psyche, they would at long last have themselves the ultimate weapon they’d always dreamed of.

  And then, oh and then their Savior would ride forth and destroy the Enemy and from there, they would raze the whole of the glittering Reality that lay on the other side of their shattered and bleak Unreality until finally, at long last, there was nothing but the blissful and pure Nothing.

  ***

  Naoko looked thoughtfully at the viewscreens, then compared the data streaming through her proteus. It was mind-boggling to think that the whole of Humanity, the scope and stretch that was her race, had come from a single planet, in a single solar system. It was unthinkable. The rationalist inside her denied the very real proof that were Latelian history files; though much of her own planet's history had been lost across five thousand years of war and dissemination by the 'great and wise Chair', documentation chronicling the expansion of Mankind across the stars was more cohesive in Latelyspace than in any other system in the Universe.

  The only being to know more was the Trinity AI, and as Garth would say, "It ain't sayin' shit."

  A single world. Countless trillions of men, women and children, spread across a literal fathomless depth of planets, asteroids, space stations and other forms of habitat too bizarre to even contemplate. A single species, transformed and manipulated and regressed and ascended into a billion different echoes of that one pure strain, each more dizzyingly wonderful than the last.

  It was a miracle too profound to consider.

  "Looks like a dead apple, don't it?" Greuz asked from the co-pilot's chair. He'd gotten used to surrendering most of his authority to the young Miss fairly quickly on, and, truth be told, the old captain would admit that the girl had gotten his unruly crew onto a track that he'd been wishing to follow for some time.

  "Or a dead dog's arse." Seta muttered sullenly, rubbing the nub where the tip of a finger used to be. They'd had to chop the end off. She could still feel the whole finger, and it was driving her mad.

  "One world." Naoko shook her head. The majesty of it all. The horror of what 'Earth' had become. “One people.”

  According to Greuz, who'd somehow managed to stay in the employ of Jordan Bishop longer than was mathematically possible, the Trinity AI insisted that all the big players in Human Commerce remain on the planet until the stars themselves died. That had massive Conglomerates like BishopCo, Tynedale/Fujihara, Voss_Uderhell and others chained to the dying rock like prisoners.

  And, like prisoners, fat, rich, obscenely wealthy and unconscionably powerful prisoners, they rebelled. They wanted freedom that the poorest and most basic of commoners owned, the freedom to set foot on new ground in strange solar systems, they wanted the right to shift their power bases away from murderous friends and devious enemies.

  Since they could not have that, they continued to poison their world, to destroy their land, to suffocate everyone and everything around them in the hopes that, like Greuz's dead apple, one day, the world would slough off its skin and Trinity would be forced to allow the powerful their freedoms.

  Alligorni scratched his jaw. He'd never been this close to Trinity Prime. Frankly, it made his balls sweat. He'd tried convincing the others to shift Naoko to another cruiser in Bishop's employ. Well, okay, he'd spent roughly three seconds trying, failing after a claustrophobic and panicky silence had literally erupted from the other crewmembers.

  Trinity Prime.

  Alli'd grown up with horror stories of the madness that roiled under the skin. The Mad Goth King Blake lived in his even madder Arcade City, running his citizens through an endless gauntlet of endurance, pain and madness, forcing them to look up into the heavens, not at a sky, but a bizarre clockwork dome of brutal mechanics whenever they sought freedom. Alli could trace his lineage back six hundred years, and there was FrancoBritish blood pumping in his veins.

  What if that Mad King called to him? What if there was something in the blood you couldn’t get rid of, even if you’d never even come from Arcade City? What then?

  Worse still was the EuroJapanese Dome. Like the King's only forged from energy, the Emperor's Dome kept everything and everyone out. No one knew what happened on the other side of the impenetrable glistening field. Men and women, penitents and parishioners to the word of the Eternal Emperor came and went all the time, but never said anything about what they'd seen, what they'd heard, what they'd learned.

  In his time as a pirate and kidnapper, actually, in all their times, every man and woman aboard the Zhivago had run into both FrancoBrits and EJ's direct from their motherlands, and of the two, Alli'd rather talk to one of the stone cold killers from Arcade City than the blank-eyed gossamer servants of the Emperor.

  You could feel the terror and madness survivors of the King's predations lived with, day in, day out. You could look into their eyes and understand that they'd been through something few beings could handle.

  When you talked to someone who'd held audience with Emperor for Life, they had no idea what they'd seen. And they didn't care. They'd seen their leader, a being divine and wondrous. Or so they said.

  Alli usually wound up killing anyone who'd met the Emperor. Talking to them made it feel like his brain was sliding out his ear.

  A panel at Greuz's shoulder beeped. He read the information over. "We have docking permission. BishopCo Tower Alpha." He sent the data over to Naoko.

  Naoko nodded. "Take us in if you would, Captain Greuz?"

  The passengers aboard the Zhivago watched in awe as a … a … a skin around the world seemed to ripple for a second. Then, a brilliant square blossomed to light and a large number of automated security drones arrived, sprouting weapons by the dozen.

  Alli bit back a surge of hot bile while the others, damn their eyes, just whistled or nodded appreciatively. Worst of all was Naoko herself; the Latelian positively beamed with pleasure, which meant that somehow, that damnable maniac who'd destroyed some kind of living god back in Latelyspace was involved in what they were witnessing.

  "Gravnetic field generators." Naoko supplied, choosing to take Alligorni's expression as one of interest and not blackened fear. "The technology generates the most powerful energy protection in the known universe. My boyfriend developed it."

  After having seen some of what Garth Nickels was capable of, no one on the bridge would've blinked an eye had Naoko said 'my boyfriend eats planets and travels through time by blinking'.

  The crewmembers of the Zhivago exchanged a look. Greuz, happy at long last to see the return of his ship, their safety and, most importantly, his sanity loom on the horizon, shrugged and set about piloting their ship through the shield corridor.

  ***

  Spur did his best to ignore the words whispering directly into his mind; Jordan Bishop had grown increasingly possessive of Naoko Kamagana, litera
lly attempting to will into existence a universe where she was capable of doing exactly as he demanded, a world in which she fell in love with him and forgave him the predatory excesses he’d indulged in, a world where she accepted that he’d intentionally affected the growth and stability of an entire solar system for his own, personal needs. With Naoko so close to being in his possession, the four hundred year old Conglomerate head was acting like a foolish schoolboy.

  The android reflected that it was very likely possible that the young Latelian woman was indeed capable of creating an artificial intelligence powerful enough to rival the Trinity AI. There was certainly every indication that the pressure-cooker that was Latelyspace could churn out the most amazing men and women; data files were at long last coming in surrounding those last few days before everything had gone so catastrophically wrong, and Spur was … impressed. Appalled. Amazed.

  Doctor Hollyoak was a genius that should’ve been aborted in the womb and his mother and father thrown into the sun. Where Bishop had skewed the intellectual and political growth of the system to meet his needs, Hollyoak had never met an abomination he didn’t like. The things he’d done to further the militaristic goals of the martial arm of Latelyspace were a thousand times worse than anything done by Medellos Medical, a million times worse than anything perpetrated by the Emperor-for-Life. There were few beings in the universe that made an unfeeling android feel revulsion, but Hollyoak topped the list.

  The short-named ex-God soldier, Ute, turned liaison for a freshly rechristened government run by a surpassingly talented ex-banker was another miracle made flesh. The ‘man’ was perhaps the oldest living mortal being not named Nickels and not affiliated with the Emperor-for-Life. Behind him stood five shadowy figures, dark legends that Spur wished he could ignore, but couldn’t; it was obvious to Spur that these men, one of whom was named Fenris, were somehow the precursor for the God soldiers that had, once upon a time, filled the Universe with fear.

  There were others. The list was nearly endless. Ex-Chairwoman Doans. Excluding her stellar descent in lunacy, the finest organic political mind in Existence, possibly beside Herrig DuPont himself. The deceased Bolobo, an impressive hacker and first true man/machine melded entity. Hamilton Barnes. Allegedly deceased but apparently not content to let that death get in the way of doing … something.

  All these and others trailed behind the fiery star that was Garth Nickels, a … a caveman, as Jordan put it, from thirty thousand years in the past, yet nevertheless a herald of dark, dangerous and destructive times. Unfathomably intelligent, devastatingly merciless, the legend of The Specter had passed so deep into the dankest corners of the Cordon that the android found himself pleased, yes pleased, that the dark-haired, blue-eyed devil had vanished from Existence.

  Because were it not for that disappearance, Spur would not allow this … acquisition to pass. There were things happening, things taking place in the dark of the bruised and misbegotten world he lived on, things that would draw the attention of Garth Nickels like a moth to a flame. As much as the ancient android knew that Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles would want Naoko Kamagana, no matter the cost, Spur couldn’t allow Garth to spend one second on ‘Earth’. Neither man could be allowed to have Naoko. Nor Trinity, when it came down to it. The only being permitted to have access to Naoko Kamagana was no man at all, but the Emperor-for-Life Himself, just … just not here. Not on Old Earth.

  Communication relays beamed the Zhivago’s descent pattern into Spur’s mind. The android nodded. Around him, check and ready signals flickered.

  Spur was no fool. Everyone who was anyone knew that Jordan was doing something risky today, that whatever cargo was being delivered directly to damn near the man’s front door was a prize unparalleled. Any of the other Conglomerates would leap at the chance to steal from their eldest. It didn’t matter they were allied in the Brotherhood. They were vicious animals. They’d do whatever they could to rise to the top, and if that meant killing everyone else, that was what they’d do.

  There was more military presence surrounding the landing ‘bay’ than had been seen since the last great Conglomerate War. Bishop had pulled nearly every single FrancoBritish warrior he had at his command from their posts throughout the vast BishopCo domain. Entire worlds under the BishopCo banner were currently being protected by nothing more than AI and their automated systems. Risky; left unattended, some AI systems … twitched. Colonies were lost that way.

  Metal spires home to hundreds of thousands rose up for thousands of feet on either side of the area marked for Naoko’s landing. Flickering, glittering ferrocrete coffins stuffed to sardine-like profusion with men, women, Offworlders, and their never-ending cavalcade of offspring. Spur could feel their beady eyes on him, on the flaring strobe lights that announced it wasn’t safe for anyone to walk through the ‘courtyard’. The android could feel them trying to figure out what was happening, who was coming, could what was happening be turned to their advantage.

  AI minds reached out and slammed all the windows shut, locked all the doors, and filled every comm channel in every room in every building with the same warning. ‘Mind your business or Bishop will mind you.’

  Spur nodded again, pleased. Bishop’s grubs were contained. The countdown reached go-no go limits. His eyes, the product of highest EuroJapanese science, picked out the contrails left by the Zhivago as it slowed down.

  This, then, would be the tricky part. How to steal Naoko Kamagana from Jordan Bishop without the man finding out, without the veritable army of grizzled veterans killing him where he stood, without violating Trinity’s Laws; surely the immense AI hadn’t missed what was going on, and It’s … lack of involvement in the proceedings was bothering Spur more than he was willing to admit, even to himself.

  Spur permitted himself the smallest of smiles as acknowledgement from the leader of the mercenary army brought in by Bishop came through an encrypted channel. They were willing to kidnap the girl from under their employer’s nose if they could gain audience with the Emperor-for-Life. There were few people who could resist such a lure; next to Trinity Itself, there was, at least theoretically, no one being with more power in the entire Universe.

  Spur agreed to the caveat without hesitating. Once the girl was safely hurtling away from Zanzibar to some other place, where men implicitly trusted by the Emperor-for-Life could find her, then he and the mercenaries would make their way to the Emperor’s glorious Dome.

  Soon, then, he would be free to return to his Lord and Master.

  The Zhivago hove into unaugmented view. The men prepared themselves. Some would die, but the prize… ahhh, the prize. Men were ever the soul of avarice, oh yes, yes they were.

  ***

  Jordan couldn’t resist staring at Naoko’s luxurious face. In his time in Trinityspace, he’d seen exotic beauties, both human and Offworld, bred for beauty and just plain miraculous to look at. He’d stood before Queens of Solar Systems and genetically manipulated temptresses oozing pheromones designed to drive men mad.

  All without a twitch.

  Not to say he didn’t have his appetites. He was Jordan Bishop. Any whim was filled, any desire satiated, any command fulfilled before he even knew what he wanted. There was nothing in the known Universe that he hadn’t sampled.

  All had left him wanting. Wanting more, wanting better, wanting … wanting.

  And then, a blessing and a curse, wrapped up in the jade-eyed beauty known as Naoko Kamagana. Undoubtedly connected in some way to the Emperor-for-Life, if for no other reason than her elder father, Tomas, had somehow managed to broker passage into the most xenophobic and hostile system within their vast cosmos. Exemplary skills in coding and an innate understanding of the software being used by the Latelians notwithstanding, Tomas had become a citizen of Hospitalis during a time of patriotic resurgence so profound that the Chairman of the time had come perilously close to shutting the Quantum Tunnel down altogether.

  So. If Tomas was connected to the Emperor, then so too w
as Naoko, though Jordan was willing to bet his entire fortune that the girl had no clue. That was the curse. By bringing Naoko into his den, there was every chance that he was inviting chaos in the form of visits from some of the Emperor’s legendary assassins and thieves. It didn’t matter that no one had heard from the reclusive figure in decades. If his suppositions were true, then it was all too probable that Naoko would draw the attention of the Emperor, and if that happened…

  Trinity wouldn’t like it if their Old Earth suffered, which was why Jordan had called upon his best and brightest soldiers, his most grizzled and talented warriors. Once Naoko was safe inside his domain, it would be easier to protect against invading EuroJapanese.

  The blessing … the blessing held within its rose-like perfection a curse of its own; Naoko would fulfill the Cabal’s dreams of a limitless AI mind similar to Trinity. This Jordan knew down to his very toes.

  He could close his eyes and see the nearly infinite realm that was Trinityspace, and beyond that, whatever secrets and mysteries being held back by The Cordon, all his, given unto him by the machine mind that his paramour would build. Oh yes, it would be glorious. Naturally, the others, his righteous peers and friends, those who’d joined him in the quest to oust Trinity and to rule the unthinkable numbers of seething life, naturally they’d have to die.

  There was only room for one at the very top of the heap, and the Bishops had been there for so long already it hardly seemed fitting to even pretend that he’d allow anyone else to rule by his side. There would be no quartering of galaxies, no doling out solar systems to third cousins twice removed.

  There would be him. And no one else.

  Well, Jordan chuckled and grinned at the thought of his bride-to-be, eager and hungry for his touch, eyes wide at the things he could teach her, well, there wasn’t room at the very top, but … concessions would be made. As mother to the machine mind that would give him Trinity’s domain, young Naoko would be permitted anything she chose, so long as she stayed with him. Leave, and she would die. It was a simple choice, and one that the grinning maniac knew would make perfect sense to Naoko. She was a programmer, yes? Her mind operated along ones and zeros. Yes or no. Live, or die.