Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1)

by John Meaney

  They were mortally aware that any corruption, if it entered SkeinTwo, would take it apart in seconds. Their only chance was to keep the new environment clean.

  Sunadomari watched Li-Cheng and his colleagues performing miracles of computation, hacking complexity, bringing forth designs in milliseconds, a crescendo of intellect and concentration. He could only observe in awe; there was no way he could help.

  But there was something he could do.

  ‘To all peacekeepers, to all citizens.’ He used his authorization to bump others off the connections in Skein - the original Skein, the only one still working - and spoke in clear, because he needed everyone on Fulgor to understand this message, the remaining free Luculenti and ordinary citizens alike.

  ‘Abandon Lucis City. Quarantine the region.’

  He prioritized what he said, while another part of his awareness devoted itself to making sure the message spread, contacting comms controllers, both Luculenti and subsystems, urging them to override all other signals with this one. All of them complied.

  ‘Every Luculentus is in danger. We are attempting to create a haven in Skein, but for now Skein is dangerous. All Luculenti are being attacked. The result, we think, is a gestalt mind, and it’s embedded in the city’s quickglass architecture. It’s Lucis City that has become an organism.’

  He watched the designers for another moment, realizing that the longer he himself spent in Skein, the more likely he was to fall prey to the ravening code.

  ‘Skein is global, clearly. I don’t know how safe the other cities are. Be prepared to evacuate them all.’

  Finally, Li-Cheng turned to him, whispering: ‘We’re ready. Let them in.’

  ‘You’re incredible,’ said Sunadomari in reality.

  In Skein, he broadcast: ‘This, for any Luculenti who can read me, is how you enter SkeinTwo. The invoked code will hurt, but it will get you through.

  <>

  And I wish you luck, every—’

  It was like invisible hands, strangling him.

  ‘Keinosuke!’ yelled Li-Cheng.

  But it was too late for Sunadomari. There was only one way that Hsiu Li-Cheng could help his old friend; and he did it now, flicking to command interface with the building’s defences and giving the order to activate grasers.

  Invisible gamma rays cracked the air, blowing Keinosuke Sunadomari’s head to mist, a spray of blood and brain that spattered throughout the room.

  Then they turned on his body, destroying the entire plexweb before it could be absorbed.

  A full thirty seconds later, Li-Cheng had recovered enough to slip back into monitoring his battling designers, all of them incredible, as they worked to shore up SkeinTwo, strengthening and restrengthening the cleansing routines for transfer. More and more across the globe, Luculenti were shifting into SkeinTwo, fleeing the virtual hell that had been their intellectual home. Status displays showed their geographical coordinates; only a few dozen were in Lucis City - most were in distant regions.

  Then a private comms request pinged him. That fact was incredible enough, overriding his shutout barriers; but the ID code accompanying it was nothing he had expected. This was a risk, lowering his barrier, even if he sandboxed a portion of his own mind, ready to destroy it in case of corruption. But the code identified a Pilot, with highest diplomatic authority; and so he opened the link.

  ‘My name is Carl Blackstone.’ The Pilot’s face was strained. ‘Are all Luculenti lost?’

  ‘We’re fighting back.’

  ‘And if you don’t succeed?’

  ‘Then we’re clearly defeated, Pilot. What are you-? Wait one moment.’

  Li-Cheng returned his attention to the room, where one of his designers, Clara Calzonni, had dropped out of computation trance and was staring at him, unaware of twin tear-tracks rippling down her face.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Li-Cheng.

  ‘It’s got through,’ Clara whispered. ‘SkeinTwo is corrupted.’

  Li-Cheng bit his lip.

  ‘Activate the suicide protocol. Give me sixty seconds, if you can.’

  ‘There’s something—’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The . . . entity . . . links through hyperdimensions, effectively making all the brains and plexwebs contiguous, as though they’re physically touching each other.’

  Li-Cheng was aware of Pilot Blackstone, waiting for more information.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s thought of it yet,’ continued Clara, ‘but soon it will be able to . . . able to . . .’

  ‘What? Just say it, please.’

  ‘It will be able to subsume organic minds. Ordinary, non-Luculenti minds.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  It was the end of the Skein War.

  ‘The world is lost.’

  Nodding, Li-Cheng shifted back to comms.

  ‘Pilot Blackstone, our efforts are failing. Soon every Luculentus will be part of a global mind that appears destructive and predatory. The ordinary Fulgidi - ordinary people are unaffected as yet, but at some point, the entity will be able to absorb them as well.’

  ‘Then we need to evacuate before that happens.’

  ‘You can’t evacuate an entire—How many mu-space ships are on Fulgor right now?’

  ‘Three,’ said Carl Blackstone, ‘including mine.’

  ‘Then how can—?’

  ‘Leave that to me.’

  Pain slammed into Li-Cheng’s mind and body, severing the link.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Carla. ‘We can’t hold it—’

  ‘Suicide. Now.’

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Via Lucis Institute, home of LuxPrime, originator of all that had been best in a glittering culture unmatched on any human world, detonated inbuilt plasma bombs and disappeared into blazing vapour, shining nova-bright, a sphere of burning energy.

  From orbit, Carl Blackstone saw the explosion as a small white dot.

  FORTY-NINE

  EARTH, 777 AD

  In the morning, Ulfr’s head was thick, but he woke up smiling. It was not just the celebrations, but the memory he took with him from dreamworld, of fighting alongside the woman Gavi in some demon realm. Or perhaps alongside was not correct. The details were fading as his eyes opened.

  Beside him, Brandr came awake, ears twitching. The old volva, Eydís, was watching them both.

  ‘Good morning, priestess,’ said Ulfr. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I need the help of someone strong.’

  ‘Ah. If you give me a moment—’

  ‘We’re camped over there.’ She pointed beyond the charcoal remains of a large fire.

  ‘All right, I’ll—’

  Eydís was already walking off.

  ‘—be right with you. Come, good Brandr.’

  The warhound followed him. They used the same bushes downwind of the camp for the same purpose, then drank from the same stream, and made their way to Eydís’s bedroll. But it was the young volva, Heithrún, who lay there with one leg splinted and encased in poultice, while Eydís knelt to one side, chanting.

  Ulfr felt his own eyelids began to descend, and the words were not even meant for him.

  ‘Now, good Ulfr. You need to help reset the leg.’

  He had done this before, and knew it to be painful. Ivárr had screamed during the procedure, and he was a tough warrior.

  ‘Here.’ Eydís guided his hands. ‘And here.’

  Heithrún’s eyes were closed, her face calm, like a young girl sleeping.

  ‘Now pull and—There. Twist.’

  It was hard work. The bone crunched and ground.

  ‘And . . . yes, that’s it.’

  Heithrún’s leg bone was pushed into place. But she had remained calm, her lips almost smiling, throughout the manipulation.

  ‘She felt it, warrior,’ said Eydís. ‘But just a sensation, nothing more.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘You set y
ourself down over there’ - she pointed - ‘while I rebind the leg.’

  Ulfr moved off and sat on the ground, pulling his cloak around himself and Brandr, who lay close, panting. Ulfr patted Brandr and waited.

  Finally, Eydís knelt down facing him.

  ‘Show me your hands.’

  Ulfr did that. She held them, then made passes across his chest and shoulder. He felt his own body make small adjustments in reaction, all without his thinking about it. Whether his body moved toward or away from her hands, he could not tell.

  She stared at him and breathed, and his eyes defocused.

  ‘My words of power accompany you now, and as you choose to blink - that’s right - you can breathe out now and close your eyes as you walk farther and farther down the dreamworld path, because there are things you wish to learn and things you already know how to walk into dreams right now—’

  His head was down and his eyes were closed, yet he could see every blade of grass and sprig of heather, he could taste the clouds and feel the deep earth, and he could hear the separate movement of each insect’s wing. He drifted, rolled without substance across the land; and finally returned to his body, as it was time to awaken.

  ‘—coming back to me now.’

  Ulfr’s eyes came open.

  ‘I felt like Heimdall,’ he said. ‘Seeing everything, hearing everything.’

  ‘As Watcher of the Gods’ - Eydís pointed at him - ‘he will be the one to warn Óthinn by sounding his horn, when the All-Father will go to Valhalla to muster his Soul-Fetchers and their armies for the final battle.’

  ‘I . . . Yes, I know. I didn’t mean . . . that.’

  ‘You stride between worlds easily, good warrior. You have had a guide to dreamworld, someone you care for.’

  ‘Eira,’ he said. ‘She’s back home. I care about her.’

  ‘And what else? Your voice holds doubt.’

  ‘I slew her brother. Not by choice.’

  ‘Ah. And she is a volva, young and trained like our Heithrún?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Eydís shook her head.

  ‘Is something wrong, priestess?’

  ‘You are bound to another, but light or dark, I cannot tell.’

  ‘To Eira?’

  ‘You are both the strongest and the weakest,’ she said. ‘You face some demons with courage yet fall grovelling before others, those that are most subtle.’

  ‘No . . .’

  Then Eydís shook herself, drew her garments close, and said: ‘Chief Gulbrandr and your own Chief Folkvar have marked you as a good man, potentially a leader.’

  Ulfr shook his head.

  ‘Stay away from Heithrún,’ Eydís went on. ‘This pains me, warrior . . . But she deserves better than you would give her.’

  ‘But I’m not—I mean, she and I aren’t . . . You know.’

  Eydís looked up into the sky.

  ‘Do you see war-ravens, Ulfr?’

  ‘The sky is clear.’

  But Eydís shook her head, and her eyes shone when she focused on him.

  ‘You are mistaken.’

  She got up then and returned to Heithrún’s side, leaving Ulfr to wonder what had happened, and to watch as on every side warriors were stirring, the gathered bands of fighters come to meet in peace, some far from their homes, while all around was the vastness of the Middle World, heathland and ice, shining lake and rising mountain, and volcanic plumes climbing into a sky that to him looked serene, its blues and greens of ice mixed with only streaks of gold and glimmers of scarlet that ran like blood through a pierced helm, while in the distance a dark speck moved.

  The raven was watching.

  FIFTY

  FULGOR, 2603 AD

  On the patio outside the Pilots Sanctuary, three men stood, each working commands in holovolumes with serious intent. Jed Goran, as the Pilot in charge, was initializing every system of the building inside, with the exception of one. That was Al Morgan’s responsibility: arming the destruction net, ensuring they could detonate the building with a simple signal, as soon as they were aloft.

  Meanwhile, psychologist Angus Cho was monitoring the ending of a world.

  ‘Two cities in Tarquil Province are coming to life,’ he said. ‘It’s spreading.’

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Al, still working. ‘Are people getting away?’

  ‘Trying to. Thousands are just getting crushed or sucked inside moving buildings.’

  Then a mu-space ship crashed into being overhead: black, trimmed with red, and powerful.

  ‘Who the fuck is—?’

  ‘I’m Carl Blackstone.’ His image appeared in the holovolume Angus had been working with. ‘I’ve been agent-in-place here for over twenty years. I’m appending auth codes.’

  Authorization data flared orange in a subsidiary holo.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Angus. ‘How we can help? My colleagues are about to summon their own ships.’

  ‘You need to get clear. I’d like to get as many people as possible offplanet, but know this: at some point, the entity that is absorbing Luculenti will also be able to absorb anyone at all.’

  ‘Holy—’

  ‘Exactly. The only chance is a massed evacuation at once, and your ships—’

  ‘Only two,’ said Angus. ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘—are not enough. I’m going to get help.’

  ‘But it will take too long.’

  At that, Jed Goran stepped back from his display and stared at Carl Blackstone’s image.

  ‘You have my respect, sir. It’s an honour.’

  ‘Likewise, Pilot.’ Carl smiled. ‘Will you do me a favour? My son Roger is here, probably in Lucis City.’

  ‘I’ll fetch him out.’

  ‘Here’s the code for his tu-ring.’ More data shone. ‘Bypassing Skein, so it ought to stand out.’

  ‘Got it. Good—’

  ‘And I’ve something for him. Could you give him this?’

  A small gap melted open in the black ship’s hull, and a thin black tendril extruded, bearing a rounded triangle of black, webbed with red and gold, about the size of a young child. It descended; and Jed took it in his forearms.

  ‘I have it, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The tendril detached and sucked back up inside the ship; then its hull resealed.

  Al said: ‘We’re not supposed to—’

  ‘Shut up,’ whispered Angus.

  ‘I’ll find your son,’ promised Jed. ‘And I’ll give him this.’

  ‘You have my thanks, Pilot.’

  ‘And you have my admiration, sir. Godspeed.’

  ‘Blackstone out.’

  The black dart ascended in a horizontal attitude; then it crashed forward and was gone.

  ‘That’s one hell of a ship,’ said Angus. ‘Not to mention its Pilot.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Al shut down his own display. ‘What’s he planning to do?’

  ‘Hellflight.’ Angus looked at Jed, who was still holding the convex triangle entrusted to him. ‘The kind you don’t survive.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The peacekeeper flyer hovered, its main hatch still open, just above the roof of Ebony Tower. All around, the buildings of Quarter Moon had been among the last to begin moving, perhaps because so many were old, solid stone. But the quickglass towers among them were beginning to writhe now; and the black roof beneath Roger’s feet was starting to soften and glisten. The building shifted, then stopped.

  ‘All right,’ said Helen Eisberg. ‘Whatever threat your girlfriend was presenting to Skein, I think we’re all agreed. It’s too far gone now to make a difference.’