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

by Lee Bond

  Suffocation, which meant you couldn’t breathe anymore and you just stopped moving. Ainsley thought that might be an okay way to die.

  Starvation, which meant that you were so hungry you thought you were going to die only you didn’t, it took you seven whole days, and the whole time that was happening, all you could think about was food and if you didn’t find any, your body ate itself. That was an awful way to go and Ainsley thought if that happened, she’d probably find some other way.

  Dehydration was like starvation, only it was quicker but still nasty.

  Then there were gangs and murderers and rapists and crazy soldi…

  “Explain it to me as your father explained it to you, then, child. My name is Mirabelle, though many call me the Lady of the Weeping Eye.”

  Ainsley blinked as the woman’s words brought her out of the spiraling fear. “My name is Ainsley. Why … why do they call you the Lady of the Weeping Eye?”

  Mirabelle’s hand went to the ravaged remains of her eye, felt the stickiness there, the bone, the tattered skin. “In a previous life, young Ainsley, I was a bad woman who sought to do the most horrible things to a man I believed was worse e’en than myself. He sought only to save as many lives as possible, and I was planted in his way. He spared me, though in so doing caused me a terrible wound that will not heal. I cry and I cry and I cry some more because I regret what I did, and I will continue weeping until amends are made. Now then, this Trinity Itself. ‘tis no living thing, I warrant, with a name like that?”

  That sounded like a terrible thing, but Ainsley held her tongue. One of the last things her dad had told her before dying himself was that people only pretended they liked to hear the honest truth. She thought maybe Mirabelle of the Weeping Eye could handle truths, but she was going to have to wait until she knew more.

  “You’re right, it is an It. A … a … what did he say … a machine mind.”

  Thoughts of the Nannies and their mad machine ways immediately rose in Mirabelle’s mind. Those hated, chattering, clanking, steaming creations of the King who thought they were ladies in waiting, all with their just-so way of speaking and their crazy eyes and she laughed. Oh, those old girls had been quite the terror.

  “And this … machine mind, rules all of the Outside?” Mirabelle couldn’t contain the vastness of the Outside in her poor, simple mind. Whenever she tried, it was like her brain was being stretched out of proportion. It was hard enough to come to grips that in this one place alone there were more people than had ever lived in all of Arcadia. “How is that possible? A single mind? Surely people rise up against this metal king all the time.”

  Ainsley remembered, when she’d been a very little girl living much higher in the world, asking her father the same thing. He’d been so smart and bright, her father, and he’d explained in a way that hadn’t made a little girl feel stupid or littler and Ainsley knew that even though the crying woman beside her was older than she looked, when it came to things like this, she was also a little girl herself. “It’s like this, Mirabelle, a long time ago, when the world was young and all of us were younger still…”

  ***

  Mirabelle looked thoughtfully down at the encampment surrounding the elevator that'd hopefully be able to take her –and those of the crowd behind here that wished to follow- all the way down to the bottom; if not, the journey would be even longer than she imagined, and the lights burning deep in her mind suggested that not everyone was taking the slow, thoughtful route. One were well outside the ... Stack, and another seemed to be moving in odd patterns whilst the third ... moved at an even more leisurely pace, almost as if he or she were engaging in a bit o' sightseein'. Worst luck was, Mirabelle could not tell which of the dots where which Arcadians.

  Because of course they would not. They were all Arcadians, but how many of them had sworn themselves to as little violence as possible? How many of them had promised a power greater than their own to be as meek and quiet as a mouse in the field?

  Ainsley’s description of Trinity Itself were troubling, though she doubted the young girl would understand the reasons why. This machine mind was in control of the whole of everything –or near enough to it- that was called the Outside and it was in possession of the lion’s share of technology and all that made an Outside society function. It had been in control of their lives for nearly thirty thousand years –same as the King- and had guided them through some very difficult times called ‘Dark Ages’ –a thing that’d gotten the adults in the crowd muttering nervously, with just a tinge of surliness for spice- and ‘allowed’ them to do whatever they wanted, so long as the whole was left unsullied.

  In practice, such things made sense. From the sounds of things, Trinity Itself was a mostly hands-off ruler, an absentee God until someone did something stupid enough to warrant It’s direct approach, unlike the King, who’d come down from his roost on a boring Sunday afternoon to terrorize the locals if they were baking their bread in the wrong way.

  But … it was this omniscience thing that –as Mirabelle dutifully counted the armed men patrolling the huge elevator’s perimeter- the Golem couldn’t get over. It was omniscient, and nearly all powerful and yet …

  It’d allowed four dangerous Arcadians and an even more dangerous artifact built by the King’s own Will into the Outside.

  Not only that, but It’d then further allowed these dangerous things into the hands of mere mortals and caused the silencing of Stack 17.

  These were not the doings of a quiet God, a disinterested deity.

  This were something else altogether.

  “I have a question for you, young Ainsley. One you will be better suited to answer than me, for I am not a smart woman.” Mirabelle almost laughed as Ainsley hastened to deny the statement. “I know it to be true, child. I am crafty, and I am willful but deeper thoughts elude me as easily as lightbugs did as when I were a little girl trying to capture them in the fields.”

  “What do you want to know?” Ainsley asked, eyeing the lit-up elevator.

  Some of the adults thought that Mirabelle was going to find some way to power it up, take them all up and up and up into the bright topside areas, but after talking to the Lady of the Weeping Eye, she sort of doubted it.

  “I shall lay this out as easily as I can, for the thoughts and concepts are all awhirl in my brainpan.” Through her entire cruel life as a Golem, Mirabelle had never once thought to take advantage of the other capacious gifts becoming an unstoppable, immortal creature had brought her; where others had studied the past, learned the letters, dug deep into the rich history of Arcadia as best they could, she’d been out in the darkness, terrorizing the world, intent on becoming the next Agnethea the Vile.

  Well, she’d failed at that –most spectacularly- hadn’t she just? And now, here, on the Outside where it seemed violence was even more rife than Inside and it were a dab spot of intelligence as swung the battle in your favor, she were failing once more, hey?

  “Okay.” Ainsley didn’t know what else to say. Between her accent and the long-winded way Mirabelle sometimes spoke, she felt a little silly using just one or two.

  “It is this; your ruler, Trinity Itself, sees all, knows all, and allows Man to do as it would so long as none of what you do brings harm to any great portion of Mankind, correct? As and when it happens, I warrant the reprisal is just and swift and altogether overwhelmingly destructive so that future generations can point to the spot on the floor and say ‘this is when so and so did cause our ruler considerable strife, at which time he was turned into greasy soot’?”

  Ainsley laughed at the image in her mind, of just-so people looking down at the smoky, greasy pile of stupid people and shaking their heads. “That’s right.”

  Mirabelle nodded once, lips set into a firm, displeased line. “Then I shall ask you this; I and my fellow compatriots possess the power to be a blight ‘pon not only this world, but all worlds, everywhere, in the sky and far beyond that as well. We are vicious and we are violent and if any a
re like as I am right this moment, either impossible to kill or our deaths will be so difficult to arrange that like as not the effort will be like burning the world to save it. Then there is what we all seek, young Ainsley, down in the bowels of this stuttering, darkened Stack. A Book, you see, forged from King’s Will, which is a kind of science as I now understand, only one so powerful and rich that e’en your Trinity Itself would surely be staggered by it’s mighty abilities. Whosoever lays their hands on’t first will be possessed of knowledge meant for a single man and him alone, and this is a thing I seek to stop.”

  Ainsley looked quizzically at Mirabelle, her mind swimming with accented words and strange images. “What’s the question?”

  “’tis this, my child. What grand and glorious and altogether altruistic machine mind would ever, in It’s thirty thousand years of control, allow summat like this to happen, on the first world of Man, all at the same time? For as I see it, ‘tis madness of the rankest sort, for I assure you, if what I believe is happening is the truth, then it is a cert that all four of us shall arrive in Book’s presence at near about the same time, and what shall follow inside this Stack will be the end of … how many people did you say over all? A billion? I confess that number means little to me, but I was witness to the end of my world, and there were a million or so, and now I am Outside, that number seems terrible big, and if a billion is more …”

  Ainsley opened her mouth to answer the question as best she could, but one of the adults, Ragar, pushed forward, interrupting. “Did I hear you right? You want to go down and not up?”

  Mirabelle stiffened and rose, automatically shying her ruined side away. “I shall go down, Master Ragar. ‘tis why I’ve walked all this way.”

  Ragar, face blossoming with anger, gestured furiously behind him. There were about a hundred people, all strung out and tired and sore already, and they’d only been in the darkness for half a day. “What about us?”

  “What about you?” Mirabelle asked, finally finding the last man down below. Twenty men, all armed with what appeared to be Outside versions of weapons she was more or less familiar with. That, and some she weren’t; one burly lad big as a gearhead and sporting odd connections of metal running outside his skull and down to his arms were lugging around a huge thing that said ‘dangerous’ but not in any way as made sense. “I didn’t ask a single one of you to follow me.”

  “But I … but we …” Ragar looked around stupidly. “We thought you were going to lead us to freedom.”

  “How on the Inside could you have ever come to that conclusion, Master Ragar?” Mirabelle tilted her head to one side. Some of the men from the elevator camp were missing. She could feel it, on her skin, tiny little whispers of slow moving air brushing up against the hairs on her arms in a different pattern.

  “I am a single woman, cracked through the head and broken down the middle. I did spend most of my time walking this way doing nowt but weeping and talking to myself. Never once did I say ‘follow me, my children, for I shall lead you to the light’. Look you, think on this. If this elevator be guarded as well as it is, on this level, where most are poorer and more impoverished than others, consider how well everything above shall be, hey? With the rich people and all still trapped, think you not they will do all they can to protect what is theirs? E’en were I to lead you to safety, I would suggest down and out, not up and over, for I also warrant the further down you go, the easier ‘twill be.”

  “That,” a gruff voice announced loudly, “is just what we was thinkin’.”

  “Damn and blast, Master Ragar,” Mirabelle hissed angrily at him, her seeping, bone-stitched face seeming to glow in the poor illumination, “damn and blast!”

  Then, turning to the unwanted –and undoubtedly well-armed- visitors who’d come to greet them in their little park full of trees and grass and whatnot, Mirabelle, the Lady of the Weeping Eye, did her utmost to seem peaceful and calm, for the fresh arrivals were anything but; the four men were indeed well-armed, toting long guns and other assorted death dealing weaponry, and they were the sort of brutes she was well accustomed to from her time ‘neath The Dome. But while they had the seeming appearance of gearheads for all their added bits and pieces –a metal eye here, a hand forged of some material there, strange protuberances all ‘round- they lacked that red-hot, burning metal frangible mood as was Kingsblood’s most awful gift.

  Which meant there were some possibility they could be dealt with on a rational level, hey?

  “As I were saying,” Mirabelle spoke a bit louder to be heard over the sudden frantic sounds of panic and nervousness growing behind her as more and more of the crowd realized what were going on, “’tis only me as wants to go down. These others were deluded into thinking the wrong thing, and mean to go no further. Allow them to go on their way and all shall will be well, then thee and me can perhaps work out some form of agreement, hey?”

  “Lady, you are a mush-mouthed wonk. Never heard anyone sound like you in my entire life.” Grunion took a good long look at the wound on the woman’s face and visibly recoiled. “What in the utter fuck is wrong with your face, woman? You should be dead!”

  “It matters not what is wrong with my visage, nor my continued ability to draw breath.” Inwardly, she was still fuming hot at Ragar; his little interruption had cost her a few timely seconds to … deal … with these men in a more reasonable manner, all out of sight like. To make matters worse, her initial assessment was wrong about these four; they were running hot and heavy as riled up gearheads, they just lacked the visible markers one could learn to identify with careful study. “All that matters is that they are going away and I should like to discuss terms for going down.”

  Grunion laughed so hard he thought his sides were going to rupture. “No fuckin’ way you’re goin’ down in any capacity, you freakish ghoul.” The other three men –Marlo, Hamnet and Rixxy- burst out laughing when they caught up with the joke. “And let’s be honest here. You’ve got about a hundred people following you around. There’s bound to be some valuables, right? So here’s the offer. You get them to cough up everything they got that might be worth something and we’ll only kill about half. They make us work for it, they’re all going to die. I’ll give you a minute to decide, then we just start firing anyways.”

  Mirabelle blanched, realizing with brutal chagrin that she herself had made that offer to poor, starving Arcadians on more than one occasion, seeing with terrible clarity now how awful that kind of thing was. They’d all been savages, all of them. Wandering around putting on airs and wearing fine clothes and speaking all prim and proper had been nowt but a mask over a hideous ugliness, and that ugliness had come home to roost here, in this very second.

  She wanted nowt to do with the people behind her, nor even –if she were to be entirely honest wi’ herself- young Ainsley at her side. The path her life was taking, the direction she needed to go, well, it would definitely end in violence and mayhem, that were a dead cert. There weren’t no place at the end of this road for a hundred mortal folk who had no clue what to do with their lives.

  And yet, in that moment of perfect clarity, Mirabelle, she of the Weeping Eye, saw that she had no choice.

  “Damn and blast, Master Ragar.” Mirabelle cursed the man out one last time. She pointed at the man who seemed to be in charge of the trio of men behind him. “You, what do they call you here?”

  Grunion put a hand to his chest. “Me? They call me boss, mostly, but if you mean my name, it’s Grunion. So what’s the word, lady?”

  “As much as I am loathe to be responsible for any but myself,” Mirabelle felt Ainsley’s tiny little hand creep into her bone cold one, “I am afraid I cannot allow a single person to come to harm. Whether I intended it or not, I am become shepherd to this flock of fools. I should like to make a counteroffer. Allow us all –all one hundred or so- passage down, wi’out harm or cause to cry foul, and I shall let you all live. Do not, and you’ll all of you be dead in ten minutes, for I am all out of patience
.”

  Grunion blinked. The whacked-out woman’s accent was damn hard to follow, but he was pretty fucking certain she’d just threatened all their lives. Under normal circumstances, that’d be the richest fucking joke around, but Grunion wasn’t a complete idiot; he had in his crew of forty some men and women who were packing some pretty serious hardware, stuff gained from time in Trinity’s Army and other places, and they were all tough as nails, so it wasn’t impossible –especially given the freak’s wound- that she was packing as well.

  Then, of course, there was the way she’d delivered the threat. No boasting, no posturing, just weariness and a sincere promise to do lasting harm.

  Best idea then was to make a definite impression. One that’d convince everyone they weren’t fucking around.

  “Fuck it.” Grunion pulled his gun and shot the little girl right through the head, drilling a big hole straight into the center of her skull and blowing brain matter all over Ragar’s face and head.

  It was as if someone had stolen all the sound from the area. No one said a word. You could hear a pin drop.

  Mirabelle looked down at young Ainsley, feeling the brilliant life and warmth bleeding out from her tiny little hand. She hung there, at the end of her arm, a lifeless doll, all sense and memory gone. The poor girl was nothing more than a sack of meat and bones now, and there weren’t no coming back for her.

  This was not Inside. This was Outside. She’d been the worst of the worst Inside. She’d done things just like this to bring Young Luther into the world, things like this and crueler still, and in all the time she’d spent with the others trying to form their demonic prince, she’d never once had a proper conversation with one of their liberated babies.

  Mirabelle released Ainsley’s body. It fell gently to the ground amidst the silent laughter from the four savages who’d killed her for no other reason than to make a message they’d already made unnecessarily clearer.