by Lee Bond
Relen blinked. He’d completely forgotten he’d given his prisoner a for instance; he'd gotten distracted by Intel reports on the difficulties the other Conglomerates were having with their acquisitions from beneath The Dome.
“And for seconds, you execrable piece of shite, you did for a bunch of solid boys and girls under my command, which is why I am here now. I won’t let you loose no matter what, and none of your sly grins or friendly words are going to convince me otherwise. And once the lads and lasses in their white coats think they’ve gotten all they can out of you whilst you’re alive, they’re going to take your lifeless body and shiver it into slivers, laddie, fine little slivers of meat and bone and blood to see what it is that makes you tick. And then, my fine friend, then I’ll believe you’re sorry, and not a moment before.”
“If I had my hands loose, officer,” Dom called mockingly from his high prison, “I would clap and applause that speech until the sun did set. ‘twere a thing of wonder.”
“Your hands ain’t never going to be free, lad.”
Dom opened his mouth to say something in return, but the lights suddenly dipped once, twice, three times. Too quick this time for him to react, but now he knew that were a thing as could happen, he were going to be doing nowt with his time but waiting and seeing.
Down below, Officer Relen was yammering into his handheld, desperately trying to find out what’d just happened to the power. There was no way he was going to let his sole prisoner have even a chance at escape.
Not on his watch.
***
Safe behind their glass barricade, Kiersey, Soma and Lisa stared at their Book and at the readouts flashing across all of their handhelds and their AI display boards with something akin to confusion. According to all available data, the iron-bound tome was drinking enough energy to power an entire Zanzibar-sized city block.
It wasn’t doing anything, though. It was just sitting there, staring at them. The clamps for the power transformers were starting to a glow a bit and maybe –just maybe- the geared cover was sizzling a bit from all that juice, but that was it.
Kiersey stabbed his joint at the AI readouts. “Give it more.”
Lisa, who was still trying to make heads or tails of the data, fiddled with the information for a long minute. She didn’t want to give Book more of anything, but they were in it now for certain. She looked at Soma, but the bitch was asleep with her eyes open.
Considering the effort the slender EuroJapanese woman had gone through to get certain elements of their now crazy-seeming plan up to speed, Lisa supposed she was all right with it, though she was on the verge of willfully murdering a small child to get some sleep of her own.
“Come on, Lisa.” Kiersey handed his friend and business partner the joint and mimed turning a big wheel quite furiously. “We’re already in it. We haven’t been caught yet, and if we get the damned thing open, it won’t matter. We’ll have something the entire Universe wants, and they’ll all look the other way at anything we did to get to that point. Hell, we could probably blow up half the city and they’d thank us for it!”
Lisa took a hit from the joint and the acrid smoke got her eyes watering. Kiersey was right. He was almost always right about this sort of thing. She plugged in the new power requirements and hit the button.
There was a bit of a whine, and the quietly cycling energy surging into Book turned into a heavy thrumming sound that rattled their safety glass.
Soma gave a spluttery snort, accidentally whacking both Kiersey and Lisa in the chest as she struggled to remain upright. She looked apologetically at both her friends, taking in the joint on the floor, the new power readings, and the noise coming from the other room.
“What’d I miss?” She asked, rubbing sleep grit from her eyes.
Lisa sort of half-leaned, half-crawled out of her chair, leveraging her body as much as she could to rescue the fallen spliff from the ground without actually getting out of the chair. When the fallen narcotic was rescued, she handed it to the yawning Soma. “Nothing. Watching paint dry is more exciting than this.”
***
Agnethea accepted the cup of tea from the male servant with only a wisp of sorrow at the loss of her own manservant. Such a brave and valiant fellow, and a cherished friend; so few people –even amongst her own kind- would’ve willingly stayed with her for so long, and he’d been with her for fifty years.
The one-time Queen of Ickford waved the errant thought away with a hand and took a delicate sip of the delicious smelling tea, wondering this time what it was they might try to poison her with.
:nerve agent 32-a. strips the protective sheathing from the dendrites. Lethal in ten to fifteen seconds as the body shuts down:
“Is there a problem with the tea?” Ariel asked from her side of the table.
Armed security guards arrayed in a half-circle pattern behind her had their weapons drawn as always, a new facet to these conversations the most powerful woman in the Universe didn’t much care for, but had little control over; following the escape of the zombie woman and the incredible spot of violence in Voss_Uderhell, Tremayne Tomlinson, her head of security, had invoked special privilege to override her wishes when it came to these little meetings of theirs.
Added to the grumpy IndoRussian security commander’s already mounting frustration over the whole situation was the odd power surge some fifteen minutes ago. Fact-checking had revealed that it wasn’t a localized event, rather a full ripple covering nearly two hundred square miles of Zanzibar real estate. His own men were looking into it, but everyone was being assured by AI City Control that there was nothing untoward happening, that it was a minor surge brought on by some work being done on the very lower levels.
Agnethea took another sip of tea, trying to pinpoint the exact flavor of nerve agent 32-a. She couldn’t quite make up her mind if it was a sort of acrid lemon zest or more of a mellow orangey reminiscence. Either way, it wasn’t half bad.
“Oh, no. Just an old, sad thought, my lady.” Agnethea watched with pleased eyes as the young girl who was apparently the sole voice of concern for the most powerful … Conglomerate, yes, that was the word, for the most powerful Conglomerate in the insane stretch of life known as the Universe. “I am full of them.”
:give us something to work with. Explain your purpose. How do you remain alive? How can you hear my substrate chatter? Where does all the food and drink you ingest go?:
Ariel nodded sympathetically. She’d heard enough of the woman’s life to feel that she somewhat understood the trials and tribulations that her … captive –though after these illuminating conversations it hardly seemed a fair word to use- had undergone beneath the Mad Goth King’s impervious Dome.
As Conglomerate head, she naturally discounted all tales of being over ten thousand years old out of hand. There was simply no way something like that was possible. Well, technically speaking, the technology to ensure you lived that long did exist, but it was proscribed under Trinity Law and anyone caught attempting to augment their lifespan beyond the already too-long five hundred years found themselves in a great deal of trouble.
Further, AI modeling on the subject indicated that there was simply no way –not with any kind of cybernetic implant or organic augment- for the human brain to persist under that kind of internal pressure; all that life, all those memories … there was no way something as admittedly marvelous as an organic brain could manage that. Everything would decay. You would lose your sense of self.
The woman … the thing … calling herself Agnethea was an irritating conundrum Ariel feared they would never crack; all her AI systems were claiming that they weren’t too far off from devising some kind of program or machine or test that would ultimately be able to derive some kind of usable data from the Arcadia, but the Conglomerate head was skeptical in the extreme. BishopCo had the single largest collection of 9’s and 10’s in the entire known Universe –not to mention a few illegal thinking apparatuses that would spell imminent doom for her and every
one associated with their possession- and if they hadn’t come up with something by now, Ariel was of the mind that they never would.
Discounting their own equipment, BishopCo had deep, deep pockets and untold reserves of Offworld equipment. None of that would help.
They weren't getting anywhere.
They wouldn’t get anywhere.
Not without Trinity’s assistance.
A hot surge of disgust rose in Ariel. Dealing with Trinity in any form was unpalatable, first and foremost because any discoveries or data gleaned became the sole property of the machine mind alone, leaving the actual possessor of the mystery object with little to show for their efforts save bragging rights.
Bishops didn’t need bragging rights.
They owned half the Universe.
Bishops needed results, and Agnethea wasn’t giving them anything usable.
Ariel looked discreetly at the thin handheld transmitter clasped around one wrist; designed to look like a fashionable –not to mention valuable- trinket carved in an ancient tribal style, the device flashed holographic data across the length of her slender wrist.
The AI systems were suggesting a different tack, one that was ordinarily unwise, yet, they weren’t precisely spoiled for options, were they?
Their apparently indestructible guest was being inscrutable as always and the machine that’d most likely be capable of drilling through her adamantine flesh was being delayed because of a Custom’s search.
Code for Trinity messing with their efforts, which only steeled Ariel further. She’d accomplish this on her own or not at all, and Trinity could go screw.
:I know you hear me. Respond to my questions. The Bishop will remain unawares:
Agnethea gestured to the lovely bone-colored device strapped around Ariel’s wrist, smacking her lips ever so slightly in the process. Definitely orange-y, this deadly neural toxin that was supposed to’ve killed her stone dead fifteen seconds ago.
“That is as fascinating as it is beautiful. The engravings do remind me of summat as I saw when I were a child, 'ere Arcadia were still Arcadia and not this … Arcade City. What is it?”
Briefly, because there was no percentage in letting the Arcadian –who, for all her quaint and polite mannerisms was, in point of fact, one of the quickest witted beings she’d ever met- Ariel modeled the device. “It’s based on a design in use exclusively throughout a system called Latelyspace. It allows me to communicate with people, and provides me with information I might need.”
“I know of this Latelyspace." Agnethea let the information slip with a curse on her brain; since waking up, she’d done everything in her power to refrain from making even the slightest mention of her knowledge of the outside world.
But most of all, summat whispering in her ear said it were extremely important she mention nowt about Garth N'Chalez. She ordinarily weren't prone to protecting men as had done her so wrong, but again, that wee whisper in her bonnet said as much as her feelings were hurt, it were e'er more important to protect him.
Well, for the time being.
When Ariel’s eyes glimmered in that special way people had when they were trying to seem absolutely disinterested, but the news has them so enrapt they’d smother a baby to hear what came next, Agnethea hastened to explain.
“’tis a system, as you say, full of giant people. I made a habit of tracking down them who’d come from the Outside, pressure them for information. You must understand, to us on the Inside, all of this…” Agnethea rolled a hand, not just at the sheer opulence of Ariel’s chosen offices, but at Zanzibar, the world, the system … everything, “seemed nowt more than a fancy. For us there were nowt but The Dome and King’s Will. The Outside? A phantasy, to us all, 'ere now. Please, I apologize. Do go on.”
Ariel put questions concerning Agnethea’s possible lie on the backburner; the AI systems were swearing up and down that the Arcadian hadn’t lied once yet during their conversations, but … she didn’t believe it. And that was why, at the end of the day, it took a human mind to run a Conglomerate. There were some things inorganic minds just couldn’t do, no matter how sophisticated they were, no matter how complicated their programming.
“As I was saying,” Ariel took a sip of her own tea to loosen her tongue, “it’s based on a device used by the Latelians.” She paused again to see if there was a glimmer of recognition for the word. Nothing. “It connects them to their machines. With their version, which is made of metal and very clunky, they have instant access to a world of information. We’ve been working on the prototype for a few years.”
“’tis very stylish.” Agnethea said warmly.
:respond to my interrogation and I will ensure you have one. Consider it a gift. Reveal truths about yourself to Ariel Bishop and all manner of things will be yours:
Ignoring the whispering voice that wasn’t quite in her ears but close enough, Agnethea gestured to the mostly-eaten plate of scones. “I am ever so glad you enjoyed the recipe, Mistress Bishop.”
She wanted to add, ‘I certainly hope your side of the plate wasn’t laced with things like arsenic and a thing called Detweiller’s Plague’ but that'd spoil the tea party atmosphere.
Instead, she said, “I sense a change in the conversation, though. You’ve shown marked disinterest in anything I’ve had to say lately beyond casual pleasantries, and so I give you the opportunity to lay your cards bare, as they say, and bring up whatever it is you wish to discuss.”
Ariel washed a surreptitious bite of warm, buttery scone down with more tea and nodded, marveling once again at the woman’s precise nature; as a Conglomerate head –even a relatively new one - Ariel Bishop had been trained by the best to reveal nothing through body language, inflection, and to even guard her deepest thoughts should someone try to sneak a psi or some other form of mind reader into her presence, yet Agnethea never missed a trick.
The head of BishopCo gestured and the AI systems came to life, casting the area into relative darkness and funneling footage out through the very expensive holographic imagers cunningly hidden as objet d’art.
Agnethea clapped her hands like an excited schoolgirl, turning her head this way and that. Oh, if she’d had something like this for her own library! What a wonder that would’ve been.
“The information being displayed through these holographic emitters was very costly, Agnethea.” Ariel spoke quietly, gauging the woman’s reaction to the people being shown. “These are your fellow Arcadians, two men and a woman, ‘rescued’ from Arcade City’s open plains on the same day as you. I suspect it’s a longshot, given how large that world within a world was, but, do you know these people, and if you do, what can you say of them. Also, if you could, what is the story with this metal book?"
And just like that, the four brilliant pulses of thought in her mind were locked into place. The shock of recognition wasn’t one she could control, but through crafty eyes, Agnethea saw that her hostess had missed the obvious.
That couldn’t be said of her invisible, very chatty companion, though.
:what was that. Do you know these people? You know these people. Tell the Bishop what she needs to know:
Agnethea opened her mouth. “In truth, it is as you say milady. I hardly know…”
And just like that, the power went all the way out.
***
Oh, he hurt so much. He couldn’t believe the agony he was in and –somehow, in the midst of this crawling agony that was eating through his very soul like some kind of nighttime monster- capable of thanking all the heavens and earth that he was as high as he was, otherwise the pain of his wounds might’ve killed him right there on the spot.
And then Kiersey Caldon looked down just to see what’d happened to him, and wished that he hadn’t; a huge, jagged-edged chunk of safety glass, blown out from the window protecting them from the storage chamber where Book was, had sliced into him as soon as the first of the power couplings had exploded.
There was blood everywhere, thick, almost black blo
od throbbing out of the wounds in time to his frantic heartbeat, and Kiersey thought he could see bits of his intestines cooling in the air.
Cautiously, curiously, he reached out and touched the sharp edge of the glass with trembling fingertips. More pain, white-hot in it’s brilliance, jabbed up from his gut and right into his brain with such ferocity that he actually howled again, a mournful, agonizing howl.
They’d been fools.
Such fools, to ignore the danger signs coming from that first unexpected spike of raw energy channeling through the slapdash wiring like the fist of an unexpected deity, but the wonderment of what’d happened next … it’d overridden caution entirely.
Of course, that they’d been high as kite in an interstellar storm most certainly hadn’t made the danger any clearer.
Kiersey looked –as best he could, something seemed to be wrong with his neck, only this time he kept prying fingers away from there, all too uncomfortable with the reality that he was probably more full of glass than he wanted to be- over to where Soma-Ex sat.
What remained of Soma, anyways.
Kiersey realized with a stab of sickening guilt that he was jealous that his lovely and diminutive EuroJapanese sometimes girlfriend had died as quickly as she had, snared by a brilliant ribbon of arcing electricity blooming through the blown-out window. She’d been flash-friend mid-shriek, so quickly that her conscious mind had most certainly still been focused on the miracle happening on the other side of the now destroyed partition.
That was a nice thought. Dead, mind still burning with excitement, unaware that she was … burning to death.
Kiersey’d never seen someone cooked through like that before. It was grotesque, and the smoldering corpse –one eye burst clean gone, great, charred holes ripped through torso and one leg to reveal shockingly white bone- held so little connection to the oftentimes wry and frustratingly sexy Soma-Ex Chang that it was suddenly hard for him to remember what she’d looked like when alive.
Thank God he was dying, then. Better to die than live with the guilt of what'd happened to lovely Somie.
