by Isaac Hooke
“You can’t revive them with your nano machines?” Will asked.
“I’d have to give up my nano machines entirely,” Rhea explained. “And I can’t trust that they’d give them back if I did so.”
“You can trust Horatio,” Will said.
“Are you certain?” she asked, dead serious.
Will considered for a moment. “Actually, you’re probably right. Hang onto them for now. We’ll repair these dudes manually later.”
She climbed the steps with Will, crossed the platform, and halted before the metallic box.
“So, Khrusos?” Rhea said, addressing that box. “Are you going to come out? Or are you going to make me destroy your throne?”
She transformed her disk Ban’Shar into a sword, and pointed it threateningly at the metal box, which reached just to her upper chest.
Miles emerged from a hidden panel in the wall behind the throne. Will pointed his pistol at the man.
“No,” Rhea said, lowering Will’s hand. “Miles, what are you doing?”
Miles didn’t answer. He merely stared at her; his eyes filled with hate.
She heard a buzzing coming from the metal box. A small panel slid forth on top of it, and a human head ascended into view from within. A male. The face appeared bulky, with fleshy lobes in place of cheeks. He sported short-cropped hair, with a beard that reached well below the chin. The rest of his body remained hidden inside the throne.
Rhea recognized the face from pictures she had seen online.
Khrusos.
16
At a loss for words, Rhea merely stared at the head of Khrusos protruding from that metal box.
“My good friend Miles informed me you knew the positions of all my beam generators,” Khrusos said. “So I took the liberty of moving two of them. He also warned me about your little robot army. I decided not to stop it. Think of it as penetration testing. Qui Fon Chin now knows what he has to work on improving for the next attack. Some might call it an expensive test. I call it entertainment.”
Rhea glared at Miles.
“Yes,” Khrusos said. “Your loyal Wardenite Miles told me everything. How your mind has been wiped once again. You have no memories of the fantastic working relationship we once had. This means I don’t have to chip you, like I originally planned. Unless you intend on killing me again, of course.”
“That depends on what caused me to kill you in the first place…” Rhea said.
Khrusos continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I suppose I should have merely chipped you when you betrayed me, instead of ordering your execution. Death seemed a mercy at the time. The light goes out in one’s eye when one is chipped. I didn’t want to take away your fire, which I so dearly enjoyed. But I could have simply removed the chip when I grew bored of your tamed state. I blame it on the anger of the moment. I didn’t like what you did to me.”
His gaze drifted to the room behind her.
“Your Wardenite told me about Burhawk, too,” Khrusos continued. “It was a mistake to let him live after he retired. I see that now. Then again, he did lead you right to me. So perhaps it wasn’t a real betrayal, after all, but a man doing a favor for an old friend.” He smiled brightly when his eyes alighted on the sensei. “And Min! It will be good to have her returned to my inner circle. I have missed her so very much, like yourself. A fresh mind wipe is probably in order however…”
Rhea stared at him, unsure where to begin, now that she finally had the president of the free world before her. The man who had captured her, wiped her mind, and turned her into his greatest assassin.
The man who had eradicated her people.
She decided that the water crisis was the best entry point, as it was the most important. “We have eight months before water runs out on Earth. The Europans have—”
“Is that why you’ve come?” he interrupted, seeming astonished. “To intervene in an affair which is none of your concern?”
“Of course it’s my concern,” she said. “Earth is my adopted homeworld. You need to sign the deal with the Europans. They want to help Earth, but you keep vetoing their proposals.”
“The Europans offered to sell water at cost, but you don’t understand, at cost is still too much,” Khrusos said.
“Why, because you’d rather the people of Earth die of thirst than negatively affect your coffers?” Rhea spat.
“They’d have us entirely at their mercy!” Khrusos told her. “Once we agree, and become dependent upon them, they’ll very likely jack up their prices. They’ll butcher our economy. Make us give them all our technology. If I agreed to their pitiful terms, Earth would be ruled by Ganymede and the Europans, not by us.”
“Yes, but at least you’ll still have an economy, and a planet to rule,” Rhea said. “It will take time to build up the infrastructure necessary to transport water to and from Ganymede. If we start now, we might just meet the deadline. But if we don’t… without the systems in place to transport water, mass deaths will occur. You know this, and yet you still refuse to act.”
“There are stockpiles of water that will last for many years to come,” Khrusos said dismissively.
“Yes,” Rhea agreed. “Stockpiles. For a select few cities, and the upper echelon of residents who reside within them. What about the rest of the world?”
That had been a guess on Rhea’s part, but Khrusos’ next words confirmed it.
“So?” the president said. “We’ll be instituting a mind digitization program. Those who cannot afford the price of water will be offered free digitization. We’ll save their minds now, and at a later time in the future, when the technology matures, we’ll restore their minds into neural networks so they can live anew. They won’t even realize they’re merely copies. That’s the future of humanity. One that I am building towards.”
“That’s a fantastic solution,” Rhea said, her voice oozing sarcasm. “Let everyone die. And then restore their minds into neural networks. The originators of those backups are still dead.”
“Yes, but their legacy will live on,” Khrusos said. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Why waste money on water when digitization is far cheaper? The High Council of Earth agrees with me on this matter.”
“A High Council you mostly control,” Rhea said. “And even if you didn’t, how can you justify a handful of people deciding the fate of billions?”
“It’s been this way for thousands of years,” Khrusos replied. “A handful of people, sometimes only one, have been responsible for the lives, and deaths, of millions. It’s how we’ve been able to achieve our greatest advances.”
“And our greatest tragedies…” Rhea said. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me.” Khrusos gazed defiantly at her. “You tried, once, and failed. If you try again, I’ll make certain that nothing remains of your mind to wipe. You were my greatest employee. My best friend. You can be both, again.”
Rhea stared him down. “Can I? But you forget, you wiped my mind so you could fashion me into this friend of yours. So you could turn me into your killing machine.”
“The only other option for one such as yourself was death,” the president said. “I saved you. Gave you everything you had. And yet you turned on me.”
“What did I do?” Rhea said. “And why did I do it?”
He pursed his lips, as if considering revealing this.
“Well?” Rhea pressed.
“How do you think you got your original suit?” Khrusos asked.
She arched an eyebrow. “My original suit?”
“Yes,” he said. “A suit very much like the one you wear now.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I got it from Ganymede. My people.”
“When we captured you, there wasn’t much left,” Khrusos said. “You had been ripped apart by the plasma attacks. Your nano technology was destroyed. We put you back together, gave you a new machine form. But shortly thereafter, you got your Ganymedean body back. Your nano machine suit. Do you want
to know how?”
“Sure,” Rhea said.
“After your ship crashed, we let the surrounding land cool into what is now known as the Emerald Highlands and sent drones in to explore. We discovered the black box, but when we tried to move it for further study, we couldn’t… it was utilizing some kind of gravimetric technology unlike anything we’d seen before, increasing its weight by ten thousand times. We had nothing capable of lifting it. We tried to break in next, but nothing worked. Laser drills. Plasma cannons. Explosives.
“But then we decided, why not use a potentially easier resource? We had a lot of Ganymedean prisoners. Mind-jacked, or wiped and indoctrinated, like yourself. We tried them one by one. All of them, until we found a prisoner who had access. That’s right. You opened the cube for me in the Emerald Highlands. We extracted what we could, which wasn’t a whole lot. But it did give us samples of the Ganymedean nano technology that we could study, courtesy of you. Yes, you walked in there, and when you left, you were clad in your Ganymedean suit. You gave us the nano machines.
“Our military scientists studied them, and came up with a counter, one that eventually allowed us to turn them against their owners. The war ended at that point: the entire Ganymedean race was eaten alive by their very own creation. Thanks to you.”
Rhea shuddered at the thought. That would explain why her world fell so quickly, if it was true.
And then, suddenly, she remembered.
“You caused the Great Calming…” Rhea said. “Not the Ganymedeans. You used the nano machines I gave you to destroy half the cities on your own home planet. You killed billions of people.”
Khrusos stared at her for a moment, then burst into a laugh. “Very good. Your memories are returning quickly this time. You and your team came to Earth to assassinate me. Instead, you only provided me the means, and the excuse, I needed to defeat your people.”
Miles stared at Khrusos in horror at the news.
“Eventually, we captured more ships, such as this one.” He beckoned at the throne room around him. “But yours was the enabler. Yours was the one that sparked, and ended, the greatest war of all time.”
Rhea’s eyes defocused slightly as more memories came to her. “Yes, I see it now… I was part of the crack team sent to stop you. Though we were at war with Earth over the frozen oceans of Ganymede, we believed there was another way. We didn’t want you to slaughter your own citizens. We didn’t want you to destroy half of Earth. We never wanted that. And when it was done, you blamed us. Saying we planted the nano machines. When it was you. You originally planned to use nukes, but that would have been harder to blame on us. The nano machines were a far more convenient excuse.”
“Yes, they were,” he agreed. “It made it quite easy to blame the Ganymedeans, and rally Earth to war.”
“You killed us all,” Rhea said. “When we were the ones who tried to save Earth. From you.”
She was aghast at what this man had done, and knew there could be no mercy, not for him.
“I wasn’t expecting the war to decimate our forces so severely,” Khrusos said. “I was hopeful the moon, and its water, would be mine. But those damned Europans had to go and ruin everything. When it became obvious we’d lost the moon to them, I had my scientists begin developing the digitization tech that would save humanity. Thankfully, we’d bought ourselves thirty more years by halving the population, which is another reason I did it, by the way. To save the world, I had to destroy it.
“You might be wondering why the nano machines we used in the Great Calming didn’t destroy the entire Earth… that’s because the scientists programmed them to self-destruct after expanding to a certain radius. This meant that there would be remnants of the cities left behind… the ruins that exist today. A reminder of what the Ganymedeans had done.”
“What you had done,” Rhea growled.
He ignored her. “After the war, I had the scientists destroy the lab samples used in the creation of these machines. I also pushed the High Council to sign an agreement with the governments of the solar system, outlawing the use of nano machines in all fields, from warfare to medicine. They are too dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Such as yours?” Rhea said.
He nodded in apparent appreciation of the jab. “But back to my point. Not only have you trespassed in the shared residence of myself and the Paramount Leader, unlawfully hacked and killed our robots, and employed forbidden weapons, but your body itself is highly illegal. You are in possession of dangerous, world-destroying technology. By law, it is my right to confiscate it from you, as it is the right of any citizen of Mars. Do you give up this body willingly?”
“What do you think?” she asked.
He smiled widely. “I was hoping you’d resist.”
“Oh, I’m going to do more than resist, a-hole.” She stepped forward and, scarcely able to see for the blind rage she felt, she swung her Ban’Shar sword in a wide arc that cut off his head.
It flew from the throne and bounced three times before coming to rest on the platform. Its movements had seemed a little too heavy for the lighter Martian gravity, as if it was made entirely of metal.
“Now do him, next,” Will said, nodding at Miles.
“No.” Miles raised his palms defensively. “I didn’t know.” He nodded at Rhea. “I thought she caused the Great Calming. I’m sorry.”
Khrusos’ laugh abruptly filled the chamber. “You really think I’d be foolish enough to expose my brain to you?”
The floor began shaking. Rhea and Will backed away, climbing off the platform and down the steps. Miles did the same, though he kept his distance from Rhea, as if afraid she would strike him down next.
The throne began unfolding. The platform and the stairs next to it pulled inward, toward the metal box, and long, spiderish legs emerged, followed by a metal thorax, and a head lined with mechanical tentacles.
The platform and stairs continued to turn themselves inside out, emerging from that box, feeding the growing form, until the transformation was complete and a gargantuan, tentacled metal cyborg loomed before Rhea. It was like a giant spider with the head of a squid pasted on top.
Meanwhile, nothing remained of the former stairs, platform and throne.
“Are you impressed with my size?” the monster, Khrusos, boomed. “Why do you think I moved to Mars? The lower gravity can support a much larger body frame. And I do like so very much to be big, in all senses of the word!”
The colossal form of Khrusos approached. Those thin feet slammed into the marble floor, sending cracks spidering outward.
“Get back, Will!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Get back.
This was a battle only she could fight.
Khrusos would pay for what he had done to Ganymede, to Earth, and to her.
17
Rhea continued to back away. She was careful not to retreat toward Min, Burhawk and Horatio, as it would be all too easy for the three to suffer collateral damage in the fight. Miles and Will were keeping well back, hugging the far walls. Meanwhile, her other companions were protecting the entrance.
Khrusos swung three tentacles at her.
Rhea instinctively leaped backward, but not far enough, and one of the tentacles clipped her leg, sending her spinning away. She deactivated the Ban’Shar so she wouldn’t hurt herself.
When she landed, she instantly clambered to her feet and slammed her hands together. She activated both of the Ban’Shar, and formed a single, extended blade. She held it menacingly before her.
Should have done this at the beginning. I’m not the seasoned warrior I once was.
Meanwhile Will and Horatio were shooting their pistols, striking Khrusos in the flanks. The big, tentacled cyborg ignored then: the blasts didn’t seem to be causing damage anyway.
Khrusos swung a tentative tentacle at her.
Rhea sidestepped, cutting off the limb.
It fell away, clattering harmlessly to the floor.
To her horror,
the tentacle reformed a moment later.
“You cannot kill me, Dagger,” Khrusos said.
Two more tentacles came in, and she dodged them acrobatically, slicing at the same time. The appendages dropped away, but once again, reformed.
“Don’t you understand?” Khrusos said. “My scientists have had thirty years to study your Ganymedean technology. Thirty years to incorporate it into ours. I’ve saved the most valuable discoveries for myself, of course.”
He lunged for her as he spoke those latter words, and two thin legs came stabbing down at her.
Rhea leaped backward, and swept her blade wide, slicing off the bottom portion of those limbs.
Khrusos tilted forward, off balance, but quickly recovered, retreating.
Rhea pressed the attack, leaping forward, swinging wildly, but Khrusos withdrew his legs, and their tips reformed.
A tentacle bashed into her side, and she was sent flying across the room. She struck the wall and landed on the floor.
Khrusos was already rushing toward her.
She got up and narrowly jumped out of the way. Khrusos crashed into the wall.
Rhea cut off portions of the closest limbs, but another leg impaled her thigh, skewering her to the marble floor. She cut off the leg and retreated with the tip still embedded in her thigh. Limping.
She deactivated her Ban’Shar and slammed her palms into the metal spearing her thigh, shoving it through. Her nano machines sealed the hole, drawing on the surrounding material, so that her overall thigh circumference thinned. She’d have to replenish the lost nano machines sometime. The marble floor wouldn’t help her, but one of those severed metal tentacles would make a good candidate…
She swerved toward one of them, but Khrusos was already leaping toward her.
Rhea bounded forward, using the lower gravity to her advantage, and maneuvered between those tentacles and legs so that she was underneath the thorax. Then she leaped high and stabbed the blade into the underbelly.
In response, Khrusos splayed his legs wide, crashing his thorax into the floor, crushing Rhea between the metal and the marble. He lifted his heavy body, and Rhea remained on the floor, her blade sliding free. She started to get up, but before she had made it to her feet, Khrusos was already smashing his thorax down onto her once more. He did this again and again, battering her.
