John Ringo - Council Wars 01 - There Will Be Dragons

by There Will Be Dragons(lit)

  "There's period and there's period," Edmund said. "Buy me a drink, and what's more important get me some of this stuff to play with, and I'll fill you in on some aspects you might not have considered."

  "Deal."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Deal," Daneh sighed, terminating the call.

  The job was not her favorite; a person wanted an "original" Transfer into something very much like a manta ray. But it was for a worthy cause-the form was a deep-diver and the person wanted to do deep sea research "on site"-and there weren't any serious problems like Herzer's to work on.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Azure lift up and shake himself, heading for Rachel's room, which probably meant that she was back. Thinking about it, Daneh didn't think she'd seen her daughter in a couple of days.

  "Rachel?" Daneh called, and her voice was automatically transferred to the girl's room.

  "Yes, Mother?"

  "Where have you been?"

  There was a pause that caused Daneh to sit up and override whatever answer she was going to get. "Come in here for a moment, will you?"

  "Yes, Mother," Rachel replied with a sigh that was faithfully replicated by the transmission system.

  As soon as the girl walked into the room, Daneh's stomach sank. She'd already been feeling depressed about not having any projects to test her mettle. And now this.

  "Rachel, I thought we had agreed no body sculpting?"

  There wasn't much, but to her expert eye it stood out like a lightbulb. Rachel's eyebrows had been curved, her cheekbones sharpened and her nose slightly thinned. Furthermore, she had had her breasts reduced and her butt tucked even more than for Marguerite's party.

  "I didn't agree, you agreed," Rachel answered hotly.

  "I'm your parent, it's my decision," Daneh replied coldly. "Where did you have it done?"

  "I don't have to tell you that," the girl said, crossing her arms. "I. I don't have to say."

  "You could have gotten it off the Net," Daneh said, tilting her head to the side. "It's the sort of generic junk you can find there," she added with professional disdain. "But the Net has my specific prohibition against it. So how did you get it done?"

  "I Don't Have To Say," Rachel repeated. "And it's not generic junk!"

  "Well, it's very poorly constructed," Daneh said, coldly. "Give me the benefit of my expertise here, daughter. The eyebrows are badly balanced, the cheekbones detract from the nose and the combination makes you look like a short-beaked bird. I mean, it's not well done."

  "Well, you wouldn't let me get a well-done job, Mother," she spat, furiously. Then she slumped shaking her head. "But. you're right. It does look awful, doesn't it?"

  "Not awful," Daneh said, tightly. "But it's neither fashionable, not that I like the current fashions, they're very unhealthy, nor is it particularly good looking on you. Face it, dear, unless or until you get a complete body and face sculpt, and end up looking like your friend Marguerite and all the other kids who were stamped out of the exact same genetic modeling kit, there's not much you can do to look like current fashions. You're too." Daneh paused, searching for the right words.

  "Fat," Rachel said.

  "Not fat, womanly," Daneh replied. "Nobody these days is fat. Fat is when you have flabby bits hanging." She looked at her stomach and arms and shrugged. "You've seen pictures. You're beautiful dear. You know very well that at times you would have been considered beyond beautiful," she added with a sigh.

  "Sure, Mom, but these days guys don't think in terms of women who are built to survive minor famines."

  "You're not exactly a Reubens model," Daneh replied. "Do you want it undone? Or do you want to keep it until you can get a proper bod-sculpt? I know some people who do very good work."

  "When?" Rachel asked, surprised.

  "When you turn eighteen," Daneh replied. "In the meantime, you're grounded indefinitely. If you can't keep a promise like this one, I'm not sure what promises you will keep."

  "Mother!"

  "Don't 'mother' me," Daneh said. "The proof that you aren't old enough to make the decision is that you went behind my back to do it and then got it done badly."

  "Oooo. I. I." Rachel worked her jaw furiously and then spun on her heel and stalked out of the room.

  "Genie, I'm serious about the grounding. Remind me of it in a week."

  "Yes, ma'am," the program responded.

  Daneh sighed and rubbed her temples. "What a day."

  * * *

  Dionys' surprise turned out to be. a girl. Or, Herzer thought much more likely, a homunculus. She, and about a half dozen of McCanoc's usual hangers on, were in a wooded glen. She was small and fragile looking with a short black hair and an elfin face. And she looked frightened.

  "Is that a homunculus?" he asked, just to be sure. Normally the homunculus would have been wearing a rather simple smile. This one looked downright terrified. Just to be sure, he sent a mental query to the Net and was assured that it was, in fact, a homunculus. Not a terrified preteen girl.

  "Oh yes," Dionys replied with a sardonic grin. "But a very special one. She has been programmed to fear sex. So much more. interesting."

  "I thought they were illegal?" Herzer said, breathlessly. His face and hands felt hot.

  "Not. illegal so much as restricted," Dionys said with another grin. "It helps to have friends in high places."

  Herzer was not a virgin, at least with homunculi. There was some debate about whether that counted but with the onset of the worst of his symptoms, making friends, especially girlfriends, had been tough. So homunculi were the only route open to his developing teenage libido short of using his hand. And he always cast himself in the role of the hero, the pure paladin on the white charger. But.

  He knew the allure. The desire not just to be in a woman, be one with one, but to control her and dominate. To take instead of negotiate or, in the case of normal homunculi, be given freely. It was a secret he normally kept deep inside and one that he didn't discuss. Ever. There was no one to talk to about it. No one who would. understand. He'd heard rumors about homunculi being abused, some of them even having to be recycled and replaced. Now he understood why.

  Hero? Or rapist? Sometimes. the line seemed so strange. The joy of battle was so close to how he felt when he fantasized. bad things. Even in his own mind he had a hard time saying "rape." To take the life of an orc, to slaughter his enemies and see them running before his charger, to throw a frightened girl to the ground and take what had been withheld. To get back at all the girls who sniggered at him when the convulsions would hit. All the girls who rejected him when he needed them most. To take and take again. To punish.

  Was he a paladin or a villain? He just couldn't decide.

  Especially now looking at this vulnerable, frightened. toy. She wasn't a real woman, a real girl. She was just an artificial construct. Somehow that both relieved him and made the. thing less illicit. Almost less interesting. But not much.

  "Please," the homunculus whispered, tears running down her cheek. "Please."

  He felt the heat rising in his body no matter how he tried to check it. This was just.

  "There's nothing wrong," Dionys said. "Men have. needs. This is one way to let them out. Women have. very similar needs you'll eventually find. But even that is so sterile. So many rules, so many precautions. This is the real." He tapped Herzer on the back. Lightly. "Go ahead. Take her. Enjoy."

  Herzer took an involuntary step forward and reached out one hand to the girl's blouse. It was white silk with old-fashioned buttons to match the short skirt of the same material. He imagined himself ripping the blouse open, running his hand up her thighs. taking her.

  "Please don't," the girl whimpered. "Please. ?"

  He worked his jaw for just a moment and shook his head.

  "No, Dionys," he said, harshly. "This isn't right."

  "How can it not be?" The man sounded more surprised than anything else, as if the thought had never occurred to him. "She's only a homunculus."


  "And her fear isn't real," Herzer agreed, although it was an intellectual agreement only. "But. it's still not right. I'm not. this isn't right." He looked at the two holding her arms but they just grinned. "It's not right."

  "So you've said," Dionys replied, disapprovingly. "Very well, if you don't want to stay and enjoy yourself, you can go. Go to your meek little playthings and all the so-called friends who betrayed you."

  Herzer started to open his mouth to reply but at the look on McCanoc's face he shook his head instead. "Home, genie."

  * * *

  Sheida glanced around at the Council as she entered the vast chamber, but if there was mischief on anyone's mind, it wasn't showing. Celine had apparently decided to copy Ishtar's hairstyle, and her hair, suitably lengthened, was gathered in a giant confection shot through with crystal wasps made of gold and ebony.

  Paul and the rest of "his" faction had gathered at one end of the table, so as Sheida, who had carefully arrived last, settled into her seat he stood up to call the Council to order.

  "The first thing is to change the agenda," Paul said. "Mother, refer to the first item on Agenda B, please." He looked towards the entrance and smiled. "And here is our seventh voter."

  Sheida glanced over her shoulder quickly, thinking as she did so that it might be a trick but then blanched.

  "You've called in the DEMON?" she shouted. At the shout her lizard unwound from her neck and took off upwards towards the top of the chamber. It found a perch where it could look down and watch the rest of the proceedings through baleful eyes.

  "Indeed he did," the apparition growled. "And I vote aye." The Demon's true form was impossible to know since he went everywhere in a suit of black armor. The helmet of the armor had been worked into a bestial face, all staring eyes and tusks, and the gloves were tipped with long talons. He was one of the two normally absent holders of the Keys, older than any of the rest of the Council. He had extended his life by means that were highly illegal, using the power of his position to twist the laws to his own purpose. His purpose had always been chaos, so his appearance at this meeting made terrible sense.

  There was a series of rapid "ayes" from Paul's faction and he smiled broadly.

  "The personal protection fields are now turned off," he said with a moue. "Item two, aye." After the same series of seven agreements he shrugged. "And the Council is now officially in a dispute situation with rump rules applying." He looked at Sheida sadly. "I do this for all mankind. You cannot stand in the way of the survival of the human race. Celine?"

  "Welcome to the new order," Celine said, rising to her feet. "My friends wish to make your acquaintance," she continued as her hair seemed to explode outward.

  Sheida cursed as the cloud of insects came flying across the room. Poisons and poisonous life-forms were not allowed in the Council chamber, but there were two types of wasps in the group, black and yellow.

  "Binary toxins!" she shouted, springing to her feet and overturning her chair in her haste. As she did the Demon sprang through the air.

  Cantor was already on his feet and didn't even bother to Change as one arm swept into Tetzacola Duenas. The impact snapped the man's neck and he was flung through the air in the direction of Sheida just as the Demon landed on the werebear's back.

  Ungphakorn wasn't inactive either. He had grasped the top of the table and uncoiled from his oversized seat, his long serpentine body flipping down the table and enwrapping Said. In a flash the council member was dragged from his chair and wrapped in coil after coil of feathery body. He let out one cry, more of a squeaking scream, then his tongue and eyes protruded as the serpent applied full power in a constrictive hug of death. The quetzacoatal ripped the Key from his neck and half flew, half slithered across the chamber towards the entrance, the tip of his tail flicking back and forth snapping at the wasps closing in on him.

  Sheida's flying lizard stooped from its perch, its wings folded onto its back, and snapped one of the wasps out of the air, crunching down on it and spitting it out at the taste. It hissed as it flew past Celine, grabbing at more of the insects as it darted hither and yon.

  Sheida raised her arm and a bracelet extended into a broad shield. She flipped it through the air and swatted aside two of the wasps as she bent to the dead council member and ripped the Key from Tetzacola's neck.

  "Out!" she shouted, backing towards the entrance.

  Cantor was still wrestling with the Demon as two of the wasps landed on him and began probing for an open spot in his fur. She looked towards him but he just shook his head at her.

  "Get out!" he yelled, ripping his Key off and throwing it towards her. He pulled his hands loose from the Demon's grip and took two of the beast's tusks, turning its head up and back. "Go!" he cried as the first sting hit.

  Ishtar had touched a control on her hover seat and fled the room at the first sign of trouble, some of the wasps following her out. Sheida was relatively sure that she was going to survive but she found herself and Aikawa the only ones left in a room full of enemies.

  "Time to leave," she said, backing rapidly towards the door and flicking another of the wasps away with her shield as her flyer guardian snapped another out of the air and landed on her head, tongue flickering in and out.

  "Hmmm," Aikawa said snatching one of the wasps out of the air and crushing it in a move that looked like some sort of magic. "I suppose," he murmured, catching up another and considering the insect as it struggled before crushing it between his fingers. He was careful to keep away from the business end at the rear. He dropped both of the crushed bodies into a pouch and then waved at his former colleagues. "I'm going to kill you all for this." With that he flipped out of the room in a series of seemingly impossible back-flips.

  Sheida was now surrounded by a cloud and felt the first sting as she kept backing towards the door. "Goodbye, Paul. And I'll see you in hell." With that she took one more swat and fled. The last thing she saw on the way out the door was Cantor's body beginning to spasm. But he still had a death grip on the Demon.

  * * *

  The four surviving Council members had fled by prearrangement to a home that Sheida maintained in the Teron mountains. From its main room there was a spectacular view down to a tarn similar to that at the Council Center. But it was across the world from that embattled chamber.

  "Paul will follow us," Aikawa said, looking around.

  "Not easily," Sheida said, striding across the room and yanking open a cupboard. She tossed an archaic can to Ishtar and a long, curved sword to Aikawa. "The house has its own power supply, divorced from the Net. And a teleport block. And weapons. Let him come."

  "There is a dip in power in the Net," Ishtar said, looking at something that was invisible to the rest. "He is preparing something."

  As she spoke, a bolt flew out of the clear sky and crashed into an invisible barrier over the house, sending a tremor through the floor as something in the basement began to screech.

  "Oh, and a protection field," Sheida said as her lizard took off in fright from the impact. "That was from the Council Chambers themselves. We can't reply directly but." She opened her mind to the Net and delved in, looking for weaknesses. "They're drawing power directly from the Net, but they're not hooked into a particular plant." She considered the protocols and twisted. "I need a vote, all in favor of disconnecting all power distribution say 'aye.' "

  "But if we do that." Ishtar temporized just as another bolt crashed into the screen.

  "That barrier won't hold forever," Sheida said. "And if they get smart they'll just burn the rocks out from under us."

  "People will die," Aikawa said.

  "We're about to have a war," Sheida replied. "And we don't have enough time to debate. We can't take all the power plants to our own control, they already tried that and the protocols are against it. But if we send people to take physical control we can control the power distribution." Her forehead creased and then she nodded. "I just dropped a half a dozen satellites on them. That
should make things interesting. And I'm diverting as much power out of the Net as I can to melt the ground under them. Of course, we're more vulnerable to that than they are."

  "I just increased the power over this place," Ishtar said as the next bolt stopped well in the sky. "And I sent a similar bolt against them. There is an upper limit to power available from our personal queue. I'd never realized that. It's. rather high, though," she added as another blast caused the mountain to shudder. "I suggest that we reinforce the foundations of this place. Soon."

  "Mother won't give any of us unlimited power, that's a holdover protocol from the AI wars," Aikawa said. He thought for a moment. "Okay, we disconnect all generators from the Net. What does that do?"

  "We'll have to draw from them individually," Sheida said. There were fourteen terawatt generators that supplied power for the Net along with some relatively small secondary sources such as geothermal areas where the nannites bled off power to prevent eruptions and other disturbances. There had been a time in history, shortly after the AI wars, when the power had peaked at over thirty terawatts. But use of that much power on the surface of the planet had led to severe secondary problems and as the population had peaked the power allotment had stayed the same but usage dropped. There had been occasional calls for increases in generation, but when output got over twenty terawatts, much of it had to be diverted to climate control.