The Arkhe Principle (Book Book 1)

by Maxwell Rudolf

  "I want to talk about one thing specifically: what is going to happen after this?"

  "I told you on the way here when we left Chicago." He's not a good listener, that's for sure, but most boys weren't. She withdrew a reusable heat-block, ignited it with a small blowtorch, took out a Plasstien bowl, and started brewing.

  "Tell me again. I couldn't hear you over the sound of the turbine."

  "We're going to meet someone there. That Johann Rex person I spoke of, the man in the book. Oh, he likes to be called John. Then there will be three of us. I'm positive we'll be safe. We'll create too much interference. When we are together, in the same locality, we might be able to slay it." The water started boiling, and she plopped the bags in. "I only have one block of milk left, but it's yours."

  "Oh, really? It's been hard talking to you about this because we can't speak about it, and now you think you can kill it. You see, this is what I love about some people. Delusions of the highest kind." He bent down and took out his tin. "Here, pour mine in here, but you keep the milk. I know you like it. Keep the sugar too. I'm fine."

  "Thank you." Well, that was different. She couldn't move her eyes off his chest, the way he breathed. His armor had completely zeroed out, and when he took it off, her sex drive flew into the heavens. But she left those lustful thoughts in the back of her mind as much as she could and hoped that once her adventure finished, she could steal a kiss from him. If he didn't try to kill her first.

  "Well so far, as long as we've been together, you've been right." He sniffed the air and sneered. "Since we teamed up, nothing strange has happened, and I don't feel like someone is watching me."

  She poured out his beverage into his cup and put the last sugar lump into his tea. He growled and pulled it back, but she smiled, shrugged, and poured hers into her mug.

  "During the procedure, they played with my Limbic System, connecting me with Wotan. He judges my every move and my kills. But since I've been with you, I feel different and somehow cut off. Not in a bad way though. I don't know how to explain it, especially to someone like you."

  She dropped the milk cube into her drink and stirred it with a nearby stick lying on the ground. "I'll take that as a compliment, Gungnir. How's your tea?"

  "Fine. It's actually good. Tell me about this Johann Rex person before I meet him so I don't murder him on sight." He ran his thumb gently along the side of Asger.

  She remembered the pimple-faced boy from her youth, his charm, his finger when they touched. He was electric, something which couldn't be described verbally. And the way he was looking, she knew he didn't want the full details. But why not test him a little? "He's kind. Smart. Great looking."

  "Enough!" Gungnir said, raising his voice over hers. He stood and almost spilled his tea, taking a few steps and turning away from her and looking out into the wild.

  "...and not the person I would think would be in the book. The entry about him rewrote itself as I read. When I lived in The Land of the Nothing, I learned when you affect certain subatomic particles, the effects are always binary—they want to balance themselves out, something called the Higgs-Boson Effect. The observer has an effect on what they see. When no one is looking at a particular particle, it exists in everywhere at once or what is known as super position."

  "Quantum entanglement. Don't need a lecture. I'm an Úlfheðnar, not a tech. Why are you bringing this up? Why are you even thinking about this? Doesn't affect me. Any of it."

  She moved behind him close enough to smell his neck, his odor, and although he hadn't bathed in days, he smelled raw, like a man, and she savored it. "Are you listening to me at all? It's not what you think. Things can change. How do you think I unlocked Asger? You think I cloned you or sampled your DNA or something?"

  "I hate these long annoying talks with you, sometimes. Your youth and arrogance grates on my last nerve. You've got no military training and carry yourself like you're a Roman priestess who just wants to get fucked by a real man like me. You know, a stud. Don't you think I haven't seen the way you stare at me? When we're done, I might give you the time of day. We'll see. Why don't you come out with it, and say what's on your mind? About me, about us, about everything? I'm sick of your foolishness."

  "Let me do something else instead," she said nervously.

  "What's that?"

  "Why don't I tell you the story of why some people call me CEO Katherine Dueva?" She asked, pulling from her mug and grinning.

  He turned a breath away from her, enough for her to want to touch his lips with hers. Not yet.

  "Go ahead," he said.

  She breathed in and touched his chest, just barely, right in the middle, tracing the outline of the valknot. She felt electricity surge through her. He took two steps back, shook his head, and sat on a nearby rock. She sighed and sat next to him, glancing over at a column of obliterated, melted armored personnel carriers. "Some years back I was a student at the Institute, one of the best schools in St. George. I learned a lot there; how to not be liked and how to deal with loneliness. How to create imaginary friends who are sometimes enough to get one through the day, and how wicked people are. That's why I had no problem in my cave."

  "Right." He drank from his canteen.

  "Well, I worked at a theater and as a cash intake person at a food depot."

  "A what?"

  "A clerk."

  "A thrall." He started chewing his fingernails with his teeth and spitting.

  "I gave out intelligence to my contacts who came by in exchange for my passage out of the school. I was sure I could get out of there, but not how far I could go. I had an affair with someone high up and took vids and digi-prints of everything I could record inside his office."

  "So you were stealing data and you weren't caught?"

  "They never caught on I was fucking one of the staff, and I was selling the data. And the money was great." She reached into her bag and pulled a neo-tuna protein bar and tore open the St. George packaging, slurping down the contents.

  "So you're an undercover whore? That's nice. So damn what? Get to your point!" His jaw clenched.

  She threw her blond hair back and chuckled. "Don't be so mean all the time." She opened up a bag of granola and poured it all into her mouth and chewed. "When I finally met my parents, I was stunned by how American they looked. Their clothing and faces. It bothered me, to be honest. I didn't find them attractive at all," she shuddered.

  When he turned his face, she closed her eyes and waited. But he didn't kiss her. She picked up a rock and cast it into a pile of snow.

  He bent down and found a bigger rock and threw it next to hers. "Well, you don't look so American to me."

  "Thank you. That's a nice thing to say. After I was rescued, I traveled to The Land of the Nothing. I trained for a number of years, and they infused me with some kind of DNA upgrades. That's the only way I beat you in our fight, and I hope we never do that again." She drank the rest of her tea and waited for his response. But he was silent and mashed keys on Asger's control panel. "They told me to find my way. I couldn't believe they kicked me out." She had no intention of telling him the full truth. Of the maps, of the rituals, of the dark night spent alone in the wild, running from ferals until she found her target in the Snake Light Mountains in a place called Nevada.

  Her voice drew him in closer without him fully knowing, and her heart ached with all the passion she'd ever known. Her mind had difficulty focusing. He was so perfect if he would keep his mouth shut and act like a normal man for a half second.

  "Eventually, I found something like an advanced relay station. Oh, and they had a monstrous factory. No idea what for, but it was fifteen-meters tall. You couldn't see the top."

  "Probably a MECHA factory. Why are you looking at me like that? Tell me your story."

  "I'm trying. There is something special about you. Sorry. When I arrived, they seemed to be expecting me, and they swore me in as an official CEO there with the name Katherine Dueva. Funny how fast a name can change your
identity. I hadn't a clue what a CEO was, but I went along with it."

  He moved closer to her, holding his weapon away from her. His body stood close now, near enough for their hair to touch. "That was a stupid, silly thing to do," he whispered. He looked around and sniffed the air. "You're going to get yourself killed, Victoria." Gungnir reached down and dragged his hand across her jaw, and she closed her eyes and put her lips on his hand. "You're lying to me. Why would they put a little girl in charge of something like that? Explain yourself before I break your neck."

  "You are a real jackass. The biggest one I've met."

  "I don't give a shit. Go on with your lies." He looked up into the sky.

  She pushed his hand away, holding in any emotion she was ready to give away. What a fool, I am. This man is a psychopath. He has never felt anything in his life other than the urge to kill. "One night, I performed a surprise inspection on the night crew. Like the idiot you think I am, I went alone and unarmed." She brushed her fingers through her hair, took a deep breath, and continued, staring into his eyes. "Down the hallway, a sliding wall revealed a separate laboratory, and for some lucky reason on my part, they kept it open at night. When I walked in, they were shocked, to say the least. Workers of all kinds filled the entire area, but when I looked at their faces, something was wrong. They didn't look right."

  Gungnir laughed at her and pointed his finger just centimeters from her face, wagging it like one does to a dog when they misbehave. "You say some of the strangest shit I've heard in my life. What in the Hel do you mean? You know what I think looks 'right?'" He asked, his voice booming. He opened his mouth, showing his teeth. "When I've got Asger in my hands and am murdering people with it and slaying them for the All Father! That looks, 'right' to me! Hail Wotan!"

  "I'm starting to think you're not half the monster you want to be." She cracked open a can of plumbs and ate them with her hands, licking the syrup off of her fingers. "These are some tasty..." she looked at the can. "Do you want one? Or are you going to be mean to me the rest of the day? I just wish you'd be nice for a single day."

  "I'm a Saxon! What do you want from me, you American girl? And as to your offer, after you've stuck your sticky hand in there and licked your fingers? No thanks."

  "Fine then. Jackass." She ate another. "What was I saying?"

  "I hoped you'd forget."

  "No, I remember now. There were DNA slides on a light table, and all these guys were staring down at them. Each slide had a face." She paused a moment. "One slide had mine." She paused again, looking up. "You ever see those old paintings from St. George called 'Inferno' or 'Hell?'"

  "Yeah. Would be a fun place to wage war, battling all those demons and devils until engaging The Devil and splitting his skull, too. Maybe I'd even ally with him if he were to commit to destroying their Kingdom."

  "Remember what those tortured faces looked like? They had a weird male-female look about them. Kinda waxy too. You know when you look into someone's eyes that's not all there? Like when they're on Aspire?"

  "Yeah. It's typically the look you have on your face."

  "Oh, you're so clever."

  He laughed and shrugged. "Maybe the reason I'm so mean to you is because you deserve it."

  "I'm not even going to make a comment on what you said because you don't mean it. When I entered the room, there was a hologram of me, dressed in Oracle White, holding up her arms to the sky, and holographic American dollars were falling from the ceiling." She threw her arms up in the air, showing him what she meant. "Below the bills, little men were gathering up the money and stuffing it into what seemed to be red pillow cases."

  "Oh, come on. Seriously?"

  She stomped her foot. "Your life could someday depend on what the hell I'm telling you! You think this is funny? The little men—they looked the same, all small fat old things. Big white beards with puffed-out rosy cheeks, and had this black belt, too." She stretched out both her hands to the size of a wallet. "That big. Each of them wore a red suit with white fur trim and wore a red hat with a fur ball on top. When they would snatch it from the air and stuff it in their over-sized bag and say 'Merry...'"

  "Stop it. Your jokes aren't funny."

  "I'm serious. That's what happened!"

  Gungnir gave her a look like he wanted to kill her. "You better be telling me the truth because I do a special thing to people who lie to me."

  "That's what happened, Saxon!"

  "So, you're the CEO of a Santa cult?" His eyes fell to her lips. "What was happening in the room?"

  "I remember clearly what it said. It's like it is knowing your name. The image said, 'Identify Mode of Operation, DNA Number: 235-ATGC-21912$>_Alpha_Original,' but I didn't know what it was talking about, nor did I want to find out. When I failed to respond, the entire room's lights turned on, and I went over to look at the DNA reports. One grabbed me by my face and threw me to the ground. I tried to run..."

  Gungnir cleared his throat. "This is either such ovr shit or you were way in over your head. I've been around and seen things that I can't explain myself, so I tend to believe you now for some reason. I don't know why, but you aren't lying to me. Usually, I can tell, and your whole tone and body language are saying whatever you are saying is true. What about all the training you got in the Land of the Nothing?"

  "I just ran. My stealth training did save me. I crept up to their armory and found someone had reset the access code, but I remembered what I had been forgetting the whole time. These people... who had kept me there were rewriting me, Gungnir. To my core." Victoria's eyes widened, and she smiled, showing her perfect white teeth to him. "But I recalled the word I was taught before I left. They said I was linked to the word and to never use it unless I was in a dire situation, which I was."

  "And what happened?" He popped his last cherry choc stim.

  "I was contacted. By it." She opened her bag and took out her remaining three and gave them to him. He refused but she insisted until he sighed and took them.

  "Thanks. Now, contacted how?"

  "Through everything. Through the air, through the ground. My being. It said, 'DNA Number: 235-ATGC-21912$>_Alpha_Original, This project is terminated.'"

  "Sounds official." He flickered Asger on and off a few times, adjusting the brightness like a pulsating glow orb in some raunchy Roman fetish nightclub.

  "I ran over to the motor pool and stole a DS-606."

  "Nice." He flicked it off. "Whatever this is has to be something supernatural. Some alien god or something. I bet it comes from across the Brown Glass Desert. What do you think? Before you answer, something happened to me as well. Something physical. I don't know exactly how it was done, but I was attacked by it. Perhaps through the runes. My gothi...he.."

  "He what?"

  "Forget it. No use talking about it. Something impossible happened. That's all. You wouldn't understand."

  "Yeah, maybe not. I, uh... I don't regard myself as a religious person anymore," she said thoughtlessly, forgetting for a moment who he was.

  "What faith do you belong to?" His eyes flared.

  The conversation made her skin crawl. After her time in The Land of the Nothing, those types of questions didn't make sense anymore, but she knew what he wanted to hear. "I'd convert to Wotanism, but I'm not a Saxon."

  "No, you're not. But why? You're just saying that to get on my good side."

  She smiled at him and looked down, batting her eyelashes at him. Victoria turned away from him. It was he that wouldn't understand her answer if she told him the truth. "It's pure. I haven't found much else that is."

  46 sonics

  07:05

  D.K.E.

  Day 110

  District 8 Labor's Park

  Rosie's Sinsii goggles clicked through the bands of light showing human activity all along the newly formed perimeter of Labor's Park, some 50 kilometers outside of the ruins of Sheffield. Snow plowers, road scrapers, and a host of military personnel spraying salt were making room for a massive column of
vehicles driving towards Site 13. So far, they hadn't encountered any Military Coalition soldiers, and she and Reginald were staying clear. But the gates weren't and checkpoints weren't keeping them away—they were going around them.

  "Two grav tanks, 26 snow pushers, ten APC's, and five buses to be exact," she murmured. She lowered the device down and squinted. It was thrilling to be doing something so dangerous and so absurd, but her desire for knowledge had plagued her dreams until the all-consuming desire to know overwhelmed her. Every night, the same nightmare about the world falling apart woke her up. The world was being ripped asunder by something so strange she couldn't explain it, not even to Reg. "As long as these papers hold up, we should be fine. I do not plan on staying long, but I am going to verify what I saw in the latest book. Someone in the Kingdom is hiding something huge from everyone."

  "I hope you get your data. Those dreams you have been having... Well, that is the only reason I thought we should do this. When we looked them up in the archive, it did not say anything. So..."

  "I do not know if I will find out any information. The Pre-Times is so guarded by the church, anything is possible. Anything at all. But I do want answers. More than that. I need them."

  Off, beyond the visible tree line, something crunched in the ice and both of them dropped to their knees. He yanked her to the ground. "What in the..."

  The noise rang out again, this time closer to them and louder. The blast sent them rolling, and caked ice and snow on the trees turned to powder. He pulled her up, and they sprinted towards a thick pine as he grabbed his stomach and started clawing at his mouth.

  She dragged him behind a tree and peered into his mouth. "What is wrong?"

  He folded up on the ground like a piece of wet cardboard. And when he did, she experienced the same agonizing pain cracking into her and wracking her nerve endings. White sparks filled her eyes, and she slammed her eyelids closed. She pushed on her stomach, she beat on it, but nothing happened. Something moved. The air was still and dead neo-animals and neo-birds fell from the trees and sky, bleeding out of every orifice.