Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain

by A. Lee Martinez

  But there was that time I’d fed their Beloved and Immortal Queen to sand scrakts. After that, I was guaranteed a place among their most wanted. I still felt bad about it. I hadn’t even done it on purpose, but so far, a sincere “Whoops, sorry about that” hadn’t done much to ease the tension.

  I found a street big enough for both my saucer and the scout craft. The Venusians crushed a Toyota with their landing gear. The Terrans might’ve panicked at the sight, but my appearance meant everything was under control so they just carried on with their business. A cop started redirecting traffic.

  “Thank you, Officer.”

  The officer smiled. “My pleasure, Lord Mollusk.”

  A Venusian battleguard squad descended from their ship. Battleguards clank. It was all the armor.

  This was just my everyday, walkin’ around exo, but it had some upgrades. A steel-blue paint job with metallic detailing. A few feet taller to allow me to see the world from a Terran’s point of view. It wasn’t as combat ready as the Ninja-3, but it had a few extra gadgets to give even a fearless Venusian battleguard pause.

  Venusians were a reptilian species. They came in many colors. They sported tufts of feathers along their spines, and biochemical flashes glinted in their eyes. The effect could range from sparkles to burning glares. They were also the only sentient species in the system that still had tails.

  Zala, the tall, lanky commander, stood at the front of the battleguard. Her scales were a bluish shade of gray. The few feathers visible on the back of her neck were red with flecks of orange and purple. Her eyes barely glowed. Normally, they’d glitter with righteous rage at the mere sight of me.

  She pointed her scimitar at me. The sharp edge could slice through titanium provided she got a good swing behind it. “Fugitive Mollusk, I have been ordered to place you under protective custody. Please come with me immediately for your own safety.”

  This was surprising. I liked being surprised. It happened so rarely.

  “Can you repeat that?” I asked.

  Zala sighed. She was having trouble with the words, so foreign to her.

  “Don’t make me say it again.”

  I grinned. “Oh, one more time. Just to be sure I heard you correctly.”

  “Protective custody,” she replied softly. “For your own safety.”

  “My own what?”

  She snarled. I smiled.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but aren’t you more interested in, and I believe this is your most commonly used phrase, bringing me to justice?”

  “You aren’t going to make this easy on me, are you?”

  “Why should I?”

  Zala sheathed her scimitar.

  “You will be called to count for your crimes, Mollusk. But it has come to our attention that your life is in great danger, and I have sworn to see you placed on trial before the High Court. And the only thing that could prevent my keeping that sacred oath is my death. Or your own. And I cannot allow that.”

  “I’m flattered you still care,” I said. “Even after all these years.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Venus never forgets.”

  “I have an amnesia ray you could borrow if it will put this nonsense behind us. Not that I mind these impromptu visits. They do brighten my day.”

  “I will not be mocked, Mollusk.”

  “Who’s mocking?” I replied. “I was beginning to feel neglected. Of all my enemies, you’ve always been my favorite. I enjoy your indefatigable passion. Most everyone else would be discouraged after the string of failures you’ve experienced. But not you. You always come back, ready for a fresh lesson in futility. It’s inspiring in a way.”

  She scowled. One day, I’d push her too far, but it was just another experiment I couldn’t resist. A study on the limits of the Venusian honor, so perfectly embodied in Zala, the most perfect of their perfect warriors. I comforted myself that my death would most likely be efficient and painless when I found that limit.

  But today was not that day.

  Zala said, “Whether you like it or not, you are under my protection now. Are you going to cooperate? Or will I be required to incapacitate you?”

  “If you could incapacitate me, I’d be sitting in a Venusian prison right now.”

  She sneered.

  “Thanks for your concern,” I said, “but I don’t really need your protection.”

  “You don’t understand, Mollusk. People want you dead.”

  “I heard you the first time. Should I be surprised? I’ve made a few enemies. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  Zala gestured, and her battleguard stepped forward.

  “Seize him!”

  I held up my hand, and the guards hesitated.

  “I don’t know if Zala gave you the story of the last battleguard that attempted any reckless seizing, but you might want to reconsider this.”

  She glared. “He’s bluffing. We will drag him to Venus, to a hero’s welcome.”

  “I wasn’t aware you gave scorched skeletons parades on Venus.”

  “If he had anything dangerous, he’d have already used it.”

  “I resent that. I’m trying to not vaporize people just for being annoying.”

  “If you’re really interested in penance,” said Zala, “then you should have no problem surrendering yourself to us.”

  “I never said anything about penance. I just said I’m keeping my vaporization tally down.”

  “Have you no conscience?” she demanded. “Do you feel no remorse for your crimes?”

  “Define remorse.”

  She snarled. Her left eye flashed. I’d said the wrong thing. I did that sometimes. I blamed it on my upbringing. For all our technological and scientific achievements, Neptune education didn’t cover conversational skills. Especially with the less advanced species that shared our system.

  “Seize him or may the Eleventh God strike you down as the cowards you are!”

  That got them moving. Venusians took their gods very seriously. Probably because, unlike so many other divinities, they intervened quite visibly in mortal affairs, and nothing set them off more than a show of cowardice. Given a choice between vaporization and explosive decapitation (the Eleventh God’s smite of choice), they did what they had to do.

  They drew their rifles. They had to put down their swords and shields first. The primitive weapons clattered to the pavement. They attempted to blast me, but their weapons clicked and spit puffs of smoke from the barrels as they pulled the triggers.

  “Focus pulse,” I said. “It disables sophisticated electronics by draining their power source. Effective, though its range is limited to a few hundred feet. And it’s easy to counter with some basic shielding. You really should consider updating your weapons technology.”

  “We’ll cut you out of that tin suit if need be,” said Zala.

  Her guard drew their scimitars and charged at me. The skill of the dreaded Venusian swordmasters was the stuff of legend. Deservedly so. When facing off against their grandmaster, I’d only survived by developing an exo with six swords, and even then, I’d had to cheat to win. Although it was only cheating if you lost.

  The Venusians had disagreed, but I’d won, so it was irrelevant what they thought.

  Before they could bring their blades to bear, my saucer unleashed a magnetic field neutralizer. The armored battleguard rocketed up in the air, up and away until they were tiny dots floating above our heads.

  I excluded Zala from the effect.

  “You’re a coward,” she said.

  My brain didn’t burst out of my skull. You might think that my colorful history with Venus would’ve angered its gods. They were a brutal, unforgiving lot, but they limited their wrath to Venusians. I’d had dinner with six of the eleven divinities once, and if you could get past the ritual blood drinking, they were a fairly likable and jovial group.

  “Mollusk, if you willingly board my ship, I swear to you, by the Unspoken Name of the Forgotten Thirteenth God of Most Hallowed
Venus, that no harm shall come to you and that I will not take you anywhere against your will.”

  She lowered her blade and pointed it at my feet. She bowed. It wasn’t much of a bow, barely a nod of her head. But it was a gesture that spoke volumes of her commitment. It must’ve wounded her warrior’s pride terribly, though the only trace of reluctance was in a slight paling along her neck and a wilt in her feathers.

  Venusians didn’t make vows to their gods casually, and the Thirteenth God was reserved only for the most unbreakable of oaths.

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

  I lowered her battleguard slowly to the pavement. A residual magnetic charge caused them to stick together.

  “Talk to me. But in my saucer. Your minions can catch up.”

  Zala boarded my saucer, and we took off. I trusted the battleguard would know where to find us once the charge wore off.

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? There are assassins coming to get you.”

  “And haven’t you heard? Assassins are a fairly common occurrence in my life. You’ll have to give me more than that.”

  “Even the Celebrants of Oblivion?”

  “Hmmm. That is serious.”

  She studied my face. When we chose, Neptunons could do inscrutable better than anyone with the possible exception of the Sol Collective. But, outside of clouds of sentient helium, we were the top of the list.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asked.

  “No, but I’m intrigued. If you don’t mind me asking, just how did you find out about this assassination order?”

  “Venusian intelligence is the most efficient in the system.”

  “And how did they find out?” I asked.

  “That information is issued on a need-to-know basis.”

  “They didn’t tell you, did they?”

  “I don’t need to know the details. I have my orders.”

  “So they could be making it all up,” I replied, “for all either of us knows.”

  Zala said, “For what purpose?”

  “I don’t know. Just considering all the possibilities.”

  “I am a decorated veteran of the Imperial Protectorate. They wouldn’t dispatch me unless the situation was of the highest priority.”

  “Uh-hmm.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Zala had been third in command of the Protectorate not so long ago. Then I’d conquered half of Venus on her watch, and she’d been demoted to a field agent in the aftermath. To be sure, she was a high-ranking agent, but a demotion was still a demotion. And, whether she ever admitted it or not, part of her obsession with capturing me was to redeem an otherwise spotless career. As a symbol, Zala was useful to her queen, but perhaps they no longer trusted her with anything important.

  We landed on the roof of my townhouse and took the lift down to my loft. The lights snapped on, and she scanned the post-modern furniture that came with the place. I had a few pieces of art. Some Neptunon seascapes to remind me of home. The original Mona Lisa that Leonardo da Vinci had hidden away for fear that Terra would never be ready for the secrets of faster-than-light travel encoded in its brush strokes. The miniaturized Tower of Pisa, which refused to stand straight even at only eight inches tall. The skull of the Loch Ness Monster, unfortunate victim of a Scottish chupacabra outbreak. Edison’s spirit radio; it didn’t contact ghosts but the one-dimensional entities of another plane, though the entities liked to screw around and he could be forgiven the mistake.

  “Souvenirs,” I said.

  Zala studied a huge painting, dominating a wall. I was the subject, standing in my most regal exo, looking majestic with an atom clutched in one hand and Terra in the other.

  “I didn’t ask them to paint that,” I said. “They did it on their own.”

  Zala shook her head, took in the rest of the room.

  “You live here?”

  “Whenever I’m on the continent. I have a few dozen other homes scattered across the globe. But this is my primary home.”

  “I thought it would be…”

  “…wetter?”

  “Well, yes.”

  I could’ve explained to her that once Neptunons matured, we spent most our time plugged into exos. While it might be nice to get out and stretch every twelve hours, it also made us feel a bit vulnerable. Given that we were little more than highly developed brains in spongy bodies, we didn’t like exposing ourselves to the capricious whims of a dangerous universe with only cartilage and a camouflage reflex to protect us.

  We didn’t talk about it, but there was a definite inferiority complex running through Neptunon society. It was why we didn’t mingle with the rest of the system and why the homeworld was locked away behind an impenetrable force field. It was that unspoken paranoia that ran through the heart of every Neptunon, leading us to develop the greatest technology. The irony was that, aside from our wonders of science, there was nothing particularly valuable on the homeworld. Nothing worth invading over.

  But those wonders of science…they were a hell of a prize.

  This wasn’t lost on my people, who continued, without any sense of irony, to advance science in fantastic and inconceivable ways to deter our envious neighbors while only making ourselves a more desirable target, fueling our science-tastic furor to remind everyone that we were the smartest beings around, even as it fueled our paranoia.

  I kept this to myself. I might not have much love for Neptune, but I was as loyal as the next exiled supervillian so I saw no reason to share it with a Venusian agent.

  “I keep a tank in the bedroom,” I said.

  “Don’t you have a security system?” asked Zala.

  Two dozen legs skittered quietly behind her. Her finely honed reflexes kicked in, and she spun around with her gun already in her hand. The giant centipede hissed and clicked its mandibles. She blasted it, point-blank, but it only scorched the creature’s armor. It lunged and, with one snip of its scissor-like jaws, clipped the weapon in half. The centipede knocked her to the floor and used its immense bulk to pin her there. Like any good Venusian warrior, Zala planned on going down fighting, and she wrestled and punched at the monster.

  I emitted an ultrasonic signal. The beast climbed off her and scampered to my side.

  “Good girl, Snarg.” I patted her between the antennae, and she squeaked.

  Zala stood. “By the hidden moon, what is that?”

  “My pet ultrapede.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to have a pet.”

  “Snarg was a gift of the ambassador of the Undersphere. She’s the fiercest ultrapede ever bred for the royal family. How could I turn down a gift like that?”

  Snarg narrowed her seven milky white eyes as I scratched her palps.

  “She was already formidable. I just modified her a bit, added a few beneficial mutations and cybernetic upgrades, and voilà, the perfect security system.”

  “I would expect something more high tech from you.”

  “Yes, you would. And that’s why I don’t have anything like that. Security networks can be hacked. Technology can be circumvented. Snarg is more reliable and surprising. She’s also sweet as can be.”

  The ultrapede crawled away and curled up on the couch.

  “You shouldn’t let it on the furniture,” said Zala.

  “Who could say no to that face?”

  Snarg shrieked contentedly.

  “I would still think you’d have a more elaborate system.” She picked up the two pieces of her broken gun.

  “Don’t really need it. The Terrans love me.”

  “But you must have experimental technology here that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  “Oh, I have a few things lying around, but nothing that could do much damage anymore. I have a secure storage facility elsewhere where I keep the more amusing research. But I haven’t been there in years.”

  I could te
ll she doubted me.

  “I’m not conquering anymore,” I said. “I keep telling you. I gave that up.”

  “You can’t change who you are, Mollusk. You see the universe as your own personal plaything, other lives as tools to your own twisted ambitions.”

  “I see the universe as a grand mystery,” I replied.

  “One that you can exploit as you see fit,” she said.

  “I prefer to think of it as experimentation for the greater good.”

  She spit out a harsh laugh. “Define the greater good, Mollusk.”

  “I can’t. That’s one of the mysteries I’m working on.”

  I projected an equation on a viewscreen on the wall.

  “I thought I had a passable proof for a few hours. Then I found I dropped a seven, and the results became meaningless. But I’m optimistic enough in my own brilliance to think I can still crack the problem.”

  “You can’t honestly view morality as an experimental process.”

  “Why should it be any different than anything else? At least I’m honest enough to admit that I haven’t found the answer yet instead of arbitrarily declaring X is dishonorable while Y is not.”

  She studied the lines of numbers and symbols. “Tell me, Emperor. Where do all your crimes fit in this?”

  I highlighted a portion. “It’s this variable right here.”

  “I would expect it to be bigger,” she said with a smirk.

  “I did too. But then it turned out that I was overestimating the value by several powers.”

  She read the frown on my face.

  “And that displeases you?” she asked.

  “Considering the effect I’ve had on the system, the fact that it’s such a minor factor only proves I’m missing something vital. Or maybe not. Perhaps the equation is right, and I’m just too dissatisfied with the answer to admit it.”

  I dumped the groceries, bags and all, into the extractor. It hummed to life.

  “Well…?” asked Zala.

  “What?”

  “What’s the answer your equation has given you?”

  “I thought you said morality couldn’t be proven through experimentation.”