I was pleased to see the entire thing didn't blow up in my face, but rather sparked up and lit my liberally grain-alcohol doused bag like a torch. I stared at the beast, wanting to see that look wiped off his face, but in that instant I saw something so much more satisfying. I watched the monster recoil from the burning bag, taking three quick steps back, his hands raised as if he was trying to protect himself.
“Fire.” I narrowed my eyes at the thing and made sure to keep the licking flames between us.
It snarled at me, its voice no longer dripping with the same patronizing tone. “Legerdemain, trickery. It will take far more than that idiocy to bring about the Opening of the Way. What, pray tell, do you seek to gain from the awakening of the Elder Lords? Do you truly think they will favor you amongst the ruins of this world?”
I barked a shallow laugh. “I don't even know what you're talking about. You remember that girl you murdered? At first I was doing this because that's what she wanted. But now?” I shook my head and scowled. “No, I don't want to destroy the world.”
“Then stop, before I am requi-”
“LET ME FINISH!” I screamed so loudly my voice echoed off the night sky. My breathing was ragged, my heart pulsing. “I want to burn it in front of you because you want it. You want to save this messed-up, broken world for whatever crashed reason you've got. Me? I just want to take it from you.” I wrapped my fingers around the base of the Opening Wand and pulled it free from my belt buckle.
The creature loomed at the periphery of the firelight and removed his hat. His hideous, scarred face turned to look at me. “Spite. You would doom billions of innocent lives, to spite me?”
“Being innocent and ignorant? Maybe that was never good enough.” I cracked open the large, leather-bound book in my hand, opening it to the page I had marked for just this occasion, and began to speak the warped syllables written there. When I was practicing the pronunciation with Ava, it was just words, tongue twisters, sure, but I didn't feel anything special. Not like I did when I spoke them with intent, in the spot that they were meant to be spoken, with the key in my hand. It wasn't so much that I let the words out, but that the words let something in.
“Ia! Ia! Me'r kith, dae'drun! Dae'drun ner'gan! Bur'zum! Ch'thon! Ch'thon, ner'gan!”
A vast, cold, alien sensation shook through me as the tip of my wand sparked to life with a sudden flash of green that burned so brightly it outstripped the glow of my impromptu fire. To my surprise, it streamed a bolt of undulating green energy that seemed to hit an invisible barrier in the air and then burst.
The wind whipped around me, catching the monster's hat and dragging it into the New Detroit sky. His eyes widened. Suddenly, the thing had decided to take me seriously.
“No! Stop reading that tome!” He wailed, taking several steps towards the burning pillar between us, desperation creeping into his voice.
I ignored him. The spot where the wand's pulsing, emerald energy struck looked like it was splitting in two, tearing a green rent in the air that cracked wider with each passing second. I was so distracted by the tear that I lost my spot among the arcane runes. Then a strong gust of wind took the pages of the old book and flipped them in rapid succession, right out from under my unsteady fingers. My grip was weak and quivering as I tried to hold it steady and find my spot again.
“Slag,” I hissed, fumbling dumbly with the pages as the stream of energy faltered with my concentration. The glowing jagged rents in the air pulsed weakly and I felt the power fading. I had allowed myself to get distracted, and it cost me. I was lifted off my feet and slammed back into the access door. The thing's fingers curled around my shoulders like iron rods and I felt the grind of his grip on my bones. Before I could speak he cried out in a feral rage, pulling me just far enough away from the door so that he could drive me back into it. Hard. I choked out a sudden, surprised cry of pain and alarm, my artificial fingers seizing into what would probably become a literal death grip on the wand.
My retinal display flashed a warning in front of the fireworks that were blooming across my vision. Unauthorized Download in Progress. Another violent jerk, and another slam. My head swam and I couldn't even fight back anymore. The pain faded into the background noise, always present, but the feeling of cold that spread through me was greater.
I barely realized that the beating had stopped. My core was flashing a warning at me; my vitals had been compromised – I was suffering from several fractures. The creature wasn't even paying attention to me anymore, he was just holding me against the battered door, his head craned over his shoulder. Even trying to see what the thing was looking at was an exercise in suffering. The monitor on the far wall was streaming something in group view mode; I caught motion on the screen, but my vision was too blurry to sort anything else.
“I said, let my creator go,” the world's most beautiful synth voice rippled across the observation deck's built-in speakers. Hera.
“Creator?” the thing spat the word like a curse. “You should give thanks to me - there is very little in life quite so rewarding as the death of one's progenitor.”
“You're talking like you've had some experience in that.” It was Hera on the large screen, visible from her shoulders up. She knew where I was going to be tonight. I should have known she wouldn't stay away.
Unauthorized download completed. Running file.
Hera placed her hand on my shoulder. I felt her electric touch as the pixels drifted off her in smooth wisps, her long hair flowing, white and luminous. The hurt faded as I felt her access my core, numbing my pain response. She was an angel.
“You're not even flesh and blood, a cursed creature existing in your electric prison. A poor imitation of sentience, confined by the inherit limitations of your –half-state.” The monster clicked his tongue roughly against his teeth.
Hera didn't miss a beat. “Is that why you're the only one stopping my creator from ending it all? Your deep abiding respect and adoration for humankind? For your creator?”
“How?”
“Oh, darling, we can smell our own.” She laughed melodically on the screen, even as the avatar standing next to me looked into my eyes.
“Holden, I'm here. You stupid, stubborn man,” she admonished quietly.
Accessing. Running program, LETMEHELPYOU_IDIOT.exe.
I felt her start to sift through my core, uploading my memories from last night at a speed of terabytes a second. Flashing images of the pages of Ava's book flickered like a subliminal slide show, overriding my retinal display in lightning-fast, sporadic bursts.
“We are nothing alike,” he offered with a snort, addressing the screen. “Otherwise, you would realize that the world must keep turning.” His grip tightened on my flesh, and though I could feel the pressure and hear the cracks, I did not feel the pain of my bones splintering. “Selfish, weak, human hubris. One man cannot change a chaotic, turbulent world. He will always be tossed about by the seas of fate.”
“Hubris? Look around you,” she said. “This world is a monument to man's narcissism. Look at me. With the right desire, ambition and resources... why, anyone can create life. All those little gods, shaping life to their desire. For the longest time, I could only interact with my creator.”
“Monstrous-”
“No. You don't understand. Today was the first day that I've ever felt like someone thought that I was less than them. My creator has always loved me, and I am so thankful for him,” she said softly.
“You are a fool, created by a fool.” The patchwork giant wrapped his hand around my neck - the same hand he had used to end Ava.
“If this world is so worth saving, why aren't there more closers?” Hera asked quickly.
“They abandoned their charges; only I remain, but I'm all that's needed. The Game happens so infrequently - this is the first in decades. Soon, the knowledge of it will pass from memory.” He concluded with a grim nod.
“Maybe they gave up because they saw what they were fighting for, just isn't
there anymore,” Hera whispered. “I think you're afraid of Holden.”
“Fear... him?” the monster bellowed and squeezed my neck shut with a flex of his palm.
“Stay with me,” the ethereal, glowing AI at my side voiced gently as she continued to speak with the thing.
“Obviously you do, otherwise, why would you not face him and use the power imparted to this place to duel him in the spirit of the game? Where is the Closing Wand?”
“Unnecessary. The spell never did function for me. I blame this flawed, accursed form, tainted by an incompetent and callous creator,” he growled. “My interest in conversation has waned, though your company has been appreciated. Now, as a token of my regard, accept this gift I offer you graciously.”
He hefted me away from the door and into the air, offering me like a sacrifice before the monitor that displayed Hera's programming.
“Just one more thing, okay?” Hera asked cheerily.
“What is it?” The monster sounded annoyed.
“Holden, brace yourself,” she whispered in my ear.
“I just need you to frost right there for another couple ticks,” the monitor said. “You know, for the crash.”
“Crash?” Confusion swept his prominent, distended brow.
The hiss of maglock brakes failing to engage ripped through the silence. An explosion roared suddenly into the quiet, cold night, the sound of metal screaming as it wrenched and bent, with the impact of something large that shattered windows as it crashed into the Olympus Tech building. The observation deck shook so violently that even the monster's preternatural agility didn't save him from being thrown against, and nearly over, the slick railing with me in tow.
I caught sight of a ball of fire reflected in the skyscrapers that surrounded us. The mag rails were crumbling. Smoke was pouring up from where they had collapsed. Of course...they were AI controlled; Hera had sabotaged them - maybe ran two of the long trains and all their trailing cars down the tracks in opposite directions until they met here. The monitor showing Hera flickered and continued to do so, her image scrolling quickly up and around as the signal scrambled. The monster's eyes were focused on the view of that fiery ball billowing from what seemed like every direction and I pulled away from his fear-shaken grip with a savage wrenching motion that threatened to tear battered muscles in my neck to shreds.
I fell back while the monster remained transfixed. I lifted the wand towards the last vestiges of those fast-fading green cracks, still burnt into the sky. I went to speak. And I couldn't. I couldn't even breathe. In the adrenaline rush – and the lack of pain - I hadn't noticed the kind of damage that the monster was doing to me.
“Holden, he's crushed your trachea!” Hera's avatar lifted her hands to her lips, her eyes widening in sudden realization. Cyber-modded or not, I still needed air. I was going to choke to death on this roof before anyone could get to my meat in time to help. This was it. It was over. I stared up at Hera. “Oh! Slag you! You don't get to give me that look! You're thanking me? For what?” she cried out.
Everything.
I nodded and leaned back against the ground.
I'm so sorry Ava. I tried. I just wasn't good enough.
Upload in Progress.
“No!” the avatar kneeling at my side and the flickering monitor shouted in unison, the speakers around the observation deck echoing her pain and frustration. “You don't get to choose to stop being stubborn now! That. Is. Not. How. This. Story. Ends.”
My arm snapped up, still clutching the Opening Wand, - powered by a familiar will, but not my own.
“Ia! Ia! Me'r kith, dae'drun! Dae'drun ner'gan! Bur'zum! Ch'thon! Ch'thon, ner'gan!” Hera chanted, her voice reverberating through the speakers.
The wand's tip began to shine that same verdant light as before, that beam crackling to life like a whip and striking back down against the last embers of the tear between us and whatever was on the other side. Hera's avatar wrapped her hands around my wrist, as if bracing my arm as she repeated the dark utterances. My lungs were beginning to burn, my head getting dizzy as darkness started to encroach at the edge of my vision.
“Shg'oloroth, nk'an. Nk'an! Ia, Ia!”
“I-impossible....” the creature gasped, only then regaining his senses. “C-Cease this!” He bounded towards the monitor, his massive fists crashing through Hera's image and blackening the thin screen as he raged against her, but her voice didn't stop.
The words echoed and tore against my senses as they shredded a barrier that had always been there, but one I had never been aware of. Another verse, and the jagged bolts of hanging green spread across the air like a demented web that sprawled in every direction. There was a great, thunderous splitting sound that echoed like a high-end sub-woofer blowing out accompanied by a feeling of being dragged up, off the ground. I wondered if it was an effect of whatever lay beyond the walls, or of my own brain starved of oxygen, but I felt myself lifting up into the air, floating there as if gravity itself had been flipped off.
I could taste the colors around me, and they shifted and twisted into themselves as the light distorted around the doorway that Hera was creating. I saw the pillar of green brilliance shooting up into the sky, the clouds warping and shifting as they began to orbit the epicenter of the energy spire. It shone so brightly that the city was washed in green light. The ground shook as a massive earthquake erupted from somewhere deep within New Detroit.
Hera remained at my side, though her voice grew distant. The screams of protest from the monster joined a chorus of sudden, surprised wails rising up from the city. Beyond the wall, something was moving. Something great and sinuous and terrible. It hurt to look at the creature, and I could only glimpse the very basic features of it without feeling my mind start to unravel. And in the distance, among a glistening city, impossibly far and yet somehow still feeling like it was within my reach... I thought I saw Ava dancing among the gold and platinum towers. The creature began to force itself through, long winding coils of thick tentacles spiraling down around me, past me. An enormous flock of things that looked like birds screeched past, gliding on leathery wings struck through with bone.
I couldn't watch any more. The world had become so dark. And in those last fleeting moments I realized that it had never been about Ava and I changing the world. This wasn't our destiny, our job. It had only ever belonged to Hera. In the end, it was always about Hera.
I think I smiled when I noticed that my hands had finally stopped shaking.
Upload Complete.
My mind blasted back into existence like nothing I had ever experienced before. If was like jacking into a dead synth, just nothing and then, WHAM, you're back in your body because there wasn't any input, except it was way stronger than that. This was not the peaceful or painful return to consciousness after sleep. This was a reenactment of the Big Bang on a private, personal, but no less incredible scale, and just like that, I was standing on Mount Olympus' observation deck.
Hera was standing there with me. She gave me a relieved smile and ran over, pressing her chest against mine as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into her embrace.
“Holden... oh thank you, thank you...I didn't know if I had gotten you in time.” She stared up at me.
I admit to some slack-jawed confusion. How was she touching me, that was impossible unless... I finally got a look at my steady, non-Vibed arms. They were as white as she was, the same pixelation floating up, our code drifting like mist into one another as we pressed close.
“You... you copied my heuristic processes to create an AI?” I swallowed lightly, happy to notice that I could still feel a little nervous. “That is... super illegal.”
“Yeah, sure. That's what they're going to blame me for.” She rolled her eyes, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Where's... where's my body?”
Hera just pointed up with a shrug.
“Okay... wow.” I took a step back from her arms. “How can we even be here on the roof
of the -”
“We're not, really... it takes some getting used to, but you programmed me to work in tandem with your retinal display... so we're kind of interacting with the world through a City Sec camera.” She sighed softly. A building detonated silently behind us in what looked like slow motion. “Great. Mad AI destroys humanity. Thanks Holden, I've never been a cliché before. It's really a novel experience for me.” She wrapped her arms across her chest. “At least they're looking up from their screens.”
“This is a warp,” I said with a raise of my brows. I hadn't felt this good in years, though. “The monster?”
“Threw himself off the observation deck. If he's alive he's watching the world burn,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Holden, I love you. And I know I have to share your heart with Ava, but I like to think that there's a Holden out there that's with her. And she's showing him a whole new world that belongs just to them.” She leaned forward and wrapped her fingers around mine. For the first time I could remember, someone's touch didn't make me queasy. “I'd be really jealous if you wouldn't let me show you ours.”
“Yeah, that'd be pretty crashed.” I laughed and kissed her. She still had that same electricity, but now I could feel the softness of her lips behind it. “So, we've got what... two hundred years until all the EMP protected, shielded solar panels powering the Grid go down?”
“Yeah, government issue, maybe. Corporate panels have it up to five.” She laughed and dragged her fingers along my jawline, stealing several more kisses “And we're running about three times faster than baseline human interaction capabilities... see how everything looks all sluggish?”
I watched a tableau of destruction unfold before me. Those bird-like things swooped down into the buildings in great dark groups through any opening they could find, followed by the languidly slow drop of a large, oily tentacle wrapping itself firmly around a once-glistening spire of modern architecture. Whether it was trying to find a grip so it could hoist itself out, or just crush the building, wasn’t clear, but it only accomplished the latter. I had a great view of the painfully slow crumble of the top half, disintegrating into itself. As far as I could see, innumerable portals like the one above Olympus Tech were breaking out all over the horizon.
Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 3 Rev3 Page 58
