Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  ***

  Never never never in his life had he felt such a rush of power. His old body had been a pale, weak thing, trapped and bound and and and so weak but this! Oh this was amazing! This was a miracle of epic proportions!

  Sa Gurant’s mistake, Hollyoak saw in an instant, was in trying to grab hold of all those slender, firefly pinpricks hovering in the distance all at once. Each one was a man or woman connected through the communal God soldier link that was in turn a very shallow form of Harmony brought into existence by the weak duronium bridge between here and and and … and there. If he’d only grabbed two or three or a thousand instead of trying to turn all his brothers and sisters into puppets right there on the spot whilst trying to battle whatever it was that Garth N’Chalez was, why … why …

  Hollyoak changed his mind. It was a good thing that Gurant had done what he’d done, had fallen prey to the prime killer of all God soldiers everywhere: hubris. It killed more of the long-lived legionnaires than anything else in the whole word.

  Oh but such power! Hollyoak’s cybernetic systems were barely connected, yet the internal God soldier machinery, perverted and upgraded by true connection to a real Harmony had reached out and grabbed hold with relentless, hungry ferocity. The mad scientist could feel and hear things out there in the darkness, scrabbling and clawing at the thin membranes of the Universe, trying to find a way in, to find a way to end everything…

  Hollyoak nodded. He liked the idea of ending everything.

  He looked over at his old, pale body and grew sick to his stomach. No wonder people had been afraid of him, had been sickened at the sight of him, had moved to avoid his touch, had fled to be spared his presence. Discarded like an old snakeskin, the body that’d seen him through to this moment, well, it didn’t deserve a second thought. He was now who he’d always meant to be and the moment his systems were done merging with the Goddie’s body, then there would be a reign of terror unlike anything this solar system had imagined.

  “I do not know what the fuck is going on in here,” a gravelly voice boomed into the room, shattering Hollyoak’s vision of fire and damnation, “but I do know it’s going to be over quickly.”

  Hollyoak whirled around, offline sensors driven to life by instinct and need. Ahah! Not all systems were on all the time. Conversation of processing capacity during downtime. Brilliant design. His inner eyes had to switch between half a dozen filters before his unwanted guest became properly visible.

  “And who and who are you?” The scientist-turned-Harmony Soldier demanded, his once thin, quivery voice turned into a reedy-but-stentorian blast. Data flooded his mind. This man had a connection to the deepest portions of the thing giving them all life that was … that was greater than his own. By a longshot. No matter. Internal systems were coming online at a ferocious pace. All of Gurant’s memories, stored in the very matrixes of the cells comprising his new body, were being parlayed into experience for the ex-scientist.

  No match now, but a match soon enough. All he needed needed needed to do was stretch the encounter…

  Ute pursed his lips at the grotesque sight of Hollyoak’s diminutive head clamped via obscene cybernetic legs into Gurant’s old body. He shook his head in disgust, wondering how Fenris could’ve possibly believed he’d find this to be accidental. “My name, Hollyoak, is Ute.”

  “No no no I’m not just Hollyoak anymore.” Hollyoak cackled and immediately stopped. Until he gained full control over his body and was properly able to adjust how he sounded, anything other than talking was something to be avoided. “You you you can call me Hollyoak the Destroyer, or Destroyer for for for for short.”

  And the stutter. He was definitely going to get rid of the stutter.

  “Well, Hollyoak, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve signed your death warrant by stealing that body.” Ute took a step forward. Unlike most of his brothers and sisters, his cybernetic systems rarely displayed themselves anymore. All the data, all the information, all the guesses and suppositions and theories about possible battle moves and outcomes, all of it was just … arrayed. In his head. Like luminous branches of a tree.

  All courtesy of full Harmony, Nalanata claimed. According to the Five, he, Ute, was the closest thing to a true soldier of Harmony the Unreality had seen since the original War against the Heshii.

  Which was why, Ute supposed as he waited for Hollyoak to decide how to proceed, he was going through this little charade in the first place; Gurant, poisoned by Garth’s massive extra-dimensional explosion in The Museum and further irradiated by Bravo’s limitlessly stupid response, had been snatched up by the … the Anti-Harmony, that atonal expression of Reality espoused by the M’Zahdi Hesh, where he and all the other God soldiers were –allegedly- bound by a music that would –theoretically, if they all didn’t die and N’Chalez was successful- become the Harmony of a Real Sphere.

  Ute imagined Fenris’ thoughts on the matter. If the oldest living God soldier couldn’t handily defeat one raging Heshii-monster, then their other troops would stand no chance at all against the throwaway soldiers generated by the Heshii’s quick-troop vats.

  Finally finally finally, weapons powered up. Hollyoak the Destroyer reached inside him with the instinctual ease of an ancient God soldier and summoned a raging torrent of energy to scour his opponent into greasy atoms.

  Ute batted the blast away and … moved. His fist closed around Hollyoak’s neck. Metallic bones squealed in protest. Hollyoak tried to open his mouth to scream.

  Hollyoak felt something shift inside him, felt a voice grab hold. His own mind scrabbled against slippery crystal walls and he felt and he felt and he felt himself fade … “So. This, the enemy?”

  Ute tilted his head to one side. This wasn’t Hollyoak talking. The voice oozed age. “Yes.”

  “And who are you, then?”

  “I am Ute.”

  “Ahh, and you have come to the Harmony we seek to destroy. How … unexpected. No matter. You cannot hope to succeed. I have been amidst the stars for millennia. I am the darkness that consumes the light. Shine as brightly as you wish, Harmony Soldier Ute. In the end, the sun always sets.”

  Undaunted –though chilled by the ancient evil spilling forth from Hollyoak’s vacant eyes- The Goddie spoke. “It won’t be this easy for my brothers and sisters, you perverted freak. They will fight hard and die harder because they do not have my experience. They will be older than the forces coming against them, so they will have more power, but I know you have machines that can provide endless waves of troops. It will be an even match, I think. Those kin that survive will grow wiser, and thus stronger. When we come to the final battle, we will be less than you thousands of times over, but … we will win.”

  “We shall see, little Ute, we shall see.”

  Ute squeezed. Hollyoak’s head popped clean off, a most surprised and dismayed look on his face as he temporarily regained full consciousness. Then, because he couldn’t allow anything like this to happen again, at all, ever, Ute proceeded using his newfound powers to thoroughly eradicate Gurant’s body. It took surprisingly little time.

  Ute took a deep breath before moving onto the next task, which was … taking care of the poor dwarven Hollyoak. He spared a few soothing words for the dead madman, because that was what you did for a broken animal that has died painfully.

  ***

  “Are … are you okay, Chairman Herrig?”

  Herrig felt Sidra’s labored breaths on his cheek; she was directly above him, breathing heavily and sweating profusely from the load on her back. She was also, when not struggling to keep somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty tons of solid metal and rock from crushing them both flat, smiling like an enormous, dusky-skinned angel. “I am fine. How are you? Isn’t that heavy?”

  “This?” Sidra shifted a bit to distribute the weight across her shoulders better. “This is … this is nothing. One time, when we were on duty, a spaceship crashed into me.”

  Herrig went to laugh before realizing tha
t his bodyguard probably wasn’t exaggerating. It was so easy to forget that even the youngest God soldier was at least three hundred years old. Sidra was over four thousand years old and looked … looked … he blushed.

  Sidra smiled. “Do not worry, Chairman. I will keep you safe.” A drop of sweat beaded on her nose, then dropped directly into the Chairman’s eye. “Except, it seems, from accidental blindness.”

  This time, he did laugh. His bodyguard joined in.

  The weight suddenly shifted on its own, driving Sidra down further. She dropped into a defensive pose, putting her elbows and knees solidly on the ground. She levered herself down until she was less than two inches above Herrig. “I am sorry for this, Chairman, but The Peak seems to be collapsing directly on top of me. You will live.”

  “I … I …” The heat of Sidra’s breath on his neck was most exhilarating. “I …”

  Sidra laughed. “It is all right, Chairman Herrig. Death and danger are the greatest intoxicants in the known universe. It is natural.”

  “But I am Chairman!” Herrig replied indignantly, whishing he could squirm away. And then die. Of mortal embarrassment. And then, for preference, The Peak could fall on him. That would be wonderful and more important, infinitely less awkward.

  “You are also,” Sidra whispered into his ear as she lowered herself down a little more, so she could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, “the bravest man I have ever met in my life. You, unaugmented in any way, not bound by Harmony, not enhanced with metal and machines, you stood by your friend and waited to greet either his death or his freedom with your eyes wide open, accepting your own death without hesitation. I, who have battled across thousands of worlds and countless years, I have never seen that before. Yes, I’ve seen brothers and sisters perform acts of courage that made me shout in awe, but never have I been moved to tears.”

  “I, er, I … I err, should … should like to kiss you, but … ah, the … the rocks…” Herrig couldn’t believe the strangeness of the situation.

  Sidra felt a query rush along the Harmony. It was Ute. He was somewhere above her, three hundred feet or more. She signaled that she was alive, that her charge was safe. Then, because she was feeling a stirring in her ancient heart that she hadn’t felt for thousands of years, she told her commanding officer to take his time in freeing them.

  Ute’s burst of amusement was uplifting.

  “Oh,” Sidra whispered before kissing Herrig softly on the lips, “the rocks will take care of themselves in due time.”

  ***

  Lokken chuckled. “He is not pleased. In fact, were N’Chalez here, he would say our brother is ‘totes pissed’.”

  Nalanata shrugged. “He passed the test with flying colors. Calculations place the troops at approximately 2.5 to 1 in terms of combat capabilities. We will roll right through them.”

  “Yes,” Solgun countered, “but when the Enemy’s machines can produce clones at a million every three days, what does it matter?”

  “Each successful encounter will see the survivors grow in power, just as Ute stated.” Stride riposted.

  Lokken looked out over the Army’s ships. They were such busy beehives of activity. “I was not expecting the Enemy to speak out through that freak’s body. I didn’t think he was embedded nearly enough.”

  Fenris snorted. “Do not forget. Our Illustrious AI That would be God sent Griffin Jones to him. He knows the location of Latelyspace surely enough, knew that there was an ascension here. Not that difficult to follow the threads and cracks of power through. Nothing to worry about, not yet. The Cordon is still active and the only one who can turn that off is Garth N’Chalez.”

  “Speaking of,” Solgun laughed as one of the destroyers on the other side of the shield opened fire. It was something Trinity’s Army did every now and again. They believed that the tech was faulty, that if they kept trying to blast their way through at random intervals, sooner or later, it’d work. “Speaking of, shouldn’t you call our friend and fill him in?”

  “We have a few minutes. I don’t want him to be able to think of another solution. Besides,” Fenris smiled darkly, “timing is everything.”

  ***

  “Look, all I is sayin’, right, is we could totally kill all these fuckin’ twats an’, like, be on our way lickety-split, yeah? We is doin’ this and then we is freein’ your pal and I is back on my way ‘ome, yeah?”

  “This is all your damn fault.” Huey muttered miserably. “If you hadn’t insisted on better explanations and more information, we would’ve been on Hospitalis something like six goddamn months ago.”

  “Oi!” Chad shouted from his chair. “I is not the one who was only settin’ his Quantum Tunnel up for one last blast, is I? No. If I was designin’ a point-to-point teleportation system like that, I would be settin’ it up for, like, thousands of trips, yeah?” Chad looked over at Huey, who was busy chewing on his lip. “And I would be makin’ it less fuckin’ painful, right? Besides all that, yeah, it weren’t all my fault, were it?”

  Huey pursed his lips. It was all going wrong. Huey could admit that to himself, now. He’d miscalculated Chad’s response to the offer, mistakenly assuming that the FrancoBrit would leap at the chance to be free of the CyberPriests and to have a grand adventure in the process. He should’ve realized that, following his agreement to work for Jordan Bishop and the resultant ass-fuckery that’d come from trying to assassinate Garth, Chad would not only want clarification on a few things but an absolute goddamn historical, Ulysses-sized breakdown on everything.

  And as much as he wanted to blame everything on Chad, a guy who’d somehow become a friend, he couldn’t; most of their lag –in the beginning of their Yellow Brick Road tour of the Unreality, anyways- could be blamed on Gwyleh Ronn.

  Who in their right mind could’ve even imagined that the Suit AI -panicking as only an artificial intelligence could- would reach out and grab hold of the Quantum Tunnel feed and come along with them? From literally the moment they’d exited the exorbitantly painful tunnel, the Enforcer had been on their ass, blowing up three square kilometers of real estate out of sheer aggravation. And thus had begun a semi-legendary flight across the planet, Huey and Chad on the run from Gwyleh Ronn, a terrifically pissed off and irate telempathic Enforcer with an axe to grind.

  Oh, sure, fine, in the end everything had worked out and all three of them had become friends of a feather, but … it’d all been way off kilter. It shouldn’t have happened. Their escapades, the time it’d taken to make their way to the forefront of Latelyspace … none of that had been factored in to his original estimate for Garth’s freedom. There was no way of precisely knowing the time differential inside Bravo. Millions of years could’ve already passed. Or half an hour. No matter what the difference, Garth had been imprisoned for too long already and every millisecond they were trapped on the wrong side of the shield was agony.

  “No, Chad, it wasn’t all your fault.” Huey fiddled with some data modules he’d been working on to see if there was any solution he’d missed. All his subminds were capable of coming up with were Omega Level solutions resulting in massive casualties. No, if he wanted an elegant solution, it was going to have to come from him and him alone.

  Chad snickered at a random thought of Gwyleh Ronn being a regular old Offworlder; when the time had come for them all to leave the planet, the Enforcer had abruptly decided to stay, hanging up his Suit –as it were- to become a farmer. “Shame ‘e din’t come wiv us, yeah? Could use ourselves an Enforcer. ‘ave ‘im flit over an’ be all ‘Oi, you lot, look the uvver fuckin’ way for an hour or two, right? I is doin’ shit you ain’t be seein’’ and then we could, like, just mosey on in.”

  Huey shook his head miserably. “Gwyleh earned his peace. Now shut your gob so I can see if there’s something I’m missing.”

  He’d miscalculated, and it was costing them everything. The Army, led by the redoubtable Aleksander Politoyov –Trinity Itself’s number one commander- was firmly and thoro
ughly entrenched around the shield protecting Latelyspace. Even if he could time a shutdown of the shield properly, a small percentage of enemy troops were destined to get in; approximately fifteen percent of the force kept their black hole engines running all the time, swapping out every three hours to maintain maximum opportunities going. The rotation was being handled by a Beowulf cluster of 8’s and 9’s.

  Huey could definitely bollix the rotation, but no matter that he was the most powerful artificial intelligence in the Unreality next to Trinity, there were too many AI minds present. They’d notice that and the six hundred thirty-three million four hundred eighty-two thousand and twelve things he’d already come up with. They’d notice, and alert Politoyov, and then it’d be game over.

  Hell, it was taking nearly all his concentration to ensure that those other AI minds didn’t notice the HIM field, or his own brain.

  Making matters worse, some of the Specter analysis teams working on busting the shield were smart. Field engineers always were. Many of them had worked with Garth during his service. While they didn’t think exactly like him, they were taking mad risks in an effort to come up with something that could either pierce the shield or shut the Tunnel down. Sooner or later they might come up with something he hadn’t thought of, and that was no damn good at all.

  Chad sucked at a tooth. Truth were, he’d had a blast with Huey. He were a proper adventurin’ companion, to be true. He regretted not one bit of forcing the AI-inna-meatsuit to redirect their balls-out painful single-point Quantum Teleportation jaunt to somewhere other than Hospitalis, if for no other reason than that he’d had the first bit of fun in a very long damn time. Getting off the planet, finding a ship capable of making the long voyage to Latelyspace, stealing an Army ship to blend in with the truly colossal pile of warships surrounding a whole damn solar system … a wild blast of fun and all that.

  But now he were bored off his arse. They’d been sittin’ in formation with a cluster of relief Army craft for just over a week now and he could feel the old antsy-in-the-pantsy gettin’ hold and just below that the quiet whisper of the ‘Priests. They seemed well pleased with somethin’ that they were up to. Chad wanted to tell Huey, but he knew the man better than anyone he’d known in a long time.