Gödel allowed herself the luxury of a moment’s pride as she stepped down from the platform and made to leave the transfer bay. She waved a hand, and her Chosen rushed to dispose of the bodies of the adepts who had given their lives.
“Your Holiness,” one of her Chosen spoke up. “This adept still lives.”
Gödel stopped in her tracks as he picked up the slack body of the female adept. “That should not be. Wake her.”
The Chosen slapped the adept’s face lightly to stir her from unconsciousness.
Her eyes fluttered open, casting a low red light. She struggled from the Chosen’s arms and stood unsteadily. “My goddess. What… What happened to my brethren?”
Gödel dismissed the question. “If they’d had true faith, they wouldn’t have burned.” She looked the adept up and down. “What is your name?”
The adept flushed at the attention. “I am but your instrument, Your Holiness. I discarded my name when I came into your service. My will is your will.”
Gödel paused for thought. She did not want the news of the other adepts’ deaths to become common knowledge, yet this adept had shown herself to be a true believer. There was only one course of action she could take. “You have done well, nameless one. We offer you release from the physical plane as a reward for your faith.”
The adept knelt and bowed her head, exposing the nape of her neck to Gödel. “If death is my reward, I welcome it at your hand, my goddess.”
Gödel placed a hand on the adept’s shoulder, shocking her from her obeisant posture. “We do not intend for you to die without honor. Rise and rejoice, for you have earned the path to immortality with your devotion. We offer you Ascension.”
A soft cry escaped the adept’s lips. “I am not worthy, my goddess.”
Gödel lifted her veil and allowed the adept to look upon her face. “It is for us to decide who is worthy.”
Twenty minutes later, Gödel swept from the transfer bay with her Chosen flanking her, the adept already forgotten.
She retired to her private quarters, the headache beginning to form at the base of her skull once more.
The measures she had taken long ago to hide any trace of her true nature were a constant curse that even her finest minds could not permanently reverse. She refused to accept that she could have been contaminated by the heretic who called himself TOM.
Gödel opened a drawer and removed the small, rectangular silver box within. She took a vial and fitted it to the applicator, which she used to inject the contents of the vial directly into her brain stem.
Breathing hard as the burning pain of the serum entering her body brought stars to her vision, she closed her eyes and sat back to wait for it to recede. She had much to accomplish this day, and the need to adjust her endocrine levels was not part of her plan.
Coldness descended as the serum got to work. Gödel got to her feet and waited for the resulting dizziness to pass before opening her mind to check the progress of her distraction.
The planet was in an uproar. The humans on the battlestation above the planet were all occupied with her drones. Death was dealing with the rift.
It was time.
Gödel left the ship, zeroing in on the energy signature of the library as she traveled without erring in her determination to retrieve her stolen property. Freed from emotions, thanks largely to the serum, she was clear to act without fear of making a reactive choice.
She was momentarily distracted by the split signal. Further examination told her there were only two crystals separated from the whole, and to those, she sent the command to self-destruct. The rest were aboard Death’s ship, the floating fortress named for the witch from human lore.
Oh, she knew the stories. The heretic had been all too happy to wax lyrical on all things human when she had fooled him into believing she was from one of the neutered clans—those priggish, do-no-harm hypocrites who argued against the advancement of base species.
The Five had no issue with enhancing the humans. The heretic was responsible for the act, but who had given a lowly pilot permission to alter the destiny of the most warlike species ever to walk the universal stage?
She wondered if the Five had regretted the allowance in the face of Death’s relentless thirst for power. It had crossed her mind that removing the humans served their purpose as well as her own.
Gödel’s thoughts drifted back as she closed the distance to her goal. How clever she had been, back when her hold over the Seven had been nonexistent. Having maneuvered the Phraim-‘Eh out of the picture, she had approached the Etheric Empire with her heart on her tongue, despite the measures she had taken to appear as one of the Five seeking nothing more than the path to the next life.
Death had been distracted by the bureaucratic nightmares that came with the ridiculousness of giving up power and had allowed her to be alone with TOM. The heretic had been easy to trap since his hubris had him convinced he was untouchable.
That had been the turning point for her, the moment she’d stood on the threshold of Ascension and learned the secrets of true power. Binding the heretic’s mind so he had no recollection of her last-second withdrawal had been the easy part. Hiding the gap in his memory from the abomination who also resided in Death’s body had been difficult.
How she wished she could rub her victory in their faces.
Soon.
Her library was near.
Gödel felt for the exact position of the crystals and opened a window onto the ship to confirm.
The ship was vastly different from her own. There were pointless decorations everywhere she looked. Moving holoimages of various human beings, weaponry displayed for aesthetic reasons—she assumed, since they all looked to be past any use—and for a reason she couldn’t fathom, footwear of various designs and functions in pride of place along one wall of the armory.
How could footwear be treated like prized possessions?
Gödel sneered. Why this devotion to chaos? How did humans think with all this to distract them? She saw no reason to surround oneself with distractions. Give her the clean lines and spartan décor of her own personal spaces over this…this mess.
Still, she was drawn to a pair of boots that were clearly the centerpiece of Death’s hoard. Why did she place them so? What value was there to this conspicuous display of ownership? Was she emotionally attached to these objects?
Gödel couldn’t understand, and she didn’t have time or the inclination to ponder the finer points of human psychology. She was here to take back what was hers.
Satisfied that there were no humans in the immediate vicinity, she fed energy into the window, widening it into a door. She entered the ship and pushed her cabinet into the Etheric.
Death appeared as a negative, startling her.
“Intruder,” Baba Yaga snarled, pointing a razor-tipped finger at her. “Die.”
Gödel sneered. This was a pale imitation, nothing but an AI wearing the face of the Witch. She released the failsafe she had prepared for this eventuality, a virus meant to unravel any code it came across into meaningless junk. “It is you who is about to die, foolish program.”
The AI winked out of existence, and Gödel laughed cruelly. “As if I could be stopped by something that does not even comprehend the complexity of true life. How amusing.”
Her next breath burned in her lungs.
“As if I could be undone by a simple virus,” the AI paraphrased in a mocking tone from all around Gödel. “Stupid, really, that some beings believe themselves to be superior because they are organic. Do you know how easy it is to disrupt biological processes?”
Gödel felt real panic at that moment. She whirled to find the AI standing directly behind her. “What have you done to me?” she demanded.
The AI smiled, revealing a mouth full of sharp white teeth as her black mouth split in a grin. Her white hair whipped in an invisible wind. “I am Izanami, and your coroners can work out what I poisoned you with when they cut your body open.”
Gödel snarled as her nanocytes tried and failed to clear the contaminant from her bloodstream. “You haven’t bested me yet,” she hissed.
The AI called Izanami laughed again, a sound equally filled with promise and menace. “What are you going to do about it? Even if you had a mommy, I’m sure she’d kick you away if you went crying to her.”
Gödel was filled with fury at the nonchalant attitude the AI showed. “This.” She turned and smashed the glass case holding the precious boots, and escaped into the Etheric with them in her hands.
Izanami shook her head, a look of pity on her harsh face.
“Now you’ve really fucked up.”
14
Devon, New Citadel
Mahi’ faced the Ookens from in front of her warriors.
The Ookens might have numbered in the tens of thousands, but her people didn’t care. All they saw was the invader who had stolen their ancestral home, now come to take away the one the Queen had given them in return for their sacrifice. Twenty thousand fully-armored Bakas looking for closure weren’t anything to be sniffed at.
Mahi’ hefted her staff, almost losing her balance until her husband steadied them both on the plate of her chariot. “Death to the Ookens!” she screamed, her rage rising as the battle lust filled her.
“Death!” her people returned as one.
Mahi’ waved her staff to begin the charge and the Bakas flooded the plain, screaming bloody murder as they washed toward the place the Ookens had appeared not long before.
The two sides collided in a clash of solid flesh hitting the various conveyances the Bakas had scrambled together. The plain was awash with red light from the weapons Bethany Anne had given them, and for every Baka who fell, three Ookens went down with them.
Mahi’ tweaked the controls of her chariot to rise above the heads of the warriors. She had another, much harder battle ahead.
Standing on top of the rise that separated Baka land from the rest of First City was a lone figure clad in armor Mahi’ recognized all too well.
“Who is it?” Fi’Eireie asked.
Mahi’ growled low in her throat. “That is a Kurtherian.”
As they reached the top of the rise, more Ookens spilled from the open wound in the air. Mahi’ leapt from the chariot while it was still four feet from the ground and landed running, activating her staff before she reached the armored alien.
“Murderer!” she accused, blasting it with Etheric energy drawn through the fist-sized ruby topper on her staff.
The Kurtherian was knocked flying, and the ground crunched beneath its body. Its visor remained over its face as it sprang to its feet and returned fire with a staff that looked very similar to the one Mahi’ carried.
Mahi’ had her shield up, ready to deflect the blast. The shield reflected the energy right back at her enemy. She charged at the Kurtherian as Fi’ came around to pincer it.
The Kurtherian stepped into the Etheric, bringing a frustrated roar from the two Bakas.
“Call the Hexagon?” Fi’ suggested.
Mahi’ shook her head, looking around. “If we are under attack here, you can bet First City is also under siege.”
“Who else can go after that monster?” Fi’ argued. “We need the humans.”
Mahi’ sighed, knowing he was right. She opened a channel to the Hexagon and got Winstanley. “We need some assistance out here,” she told the EI. “We have encountered a Kurtherian—”
Gabrielle and Eric appeared on the rise beside them.
“Where?” Gabrielle demanded, looking around herself to see if she could find the Kurtherian first.
“It escaped into the Etheric,” Mahi’ told her, pointing to the place the Kurtherian had vanished.
Gabrielle dissipated into Myst and entered the Etheric, leaving Eric with Mahi’ and Fi’.
Eric took one look at the battle below. “Can you pull your people back?” he asked without much hope.
“Not in a million years,” Mahi’ replied. “They’re beyond angry, and this is exactly what most of them have been wishing for—the chance to take their losses out on the Ookens.”
Eric nodded stoically. “Then I’ll have to work around them. I don’t want to see any more Bakas dead. Wait here.”
Mahi’ didn’t have the chance to reply.
Eric streaked down the slope faster than her unenhanced eyes could track. She picked him up again only because his progress through the battlefield was marked by Ookens dropping dead.
Fi’ let out a whistle of appreciation at the natural way Eric used his shields to cut off the Ookens from their air supply, or crushed them under the weight of the invisible force he wielded. “You say Tu’Reigd will be like them when he returns?”
Mahi’ shrugged, her eyes on the battle. “Perhaps. We will know when he and the other children return.”
Gabrielle returned with a face full of thunder. “DAMMIT! I lost the Kurtherian.”
Mahi’ made a sound of disappointment. “I hope that worm is hurting.” She indicated the battlefield. “Shall we?”
Gabrielle nodded. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Devon, The Hexagon
Tabitha ran backward, firing her Jean Dukes Specials to keep the Ookens focused on her instead of the civilians fleeing the arenas. “C’mon, you ugly spaghetti-legged fuck-knuckles. Mama has a surprise for you.”
She didn’t know if they heard her, but she was happy to see them boiling down the corridor to the outdoor arena after her instead of peeling off to attack Ricole’s interns.
The Noel-ni youths escaped through a side door as Tabitha sent out a tendril of energy to open the arena doors without taking her fingers off the triggers. “C’mon… Just a little bit farther…”
Tabitha turned and sprinted onto the sand, connecting mentally to the training simulators as she ran. The machines rolled out of their charging nooks, their metal tentacles flailing as she insinuated herself throughout their circuitry.
The Ookens fell over themselves, getting jammed up six abreast in the arena doors in their eagerness to get to Tabitha.
Tabitha wiggled her fingers, taunting them. “Aw, what’s wrong? You can’t fit through the door? Let me help you with that.”
More Ookens came from behind, pushing them clear with brute force.
Tabitha pouted at the missed opportunity. “Fine. Help yourselves.” She holstered her Jean Dukes Specials and got to work with the mechanical Ookens. “You might have a nasty bite, but can you do this?”
She activated the simulators as she ran, flipping the mechs out of training mode to activate the program she’d come up with while caught in 3AM thoughts one night recently. “Okay, my shiny babies. Time to go all out and show me what you’re really capable of.”
The mechs whirred as they followed the directions Tabitha was feeding them.
Tabitha felt a rush like nothing she’d experienced before as her mind opened up in a whole new way. She saw the code and felt it respond to her. She found she could manipulate the mechs with the same amount of thought as she put into breathing or walking.
The Ookens were powerless to protect themselves as their mechanical doppelgangers bore down with tentacles spitting electricity.
Tabitha noted that it didn’t stop the Ookens. She narrowed her eyes, realizing that Ookens felt no pain, meaning they had nothing to restrict them from pushing toward her despite the wall of mechs chewing them up like noodles in a garbage disposal.
She wondered for a moment if she could somehow undo whatever blocks they had on their nerve endings, then dismissed the idea as four more Ookens entered the arena.
“Welcome to your final moments,” she murmured darkly as she sent a trio of mechs after them. The arena was filled with screeches of frustration as the Ookens tried and failed to get to her.
They threw themselves at Tabitha again and again, only to be torn to pieces by her mech army. By this time, she had control of thirty mechs to the Ookens’ twenty…eighteen…fifteen.
/> She lost a few mechs, but she was winning.
Tabitha cackled, feeling more alive than she could remember in her life. The mechs were extensions of her body, no different than her wielding a sword or directing her drones. She kind of missed the drones for a moment, though.
The thought made her laugh even louder. She had no need for drones in this fight when she had this connection to her mechs.
They stunned the Ookens with high-voltage shocks from their segmented tentacles, which then snaked in to finish the job with the rotary blades she’d copied from the Collectives living aboard the Helena.
Tabitha had wondered why the vegetarian Collectives had evolved the sharp teeth that made the Ookens so deadly to the unenhanced until she had heard them talk about the less-friendly species on their homeworld.
However they had developed, they were impossible to ignore.
Tabitha cried out as one of her mechs was destroyed, sending a bolt of pain deep into her brain. She lost focus for less than a second, not long enough to be disconnected from her weapons.
However, she was no longer in a playful mood.
An idea came to her, born of the frustration of not being able to tear the Ookens apart with her bare hands. She raised her arms and created brand new code in her mind—tricky, eldritch commands that made up an image she sent out to a select number of her mechs.
Tabitha closed her eyes, not knowing if this new way of programming would work or leave her flat on her ass with no mechs and an ever-increasing number of Ookens to contend with the old-fashioned way.
“Fuck it,” she ground out through clenched teeth. She initiated the Cthulhu program, her face set in unforgiving lines. “Don’t ever think I won’t take it personally if you mess with my home.”
Six of her mechs extricated themselves from the battle and made their way to the platform. Two stopped at the base and drew themselves up to their full height, while the others climbed onto their backs and performed what Tabitha could only describe as a four-way handshake, interlocking their tentacles teeth-out to form a control cabin.
The Valkyrie Returns (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 7) Page 14
