by Josh Leone
He deactivated the atmospheric shield so he could enter the bay. A few unlucky maintenance bots were sucked out before the shield reactivated behind him. He saw the wreckage of the intruder’s ship as he activated his link to the base computer, accessing the security footage.
The cameras had tracked the intruders. Franks’ recognized Jonah Haj, Seth Okan, and Iyanna Twill. They were already halfway to the main lab. Franks had no way of knowing how far along in the process Vashek was but he could take no chances. He had to kill them all. He wanted to.
Fortunately he knew the layout of the base better than they did. He knew of hidden passages shielded against external scans, one of which led directly from the landing bay to the main lab.
Franks amped up his body which, despite the cosmetic damage done by Oscali, was still in excellent condition. Jonah was as fast as he was but Franks did not have two base-liners in tow, nor did he have to deal with security bots.
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Vashek began to sense something strange. At first he didn’t recognize it, but then he realized what it was - temperature. Vashek was feeling… no, that wasn’t the right word for it. He was ‘sensing’ variations in temperature. They were centered in his hand. He had a hand.
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If the technicians had panicked when the Calling Tower vibrated, they nearly lost their minds when the ghost image of a giant hand emerged from its surface. It was only just barely visible but it was definitely there.
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He had to stop Franks from killing them. Sha had no idea who they were but he knew they were trying to stop Vashek. That meant he had to help them. He had to find a way.
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Vashek examined the new sensations, fascinated by their complexity. Even his Caller bodies had never offered this level of input. He could ‘feel’ the temperature of the entire room and the rooms beyond.
As he emerged further from the Calling Tower his psi formed more of his arm, and then a shoulder. He could also ‘see’ everything. Not through his eyes, but from every angle, all at the same time. It was as if every part of his body was an eye. The amount of input was nearly overwhelming.
◊
They’d made it through the layers of security Vashek had in place but when they finally reached the end of the long series of corridors they were confronted by one last obstacle. Jonah didn’t recognize the man but his tech told him to be wary. Whoever the scarred man was he was heavily enhanced.
Seth fired first, followed closely by Iyanna. Both missed, their target having moved out of the way too fast for either of them to track, but not too fast for Jonah. He’d only ever seen speed like that among the Honored Returned. The silver armor that flowed over Franks’ skin confirmed Jonah’s assessment.
“Brother, what are you doing here?”
“Brother?” Franks asked, laughing. “I think not.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t recognize me? Of course not. I am the servant of the new God. I am the high priest of the new religion.”
“You’re Franks,” Seth said. “I should have recognized the smell of crazy.”
Franks struck too fast for even Jonah to stop. The casual open palm strike sent Seth tumbling back down the corridor almost ten meters. Jonah did manage to intercept Franks before he could do the same to Iyanna.
Jonah struck Franks hard in the kidney. He knew there was enough power in that blow to kill but Franks merely grunted before slamming an elbow into Jonah’s face hard enough, even though his armor, to make him see stars.
Franks rained blows onto Jonah, overwhelming his armor. As Iyanna tried to help, Franks spared a blow for her, sending her to the floor in a barely conscious heap. Seth had recovered somewhat and, though several of his ribs were badly broken and the pain of moving was tremendous, he struggled to aim his pistol at Franks’ back.
Two bolts of superheated plasma hit the former P.A. doing little damage through his armor but serving to create a distraction. Jonah took advantage of the opportunity to give back a portion of what Franks had been serving him. He landed three solid hits but Franks quickly retook the initiative.
Iyanna was still recovering, thinking herself lucky Franks had not dealt her more than a glancing blow. Even still, her ears were ringing and the side of her head felt like it was on fire. She picked up her rifle and moved as quickly as she could, jamming it into his back and pulled the trigger. The back-blast burned her hair and reddened her face to instant sunburn but it also caused Franks’ armor to condense in that area, leaving it much thinner across his front.
Jonah seized the chance, landing a solid hit on his enemy’s face. It was enough to draw the greater mass of Franks’ armor back to his front which left him once more vulnerable to Iyanna’s rifle. She fired twice more, this time succeeding in causing enough damage that some of Franks’ armor actually flaked off. It was quickly replaced though and Franks delivered Iyanna a second blow, this one much harder and intentional than the first. She landed next to Seth and lay perfectly still. Franks resumed his pummeling of Jonah.
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Sha watched in horror as the young woman was sent flying. It had been a hard hit with the potential to kill. Sha was only able to catch fleeting looks at her out of Franks’ peripheral vision but he thought he saw her chest rise and fall. She was still alive.
Thus far Sha had been unable to affect anything of significance in the body he shared with Franks. Aside from a few small twinges and minor distractions, irritants at best, all of his efforts had been in vain. He had to find a way to do more, something bigger.
Then a thought occurred to him. Did he need to work bigger? Was that really the best path? What did Sha have that Franks did not? What was his advantage? Sha had only one, his experience. He knew more about being an Honored Returned than Franks did. He knew the tech.
Sha focused his will not on the organic systems of the body, but rather on the neurotech itself. First he tried to withdraw the nano-armor and failed. He tried manipulating the chemical regulators that acted as a built-in pharmacy, providing Honored Returned with almost any medication they might require in the field. But in this also failed.
He knew the neuro-tech was the key. Somewhere there was a lever, a way to hurt Franks and perhaps balance the playing field. The neurotech was, at its core, simply a way to enhance already existing functions. The body of an Honored Returned was a marvel of science and engineering but the neuro-tech was just a computer. It wasn’t an A.I. The melding of a true A.I. with an organic brain had been tried during the very early days of the program. The results had been extremely negative.
‘So,’ Sha thought. ‘What is a computer, at its most basic? It’s processors, it’s inputs and outputs, its memory storage. Memory?’
Sha considered how his own tech had worked. He recalled the many times he had used his neuro-tech to record and later call up his own memories, make them sharper, more real. The memories were his but the tech allowed his brain to recall them much more accurately than he ever could have without it. This even worked for memories from before he’d returned the first time. Human memories were like compressed data files. They weren’t stored in perfect detail. The concept of the natural photographic memory was a myth.
The brain stores memories as a complex series of reference points and triggers that it knows how to translate into understandable data when the need arises. Some people were better at this and could reconstruct a memory in uncanny detail, but in the end memory was a reconstructive process, not a photographic one.
How could Sha use that? How could he make the neurotech use Franks’ own memories against him?
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Vashek saw himself through the eyes of the technicians brave enough to remain on duty. He’d found that he could now extend his consciousness to include sensory input from other sentient minds. He watched himself, half emerged from the tower, his energy body standing more than ten meters tall and growing more solid by the minute as he fed his psi into it. He was even more magn
ificent than he’d expected.
As he watched he saw something else emerge from the tower’s surface, another hand, not his own, not human. It had six fingers. The hand was attached to an arm and it grabbed Vashek’s form and pulled with terrible strength. For the first time in centuries Vashek felt fear.
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Seth coughed and blood came up. The pain in his side was distracting him, throwing off his aim. He was able to put only three more shots into Franks’ back before his charge ran dry. It had been his last clip. When he tried to stand the pain flared such that all he could do was try to lower himself back down as gently as possible, gasping for breath the whole time.
Iyanna had not regained consciousness yet. Seth checked her pulse. It was weak but steady. He watched the two men fighting and knew that Jonah was out-matched. Whatever tech Jonah had in him, Franks’ was better. Jonah could have gone toe-to-toe with a dozen base-line humans and won easily. But up against someone who could match him strength for strength and speed for speed, it all came down to skill and experience, both of which Franks had far more of.
Jonah had not landed more than a few solid hits and those only because of distractions created and dearly paid for by Seth and Iyanna. Jonah’s armor was flaking off in large sheets as whole sections of nanites failed, overwhelmed by the kinetic energy of Franks’ strikes.
Then Franks stopped, his armor withdrawing back into his pores. Jonah lay on the floor, ragged patches of his armor still clinging, flowing across his body, trying to decide which areas to protect. The internal factories that manufactured Jonah’s armor were unable to make sufficient replacement nanites fast enough.
“Please don’t,” Franks said, his voice oddly small and sad.
Jonah looked over at Seth, cocking an eyebrow. Seth was at a loss for an explanation. Franks stood still, his eyes focused on something neither Jonah nor Seth could see.
“I’m afraid,” Franks continued.
Seth rolled his last grenade, one designed to produce intense heat in a small area, over to Jonah. He nodded at it and then at Franks, trying to tell Jonah what to do. Seth did not dare speak, afraid of shaking the madman out of whatever trance he was in.
“I will, I promise.” There were tears in Franks’ eyes.
Jonah placed the grenade next to Franks’ left foot. He would have preferred to put the device directly into Franks’ mouth but, like Seth, he was reluctant to do anything that might cause Franks to renew the very one-sided fight.
With the cessation of Franks’ attacks, Jonah’s internal repair mechanisms were hard at work. He was able to stand and limp very slowly to where Iyanna lay, just beginning to stir. Her eyes were unfocused and Jonah knew she needed medical care quickly. He motioned with his head to the door at the end of the corridor. Seth held his breath as he got to his knees and then to his feet. The pain almost made him pass out but he resisted the urge to fall down and whimper.
Jonah used his tech to access the locking mechanism. As soon as the door opened the three went through it, Jonah carrying Iyanna. For good measure Jonah relocked the door and reset the access code. Just before the door closed they heard Franks speak again.
“I love ya, Mama.”
◊
The thing was pulling Vashek back into the tower. It was impossible but it was happening. The surface of the Calling Tower had begun to develop micro-fissures. Equipment located around the large chamber was exploding as it was exposed to randomly fluctuating electromagnetic fields. The entire building was trembling as if in the grip of a seizure. Vashek cared about none of that, only that something was stopping him, blocking his ascension, pulling him back into the tower.
His energy form lost cohesion, his consciousness unable to fuel it. Vashek found himself back in the tower matrix. He was standing in a field, a green meadow. In the distance there was a tree, full and lush.
“Do you recognize this place?” Vashek spun around to find he was not alone. A Pash stood a few meters away.
“What have you done?” Vashek screamed. “Who are you to interfere?”
“I am Spirit Walker, the last of my kind. I have waited lifetimes to redeem my failure to protect my people from themselves. I will not fail again.”
“This will be a battle of wills, Pash. You cannot win.”
“You are Hov-Hakareth, Bringer of Death,” Spirit Walker said.
“Then come, Pash,” Vashek taunted. “Let me bring your death.”
The mindscape dissolved as the two combatants engaged in battle.
◊
Sha found what he was looking for and triggered the neuro-tech, linking it to a specific cluster of neurons and letting them blossom into true memory. He was suddenly inside a small, shabby hovel. He looked around and saw that he was not alone.
Fully half of the tiny one room structure was taken up by an improvised bed made of rags. A woman lay upon the bed. Sha thought she would have been quite pretty had her skin not been covered with pustules. Sha did not recognize the illness but there was no doubt that the woman was dying.
Through the door, actually little more than a hole in the wall covered by a large sheet of plastic tarp, walked a boy. He was very young but Sha recognized the features. It was Franks.
“My Treasha, I got ta go now.”
“Please don’t,” said the boy as he held her skeletal hand. She winced from the slight pressure of the boy's careful grip but tried hard to mask her pain.
“The angels er comin’ fer me, now. Ya gonna be on yer own.”
“I’m afraid,” said the boy as he tried to drip precious water into her mouth from an ancient bottle.
“Yer strong, Treasha. Stronger’n me.” She coughed and pain wracked her frail body. When she’d recovered enough to speak she said, “Promise me, my Treasha. Promise ya’ll live, ya’ll ne’re stop fightin' ta live.”
“I will, I promise.”
“I love ya, my Treasha. When ya time comes the angels’ll bring ya ta me.” Minutes passed in silence as the boy watched his mother breath her last.
“I love ya, Mama.”
Sha knew he’d won. He should have been happy but he wasn’t. Seeing the boy Franks had once been weeping silently beside his dead mother drained the moment of any pride or joy. He’d won. He’d done what he had to do. Now he wanted more than anything for it all just to be finished.
His wish was quickly granted as all sensation was obliterated in a flash of intense light and pain. It passed quickly. The light and the pain both faded.
‘Your task is done. Be at peace Szoveda Sha.’
‘Will I be with Pietra now?’
‘She waits for you. Take my hand and I will take you to her.’
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Spirit Walker fought Vashek but soon realized that, despite his greater age, Vashek’s mind was stronger. It took all of the Pash’s will just to keep Vashek occupied. That wasn’t enough.
Spirit Walker began throwing himself at Vashek. He began with his earliest memories, using them as weapons, as strength. His childhood burned away one memory at a time but it was working. Vashek was unprepared for this kind of attack. The very idea of sacrificing himself was antithetical to his ego-driven way of thinking.
Spirit Walker drove Vashek back, pushed his consciousness out of the Calling Tower, back through the link the Caller had created between it and his artificial tower matrix. It cost the Pash centuries of memory to do it but he forced Vashek’s consciousness out of the tower and severed his connection to it, insuring Vashek could never return.
Once Vashek was back in the artificial tower matrix the real battle began. Vashek had nowhere to retreat to. It was now a fight to final death. It was a fight in which Spirit Walker had the advantage, for he had no fear of ending his existence. If doing so allowed him to defeat Vashek he would do so gladly.
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Jonah set Iyanna down as gently as he could. She was aware of her surroundings but still could not balance on her own. Seth managed the few steps from the corridor, where they’
d left Franks, into the central chamber but that was it.
“You’re going to have to do it, kid. We’re out.”
Jonah limped to the machine that dominated the chamber. He saw the Olim-Ojim at its center. The shard was glowing and flashing violently. Jonah activated his linkblade, raised it above the central control console, and brought the energy weapon down and through the delicate machinery.
The effect was immediate. The console erupted in smoke and flame, the heat of it forcing Jonah away. The overload propagated throughout the machine, amplifying the destruction exponentially.
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Vashek knew he was losing the battle. His enemy was willing to destroy himself to win. Vashek was not. It was that simple. It was only a matter of time before he was destroyed.
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Seth woke up and for a moment wasn’t sure where he was. Then memory began to catch up with him and he knew he was in his hospital room. It had taken almost two weeks for his injuries, which had been much more severe than he’d thought, to heal. He was still under supervision but he was content to rest in his bed.
Seth, Jonah, and Iyanna had all made it off of Vashek’s base. When Caller Teresk had been unable to convince her contacts in the Legion to send support to stop Vashek, she had personally flown her private ship to pick up the crew of the Enduring Journey.
Jonah had recovered quickly of course, but Iyanna had been touch and go for a while. She’d taken a serious blow to the head and there had been swelling on her brain. If Teresk hadn’t paid for the best doctors in the Primacy to be brought in on Iyanna’s case, she might not have survived, at least not without serious brain damage. As it was, the doctors had been successful in bringing down the swelling and avoiding any permanent damage.
