by Lee Bond
He’d survive. For them.
It wasn’t just because they were mysteries all their own, with strange powers of their own, it was because …
“Because I am no fool.” Lady Ha laughed at a joke only she understood. “If you aren’t all the way conquered with my lovely cybernetic implants,” everyone in the broad expanse that was Lady Ha’s main room –nearly three thousand square feet of open space brimming with men and women and Offworlders all involved in inscrutable tasks- turned their backs to him, revealing the loathsome black and neon green chip that’d essentially been welded to everyone’s necks, “then there is no way for me to prove or disprove that the others aren’t lying to me as well.”
“We aren’t.” Tel, Ci and Eddie responded immediately. “We serve only you.”
Lady Ha clapped her hands, and the halos and spires chimed accordingly. “See? Just as a Specter would say, yes? How can I know you aren’t simply waiting to attack me again? Oh, except for you, poor Cianni Wren. The logic centers of your reordered mind truly are mine to control, aren’t they? If only you’d had more time to probe the quantum-level science in a safer environment before I arrived… isn’t that the only thought running through your head now. Well," the Lady added in a simpering tone, "other than the thoughts I allow you to have, that is."
Babel raged at how Ha treated Cianni, but a bowling ball squashed the emotion flat. Of all the Specters, Cianni -with her stranger-still augmentation- had gotten the worst of it.
Babel feared there wasn't much of their golden-haired Tech officer behind those too-vacant eyes.
Cianni nodded. Cianni responded to everything Ha demanded, because it was true. When she’d tried grasping hold of the nebulous edges of the diamond-hard scintillating maths curling away from Ha and into dimensions never known or suspected, she’d been snared as thoroughly as a dumb animal in a trap.
The Lady Ha clapped her hands. “Everyone back to it.”
All her servitors turned back to their duties, be it nothing more significant than standing there in a degrading pose. It was artistic. She had her own living statuary.
But she was getting bored of that. Maybe soon, she'd start her own Contest. Have people fight to the death for her. That might be a nice change of pace.
Lady Ha tilted her head at Babel. “Such a curious thing you are, Babel. Well,” She gestured to the other Armageddon Troopers, “you all are, yes. Your exposure to my boyfriend’s wonderful transformative powers have left you all so changed, so wonderful. An organic computational mind the equal of anything in existence, given the right impetus. A warrior capable of generating energy shields powerful enough to withstand anything science might bring to bear, if only his heart is in it. A captain, able to summon forth weapons sharp enough to cut through the skin of the Universe. An Offworlder, able to use the heat of his own internal forges to fly, or to fight. Such wonders. And then there’s you.”
“I am a tool.” Babel singsonged. “I am a puppet. I am yours, on a string." The conman danced this way and that, a bit of soft-shoe shuffle to sell the gag.
Inside him, the gun that fired the bullets was nearly full.
Lady Ha rose delicately from her throne, implant clips that connected her more fully to her armada and to equipment designed to trawl through the quantum foam of the Unreal Universe falling easily from her body. She approached Babel, ran a hand across the man’s homely, plain face.
“You aren’t just a puppet, you aren’t just a tool. You resist. I know you do. Your mind isn’t like the others. It’s full of warrens and mazes and traps. You belong to me, but you aren’t of me. Not like the others. I sometimes suspect you do the awful things I command you to do not because I command you, but because you know that if you do not, I will do horrible things to you.”
“You are the Lady Ha.” Babel whispered softly, bowling ball after bowling ball smashing his emotions flat, sparing him the unkind sensation of her prickly flesh roaming across his. Slender spikes pushed and probed through her fingertips, delicate cybernetic bores slicing through him, right to the center of his brain.
Even as razor-thin cuts began bleeding, he whispered through pain-tightened lips. “I do as you bid because you bid it. There is only your words in my mind and in my heart.”
She would find nothing. She would always find nothing.
And that was why she was failing, and why she was growing cruel and desperate.
Because she wasn't experienced enough. Didn’t understand.
Ha smiled indulgently before bending to whisper gently in his ear. “I know this isn’t true, little man, I know you are trying something. I even encourage your efforts, because when you try whatever it is, it’ll fail. And when it fails, I will have that much more of an understanding of what it is that makes you, Babel Sinfell, tick. You are the most complex mind in a million light years, you preposterous little conman, more complicated than Cianni and her computerized mind, more fascinating than the thing calling itself Dagon. When I unravel you, I know I will be able to unravel everything.”
Lady Ha stalked back to her Throne, sharp stiletto heels click-clack-clicking like tiny weapons as she strode across the hard black floors. When she got close enough, the machinery of her glorious chair rose into the air, blind techno-serpents sensing her return.
She allowed them to connect to her, and she was in turn connected back into the Universe.
Babel said nothing. There was nothing to say. Lady Ha knew she was right, yet couldn’t prove it, because the probes running amok in his mind found nothing of value. His mind was a thing of layers now, more so than ever before and the layer that was truly Babel Sinfell barely even existed.
He felt he’d be free soon, though; the ship –indeed, all of Lady Ha’s formidable and ever-growing empire- had been abuzz with news that a Shriven Emissary from the Emperor-for-Life was present, and that was incredibly rare.
If only he could speak with Eddie or any one of the others during their downtime, he’d know for certain how rare that was, or what that might mean for their captor, but Lady Ha kept them just far enough apart to keep their shared psychic link from reconnecting.
On her strange throne full of lights and uncomfortable looking machinery, the most august and wondrous Lady Ha clapped her hand delightedly, a gesture that filled the air with tinkling bells.
A wickedly pleased smile crossed her lips and Babel felt a slight weakening of her cruel mental presence. Surreptitiously, he turned slightly to see what could possibly make the ‘woman’ so happy.
A diminutive man, dressed head to toe in simple black robes, was being ushered down the long empty stretch of the grand room in which they stood, escorted on all sides by no less than fifty of Ha’s honor guard.
Babel was considerably impressed, both in the number of guards and the cybernetic weirdo’s surprisingly prudent security measures; each of the guardsmen walking with the guest were –had been- the top soldiers and assassins for not only Elder Katainn but Elders Trongh and Faneuil and were so loaded down with cybernetic and genetic enhancements it was amazing they didn’t clank when they walked.
Babel watched the Shriven Emissary with cautiously hooded eyes, sparing half a mind –leaving him little mind left- to monitor the state of his own being; the lessening of pressure inside him could be a trick, and if he fell for it now, any shot at freedom would be gone.
Nothing. There was nothing. Ha was well and truly focused on the odd man in the black robes. The Specter looked carefully around the room, checking on the other captives, aching to see some sort of … sign … that they were momentarily as free as he was.
There. It wasn’t much, a tiny glimmer of light deep, deep in the eyes. Not enough for any of others to break free of her influence as Babel believed himself capable, but enough for worry to fade. Ha wouldn’t risk losing total control, not even to snare someone who’d been evading the worst of her parlor tricks this whole time.
Babel returned his attention to the Shriven Emissary. There was something stran
ge about him, only with one third of a brain, it was impossible to tell. Hell, he didn't even know that many rumors about the legion of Emperor-adherents who referred to themselves as Shriven, just that they did … whatever he needed.
Seeing a Shriven was like seeing an AE warrior-poet. Rare to the point of impossibility.
Lady Ha tilted her head this way and that, trying to make heads or tails of the man the so-called Emperor-for-Life had sent all this way to meet with her.
“You will bow before me." Her voice rang clear from one end of the enormous parlor to the other.
The Shriven did so immediately, sweeping low to the ground in an immaculately executed bow with such skill it grew evident the man had a Master’s degree in bowing. When he returned to a full standing position, he spoke, the soft edges of his voices curling through the cavernous meeting place.
“The Emperor-for-Life sends his regards.”
Ha squinted. What did that mean? “Why has the Emperor sent you to me?”
Ha sent a few cybernetic pulses towards the small man –tiny, even for a short Trinity person- and was rewarded with precisely nothing. He carried no mechanical augments of any kind.
Not unsurprising; of all the peoples she’d encountered since leaving Latelyspace, EuroJapanese were the least likely to have any sort of artificial additions, with NorthAMC dogs being the exact polar opposite. FrancoBrits fell somewhere in the middle. IndoRussians were fans of hardware, yes, but it seemed in these last few decades, they'd swung more towards organic implants and upgrades.
Using her array of wonderful augments that shivered inside and outside the Unreality, she set about scanning him for biological components, intent on finding something that’d explain the curious … emptiness … yes, that was it.
There was a curious emptiness about the Emperor’s Shriven Emissary, a … a vacancy.
Lady Ha's eyes widened slightly. The Emissary had no mind, yet spoke. Breathed. Carried thoughts.
How was this possible?
The Shriven Emissary gestured wide with his hands. “The Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles is curious as to your intentions with the Yellow Dog Elders in this sector of space. Moreover, he is concerned with the citizens of this domain. As you know, Emperor-for-Life is the ruler of all EuroJapanese peoples, and takes their wellbeing seriously.”
Nothing. No organic or biological implants either, leaving the small man’s internal emptiness a product of some unknown procedure.
A cruel grin slid onto her face. Excellent. This was just the sort of thing she’d been waiting for.
She made a gesture meant to indicate the whole solar system. “The Elders of this domain, as you so quaintly put it, are guilty of crimes against the Kamagana Clan. I am exacting justice.”
“Punishment was already meted out, by the only authority in the Universe permitted to do so, some time ago. The onus was met, the debt paid." The Shriven's soft voice was velvet over iron.
“That punishment was found lacking.” Ha snapped, her voice cold and brittle. “They slaughtered my Father’s entire family, from ancient old men to freshly born babies. They forced him to flee, far and far. To the only solar system that’d have him. Forced him to live a life different from the one he should have lived.”
Babel thought there was true sorrow in the madwoman’s weird voice, but could barely pay attention; the gun in his head was loaded, and with her being solely focused on the delegate, the time for freedom grew ever closer.
When she lost her temper –and she would, and it it'd be messy, oh yes- there'd only be a few seconds to strike before she regained composure.
The Shriven Emissary inclined his head slightly. “It is of course within the bounds of acceptable behavior for a family member of any Clan to bring reprisals against those who have done wrong, but the Emperor feels that your time of justice has come to an end. Innocent people are now being harmed, innocent men and women who had nothing to do with the Purge of the Kamagana Clan. What you have done to the two worlds under your control is unacceptable. Under the agreement between the Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles and the thinking machine known as Trinity Itself, what you seek is outside your purview. The Emperor-for-Life kindly asks that you bring your enterprise to a swift close. Return the two worlds and the people you have dominated to their original status, and all shall be forgiven. Keep your armada, your citadel and move on."
Lady Ha’s twisted metal halos shook and shone with lights that threw sickly colors into the air, bathing the Shriven Emissary in an unhealthy aura that Babel –and everyone in the room- knew from firsthand experience was just an awful thing to experience; each painful color tore into you, displacing your feelings, rumbling your emotions, playing havoc with the very essence of who and what you were. Babel was glad he’d managed to endure those lights twice more than everyone else, and was petrified that she’d try once more.
He doubted very much that he’d survive a third shot.
The Shriven Emissary stood there, in the light, blinking and smiling.
“What are you?” Ha shrieked, the dissonance and discord of her mechanically-augmented voice cutting the air in twain with rage. “No one stands before me, no one is bathed in my presence, and remains whole.”
The Shriven Emissary bowed again, displaying even greater levels of bowing excellence. When he was upright, he explained, “I have stood before the Emperor-for-Life, Lady Ha, and received his beneficence. I am whole and perfect and he has made me this way. There is nothing you or anyone can do that can undo the wondrous gift he has given me. Will you stand down your egregious practices here in this system?”
Ha couldn’t resist poking and prodding at the Shriven Emissary’s mind again. She released wave after wave of vicious psychic barbs, barbs she’d used on men and women and Offworlders who bore a kind of strength this tiny little man seemed to lack in every way, yet to no avail. Each of her attacks just … dissipated, as if they encountered nothing at all.
The Lady Ha sat there, staring sullenly at this … this … thing that was proving immune to her powers, unsure of what to do.
She was The Lady Ha!
She was going to hack the Universe, and make it a better, more ordered version of itself. There was no doubt about that, but if there were more of these … people around … what good would perfection be if there were those who were immune to it?
“How many are you?” Ha demanded suddenly. “In total?”
“Thousands. Millions perhaps. I don’t know the answer to that question. It is unimportant. I am Shriven. I am here.”
“And your kind, you empty vessels, you become this way because of the Emperor?” Ha needed to understand this Emperor better. Though she knew as much as anyone could about the so-called Emperor-for-Life since leaving Latelyspace, this was a facet she’d never discovered, and it was disturbing. No one should have the power to remain free and aloof, not when she was trying to do them all a favor.
“In my previous life,” The Shriven Emissary’s voice brimmed with regret, “I was an unkind and impatient man, prone to outbursts of violence against myself and the people around me. I took drugs, slept with many. I caused people to die. I woke up one morning covered in the blood of a man I’d perceived to be my enemy, and I knew that I needed to change if I wanted to remain alive. But the hunger inside me was too great to be scoured away by traditional means, leaving me with no choice but to see if I could meet with the Emperor-for-Life in his Dome. The journey was long and hard, and at the end, I became who I am.”
“How does he do it?” Ha pushed. “How does he make you this way?”
The Shriven Emissary shook his head. “It is forbidden to speak of the journey except to say that the journey exists, and that any may attempt it, even you, should you wish freedom from the burden you bear so cruelly upon your heart."
The lights in Ha’s halos and spires grew bright, venomous. The guardsmen shuffled nervously, then moved a bit further out of range, knowing full well what was going to happen. Babel held
his breath, nervous, excited and just a tiny bit sorry for the Shriven Emissary.
The man wasn’t going to get out of here alive. He’d probably known that from the beginning, but lately, Ha’d been … practicing with different forms of cruelty, engaging in the sort of violence and mercilessness that churned Babel’s stomach, and with that dark gleam in Ha’s eyes, the Specter only knew that whatever she held in store for the man, it would be brutal.
“No one speaks to me this way.” Ha snapped. The air shivered again. “No one makes demands of me. No one holds back what I demand. Your Emperor. What can he do to me, out here? I will do as I deem fit. I am The Lady Ha. No one tells me what I can and cannot do.”
The Shriven Emissary allowed the faint flicker of a smile to cross his lips, a hint of pride that he’d already known how things were going to play out. “The Emperor-for-Life has been Emperor of the EuroJapanese people since before we left a single planet in a single solar system, Lady Ha. He has striven to make us strong, and proud. He has given us the gift of history in ways that the rest of the people of Trinityspace cannot hold in their hands. He has survived Dark Ages. He holds powers you cannot understand. He hasn’t risen against anyone since the Yellow Dog Elders you currently punish sought to destroy the Kamagana Clan. He used conventional methods because they are a conventional people.”
“I am hardly conventional.” Ha laughed at her wry statement. “And so what will your Emperor do to me?”
The Shriven Emissary shrugged. “No one can know the mind of the Emperor. Look to the history books. The legends and tales associated with him, the things historians believe are Dark Age hype and exaggeration? They are not. If you do not desist, he will come for you. And you will learn your place.”
Babel could feel on his skin that the meeting had grown to a close. The way the Shriven Emissary stood plainly said he knew it as well, but the cool amusement on his face hadn’t diminished, either. Whatever trick used, however the Emperor could turn a self-described murderer and all around bad guy into a calm, pleasant and immune guy … it made them unafraid of death.
