Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  As Ute hit the ground, the other two ULCRs got into the groove, peppering the solid concrete floor with blasts that were too slow to catch the now quickly moving God soldier. Those that grew too close to the man for comfort were caught on the shield and sent back the way they’d come.

  Tomas opened his mouth to shout a warning, but doubted the man had the patience to listen; the Fury cannon, driven by some of the most vicious and well-coded avatars the solar system had ever seen, was a silent, deadly monolith, targeting and tracking sensors doing nothing more than paying attention.

  The elder EuroJapanese man couldn’t believe Ute’s raw fluidity as he battled the ULCRs.

  Or the smile on the man’s face.

  Or the fact that –as the assaults from the triple ULCR-threat brought him closer to the shield- he was fighting with his eyes closed.

  An abrupt and loud blat filled the air.

  The Fury had finished its assessment of the target and was ready to fire. Ute danced his way back through the barrage of electric lighting raining down at him from the three ULCRs, and, almost as if he’d timed it somehow, he brought his massive duronium shield around in a swinging arc, neatly deflecting a deadly bolt of skin-searing energy back to each of the smaller cannons.

  They caught the blasts and immediately short-circuited.

  Ute barely had time to bring his shield back around to … do something with the scorching beam of energy burning through the air. Tomas squawked and hurried to cover his eyes, but the shield he hid behind darkened enough to allow him to 'witness the amazing'.

  Tomas blinked, then scrubbed at his eyes.

  Amazing?

  Unbelievable was more like it!

  Ute Tizhen, leaning into the beam, duronium shield singing as the metal sometimes did when drinking in unbelievable amounts of power. So great was the torrent that Ute was being slowly driven backwards, tremendous and clawed battleboots digging great furrows into the nearly indestructible ferrocrete floor of the warehouse.

  And then, suddenly, the Fury cannon shut down, on-board avatars determining at last that the attack was making no visible dent in it’s opponent’s armor. The beam winked out, the shield glass turned back to normal, the air filled with the steady tick-tick-tick of an overheated Fury cannon and Ute's cherry-red d-shield. Ute started walking towards the mystified EuroJapanese elder, visibly pleased.

  Tomas watched wordlessly as the d-shield broke into dozens of smaller pieces that speedily wrapped themselves back into place around the prote.

  “Captain America.” Ute explained into the silence.

  Tomas tilted his head to one side again and stared twice as thoughtfully at the revolutionary proteus. No. He’d need to get his hands on the device to see how it worked. “Say again?”

  Ute gestured towards the doors they’d come through and the two of them started walking. “Captain America. From one of Garth’s stories of heroes and legends from his own time. You see, it all started, apparently, with a World War and the first attempt to create a super soldier, like me…”

  Planetsfall

  When Chad Sikkmund opened one of their eyes, he was quite surprised there were an eye to open; tumbling downwards into the eternally hungry maw of the massive … thing … that he’d strayed so close to in his hunt for Huey, the nanotech knight had to admit they'd been more or less convinced they'd wasted their time shouting for help, because come on.

  The thing … the Galaxy ship … it were fuckin' ridiculous...

  Yes, sure, they’d danced around a black hole once whilst being chased by an Enforcer, but that’d been for shits and giggles and besides which, that black hole had been a wee tiny baby in comparison to this bloody great solar-system eater they were now apparently inside.

  So. When they opened their left eye and saw what it were there were to see, he opened their right eye so a better look could be had.

  What they saw didn’t make any sense, and for a lad that was the amalgamation of all his other selves that’d ever been –and a few, they rather suspected, that were never were’s and not-even-yets- that were sayin’ summink.

  Firstly, they were in their own tiny little crater.

  “Well,” Chad said to themselves, “that only makes sense, hey? Reckon bein’ sucked in through wotever kind of vortex or gravity well or wotever would’ve given us quite a bit of speed, hey? Only nat’ral, wee hole like this, right? Physisics an’ all?”

  He listened to themselves and they were all on board with that summation. And since they were all in control of themselves finally, they weren’t even worried about any damage they might’ve endured thanks to the planetfall.

  Chad chuckled at the word and continued on examining their surroundings.

  Beyond being in a crater of their own accidental devising, they were in a forest, and were it not for the fact that they were damned bloody certain that one Mister Garth N’Chalez had not only done for King Asshole the Dickwad but that he’d also yanked the Dome down around that twat’s ears, it were almost like he were back in Arcadia.

  But he weren’t, because of the aforementioned steel-bound certitude that the old shithole was no more.

  Still and all, a few of the less well-integrated hims and thems receded somewhat into the furthest confines of their eternal thinking place because, let’s be honest, not all of them were really all that right in the head yet and were therefore understandably worried the ole Dark Iron Dickwad would bamf! right into the clearing, stinking of hot oil and burned metal.

  Chad stretched languidly. “For a bloke as got sucked down some sorta whirlpool and then proceeded to fall about a billion miles, I is feelin’ well rested and all manner of relaxed. We should market this somewhere or summink, hey? Feelin’ down around the ears? Can’t get a good nod on no matter wot you is tryin’? Hop on down to Honest Chad’s House of Relaxing Black Hole Consumption! Fling yourselves in an’ ‘ope for the best. If you is survivin’, we is guarantee you is feel the best you is ever feelin’ in your life.”

  Some of the hims wanted to address the situation vis a vis the skyline because while he –as the primary bus driver in an otherwise overfull bus- had been exposed to some of the strangest things the Unreal Universe had to offer, many of him had been trapped in the very bowels of Arcadia for thousands of years. Yes, yes, they’d seen the worst a despotic and insane King powered with nanotech could get up to, but that was that.

  Up until a short while ago, many of him had believed stories about things like sky and Universe to be the ramblings of a stark-raving lunatic. Which were fine. They were more than willing to accept hallucinations and drug-fueled concepts and illusions, but …

  What lay above them were frankly freaking some of them right the fuck out.

  “Orl right, you daft buggers, hold on a moment whilst I get us a ciggy.” Chad pulled a cigarette out from behind his ear. It took a bit longer than usual –a full three seconds- for the slender white tube of delicious baccy to manifest, and that put a bit of a thoughtful frown on their face.

  Nowt to worry about, not just yet, hey?

  They lit up, and Chad stabbed the flaming cigarette up into the night’s sky a handful of times, one for each of the planets he could see easily. Gut instinct said there were more up there, but the seven they were looking at were more than enough to chew on for a bit.

  “Worlllll,” Chad said to himselves thoughtfully –with some of him digging deep into their own memories to see if they’d ever run across summink like this on their own- “’s like this, yeah? Them’s planets, hey? Really close planets, mind, which is summink of a risk, I’d reckon. Wot if the gravity went all wonky and whatnot, hey?”

  And there were seven planets up there, almost close enough to reach out and touch. They hung there in the night’s sky, held aloft by science that threatened do Chad’s head in. Seven planets, twirling and swirling in such close proximity to one another and the planet they were currently using as a vast couch that a few of them agreed quite sternly; the massive gravitational pu
ll from a single planet this close to another should be resulting in all manner of disturbances, from tremendous and not at all fun earthquakes to storms the size of continents.

  Chad flicked his ear, and the him that’d gone all David Attenborough –only with science instead of animals- shut their gob.

  “Like we is sayin’,” Chad flicked the spent ciggy up into the air, straight as a fiery dart towards the closest planet, a big green world full of steady, golden lights, “gravity should be all wonky and shit.”

  They lit another cigarette, ran a free hand through their hair.

  “The fing as is botherin’ me the most, though, is that we is here in the first place.” Chad stretched again, then rose to their feet.

  When a pile of them asked for an explanation, he began doing so, picking his way through the rubble kicked up by their crash-landing cautiously in the process. “Worl, lads, it’s like this, hey? It’s safe to assume, right, that the black hole we was landing near in’t really a black hole, right? Or, well, yeah, okay, Welsh me, it is a black hole, but that in’t the only fing this’un does, yeah? Wot is I mean? Christ, lads, take a fookin’ look around, hey? We’s on a planet, surrounded by planets. This planet we is on ‘as weather an’ oxygen an’ all that sor … well, obviously, you ain’t seen any animals or people yet, hey, we is in a fuckin’ crater, I was just … look lads, shut up. Since we is on a fucking planet in a black hole and is surrounded by uvver fookin’ planets, it’s safe to assume that all of this is made by some … ah. Well, look there. People. I were tellin’ ya. This is all manmade. Now, lads, be on your best behavior. I reckon folks who is capable of doin’ this sort of fing are likely to be kind of twitchy. Wot ho, laddies!”

  Chad bowed graciously, sweeping a nonexistent hat down to the ground, in honor of greeting three people from the world he’d unceremoniously given a crater. He were giving them the benefit of the doubt, though he did caution many of themselves to be prepared for danger or awkwardness as might arise from this first encounter; it’d not gone amiss that all three rapidly approaching lads were very nearly identical, dressed in togs as could only be described as ‘standard boring green military clothes, version 1’ and that they had pistols of some sort holstered at their waists.

  When he straightened, they were still right there, staring at him.

  Weirdly.

  “Who are you?”

  Chad opened their mouth, reminded himself that the locals might not take kindly to someone with a bunch of other someone’s riding shotgun in the back of their brain, and spoke slowly so as not to sound like an idiot. “My name is. Chad. Sikkmund. I am from. Well. Not here, obviously. As you lot is. Looking. Very similar to. Each other. So it’s. Pretty apparent that. W… I. Haha. Almost tripped up there. I look nuffink like. You free. Three. Bollocks, this is well. Difficult.”

  Soldier 312 cocked his head sideways and relayed the information he was gleaning from the stranger to his cohorts, 453 and 789. Their agreement flowed through Harmony fairly quickly. This was a man who didn’t belong. Their lord and master, the mighty Kith Antal, was en route from one of the deeper hole worlds. Until their leader arrived, the three of them were to escort the invader who’d survived the fall through the gravitational lens of their primary weapons systems to the center of their Hub.

  Whereupon he would be summarily tried and executed for engaging in an act of war.

  Without a word, the three Harmony soldiers drew their standard weapons and aimed them more or less in the direction of the interloper; they were playing it a bit on the cautious side because the sort of man who could survive falling through their gravity well and walk away from a planetary collision was undoubtedly more dangerous than was apparent.

  Chad picked up on the fact that the boring lads in boring green shirts weren't too pleased to be in the presence of the great and majestic Platinum Brigadier. A few of him suggested that their hosts weren’t pointing their weapons threateningly at them, but in more of a ‘we have guns, do you?’ sort of way.

  “Fellas.” Chad said around a mouthful of cigarette smoke. “I is understand that this situation is kind of … odd. Possibly even delicate, given the nature of my arrival, but this is no reason to draw down on a lad ‘ho is ‘avin’ them … himself, fuck me, himself a cigarette. I mean, I just crash-landed on your planet, and your planet is in a black hole! And then," Chad pointed at all the planets on the horizon, "there's all these fuckin' planets up there, hey? Isn’t that the sort of fing as would ‘ave you all scratchin’ your ‘eads goin’, oi, maybe they is a bit on the tough side, shouldn’t … bollocks.”

  789 shot Chad in the head while 312 aimed for a leg. 453 waited a second and shot Chad right in the middle of the chest.

  When the haze of stun energy dissipated, the Harmony soldiers stared at Chad, who was standing there, holding out his broken cigarette in the most accusatory manner.

  “Fuckin’ ‘ell, lads, that were bullshit. Wot if I were an advance scout for a race of interdimensional beings who were swingin’ by to, like, offer assistance in wotever it is you lot are lookin’ to get up to? I mean, seriously? Who shoots a guy ‘avin’ a puff?” Chad threw his ruined ciggy to the ground and looked up at the three men with deadly serious intent in their eyes. “And which one o’ you cunts wants ter explain that psychic bullshit flowin’ ‘tween the three of you, hey? Looks real fucking familiar. Not as … erm … cyborgish, but we is recognizin’ the stink of it quite clearly.”

  The three Harmony soldiers holstered their weapons and went at the invader, fists and feet blazing.

  Chad stepped out of the way of the first three punches, took a roundhouse to the head, caught the middle twat’s leg as it came at their chest and swung the now-captured asshole as hard as they could at the lad on the far right.

  The rightmost assailant took the full body blow poorly, then went sailing off into the distance: this lad smacked himself into a copse of trees and were well down for the count, doubly so when all them trees fell on top of him.

  Chad, on a roll, spun around a few more times –which had the added bonus of keeping the leftmost fella off their arse for a few seconds- then sent his human-shaped assault weapon spiraling away over the crater. There was a loud thump somewhere satisfactorily far enough away to get them all some breathing room.

  “Now.” Chad said merrily, putting his fists up so they could fight like proper gentlemen. “My name is Chad fucking Sikkmund. I is not from around here. We were more than willing to fuck about for a bit before tryin’ ter find a way out, all wivvout bein’ a bovver, but now you cunts is given us summat to wonder about, hey? You is similar to me old mates, the CyberPriests of Watt, only you is, well, properly formed and not at all slaverin’ on about the end of times and all that sort of shit, which leads us to believe you is the Great Enemy me friend Huey blows on about sometimes, and I reckon if I can give him and his mate a leg up in the old destruction business, well, they might look sideways on our old criminal past, hey?”

  789 reached out for his comrades. They were dead. More were being assembled. They would arrive soon, and Antal was on his way besides.

  Whoever or whatever Chad Sikkmund was, he would be dealt with.

  Long live Harmony.

  The full power of the glorious song flowed through 789’s blood, bones, heart, skin, mind and soul. Atoms sang in the air, the dirt beneath his feet danced, the song in the sky echoed from world to world to world and the crushing weight of the primary defense systems swirling millions of miles away from where he stood was a never-ending beacon.

  789’s brothers and sisters in the Harmony, hurtling this way, the fastest they could, added their voices to the heavenly symphony.

  789 smiled and pressed forward, a literal blur.

  Chad really wished they had a cigarette for the fight. There were summink so macho about fighting wiv a cig in your mouth, like you was half-assin’ it all the way, ‘specially when you were bein’ so proficient-like.

  Chad blocked the first few lightning
-fast attacks from his unintended enemy quite easily, though they did notice that their opponent were beginning to move faster and faster, as had a certain black-haired scallywag on a moonlit rooftop a few years ago. A stuttering heartbeat later and the first of many truly impressive blows landed across the side of their forehead like it were a fuckin' wreckin’ ball.

  Going with the flow and letting themselves fly through the air towards the very same copse of trees that’d done for one of the cocky soldiers, Chad allowed as how he might’ve bitten off more than they could chew, but only by a small margin; it were highly unlikely the green-clad dick were in the same league as Garth Nickels, no matter how fast the bloody bastard moved, but still, this were turning out to be a wee bit more of a scrap than they'd signed on for, hey?

  789 closed in on his flying target, senses rushing to fill the void of the future with the most likely course this conflict would take, content in the knowledge that it would be over quickly.

  Nothing came. No flashes of insight as his opponent’s moves rippled backward through Harmony, no hints of what was to come.

  “Impossible.” 789 watched as Chad Sikkmund reached out lazily to catch remaining trees with a most delicate looking grasp. Ridiculously, the invader came spinning around the other side with both feet aimed right at his chest. The blow, which was completely unavoidable, was vicious and uncompromising.

  “Im…im…impossible.” 789 gasped around a mouthful of blood as he found himself flying backwards. The wounds –cracked ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen- began knitting back together almost instantly.

  The Harmony soldier let the power flowing inside him flow outwards, thickening the air behind him until, desperately, tenuously, he came to a full halt, mere inches above the ground, scant heartbeats away from becoming -quite literally- one with the earth. 789 lowered himself gently to the ground, then sprung right back to his feet just in time to deflect a few savage -if clumsy- ripostes from the enemy combatant.