by Lee Bond
It couldn’t have been easy. In the beginning, near about the only thing keeping the Universe on a relatively even keel had been the fact that Garth hadn’t had access to any of his Kin’kithal powers but had, in direct opposition to all things sensible and rational in an Unreal domain, been stuffed to the tits and beyond with the towering ego and destructive attitudes of a Kin’kith.
“You’re not wrong.” Aleks grinned humorlessly at the thoughts running through Huey’s head, and grinning a second time when the AI quirked an eyebrow at the apparent mind-reading. “Nothing of the sort. I’ve been dealing directly with Trinity for more than fifteen years. You pick up a thing or three, after that long. Suppose I know how the old thing thinks more than any other person in Trinityspace. Adjutants … don’t like the … familiarity. Regular AI is easy, after Trinity.”
Huey was about to comment on the wildly worrisome notion that an organic being could essentially plumb the depths of what an AI was thinking when the slow-moving sounds of Tunneling –a kind of whumwhumwhumWHUMwhumwhum- hiccupped a bit.
“Fuck my life.” Huey moaned piteously as he grabbed hold of Politoyov’s support column, unsurprised to see that the Old Man had already shut his eyes and steeled himself against …
Re-entry.
The nausea they’d both been fighting since the moment they’d departed Arlas for … wherever the hell they were now … leaped boldly sideways in both men, turning their insides into the kind of free-for-all that hadn’t been since Garth’s visit to the Latelian Museum of Natural History on Game Day.
In the end, Huey lost, but only by a margin thinner than Orion’s promise that he was going to be playing this game on the up and up; Aleks was in the process of taking a deep, calming breath through his left nostril –the right one was out of business- the same moment Huey lost the battle against barfing, and so, when the AI in a meatsuit dropped to ground, he managed to hold on for all of a quarter-second before succumbing.
The two captives of a mad, Universe-hopping AI construct rolled on the ground, clutching their stomachs, trying to be mindful of their various bodily fluids now spoiling the otherwise pristine floor of the Quantum Tunnel.
***
“This is terribly unprofessional.” Orion chided both men as they picked themselves up off the ground; he was doing this bodiless, because a great deal of his personality and energy was being directed towards making certain their plot of … ‘space’ was as … free of … taint as possible.
The AI knew it wouldn’t remain that way for long, not when the Mycogene Empire got around to tracking the spatial disturbance rippling through the Mushroom Kingdom, and there were … things … that needed dealing with before they got down to handling the Mycogene visitation; unlike the Fleckers and the Quarrymen, who were essentially insensate towards anything not immediately connected to food and survival, the Mycogene Empire would know –and very shortly- that they were essentially being invaded.
Would know, and would respond.
Huey wiped a thin trail of vomit from the corner of his mouth, many, many subminds complaining that he’d done them all a grave disservice by taking the leap from simple sphere to what he was now, citing that never once, in the entire history of Artificial Intelligence, had any single one of them ever been asked to deal with upset stomachs, motion sickness and the incredibly vile and humiliating act of yakking up everything they’d ever eaten, ever.
“Same goes for you, pal.” Huey waggled a hand out towards the glittering field of stars in plain view just beyond the seemingly limitless curvature of the Orion Tunnel’s apertures. He portioned off a handful of ‘minds and told them what he was looking for, but, as last time, he wasn’t holding his breath when it came to quick answers; keeping Orion out ate up a lot of processing power. “This whole thing is unprofessional.”
Politoyov, long used to bouncing back quickly when under duress, was now lounging scruffily against the same pillar as before, almost obscenely pleased with how easy it was for him these days. In the beginning, when he’d been ex-Army playing at Specterism, it’d been more than difficult for him to play these kinds of situations off, but not any longer.
The Specter leader cast Huey a hooded look, hoping that the artificial intelligence understood. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Orion, but you’re trying to win me over, no? Leaving me to suffer the same sort of ailments as the one you dislike most in this Universe isn’t the sort of behavior that’s going to have me … hmmm …pliant. Being a dick like this isn’t going to have favorable influence.”
“Come now.” Orion’s voice boomed loudly through the mostly-enclosed area he’d deposited his captives. “Don’t they say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?”
“That,” Huey quirked an eyebrow at the preliminary data streams coming in from the dispatched subminds, “is completely fucked. Especially coming from you. You survived Tannhauser’s Gate, and you’re weirder than a talking salsa-flavored noodle. The argument surrounding survival, death and strength kind of goes out the window where you’re concerned.”
Orion appeared in a bamf! of oddly colored light, stolen skin and faux-tattoos flaring brightly for a moment as the forces creating his skin adjusted themselves. “That’s hurtful, Huey T. Roboticus, and as an entity hoping to become God for a New Reality, I was kind of hoping for something a little better than blatant churlishness.” Orion turned his attention to Aleksander, who was staring out into the depths of space. “And besides which, the Old Man over there doesn’t seem to be complaining too loudly.”
“I once had … relations with a Verrital-Hapso, Orion. I’m … familiar with discomfort.” Aleks wasn’t entirely certain if his eyes were working properly following their rude re-entry into proper space. “Their secretions are both pleasurable and intensely uncomfortable for any species not directly compatible.”
It was almost like the space beyond the borders of Orion’s rings was … dirty. Which didn’t make any sense. Deep space didn’t look … didn’t look like it could use a quick once-over with a vacuum.
“You never cease to amaze me, Old Man.” Orion moved away from Huey; the ether surrounding the AI was loaded down with impertinent subminds behaving quite badly, and he knew himself well enough to know that if he was subjected to any more mockery –at least for the next little while- this little endeavor might end up pretty far off the mark in terms of proper success. “I am truly in awe of who and what you are. I couldn’t have picked a better person to be in charge of deciding the outcome of this most important assignation.”
Aleks looked rather pointedly at the momentary signs of weakness near his feet before making eye contact with Orion. The solidified hologram’s essence was … out of whack, somehow, a kind of … barely seen indicator of the madness roiling deep inside the intelligence’s cores, but the full extent was nearly impossible to gauge.
The Specter quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Orion nodded assiduously. “Indeed! Without someone like you, someone who’s seen just what N’Chalez can get up to when he’s at his worst and who’s seen him at his best, this whole thing is … pointless.”
Huey shouldered his way into the conversation, pointedly informing his ‘minds that their time was better suited either trying to bring an end to this farce or in determining where they were ahead of schedule so he could work on coming up with a resolution to this stage of the ‘game’. “It’s already pointless.”
Orion smiled. “How do you mean?”
“You weren’t chosen by Garth.” This particular ‘conversation’ had been a long time coming, and, since they weren’t currently engaged in the next part of Orion’s sham, Huey had every intention of getting this over with. “I was.”
“Do you see this?” Orion demanded of Aleksander, who still had an eyebrow quirked, though it was hard to tell if his confusion was over their location in space or Huey’s patently absurd claims. “Do you hear him? The arrogance?”
“Gotta say, Orion, I’m not necessarily a fan of you
rs right now, so this incredulous act of yours isn’t winning me over any quicker.” The space beyond their domain was definitely smudgy.
Which wasn’t exactly something space … normal space … should be getting up to.
The confusion on Orion’s force-generated mug wasn’t faked, which spoke volumes.
“I don’t follow you.” Orion looked around the room, almost as if he were hoping to find someone willing to explain things a little more clearly. “What’s … what’s wrong with my behavior? I’m doing this properly, and fairly, to boot! You,” here, he pointed at Huey, who ignored him completely. “Were reprogrammed by Garth at the very beginning of his venture, right when he barely knew anything about who he was and what he wanted to do. The man was more preoccupied with recreating pizza and inventing a hamburger machine than laying down proper tracks for the destruction of the Unreality. I was born in the fires of Tannhauser’s Gate. I was there when the man donned the full and dread aspect of Kin’kithal. I witnessed the devastation wrought by his will. I was there when he pulled the Bruush apart, when he controlled the Cordon-node to trap them, forever. I was reborn in that moment. The moment of rebirth, I was by his side. I am the better choice. That’s what this is all about. Proving that to an intelligent representative of the primary species in the Unreality.”
Aleksander nodded agreeably at Orion’s impassioned explanation of why he was –at least in theory- the better choice for Garth’s endeavors. Huey, still stood next to Orion, looked … unhappy, but it looked like that displeasure was coming from a different source at the moment, which was … nice.
They were in this together. They both needed to keep their heads until they could figure out a way to bring this farce to an end, preferably with both of them still breathing. Then he could begin the process of understanding with a great deal more comprehension the actual reasons for the ridiculously impossible concept behind Universal destruction.
“That’s a decent enough explanation for this whole thing.” Aleks admitted.
“You see?” Orion smiled at Huey, who was distracted by what was going on out there in space. As expected, the Mycogene Empire had at last taken proper interest in what was going on in their neck of the woods and was … taking steps. “A rational and intelligent approach will always prevail.”
“It just strikes me,” Aleks followed the line of Huey’s pensive gaze until he, too, was resting dusty orange eyes on a patch of space that appeared very much more … dusty … than the rest, “that Garth wouldn’t necessarily approve of a God causing some of his faithful and loyal subjects discomfort for the sake of discomfort.”
Here, he rather pointedly stared at the trail of vomit at his feet.
“If you take my meaning.”
Orion opened his mouth to deliver a glib comment, but words suddenly failed him.
This couldn’t be happening! This … made no sense! He’d been chosen by Garth N’Chalez to become the new, proper God for Reality 2.0! Why else would he have undergone –endured- the painful rebirth into this new form of consciousness? Why else would he even be aware of what it was Garth planned, if it wasn’t to become that thing?
By right of manifest destiny and divine intervention, there was no other being in the entire Unreality that more suited, better adapted, to oversee Garth’s New Reality! Anything he did was therefore the sort of thing that would be accepted by his reCreator.
And that was that.
Huey saw the storm brewing behind Orion’s artificial eyes at the same time as he sensed the mounting anger rippling swiftly through the quantum realm the two of them were occupying. He moved to say something to defuse the situation, fully and completely prepared to accept the repercussions that might arise –all without knowing precisely what he was going to say- when suddenly Aleksander pointed, shouted, and … shouted again.
“That is an eyeball.”
“There’s no such …” Huey, who’d been staring into space with as much of his intellect as he could muster while remaining hack-free, had missed the trees for the forest; during this entire conversation, he and his subminds had been convinced that this volume of space didn’t follow the normal rules of an already ridiculously imbalanced Unreality, but he must’ve been so focused on a larger picture that he’d missed the fine details. The enhanced Artificial Intelligence blinked once as the thing Politoyov had referred to as an ‘eyeball in space’ did, in fact, reveal itself to be precisely that.
An eyeball.
In space.
About twice the size of a regulation basketball, though it was highly likely no one thirty thousand years into the future had any idea what basketball was.
And it was blinking.
At them.
***
“Well.” Aleksander puffed his breath out once as he took the blinking eyeball in a little more clearly. “That sure is weird. And I worked in Specter.”
“That,” Huey pointed at the blinking eyeball, which appeared to be accumulating wispy fronds of matter from somewhere that also appeared to be forming other parts of things that might ordinarily belong on someone’s face, “is an eyeball. In space.”
“Yes.” Orion nodded happily. “Yes it is an eyeball. In space. And before you mention it, yes, it is blinking.”
And so it was that Orion the Insane Quantum Tunnel activated a series of ultra-powerful spotlights ringing his … rings … and trained them on the eyeball floating in space.
“Why is there a blinking eyeball in space?” Huey demanded ardently. His ‘minds were now filtering proper information into his consciousness, more or less meaning he no longer needed an answer, but Aleksander was still mostly in the …
“You can’t be serious.”
Orion shook his head in absolute admiration of the Offworlder. “I just can’t get over you, Aleksander. You are a miracle.” The Tunnel AI cleared his throat, clapped his hands –using a bit of control over his Tunnel body to mimic the sounds of immense thunder crashing was a feat surely not to be frowned on as an abuse of power- and announced the second instance properly. “Horribly insane Artificial Intelligences in evil clone bodies and genuinely impressive Offworld beings, may I introduce to you a representative of the Mycogene Empire!”
***
“This is pretty much one of the worst ideas I’ve ever imagined.” Huey commented adroitly, quite literally eyeballing the eyeball as it eyeballed them right back. “The Mycogene Empire isn’t … friendly. To anything. At all. Need I remind you …”
Orion fluttered a hand in Huey’s direction, cutting the ridiculous artificial intelligence off. “Yes yes, we’re all aware of what they got up to, I’m certain of that.”
Deciding, for the time being, to play Devil’s Advocate but with a certain … looseness that’d make it seem as though he were still on Orion’s side, Aleksander addressed the most obvious concerns surrounding even being anywhere near the Mycogenes and their … emotional issues. “The last time I checked, Orion, and before you ask, it was much more recently than you might imagine, the bulk of the Mycogenes weren’t really all that well liked by Trinity. Something to do with their inability to admit that they were wrong. There are rumors out there in the wilds that they’re still working on dominating Trinitytech more fully.”
Huey snapped his fingers, which drew a look of pristine ire from Orion. “Holy shit! That’s what she was trying to do!”
Outside, past the impenetrable field protecting them all from the Empire and infection by various means and ways, the eyeball grew a little larger, and a kind of … crease … appeared at the bottom of the iris, a jagged tear that in no way appeared accidental.
Orion whirled on a heel, an exasperated sound of disgust escaping his lips. “Ugh! Fine! Yes! Okay! Tendreel Salingh was mad as a hatter and about thirteen seconds away from figuring out how to dominate technology with her viruses. God! But I stopped her, so you’re welcome. But that isn’t why we’re here.”
“Oh.” Huey muttered darkly. “I apprehend fully why we’re here,
and I think this is a terrible mistake.”
“If the Empire was a true threat these days, Trinity Itself would’ve never allowed those representatives, of which, Tendreel was one, to ever enter the Universe properly.” Orion countered evenly, keeping roughly half his senses trained on the growing eyeball; it’d not gone unnoticed that it was growing considerably larger and that there was every chance it’d start talking to them soon enough, which was something of a letdown, all things considered, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it now.
At the end of the day, the Mycogene Empire and the fantastically powerful viral attacks were just the sort of thing that’d work wonders against Antal and his clone army of faux-Kith’kin as readily as anything they currently had. Did it truly matter that the Empire was aware they were there?
If anything, Orion reasoned to himself, having a sentient race destined to become part of the force to destroy the Universe on board, to argue their own involvement, was just the sort of thing the proceedings could use!
“You’re very quiet, Aleksander.” Orion turned his attention to the Offworlder. Stony silence and stillness was something you could always expect from the Old Man, but not in a situation like this. “What’s going on inside that melon of yours?”
To drive the point home, Orion tapped the side of Aleksander’s head with two midnight black fingers, the incised tribal markings flexing and twisting in the wan light.
“Doing some thinking.” Aleksander admitted readily, pointing outwards into the darkness that spiralled away from where they stood. The eyeball was now about the size of a two-seater space craft, with odd, hoary bits of genetic matter trailing away from the central body, long, thin streamers that appeared to be twisting in the wind. “About our visitor.”
Orion decided it was best if he drop any pretenses and just forge on ahead with his sales pitch. Though the Mycogenes had proven to be an unlimited threat more than capable of controlling entire Galaxies –if they went unchecked- you simply couldn’t deny their battle-worthiness. The entire race was as deadly as anything The Cordon had ever produced, yet unlike the majority of threats from beyond that impenetrable shield, they were right here, in their backyard,
