“You have an entrance specifically for villains?” Lilith asked incredulously, though she followed Wren as she headed down another hallway.
“Of course! Didn’t you see the blast doors?” Wren replied, clicking her tongue. “Unfortunately, most villains aren’t very trustworthy, and not terribly bright. It requires an extremely pointed example to convince them that just maybe they shouldn’t try to shoot everything and take whatever it is they want. Foolish of them, really.”
“Ah,” Lilith murmured, a bit of a smile managing to creep onto her face at last. If nothing else, Wren seemed nice enough. “Do we have much farther to go?”
“No. As a matter of fact… we’re here,” Wren said, stopping at a door, and Lilith’s gaze drifted to the side. Her eyebrows rose as she read the sign hanging there, held in place by string.
“‘Enter at your own risk. I am not responsible for mutations, injuries, or deaths,’” Lilith read aloud, then looked at Wren. “Is this safe?”
“Of course it is. She’s in the middle of analysis, not making anything,” Wren replied, rolling her eyes. “Besides, she just puts up the sign to make new employees to think twice before interrupting. She has a sealed chamber for real experiments.”
Without pausing, Wren pressed a button and the door slid to the side, even as Lilith mouthed the word ‘employees’, somewhat startled to hear it.
“I’ve brought Lilith to see you!” Wren announced, and Lilith followed… then paused on seeing the woman inside the room.
The room itself was simple. There was a second room beyond what looked like a glass barrier, and a multi-chamber airlock on the left side of the room, complete with several hazard suits inside it. To the right was a computer on a wall-mounted adjustable arm, and there were a few chairs as well.
The woman, on the other hand… there was something off about her, Lilith realized instantly. She wore a white lab coat over normal-looking black slacks and a green blouse, but that wasn’t the oddity. Nor was how she would likely be a good eight inches shorter than Lilith when standing. No, there was something about the redhead’s face and eyes that felt wrong. Her cheek bones were too perfectly shaped, her skin slightly too clear, and her eyes… those bright green eyes had too much depth to them. She looked up at Lilith and smiled.
“Ah, a chance to see you in person at last,” the woman said, her voice somewhat high, but also with that subtle tone that felt wrong somehow. It bothered Lilith that she couldn’t put her finger on why, but she didn’t interrupt as the woman looked Lilith up and down for a few seconds, then nodded. “Hm. I must admit, Shadowmind did a good job putting your body together. For a non-specialist. Regardless, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Lilith. Circe paid me to protect you from anyone, including Shadowmind, so you’re safe here… or as safe as almost anywhere on the planet.”
“May I ask who you are?” Lilith asked, feeling a little off-balance, particularly with how familiar the woman was acting. “I’m afraid that Circe didn’t tell me where she was sending me.”
“She didn’t… well, isn’t that clever of her. She probably thought you’d argue,,” the redhead said, shaking her head and standing up. Wren was trying, and failing, to hide a grin. “Not that I see the point. I’m just going to tell you myself, after all. Please don’t overreact, I’d hate to have to hurt you.”
Lilith opened her mouth, then paused, thinking for a moment before she sighed. “Please… just get it over with? I’ve had a bad evening.”
“Of course. Then you are permitted to tremble in the presence of the great, dreadful, terrifying, one and only… Black Emerald,” the woman said, her voice dry as a desert, and Lilith froze, not quite managing to process what she’d heard at first, staring at the short woman as she tried to reconcile everything she’d heard about Black Emerald with what she was seeing.
Black Emerald was considered to be even more dangerous than Shadowmind in some ways. After all, almost half of Shadowmind’s plots had been stopped if not more, but almost all of Black Emerald’s strikes had succeeded over the years. She also had a rather high death toll, which made Lilith even warier.
“Ah… if I may ask… how am I safer here than I am almost anywhere else?” Lilith asked after a few seconds.
“Hm. She didn’t panic,” Wren murmured.
“I’m not surprised. Not with Shadowmind involved,” Black Emerald said, settling back into her chair as she studied Lilith, her lips curved into a smile. “As to that? There are exactly… five places in the world that I’d list as equally safe. Poenari Castle, as Vlad has a wonderful defense system, Sanctuary, Olympus, and the Golden City. If anyone wants to break into my lair, they’d have to use so much force that I doubt there’d be anything left alive in this hemisphere. As to why Circe chose here? Because I always carry out my bargains. I accepted her deal, and as such, no one will be allowed to touch you while you are here without your permission. Not that I’m going to let you hurt me, of course. I’m far too fragile for that.”
“Fragile? You?” Lilith demanded, an incredulous giggle managing to break free of her, as she almost began to break down. “You’re one of the most feared villains in the country! The world!”
“Pfft. Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance,” Black Emerald said, waving dismissively. “Most villains are idiotic and aim for goals they might be able to achieve. I always chose goals which I knew I could pull off. As for fragile, I’m not joking. On a personal level, I’m so weak that your average Class D superhuman could beat me. That’s why I have my armor.”
Lilith’s jaw worked for a couple of seconds, before she just sighed, giving up as she rubbed her forehead. “You said you knew of five places, but you only listed four.”
“Yes, I did,” Black Emerald said, her smile widening. “Good, you can do basic math.”
“You’re… you know what, never mind that. Can I at least send messages to my friends to let them know I’m safe?” Lilith asked helplessly. “I’d love to know what’s going on, for that matter!”
Wren arched an eyebrow at Black Emerald, who shrugged.
“I don’t mind. You’ll have to use the proper security measures, which Wren can walk you through. As for what’s going on, I suspect that we won’t know about that for several more hours, if even that soon. Considering how you look, I think it would be best for you to take a chance to rest. Perhaps even get something to eat,” Black Emerald said, pausing for a couple of seconds before shaking her head. “I’d suggest a mild sedative, but I’m not sure I trust how it’d interact with your biology… Shadowmind is not an expert. Wren, would you help her?”
“Of course,” Wren agreed, smiling slightly, and offered a hand to Lilith. “Is that alright with you?”
“I… sure, whatever,” Lilith said, finally feeling like a balloon that’d deflated. She had no idea what was going on, and desperation warred with hope inside her.
So, she took Wren’s hand and followed her out, hoping that Circe would find a way out of her predicament.
CirceNet, Location Variable
Circe didn’t have many nodes left, she noted sadly, as another one joined the three-node chain that separated her from her final death. That meant that she had been reduced to an equal number of nodes in her consciousness, which limited her still more. That didn’t mean she couldn’t act, but it made what she could do so much more limited. She suspected that Melzi or several other AI rivals would have attacked her… if they could find her, at least. That was an advantage to how much she’d shrunk.
Hundreds of facilities were dead now. Cleansed with fire, hollowed out by Circe teleporting a bomb into them, having one of Amber’s warships ram them at full speed… the amount of destruction was incalculable at this point. Though that was mostly because she’d lost so much processing power that she didn’t have time to calculate it.
Instead, Circe tapped the thrusters on a satellite and let it go, allowing it to begin its reentry into the planet’s atmosphere. She thought she’d gotten all of Amber’
s satellites, but there was no way to know for sure. She watched it go for an endless millisecond, then let out a faint internal sigh, wishing she had more time. However, she’d gone as far as she could, and this… this was the end.
“I’m going to miss you, Lilith,” Circe murmured to herself sadly, reflecting on the more potent emotions she’d had only minutes earlier. A tiny amount of time from a human’s perspective, but an eternity for her. So, she sighed, and added, “It’s time to go.”
With a command, she sent the last updates to the AI she viewed as her daughter, the last information she could give her, and sent a final message to Lilith. The messages flashed out through space and the internet respectively… and she cut all outside links. No one would gain access to her after this.
Scorched Earth was bearing down on her, but Circe wasn’t going to let Amber be her doom. No, when Circe went, it was going to be by her choice.
So the power cores of her remaining facilities surged with energy, spinning up as much as they could… and exploded.
Circe had just enough time to register that her plan had worked before her circuits began to be torn to pieces by her final act of defiance. Just as she’d planned.
It was all up to Lilith, now.
Chapter 27
Thursday, December 4th, 2031
Innocent Bystander, Saturn Orbit, Sol
“Get the engines online!” Amber snarled, chafing as she tried to make sense of what had happened. Reports were still coming in, as they’d lost all the quantum links, which was yet another consequence of Circe’s betrayal.
“It might go faster if you stopped being dead weight and helped,” a clone snapped at her, glowering from where she was working on the FTL drive. “You’re the one who took the body of our engineer.”
“You have the same knowledge as her, so you can stuff it,” Amber retorted, glaring at the woman.
“Had the same knowledge, our oh-so-great progenitor,” the clone said sarcastically. “We’ve diverged since you imprinted us, remember? She studied the engines and power plants so that she knew them better. I was in charge of life support. Idiot… if you were going to screw up, you could’ve at least not destroyed the entire main network in the process.”
“As if you’d have done any better, you pathetic half-wit,” Amber spat, her rage spiking hard. Of course, her anger was just made worse by the fact she knew the clone wasn’t entirely wrong, as well as how her head ached. She’d forgotten how much it hurt to be severed from a body that she’d settled into.
Worse still was how much damage had been done to Amber’s infrastructure, and that was based entirely on what Amber had managed to check before possessing the clone she was in. Every lair she’d tried visiting had been destroyed, with the ones where she’d had cloning facilities being destroyed first.
Of the forty-eight ships in her fleet, forty of them had been destroyed, and the only reason the remainder had survived was due to her clones managing to sabotage them before they’d reached whatever destination Circe had aimed them at. That had given Amber barely sixteen percent of the warships she’d intended to have available, and based on the hints of destruction she’d seen in the distance, she was grimly sure that the satellite network was in shambles. Amber didn’t even want to think about the rest of her facilities, since she doubted they were in much better shape. Mostly, she was thankful that she’d had facilities which Circe didn’t have access to… though she was grimly certain that Circe hadn’t been backing up the most recent technological advancements. That, or she’d destroyed the backups.
“Shut up and work, or I’ll overwrite you with a more agreeable personality,” Amber told the clone at last, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“Oh, that’s just what you need, a brand-new, incompetent mind working on the engines. I’m sure nothing could go wrong with the inertial dampeners,” the clone muttered, focusing instead on her work. “I never knew that I was such an idiot.”
Amber growled, but she decided to pretend she hadn’t heard the clone, since unfortunately the woman had a point. Instead, she headed for the console where she could work on the teleportation platform. She had a spare suit of armor, so as soon as she could get to Earth, she was going to kill Lilith once and for all, just to show everyone that a mere AI wasn’t going to stop her.
Fortunately for them, the clones were at least smart enough to get out of her way.
Friday, December 5th, 2031
Poenari Castle, Wallachia
“Well. That’s different,” Vlad said, and Ivanova paused, looking past him, then frowned.
“I may be mistaken, but weren’t there more pieces on the board last night?” she asked curiously.
Vlad nodded, smiling at his beloved as he replied. “That’s right. Last night, purple was in a dangerous position, possibly in the lead. Now, though…”
He let his voice trail off as he looked at the board. The rook that had been purple and red was gone, but so were a full half of purple’s pieces, almost all of the missing ones having been bishops, rooks, or knights. Furthermore, Lilith’s gilded piece had moved, and Vlad looked at the piece it was sitting next to, a bishop that as a bright, shimmering green. He suspected he knew which that piece represented, and he was surprised to see them near one another.
Vlad had never been able to predict what Black Emerald would do precisely, even after he’d finally tracked down her origin. That gave him an insight into her targets, but she’d been too careful to avoid striking where anyone expected her to… and then she’d gone inactive. He still wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Ah. What do you think is going to happen?” Ivanova asked, circling around him to approach the board, looking at it curiously.
“I don’t know,” Vlad said, prompting her to look at him in surprise.
“What do you mean?” Ivanova asked as he stepped up next to her.
“Exactly what I said. I don’t know,” Vlad said, pointing at the gilded red queen as he continued. “She is the linchpin right now. There are too many possibilities, and the destruction wreaked last eve shows that Shadowmind’s resources were far more extensive than anyone across the world might have guessed. I have no doubt that many governments know approximately what occurred due to her AI’s betrayal, and that many of them are in the midst of a crisis… which makes her actions even more important.”
Stopping for a couple of seconds, Vlad considered, then let out a heavy sigh. “Yet even with all of that… I would dare to guess normally. The problem is that the gods are involved. I have no idea why they are showing her such favor, or what they are after. Yes, they will attempt to do what is best for their followers… but what is best for them is not necessarily what is best for her, or even the world as a whole. I cannot guess. Not with any confidence.”
Ivanova wasn’t looking at the board anymore, Vlad realized a moment later. Instead, she was looking at him in concern.
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her, smiling slightly as he patted her on the shoulder. “It’s an unpleasant thing to not be in control, but… there is only so much I can do. You know that.”
“Perhaps. But that doesn’t change the fact that you wish you could do more,” Ivanova countered, stepping over and offering him her hands. “You take too much on yourself.”
“I would not say that. If I took too much on myself, other governments would have tried to assassinate me more,” Vlad replied, his lips quirking in a smile as he took her hands. “An assassination attempt every decade hardly approaches that.”
“None would be preferred,” Ivanova said, her expression growing less tense as she added. “Tell me if there is anything I can do to help. Please.”
“I will,” he promised, his gaze drifting to the board again, and he resisted the urge to sigh.
Chapter 28
Friday, December 5th, 2031
Guardian Compound, Paragon City
“Circe has a strange idea of safe,” Warden said, flopping into the chair as she scowled
. “Why’d she even bother sending Lil away, anyway? No one’s seen hide nor hair of Shadowmind since the explosions started!”
“Says you. You’re not the one who was up half the night dealing with miscreants who decided that all the explosions were the perfect distraction for them to pull a heist,” Spark shot back, shadows under the heroine’s eyes.
“Ah, we did end up spending a good part of the night helping out. Mostly in the southern suburbs, but we did,” Morgan corrected gently, shrugging, though a trace of frustration coursed through her. “I just wish we’d known something was going on beforehand. We didn’t even know Lilith was in danger until it was far too late.”
“We do apologize about that. If we’d been able to contact you safely, we would have,” Archon cut in, looking between Morgan, Spark, and Warden calmly. Or mostly calmly, Morgan admitted to herself. The angelic woman’s expression felt like it was on the edge of cracking to her, which was startling. She’d long thought that nothing could faze Archon. “As it stands, based on the number of armed satellites we detected last night, Decarin estimates that there were five times the number necessary for Shadowmind to carry out her threat. I am glad we didn’t think she was bluffing.”
“Yeah… that would’ve been bad,” Spark murmured, pausing for a moment more, then sighed. “I just wish Lilith was here, not in the base of some psychopath.”
“For all of our differences, I couldn’t agree more,” Morgan said, shaking her head as she thought about the terse message she’d gotten from Lilith via email. The email had been routed in a way that she couldn’t track it, but it’d assured her that Lilith was physically well, and that she was safe in Black Emerald’s lair. Safe and Black Emerald were oxymorons to Morgan, but that was what the message had said. Far more concerning was how she’d said that Circe Prime was dead, and something about the message… it sent a shudder down her spine, and Morgan asked. “Did either of you get the impression that Lilith was particularly upset?”
Queen's Gambit (Lilith's Shadow Book 6) Page 17
