Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain

by A. Lee Martinez

  He led me into the temple. Once an open space where the monks of Shambhala would meditate to the sounds of a sacred gong (there were many sacred things in the sacred city), it was now an audience chamber. Along the walls, hundreds of disembodied Terra Sapien brains sat in their own fluid-filled spheres.

  “The Council of Egos welcomes you, Emperor.”

  And the Council cheered.

  23

  It was difficult to distinguish one Terran brain from another. Fortunately, they had metallic nameplates screwed to their spheres. I had a cursory self-education on Terran history, and I recognized many of them. The Marquis de Sade, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Florence Nightingale, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Soupy Sales, Cleopatra, Susan B. Anthony. Just to name a few.

  “Where’s Hitler?” I asked. “I don’t see Hitler’s brain.”

  “That idiot?” replied P. T. Barnum. “He was too annoying and demanding. There’s no place for that in the Council of Egos. We serve a higher purpose, a grand design.”

  Mussolini snickered. “We flushed him.”

  “Not everyone is worthy of the Council,” said Zu Ding. “For some, the conversion process is too difficult. It doesn’t take. Greta Garbo, Confucius, Oscar Wilde, the wondrous preservative elixir distilled from the undying waters failed to work for them.”

  “Terrible shame,” said Buffalo Bill Cody.

  “Indeed,” said Zu Ding. “And others go mad. They usually fall into a catatonic state. Or worse.”

  “Jane Austen wouldn’t stop screaming,” said Archimedes. “And Madame Curie descended into a bestial state. Although as you learned, there were other side effects that proved to be beneficial to keeping her around.”

  “And, of course,” said Zu Ding, “still others insist on clinging to antiquated notions of morality. Einstein called us insane. He claimed the preservation process must have unhinged our minds. Can you imagine the absurdity of that? We have found a way to transform ourselves into demigods of pure intellect, and he thought us delusional megalomaniacs.”

  The Council burst into cackling. They fed off each other, continuing for some time.

  Zala was brought in by a pair of monks. She was battered, but the Shambhalans had retained enough of their restraint that she was still able to walk under her own power. She stood beside me.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t have to kill you,” I whispered beneath the laughter echoing off the walls.

  She wiped some blood from the corner of her mouth. “If experience has taught me anything, Emperor, it’s that you seem to delight in walking us into traps. I wasn’t shocked by this turn of events. But I could hardly be expected to surrender meekly, could I?”

  The laughter died down, and for a moment, I thought the Council might be done. But then Tolstoy burst into raucous guffaws, and it triggered a new burst.

  “They certainly are a jolly bunch,” she said. “Should I be worried?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I replied.

  The Council’s laughter stopped, shut off like someone had thrown a switch.

  Zu Ding said, “The Council of Egos share a singular vision of tomorrow. Old rivalries, old ideas, must be set aside if one is to join us. We cannot tolerate those who are unwilling to adapt to the new order. We were very close to voting to remove Davy Crockett and López de Santa Anna at one point. But now look at them? The best of friends.”

  “We play mahjong on Wednesdays,” said Santa Anna.

  “I don’t even remember why we used to squabble,” said Crockett.

  “All the bickering and infighting that defined us as a species,” said Otani Kozui. “A waste of time, a distraction. The system is waiting for us to bring order to its chaos and instead, we’ve wasted thousands of years quarreling over borders and nations and other meaningless inanities.”

  “Until you came along, Emperor,” said Barnum, “and showed us that Terran unity is possible. The Council has worked from the shadows for thousands of years, but all our efforts were slow and ineffective. Even as our number grew, we found ourselves unable to overcome stubborn Terran nature. It took an outsider, a true master of science and conquest, to show us the way.”

  The brains murmured their approval.

  “You’re their hero,” said Zala. “You’ve been trying to stop them, and all this time, they’ve been admiring you.”

  “And why shouldn’t we?” asked Zabaia. “Since the dawn of Terran civilization, haven’t we looked to the heavens for guidance and salvation? And hasn’t Lord Mollusk come from above to save us from ourselves, as dreamt of by prophet and peasant alike?”

  Zala laughed. No one laughed with her, and the sound echoed through the chamber.

  “Oh, tell me you aren’t serious.”

  She laughed again.

  “You think Emperor is your messiah?”

  “It is not an inappropriate word,” said Barnum. “He has come to deliver us from ourselves, to show us the way.”

  I smiled, despite myself.

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “It’s nice to be adored,” I admitted.

  “This is absurd. He isn’t a god. And this ill-conceived religious nonsense—”

  The crowd murmured over her.

  “This isn’t a religion,” said Cleopatra. “Such childish things are beneath the Council.”

  “Religion offers nothing but empty promises to desperate mortals who know only fear,” said Joseph Lyons.

  “Some promises are emptier than others,” added Torquemada.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked L. Ron Hubbard.

  “Oh…nothing,” replied Torquemada.

  “Fellow consuls,” said Martin Luther, “this is not the time for this particular argument.”

  “Nobody asked you for your opinion,” said Hubbard. “Not that they ever had to.”

  “Consuls, please,” said Mussolini. “Don’t make us consider flushing you.”

  “Wouldn’t want to look bad in front of the messiah,” said Zala with every bit of sarcasm at her disposal.

  Barnum said, “You misunderstand us, Venusian. We aren’t suckers who place our hopes behind blind faith and irrational wishful thinking. That is the way of the old Terra Sapiens. We’ve transcended our distracting flesh and blood to become beings of pure intellect. And that intellect tells us that Emperor Mollusk has come to save us from ourselves.”

  “You’re all mad,” she said.

  “But of course, you couldn’t comprehend,” said Sigmund Freud. “It’s the flesh that surrounds you, that smothers your rationality with all its confusing neurological impulses. Once we’ve separated you from such confusion, you will see.”

  The floor opened up before us, and a small steel table and several surgical robots rose into the temple.

  Several monks, apologizing over each other, seized her. She fought like a Turillian devil, knocking several to the floor. But there were too many. They dragged her to a table. She struggled with every bit of her strength and training, but it didn’t do any good. They strapped her down and still she struggled. A brain containment sphere was wheeled into position by her head while the robots sterilized a buzz saw.

  “We’ll save her from herself,” said Barnum. “Unless you have any objections, Lord Mollusk.”

  The chamber went quiet.

  “You can’t let them do this, Emperor,” said Zala. “I’m a Venusian warrior! I deserve to die on my feet with a sword in my hand.”

  I said nothing.

  The Brain put an arm around me. “Say the word, and we’ll do whatever you desire. No tricks. No loopholes. You are the leader we’ve been waiting for, and you have our absolute loyalty.”

  “What are you waiting for?” said Zala. “Tell them to let me go.”

  I remained silent, pondering.

  “You aren’t actually considering this?” shouted Zala. “How many times have I saved your life?”

  “How many times have you told me
you’re going to lock me away?” I asked in turn. “We aren’t really friends, are we?”

  She sneered. “You could at least do me the honor of killing me rather than turning me into one of these bodiless abominations.”

  She made a good point.

  “Before you make your final decision,” said Queen Victoria, “there’s something we’d like to show you. Something we know you’ll find enlightening.”

  The room dimmed, and an image projected in the air above the Council. My image.

  “Hello, Emperor.” My recorded voice crackled with static and the image fizzled. “Good to see you, so to speak. As you’ve already grasped, I am the one who sent this message from the future. I apologize for the poor quality of the transmission, but as you know, anti-time projection is an imprecise science.”

  Zala said, “You? You’re the one who has been behind this the whole time?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,” said Future Self. “Pity you figured it out too late, my dear Zala.”

  “Is this a live transmission?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied. “It’s not live. I just have memorized this conversation from the last time I had it, and am recalling your end of it. It’s merely a simulation, as I can’t hear you right now, but I did hear you then and that’s close enough.”

  “How do I know you’re me?” I asked.

  “Who else could I be?” he said. “I suppose I could be a second renegade Neptunon. We do look alike, and this garbled transmission isn’t helping. I have no way of proving who I am. I could have recorded your responses from an outside source, so that isn’t conclusive. Or I could be a clone. Perhaps one you didn’t even know about. A clone of a clone. And from the vantage point of the future, there is any number of tricks I could use to my advantage.”

  The image faded into gray static, then slowly clarified.

  “And the question you’re now asking yourself is what would I have to gain from lying to you? To what grand purpose would this sort of deception work toward.”

  “He’s good,” I admitted.

  “I’m you,” he said. “And, regardless of how impossible this assertion is to prove from your point in the space-time continuum, you know that this is true. Who else would be ingenious enough to manipulate you so expertly, to lead you on a grand chase designed to remind you of who you are? Who else but you could possibly outsmart you?”

  “My gods, Mollusk,” said Zala. “He is you. No one else could say something so obnoxiously self-satisfied with a straight face.”

  Future Self laughed, and the Council of Egos laughed with him.

  “A being of your talents doesn’t belong on this pitiful little world,” said Future Self. “You were made to conquer! It is your destiny to lead the universe to glory!”

  He raised his fist. The council roared.

  Even I felt that was a bit much.

  “Perhaps that was a bit much.” He smiled wryly. “This is less about destiny than inevitability. You can’t stop being who you are, Emperor. This misguided retirement leaves you unsatisfied. Don’t bother lying about it.”

  I didn’t.

  “And I don’t have to ask you how the last few days have left you feeling more alive and stimulated than you have in years.”

  I did.

  “Your retirement was an experiment, but that experiment is over. It’s a failure, and you are too intelligent to deny that. I get your reluctance. I know there are unpleasant aspects of this hobby that don’t appeal to you. But if you don’t do it, someone else will. And we both know that they’ll do it with less style and subtlety, with armies and death rays, and all sorts of unimaginative destruction.”

  “They’ll fail,” I said. “The system can’t be conquered. It’s a logistical impossibility.”

  “Yes, it’s impossible,” he agreed, “and that’s exactly why you’ll do it.”

  “Don’t tell me that you’ve already done it?” I asked.

  “No. I’m in the future, but not far enough that I can guarantee results. But guarantees are boring. No, I can’t make any promises other than to say that it’ll be a hell of a lot of fun trying. And if you fail, at least you can say you gave it your best shot.

  “In ten seconds, these fine surgeons will remove Zala’s brain. Or they’ll release her. The decision is entirely in your hands. I trust you’ll make the right one.”

  The image panned to the right to reveal a brain in a sphere. The purple brain had a distinctive partition down the center of its frontal lobe. It was a Venusian brain.

  Zala’s voice came from its voice synthesizer.

  “Hello, Emperor.”

  The surgeon’s saw whirred as he lowered it toward present, full-bodied Zala.

  “It’s a trick!” she shouted. “It has to be! That could be any Venusian brain! By the Fifth through Eight Gods, if you let them remove my brain, I swear I’ll—”

  “Stop,” I said.

  The surgeon’s saw switched off.

  Zala exhaled with relief. “I knew you’d come to your senses, Mollusk.”

  “You could at least anesthetize her,” I said.

  A nurse placed a mask over her mouth and switched on the gas. Zala cursed my name for the minute or two it took for her to lose consciousness.

  The Brain bowed. “The Council of Egos awaits your first order, Lord Mollusk.”

  “I assume there’s a machine somewhere,” I said. “A device nearby that is the culmination of our journey.”

  The Brain bobbed in his fluid in way of a nod. “It is nearly complete.”

  I inwardly winced at the distinctive sound of a motorized blade cutting into bone. It had to be done, but I doubted Zala would understand the necessity of the decision.

  “Well,” I said. “Let’s get to it then.”

  24

  The doomsday device occupied a great cavern beneath Shambhala. A square-mile excavation of machinery, science, and conquest. Pipes funneled coolant. Webs of shimmering wires stretched across the four towers. Robotic technicians polished the machine and operated the steam vents to keep it from overheating.

  “Is it everything you thought it would be?” asked the Brain upon my first glimpse of it from the viewing platform.

  “It’s beautiful. I wonder what it does.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I have some idea,” I replied. “A few possibilities. But I’ll admit its exact function escapes me.”

  We stepped onto a moving walkway and sped slowly toward the center of the grand device.

  “We must admit we aren’t certain ourselves,” said the Brain. “The science of the device is beyond even our greatest intellects. Tesla thinks it’s a device meant to harness the global electromagnetic field to power an even greater machine that we haven’t built yet. Archimedes theorizes its purpose is to turn the entire planet into a solar death ray. Lovelace thinks it is nothing less than the computer that will access the software of the universe itself, allowing one to rewrite the very laws of physics with the push of a button.” He laughed. “There are, of course, hundreds of theories bouncing around in the Council, but even the most intelligent of us must admit that we simply don’t know. I suppose they’ll be comforted to hear you don’t know either.”

  I frowned.

  “What is it, Lord Mollusk?” asked the Brain.

  “I’ve never been on this side of things before,” I said. “Skipping all the research, planning, and construction to arrive at the plan nearly completed. It’s interesting, but I’m not sure I like it. That’s part of the fun. This just seems too easy.”

  “That’s the burden of your genius.”

  “I suppose. Who are you anyway?” I asked the Brain. “I’m not an expert on Terran history, but I recognized most of the names in the Council.”

  “My name is unimportant, and you haven’t heard of me. If you had, I wouldn’t have been doing my job properly. It was my flawless background in covert operations that led to my recruitment.”

  “W
ell, if you’re going to be working for me,” I said, “I should have something to call you other than the Brain.”

  “Call me Omega.”

  “It’s a touch melodramatic, isn’t it?”

  The Brain said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then I’ll call you Buddy.”

  Buddy was silent for a moment.

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Oh, relax, Buddy. What’s in a name?”

  His brain bobbed in its tank. “I’d prefer something else.”

  “You’ll get used to it, Buddy.”

  His shoulders sagged. “As you wish, sir.”

  We stepped onto a lift and were lowered into the control room at the heart of the great machine. Countless levers and switches covered the walls. A bank of monitors offered a steady stream of information. I spent several minutes studying the data being offered.

  “Does that help any?” asked Buddy.

  “Somewhat. Though it’s mostly just status reports on the functionality of the machine. How long did it take you to build this?”

  “Five months.”

  I looked out the window at the vast machine before me. “All this in a mere five months? I’m impressed.”

  “You flatter me, Lord.”

  “When will it be ready to activate? No, let me guess. When this red light here turns green, it’s time to throw the switch.”

  “How did you—”

  “Future designer,” I said.

  “Of course…”

  A pair of guard drones and an eight-foot exoskeleton lumbered into the room.

  “If I could interrupt your studies for a moment,” said Buddy, “I thought you’d like to meet your new bodyguard. Or rather your old bodyguard in upgraded condition.”

  I spared a glance at Zala’s Venusian brain floating in the chest of an ape-like exoskeleton.

  “Yes, very nice.”

  I turned back to the data streaming across the screens.

  “You son of a pribt.” She raised a metal fist as if to smash me, but her arm locked.

  “You’ll find your new body is counterprogrammed to prevent any harm to our leader,” said Buddy.