“What the hell?” I said, blinking as I knew it had me dead to rights.
That was when I saw the two hundred-foot-tall sandstorm coming my way. It was like something out of the Allenway Bible, describing apocalyptic events which had occurred to the original Crius colonists on their journey or Moses and the ancient Hebrews. Space was full of horrible things from clouds of acid rain to never-ending flows of lava but this world was proving ridiculous.
“Just when I think things can’t get any worse,” I said, spinning the kinetibike around and pushing the accelerator to maximum.
Isla had already done the same, well before me, and was headed back to the caverns we’d just fled from. I didn’t know if we had enough time to get there, but as ends to our lives went, at least this would at least prove dramatic.
In the end, we proved just a little bit faster and I skirted along the edge of the interior before finally bringing it to a stop halfway down the cave. The explosive storm battered the rocks above us, tearing past us and creating a louder din than the kinetibike’s engines had. Isla brought her vehicle up beside me, leaning over to check on Fade.
“Well, this is proving a bit more exciting than I thought it would be,” Isla said cheerfully.
“Yes,” I said, looking at her with new eyes. “It is. Would you do me a favor and lend me your pistol for a second?”
“Sure,” Isla said, handing it over. “Want to check our ammo?”
“Yes,” I said, lifting it up and pointing it at her head. “So exactly how long have you been possessing Isla, Judith?”
Isla’s eyes went from bright and happy to cold as well as possessive.
“Clever,” Judith said, smiling with Isla’s body. “When did you figure it out?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” I said, holding the weapon steady. “I figured it out once I realized there was no way you and Clarice could have disabled everything set up back there without the help of a friendly neighborhood Cognition A.I. Either that or an army. Your insistence on pushing forward as well as drugging Fade also clued me in.”
“And if I hadn’t been Judith?” Judith asked.
“I’d have probably believed Isla if she said I was being insane,” I admitted. “I suspected you were too arrogant to deny it, though. It must have been killing you to slum with us lower life forms this entire time. You were cracking months ago. Why I started to believe you weren’t my wife.”
“Too bad you didn’t figure it out before I did surgery on your brain then.”
Oh hell. I hesitated to pull the trigger and that was long enough for Judith to do something. My head felt like it was on fire as every muscle in my body flexed before the gun in my hand dropped against the ground, followed by my body.
“Who are you?” I grunted.
“I am the Kathax Beta,” Judith said.
Darkness took me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I woke up to being straddled by the false Judith, the Kathax Beta, or whatever she was. She was naked and running her hands up and down my chest. I was revolted but could not move my arms or legs as she played with me like I was a toy.
The environment around us was a constant stream of information I could not actually describe if I had a hundred years since it was layers of reality which human perception did not have the sensory organs for. I couldn’t tell you if we were still in the cavern, were in my mind, or I was seeing reality through the false Judith’s eyes.
“Get off me,” I said, hating the fact I had to ask her.
“As you wish,” the false Judith said, sliding off.
“You’re so much like her,” I said, disgusted. “Yet so very different.”
“That’s because, Cassius, I am partially your dead wife.” The false Judith smiled. “Your sister provided me a complete copy of your late wife’s memories and personality. I absorbed that to manipulate you and yet it’s proven a lot more meaningful than other organic lives I’ve chosen to live. I actually had to pull away from you in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed by emotion. Why did you think I told you so much about my race?”
“Why do all this?” I cursed under my breath, still paralyzed. “Why possess Isla? What is your game? Did you move from me to her?”
“Yes,” the false Judith said. “When I left you, I went to hide in her subconscious so the Kathax Prime could not sense me. It made me all the more amused when I woke up to find you tried to lobotomize yourself in order to make it impossible for me to read your mind and control you. I learned what you were going to have your lover do the moment you asked her. Obviously, she didn’t do anything of the sort.”
“It was a plan at least,” I said, able to just barely turn my head and feel like a fool.
“An admirable one,” the false Judith replied. She was finding this terribly amusing if her simulated reactions were close to how her species felt emotions. “Though I don’t know why you bothered. You’re still going to kill the Kathax Prime. You’ve seen what he’s done to the armies of humans here. He’s turned them into drones for excavating his temple and gathering raw materials to repair his ship. The whole rebellion he’s assisting your father with is just a distraction to keep the Elder Races from noticing his activities—which he failed in doing.”
I turned back to look at her. “Yes, my father and your former leader are playing each other off against one another but the latter is a demon while the former is a man. It was never going to work well for him.”
“Is that what you think of us, Cassius? Demons?” she asked.
“I think it’s not a bad analogy,” I said, trying not to see my wife.
The false Judith’s expression became even. “I have been overly controlling and manipulative to you. It occurs to me I could have probably gotten your assistance without so many of the hoops my species has put other members of your race through. I could have just showed you what was going on here and you would have obeyed.”
“Yes,” I said, struggling to try to move and still finding myself paralyzed.
“You don’t like my species very much, do you Cassius?”
“You’ve wiped out a thousand species for every one you let live,” I growled. “You were the one who showed me how the galaxy was nothing more than a chessboard for the races which really mattered.”
“And why do you think I told you that? To horrify you? No, it was to let you know you had to walk the careful path to pleasing us. To guide your race to survive by stopping your father and the Kathax Prime,” the false Judith said. “Yes, we wiped the galaxy clean of the Middle Races long ago, but we have nurtured others many of the Young Races which followed. Species which would never have been able to evolve into space-faring cultures due to a lack of ability to communicate, use tools, or develop high faculties. Your race never would have been able to evolve if we hadn’t made it so it had the breathing room to do so.”
“Spare me your pretensions to godhood,” I said.
“It’s not a pretension,” the false Judith said. “I can show you things about reality and layers of it which your race can only guess at. Alternate timelines, wave consciousness, parallel realities, and the links between matter in this world as well as the next. Your species will not be ready for ascension to join the ranks of the Elder Races for at least a million years or more, but I can invite you, specifically.”
I stared at her. “Assuming I believed anything you told me, I am perfectly fine in this reality.”
“You were willing to leave Clarice and Isla for me before.”
“That was my wife. Not her simulacrum.” I paused. “I was also wrong. I’ve changed and could not have been her husband. Judith deserved better, so did I, as did Isla as well as Clarice.”
“Humans.” The false Judith frowned and reached over to grab me by the back of my head. “I struggle with the memories of your loved one, Cassius. There are times I even think like her and want to work against my people because I am filled with a horror about what she has done. I think it may be something about the viv
idness of human imagination. Your ability to empathize with so many other life forms while being strong enough to kill. You do not want me as an enemy.”
“That is all we could ever be.”
The Elder Race assassin’s eyes flashed and she proceeded to jam her hand into my chest. I was then promptly overwhelmed with a barrage of some of the most horrific imagery and painful memories I could imagine. I experienced the horror of Crius’s destruction as well as the bitter self-loathing which followed over and over again. I remembered losing Commander Ashley, Chief Kana, Jeremiah, and others who had fought alongside me in the war.
I remembering discovering the corpse recycling centers which State Security had used to dispose of millions while I’d assumed we were still the good guys. I remembered losing my brother just a few moments ago. That was in addition to the pain of being burned alive, buried alive, broken on a rack, tortured with a fusion pistol on slow burn, and attacked by wild trags.
“I am growing impatient, Cassius,” the false Judith whispered.
All I could do was make a nonsensical whimper.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake. You should be tougher than this.”
The false Judith reached deeper into my chest, which I realized now was just an avatar of my dream state and unconscious. What followed was pleasure unimaginable. I experienced all the joy I’d felt at the real Judith’s side, the love I felt with Clarice, and false memories like children as well as growing old before passing on to my next life in a world of light. She even dared give me a vision where the Commonwealth defeated Crius without destroying it, my friends survived, and we rebuilt our homeland as a peaceful democracy.
“Stop…please,” I begged her. “I’ll do—”
“What?” the false Judith interrupted.
I saw the environment around us begin to change. Where it once was an indecipherable jumble of images and information, it slowly became identical to the hangar bay of the Melampus. I sensed another presence, multiple presences actually, which let me know I was not alone despite the torture I was enduring.
It gave me the strength for my next words. “Nothing, you psychotic alien bitch.”
The false Judith raised her hand above her once more, only for me to push her off. I could have hit harder but a part of me didn’t want to hurt her despite what she was. I couldn’t entirely separate the image of my wife from the creature that was using her image to manipulate me.
I stood up, suddenly wearing my jumpsuit from the Melampus with a fusion pistol on the belt as well as my proton sword. I was shaky on my feet but felt stronger as well as more powerful. I realized this environment was entirely virtual, had no physical substance, but it amused me to think of it as my “home turf” that the false Judith had wandered into.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” I said, slowly drawing my sword. “However, I find this situation a great deal more to my liking.”
The false Judith twisted and changed in ways which turned her from my wife to a member of the Kathax as well as a hundred other races in between. She glitched, becoming zigzag and cubist patterns of light. It was like playing a half-completed virtu-sim which had become riddled with viruses from downloading illegal mods. Somehow, I doubted the transtellar intellectual property offices were behind what she was presently experiencing.
“Release me,” the false Judith said in a robotic synthesized voice. “Release me and worship me. I will make you a god. You—”
I didn’t know if this made any literal sense but I pulled out my sword, ran at her, and stabbed the false Judith in the heart. The sword melted inside her and washed over her like a river of molten lead before both disappeared. A terrible pressure which had been lying in the back of my mind since that dark day on Shogun disappeared. All around me, the Melampus hangar bay disintegrated as if made of burning paper before I found myself in a white void.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked, finding myself alone and wondering if I was dead. If so, Heaven needed to work on its waiting room. Mind you, Hell could very easily be like this. There were few fates more terrifying and deserving than to be alone with yourself for all time.
“You’re not dead, Cassius,” Isla’s voice said behind me. “No matter how much you’ve wanted to die over the years. Somehow, someway, you always manage to keep yourself alive.”
If this was another one of the false Judith’s tricks, I decided I would put a pistol to my head and pull the trigger. Then I shook my head. I could never do that. “Death is the ending of my pain and I have too much to atone for in order to let it have me.”
“Gee, that makes me feel good about myself,” Isla said. “You can just forget about the mind-blowing sex party I had planned for after we’re done. I had costumes made, friends invited, and everything.”
“Thank you, that was an image I didn’t need,” the voice of Judith muttered. It was with the sardonicism I’d expected from my wife. My real wife.
I spun around, pulling out my fusion pistol. “No more tricks!”
Standing there, side by side, were Judith and Isla in Melampus crew jumpsuits. Isla was looking beautiful as ever while Judith looked like she’d been run through nine different kinds of hell. Her face was covered in sweat, her eyes sunken, and her hair hanging down over her shoulders in an unkempt mess.
Isla looked unconcerned about the pistol. “Does he realize the pistol isn’t real? That we only sent him the image of him killing the Kathax Beta so he’d know what the hell was going on?”
“No, I don’t think he does,” Judith said.
“Shame,” Isla said. “Vids have taught far too many people that when computer programs fight, it’s with kung fu and plasma katanas rather than lines of code.”
“Cassius is the dumbest smart man I’ve ever known,” Judith said. “Mind you, I feel like making a sexist remark here.”
“Oh, please, go ahead,” Isla said, cheerfully.
I dropped the fusion pistol. “How, why, what, huh?”
“That about summarizes the reaction I’d have,” Isla said.
“Is she dead?” I asked, looking behind me as if I could see the now-absent False Judith.
“Yes,” Judith said, pausing. “As much as a being which has never been alive can be. The consciousness of the Kathax Beta has been overwritten as if by a virus. Everything she was has been replaced with me replicating myself throughout her. The very same tactic she used across a million worlds and places has left her gone.”
“How?” I asked, wondering if somehow the memories and personality which Zoe had stored inside the Cognition A.I. the Kathax Beta had come alive.
That would be stupid, though, right? Yet, Zoe had explained she’d developed a way to deal with the Elder Races. Perhaps this had been her plan all along. If so, she was a far greater threat than I’d imagined—as well as someone I owed my life. She’d defeated a digital god through the power of humanity.
Judith blinked. “I don’t know how it happened or why. One moment, I was nothing more than a collection of memories and personality traits then the next I was alive inside of her with knowledge of what I had to do. I managed to save Isla, though. Her body still contains all of her memories and her consciousness. I’ve successfully rebooted it but given what was going on outside, I’m not sure either of you are safe.”
I reached up to touch her face then looked at Isla. “You’re real? Both of you.”
“Yes,” Isla said.
“No,” Judith said.
Isla looked at her. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I’m not your wife, Cassius, though I feel what she did,” Judith said, blinking. “I’m a weapon designed to destroy the Elder Races. I’m not possessed of the ability to move beyond that mandate and once it’s completed, I’ll cease to exist.”
“I see,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “Then I owe Zoe nothing but anger for misusing you this way.”
“I’m sorry,” Judith said.
“Well, I should pro
bably let you two—” Isla didn’t get a chance to respond before I gave her a huge hug.
“I don’t care if any of this is real or not,” I said, holding her tight. “Two plus two equals five. We have always been at war with the South Quadrant. There are five lights.”
“I think we broke him,” Isla said, patting me gently on the back.
“He’ll be fine,” Judith said. “I’m removing the majority of the memories the Kathax Beta implanted and leaving only the general outline of them. I can remove the worst of your trauma as well, Cassius. Not the memories but the pain and self-hatred.”
“No,” I said, pulling away. “That’s what makes me not a monster. That’s what separates me from my father.”
Judith’s eyes looked down. “Cassius, I don’t know if you remember everything your wife did, but I think anyone who spends the slightest bit of time with you both can attest you are nothing like your father.”
“Thank you,” I said, my words came out as a jumbled collection of vowels. “Is Kathax Beta really dead? Is it?”
Judith just nodded. “You were never supposed to survive the journey to the Kathax Alpha’s temple. The weapon you possess was designed to kill you and all the people you know once you were inside.”
“I figured that,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The Kathax Prime is a monster, though. I think you lose all claim to moral credulity when zombie armies become involved.”
Judith laughed then turned serious. “You need to distract it as I attempt to do what I did to the Kathax Beta. They’re not true A.I. any more than I am. They were born as organic beings and that limits them in their ability to process information. They can copy themselves, merge themselves with their copies, and more but they are always themselves.”
“Binary-code constructs are people too,” Isla joked.
I didn’t know if this seeming miraculous intervention was actually happening or whether it was another of the False Judith’s tricks. I didn’t care in that moment and was willing to abandon all reason to embrace this possible deception.
“Screw the Elder Races,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “Whatever I can do to impede any of them is what I’ll do.”
Lucifer's Nebula Page 24
