Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “But … that will reveal ourselves to It.”

  “We ain’t got time to argue the point, my son. The Enforcer’s comin’, Jordan’s got enough AI presence focused on this area to spontaneously create a new fuckin’ type of AI, there’re more FrancoBrit fuckfaces in the surrounding perimeter to kickstart a fuckin’ civil war, Spur’s lurkin’ down there which means we is missin’ an entire bloody army of EuroJapanese ninjas … we is all goin’ ter be lucky if a black hole don’t open up an’ swallow us all. This is … what der yer call it when it’s all critical an’ shit an’ everyfing can go every which way?”

  “An event horizon?” Secant279 whispered. Their Savior was right. From this moment forward, no matter what actually happened, everything was going to change. The Enlightningment hadn’t prepared any of them for this. The Unwritten Scriptures, trapped in Chad’s head, could offer them no solutions.

  “That’s it. Cor, I should ‘ave you around more often. You is knowin’ some dandy fings. Right then, you get your silly-ass brothers around and we’ll do this thing.”

  “They are on their way.”

  Chad nodded one last time, then stepped off the side of the stack. It were going ter be well sick and awesome when he hit the ground. Everyone down there was likely to stop wot they was doin’ and just applaud at his grand arrival. Awesome music swelled in his ears. He stopped falling as something occurred to him. He started shouting until the CyberPriest stuck his head over the side. “Oi. Mate. I is forgettin’ one fing.”

  “What is that, Chadsik al-Taryin?” Secant279 couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was their annoying Savior had forgotten to mention. It could be anything ranging from the fact that he liked butterflies to a rambling story about the time he’d worn a woman’s head on his hand like a puppet.

  “Erm. Like, a lot of the buildings in this area are, erm, well, they is goin’ ter be … fallin’ down, like. Wiv … explosions and fings. I is not knowin’ ‘ow resilient you lot is to several hundred berjillion tons of falling building landing on top o’ you, so … watch out.” Chad resumed his majestic and, dare he say it, angelic descent to the ground below.

  Secant279 covered his eyes for a moment. The loss of life, the destruction of property, none of that bothered him or the others; their plan, after all, was to eradicate not only life in their blasted Unreality but all life in the other, proper Spheres.

  No, what bothered them all was the man’s delusions of grandeur. That, and the fact that no matter how deluded Chadsik al-Taryin was, he nevertheless possessed the abilities to do whatever it was that he damned well pleased.

  Curiosity got the better of the CyberPriest. “Why so many explosives? Why kill all those mortals when you don’t need to?”

  “Worl,” Chad said thoughtfully, “it’s like this. Each of those buildings are stuffed full o’ laser cannons and missile launchers and fings like that, right? All there to protect the girl, I suspect. I mean, sure, I could waltz in there, yeah, and do the job wivvout too much bovver, but I is only just findin’ this jacket. I would be well pissed if it got a hole in it. Well, see ya later, son.”

  Secant279 beamed the warning to his brothers and prepared to do … whatever it was they needed to do to ensure that Chad got away with their prize.

  ***

  Greuz and the others sighed happily as they stepped off the gantry and onto actual, solid ground. It was the first time they’d been on a planet since Hospitalis, and though each man and woman was a pirate born to live amongst the stars, there were times where they ached to have a sky above their heads and earth –however far below their actual, aching bones- beneath their toes.

  “Well,” Captain Greuz of The Zhivago said with as much mustered bonhomie as he was ever likely to find again, “isn’t this nice. On the birthplace world of all Mankind. Must be exciting, hey?”

  Naoko wrinkled her nose. Zanzibar, as Alligorni had called it the few times he’d forgotten he was terrified of her, stank like a sewer left open and under the sun for too long. The buildings were megalithic, making the structures on Hospitalis look positively tiny, but the scope of them was all wrong; her eyes picked out windows and doorframes that, because the size of each building reminded her of home, looked poorly built. As she stood there, taking in what was to be her new home for who knew how long, delicate ears picked up an endless cavalcade of sounds alien and foreign. There were sirens and catcalls, massive, chunking thunks, bursts of … yes, even gunfire.

  “Erm.” Greuz looked nervously at his crew, who looked back, faces pale and nervous. “Yes, well, Miss Kamagana, it’s been a real honor but …”

  “Fuck this noise in its fucking ass, Greuz. We bounce.” Alligorni ran back towards the ship, Seta and Sandlak hot on his heels. Greuz looked over his shoulder, looking forlornly at Naoko; they were supposed to wait for Spur’s men to arrive, but … he couldn’t do it. He wanted to be free from all this intrigue and strangeness. He wanted to get back to the simple things in life, like kidnapping regular geniuses instead of blisteringly intelligent supergeniuses with night-terror-inducing boyfriends. Greuz dashed off to join his crew.

  The Zhivago lurched upwards like a drunken, obese sparrow a few seconds later.

  Naoko wrinkled her nose. She was certain this wasn’t how these sorts of exchanges were supposed to go.

  And then the world filled with crackling thunder. As the Latelian stood there, wondering where her guards were, four of five of the mountainous spires that housed –at best estimate- hundreds of thousands of people each, buckled under some internal pressure and belched tremendous gouts of fire into the air before … before sliding free of their bases to tumble out of view. More fire and sounds that filled the heavens surrounded Naoko.

  Naoko stood there, blinking. This couldn’t be Garth. As vengeful as he was, as much of a master of war and destruction as he was, this wasn’t his style. He wouldn’t kill so many, destroy so much, all for her, mostly because he knew she’d be angry if he did.

  This was someone else altogether.

  The fifth building erupted, shattering into splinters of glass, metal and people.

  “Oi, now, that were well brilliant.” Chad hit the ground in a classic three point landing and stood, smoothing out his long black coat and bowing old-fashioned court style before the Lady Ha, she who was Naoko Kamagana when she was at home with the lights out. He still couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Too tall or summink. Or was it the hair? Chad shook th… his head. Didn’t matter. He had a Job to do, one which would hopefully get the bruvvers off his arse.

  Naoko shrieked and tried to run, but two odd looking men appeared out of nowhere and grabbed hold of her upper arms. They began tingling immediately and a weird, loathsome sensation tried to crawl into her brain. All thoughts of running disappeared, as did the urge to free herself.

  Chad nodded. Everything was going according to the plan he’d hastily concocted a few moments after Ohm239 had given him the ‘job’. The most important thing had been the destruction of the surrounding buildings; only part of him had wanted to preserve the vintage flight 42nd century long coat from coming to harm. Most of him had done such a horrific deed simply out of spite. If Jordan Bishop hadn’t decided to destroy Garth Nickels, and Spur hadn’t approached him to be the arbiter of that destruction, why, his whole world would be entirely different than it was now. That, and because he was desperate to be left alone.

  Staring at Naoko, Chad wished desperately that he’d never gone to Hospitalis. The things he’d learned, the things he’d done, the … the thing he’d become … you simply didn’t come back from that.

  “The EuroJapanese android is attempting to breach Trinity’s Restrictions.” One of the ‘Priests announced suddenly. Naoko still stood there, mute, dumb, slack-jawed.

  “If you lot ‘adn't already gone to great lengths to prove that you’re invulnerable and massive assholes, I would be quite convinced you is frightened of the fing.” Chad tilted and craned his head, trying to find the channel th
e ‘Priest had used to detect the humanoid machine. He failed.

  “Is ‘e alive still?”

  One of the ‘Priests nodded after a few seconds. “He is.”

  Chad poked Naoko in the shoulder. She didn’t as much as flinch. “In a condition to bovver us, then, is he?”

  The two ‘Priests exchanged dubious glances. Spur was difficult to outguess. “Unknown.”

  Chad crossed his arms huffily. He didn’t like this at all. Not one bit. He didn’t know nuffink about Spur and the thought of having a mystery chase him around was one that didn’t sit well with none of him.

  ***

  Spur was … Spur was … Spur was … terrified. His massive, ancient, powerful mind was incapable of processing what to do next and even in his terror, even in his incapacity, he berated himself as only a true EuroJapanese citizen could.

  In all his years of imprisonment in Jordan Bishop’s main complexes, throughout the long, dark decades of Dark Ages, never had anything like this happened to him. Never once had his home been destroyed, never once had he been –accidentally or otherwise- past the furthermost perimeter of Trinity’s Restrictions.

  Until now. Intimately connected with all of Jordan’s AI constructs, Spur could map out perfect accuracy the length and breadth of Bishop’s Domain. He knew every inch, every door. And when Jordan Bishop acquired more land, more space, why, it was then that Spur was his most happiest, for it meant opportunity for his eyes to fall on new space, for his feet to cross new land.

  Trinity’s Restrictions were most clear on the subject. As an impossible thing in total contravention of Its Rules, Spur was too rare to destroy, but so too was he not permitted to pass the border of BishopCo’s domain.

  Until now.

  Too late had the android figured out what was happening. The first eruption had startled him, and the others had prompted him to do the only thing he could do; instantly recognizing Chadsik al-Taryin as the figure at the landing pad and tying him to the callous –yet tactically sound- destruction of all the surrounding buildings, Spur had timed his audacious attempt at survival to coincide as close to detonation as possible so that the FrancoBritish assassin and his bizarre assistants would assume him destroyed along with the rest.

  And he’d succeeded. Perhaps too well. Violating another of Trinity’s Restrictions, this one of connecting to AI systems as an AI himself, Spur had assimilated the building’s command structure into his own neural network in the blink of an eye. He’d then gone on to locate the explosives laid down by Chadsik, determined that there was no way to defuse them, and plotted.

  When the counter on the device had gotten down to ten seconds, Spur had leaped.

  The ancient EuroJapanese android’s first taste of freedom had been transformed into a harrowing brush with death as somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty tons of ferrocrete slammed into him, pinning him like an insect.

  Many of his systems were offline. All connections to BishopCo’s systems were dead. Hundreds of years of continual worry about crossing Trinity flickered and burned in his mind. He was only … three hundred feet from the edge of Bishop’s property, but the machine mind wasn’t known for forgiveness.

  The android struggled with the massive weight pinning him to the ground. Even though it was hopeless, fear of being destroyed, of being taken before having a chance to assist the Emperor-for-Life in his eternal glory once again, convinced him that the enormous slab of ferrocrete was shifting.

  Sensors indicated a decrease in pressure. The … it was moving. How was this possible?

  The ferrocrete wall was lifted up and tossed to one side.

  Spur, damaged and nearly incoherent with terror at Trinity’s impending ire, stared up at the figure who’d rescued him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Things to do, people to see, you know how it is.”

  “But this isn’t possible.” Spur felt his mouth twist into a sickened grimace as the man bent down and picked him up, cradling him in arms that didn’t budge under the extreme weight of his android body. He hadn’t been touched by anyone other than the Emperor-for-Life since his inception. The … the familiarity curled his brain. “You … you cannot be here.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Spur, is that there are all kinds of things that’re impossible. Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.”

  Spur turned his gaze upwards. It was the first time since he’d made the long –and intentional- journey from The Dome to BishopCo that his restless android eyes had fallen on the sky. It was a much diminished sight. Too many things had changed, and all of them for the worst, since that trek so many hundreds of years ago.

  Still, it was nice to see. One of the first things he’d done for the Emperor was write a haiku about the sky. A contrail split the sky. Spur tried to point, but the machinery in his arms had been mangled. “Look,” he whispered, loathing the feeling of being carried like a child, “an Enforcer has come to Zanzibar.”

  Spur felt a heavy sigh come from the man carrying him.

  “That,” Huey said miserably, “is one of the reasons I’m here, I suppose.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Spur demanded.

  “With luck, somewhere no one will find you.” Huey angled towards a deep crater caused by one of the falling super-structures. “With luck, not even Trinity. At least, not until you’re needed. Because you’re important, aren’t you, Spur?”

  Spur the albino android, thousands of years old, one of the rarest things in the Unreal Universe, said nothing.

  ***

  Fifteen miles away from the scene of the devastation, high up in the sky, crouched above the world and the peons who eked out execrable lives, sitting in his throne of comfort and majesty, surrounded by trinkets and toys from bygone days that were worth more than some solar systems, Jordan Bishop stared thoughtlessly at the monitors arrayed around him.

  His mind was a literal blank. Every few seconds his mouth tried to form sounds that would fall into a single, simple question. That question was ‘How?’, but the … the staggering complexity of things that’d occurred to form the chaos and devastation that were behind that simple word had quite literally tugged Jordan Bishop’s mind down into darkness.

  All around the four-hundred year old Conglomerate owner, AI systems shrieked warnings, howled over lost data connections, highlighted and disseminated the cost and the loss of … of … of everything.

  Similarly trapped as Spur had been –for surely the EuroJapanese android was no more- by Trinity’s Restrictions, every major Conglomerate holder was bound to Trinity Prime, and for hundreds upon hundreds of years, this had been no great thing for Jordan Bishop; as first and oldest by a considerable span of years, his holdings had always enjoyed maximum security and ultimate protection from any great harm.

  That wasn’t to say that BishopCo hadn’t had its fair share of damages. When you pushed the envelope of weapons technology, fires and explosions were inevitable. The same went with exploration into various forms of engine tech, or investigations into genetic and/or chemical warfare. Risk had its own rewards, and always before, Jordan had managed to turn the sudden eruption of a single building or the deaths of an entire research team to his own end.

  The same could be said for the occasional Conglomerate War. Sometimes strange bedfellows woke up one morning to decide that they could no longer tolerate their counterparts and picked up arms. Generally relegated to virtual combat where AI machines tried to raze an opponent’s systems into digitized ash, from time to time, previous incarnations of Voss_Uderhell or Tynedale/Fujihara had sent platoons of mercenaries or hordes of soldiers after BishopCo’s physical assets, only to be rebuffed by what some called ‘absurd levels of response’.

  Under normal circumstances, the loss of so many buildings, the cost of replacing all those people, the time involved to reclaim whatever materiel could be reclaimed would simply be a matter of buckling down and making sure it’d get done.

  But not this time. This time, the
damage was incalculable.

  Commanded to remain on Trinity Prime as long as there was, somewhere hundreds of miles below their feet, some type of earth, every Conglomerate grew like an organism comprised of buildings, people, machinery. Every few years, the main movers and shakers of the nebulous entity that was Human Enterprise absorbed a handful of buildings or a stretch of reinvigorated land, slowly but surely creeping and crawling across Mother Earth like cancer, tearing down old structures and erecting new ones.

  Part of the process was moving the center of their base, the heavily fortified, encrypted, armored and integral equipment that was, when everything was distilled into purified commerce, the essence of their existence.

  In such a tech-heavy dependent existence as Jordan Bishop lived in, with the almost impossible-to-imagine swathe of Humanity that was under his sway, the accumulation of machinery required to maintain a stranglehold on things was, some speculated, equal to or greater than the sum of all everything all the other Conglomerates needed to run their businesses.

  They weren’t wrong, and with such a colossal assortment of AI spheres and data backups, of brute-force engines and … and … well, Jordan barely knew anymore what went into ensuring his domain remained solidly connected. That’d been Spur’s department. But with all that stuff came exorbitant prices to move it all.

  And he hadn’t. He hadn’t moved the center of his power from where it’d been sixty-three years ago. He hadn’t done the smart thing because he’d looked out over the land he owned, the vast and metallic demesne that was his to command and had decided, in a fit of magisterial delusion, that there was no further need. Who, he’d posited to Spur, who in their right mind would even attempt an attack for any reason whatsoever on the heart of BishopCo holdings? Who possessed the stones to try? Who had the sheer tonnage of war machinery to push past the perimeter, the outlying regions? Who could hope to move an entire army on Trinity Prime without him noticing?