by Lee Bond
Sometimes it was a comedic fizzle, complete with awkward smoke demons being released out the nearest hole, other times, it was the loss of entire city block. Local space/time genuinely didn’t like being fiddled with, and if a sudden and unplanned surge of energy started rolling around, it worked overtime to ensure that that shit was snuffed out.
The Unreal Universe had no proper perch here in the Emperor's Simulation. It quite literally didn't exist, which meant that the proper fuel for a hytech device was nonexistent.
The Emperor's Simulation, either working autonomously or through some other agency -probably not the Emperor's, not if his reaction was to be taken seriously- had instantly moved to shut the experiment down.
Resulting in … destruction. Epic, scouring annihilation.
That destructive power had obviously stripped the silver wires free of the blood circuit.
Making noises with his mouth, Garth reached out and flicked the switch.
Because why the fuck not?
He sat there, lounging as obscenely as he could –all for the haughty Emperor’s benefit, because Garth found it absolutely goddamn hilarious to be monkeying around with the fundamental building blocks of Existence while looking like the laziest motherfucker-, watching on with interest as power began crawling through the gleaming silver wires.
“Well, now, ain’t this interesting as fuck?” Without the blood circuit grabbing eagerly at all the power it could, the n-space generator still pulled at that electricity, only much slower; where before it’d been lightning racing to the finish line, now the power skipped and danced with simmering cerulean beauty, a time lapsed trace of that same lightning.
As the circuit began to light more and more fully, an audible hum –barely discernible at first- began filling the emptied out classroom. Low and filled with heavy bass that had smaller, loose items dancing and skittering across the wooden floor, it wasn’t until the circuit was complete and fully powered that Garth began shifting with discomfort.
“Definitely don’t remember this.” Garth shouted to himself to be heard over the heavy noise. The heavy street-front windows began rattling in place, adding their tumultuous frequency to the music.
Then he remembered that he was –theoretically, at any rate- being protected from people by other people, people who might find the weird racket coming from the building they were presently guarding interesting enough to warrant a proper investigation.
Garth grabbed a pencil and twiddled it between his fingertips for a long, pressing second, knowing he skirted being caught by over-eager One-Step security guards, which meant he had to hurry the fuck along with whatever he was going to do next; this kind of tech would leave a lasting impression on any poor shmoe who beheld it's greatness, the kind of lingering recollection that might find it's way into the ears of people who could do something with the memories.
That couldn't happen. Not even in a simulation. Garth wanted to be the one to screw the Emperor over.
"If some other mothertrucker gets there first …"
“Fuck my life.” Garth angled the pencil through the opening in the very top of the dimension-splitting device and dropped it towards the portal that would –if the thing was working properly- take it and everything else small enough to …
A considerably terrible zap filled the air.
Garth had enough time to mutter a truly deplorable IndoRussian curse before the rig blew itself –and him- apart.
Again.
***
The flash of white light dragged itself further along, stretching through the translation process from the point of his death to the point of his ‘resurrection’ inside the Emperor’s chambers just long enough for him to believe there was something more behind the glaring white suffusion than simple emptiness…
***
Ears still straining to follow the weird clicks and taps and other, barely perceptible sounds that’d followed alongside that bizarro patch of … white lightning, it took Garth a solid minute to realize that his newest and bestest friend, Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles, was asking him a question.
“Say what now?” Garth stuck a pinky in his ear and wiggled it around. “Hytech explosion,” he shouted loudly, playacting just because, “ruptured something I think. Hmmmmmm. HMMMMMMM. HmmmMMmmMMMMMMmmm. Goldangit! HmmmRMMM …”
“Please, N’Chalez,” Etienne replied with corners of his mouth downturned, “don’t play the fool. Your resurrections are and always will see you at full health, unless I decide otherwise.”
Garth yanked the pinky out of his ear and stared at it for a second. “Yeah, right, copy that. What were you wanting to know?”
“I was marveling at your persistence.” Etienne admitted. “And, of course, wondering how you planned on dealing with the precarious and whimsical nature of hytech devices and their tendency to do the least expected thing in this Unreal Universe before giving up.”
Garth wanted to jump and shout or do something equally preposterous, but kept himself icy calm.
Of course.
Of fucking course the high and mighty Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles had knowledge of –and most certainly personal experience with- hytech devices. He’d already admitted to arriving in the Unreal Universe just as the War against the Heshii had been at it’s most heated, and with the dual fist of possessing the temporal incongruity and his otherworldly nature, it wasn’t too difficult to believe that he –and anyone he might’ve come with- would’ve found themselves capable of working with that particular apex of technology.
It certainly explained Spur, the alabaster ninja droid, who was at that very moment skulking just behind his creator; in the Unreal Universe, there were probably many, many ways of creating true artificial intelligence beyond the one commonly in use, but out of all of them, there was precisely one method that might catch Trinity’s interest, and that was a relic forged from a technology that nobody could work with since the beginning of the war’s thirty thousand year hiatus.
Everything about Spur's tortured existence and the rules it'd been forced to endure suddenly made a buttload of sense.
Garth tossed a nod in Spur’s direction. “All caught up with your history lessons, Spur? Quick now, in what century did Malfose the Utterly Useless get caught up in the longwinded journey to Shalam-Bala 83a?”
Spur returned Garth’s ridiculous question with an expressionless and unwavering gaze. “In the fictional history of Malfose the Utterly Useless, the journey to Shalam-Bala took place in the 52nd century of his reign over the people of Talzing Pluratet. But as that story, and everything concerning Malfose, was nothing more than an attempt to socially engineer change in that very same system, it matters little.”
Garth applauded Spur’s knowledge, this time using the popping sounds of his adulation to gauge the depth of the chamber they were all in. The sounds vanished into the darkness. Functionally unlimited. The Emperor's posterchildren smirked at him. “Sweet. Well, good to see you. Got all your broken stuff fixed?”
“Returning to the Emperor’s presence saw all ‘stuff’ repaired within seconds, Specter.” Spur dipped his head in recognition of the question. “Your concern, while misplaced, is appreciated.”
“If you two are done having a sidebar during this most interesting of times, I should like to return to the matter at hand.” Etienne flicked a hand at Spur, who –damn him- gazed at the digit for a preciously long second before retreating further into his alcove. “When are you going to give up your efforts? Or do you enjoy the many different deaths? Have I perhaps turned you into a … death junkie? I’ve seen it before.”
Garth shook his head defiantly. “Nah, nothing like that, man. Like you said. Hytech is weird. One time, it’ll make your head spin and see colors that have tastes, the next time, it’ll, like, turn gravity right the fuck off instead of, like, melting a Harmony soldier’s insides. You gotta get things just right. It’s goddamn meticulous work. I mean, take what I’m working on now. Just coz everything looks perfect does
n’t mean it is. Any section of the wiring could somehow be tainted in ways I can’t rightly see. I figger I’ll build some circuit breakers and other stuff into the power supply, see if I can’t modulate the flow of power to the device to get it precisely perfect. That’ll be, like, probably eighteen or twenty tries. Then if it’s not the power supply, it’ll probably be in the circuit, like I said, which’ll mean, uh, who knows how long? Now that I think on it, I might need to build some kind of scanner dealie to … scan. The circuit. For subatomic imperfections. Or whatever. No, no, I’m committed to either getting this thing working or working through every single problem there might conceivably be before giving up. So, say, what …” Garth pretended to do the math in his head –enjoying the look of abrupt, blank interest in the Emperor’s regal eyes-, “sayyyy, five days?”
“Begone with you.” Etienne flicked his fingers at the irredeemably smug Engineer and sent the bastard back into the world.
***
“How does he do it?” Eddie demanded angrily, resisting the urge to flat out tell N’Chalez that all of his efforts would be for naught and that he was only just wasting time and driving the man in charge of his trials absolutely batshit angry.
“Do what, my master?” Drake’s voice dripped with meek subservience. The Spur costume wavered out of existence, and the displaced proto-Realistic ex-billionaire was suddenly dressed in board shorts and a Tommy Flamingo shirt.
“Cut that out.” Etienne shimmered and was replaced with Eddie, though the monarchic costume remained. “You know what I’m talking about. How does he manage to make everything he does boring?”
“Not too long ago, you were accusing him of being a savage, intent only on wreaking wrack and ruin everywhere he goes.” Drake shook his head, confused at Eddie’s wavering attitude. “Now he’s intent on doing things right and safe and you’re angry at him. This is who he is, at base, Eddie. Not the murderous Specter or the indomitable Kin’kithal. What he’s doing right now is precisely the kind of man who can sit down one day and figure out how to destroy a Universe over the course of thirty thousand years. You’re pitting him against a refabricated Baron Samiel, only you’ve completely hampered his abilities. He knows this, so now he’s being cautious. He cannot possibly hope to save me from the Baron in the manner you desire in the state he’s in, so he’s trying to come up with other solutions. You want him hunted and killed at every step of the way by Samiel’s henchmonsters, you want him surrounded on all sides by blood and fire and death. What you don’t want is him succeeding.”
“Bah.” Eddie hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt. “If N’Chalez is successful, he’s successful. If he’s not, he’s not.”
“That,” Drake replied with eyes rolled, “was the least convincing thing you’ve ever said before in your entire life, and I’m including the time you tried telling me you didn't bang Tricia Lader, her mother, and her sister. At the same time.”
Eddie grinned at the memory of that moment, and just for a second, he was nothing more than a hyperintelligent surfer-geek trying to fuck his way through San Francisco’s female population. “Dude, that was the hat trick. You can’t deny it.”
“Oh, I ain’t denying it. Just saying that if you’re trying to convince me of your sincerity when it comes to Garth’s chances of winning, you’re gonna have to try a whole lot harder.”
“I don’t have to prove anything to you, Drake.” Eddie snapped. “Garth can win. He can save you from Samiel. He can witness what happens only a few months later. It’s just …”
“The hardest fucking thing imaginable. Destroying the Unreal Universe, fighting his father, and defeating the M’Zahdi Hesh is easier than the trial you've laid before him.” Drake held his hands up defensively. “Hey man, don’t look at me that way. You know I’m telling the truth.”
“Don’t you dare help him, Drake. In any way. Or so help me …”
Drake cut his best friend off with a derisive snort. “Or what? You’ll deposit me somewhere else for another five thousand years? Been there, done that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got somewhere else to be.”
Eddie watched Drake disappear deeper into the incongruity, mind already focused on returning to the secret lab to check on his Ushbet in a box.
Garth was more than welcome to experiment in finding new and ever-more painful ways to kill himself. There was no point in watching the man any longer, especially when he was being so pigheaded.
Eddie set the chamber on autopilot and headed back to where something truly interesting was happening.
***
Rather than get right down to modifying the power source, Garth took a few seconds to ponder what in the fuck was happening to and from the Emperor’s ‘proper’ domain; every other transition –most recently his time with the Hellfire Missile- had been quick and easy, but here and now, the long stretch of white light and the strange sounds that felt familiar to him were, in a word, disturbing.
Disturbing on many levels, at that. There was always the possibility that it was yet another gambit from the Emperor, some new trick designed to get him to default on ‘winning’, but if it was that, there was still a long way to go before Etienne got what he wanted.
It was disturbing because it showed that Etienne Marseilles wasn’t afraid to think outside the box, neatly implying that while the monarch had thus far been your stereotypical supervillain with a McGuffin in his back pocket, he nevertheless possessed actual cunning.
Garth peeked out the window. Yep. Everything was the same as before. The city block showed no signs of being aware that a little while ago they’d all been vaporized as part of a probably crazy plan to bring powerful hytech into the world.
On the other hand, if it wasn’t the Emperor, it was something or someone else, and that was where the truly disturbing aspect of the odd hallucination came into play: if not the Emperor, then who?
“Me. Maybe.” Garth cleared his throat. It was a fact –an unstinting, unbreakable fact- that the Emperor was using the limitless power of the temporal incongruity to hamper his innate Kin’kithal abilities. Well, what they’d become, at any rate; there was no way of knowing precisely how much power was going into keeping him from accessing the quadronium systems, or that which he’d brought with him from ‘neath The Dome, but it had to be quite a lot.
The problem was, between his own efforts in creating a sub-quantum layer of quadronium circuitry, Huey’s revisions –that’d definitely saved his life, no matter what he liked to think from time to time- and the aforementioned systemic infection brought about by Blake’s reformatted Cloud nanoparticulate, there was no telling what was actually going on inside him.
Just like last time.
Last time, there, in the Dark Iron King’s domain, his onboard quadronium-infused AI operating system had been working in the background the whole time, eking out an existence vacuuming up any and all stray ex-dee emanations that inevitably wormed their way through The Clockwork Dome. In the end, it’d used the powerful interaction of nanoparticulate to fuel his survival, and the cost had been an entire country of men and women who’d been –at the end of the day, even including both the gearheads, wardogs and the Obsidian Golems- about as innocent as anyone could ever hope to be in the Unreal Universe.
In the here and now, though, Garth really didn’t relish the possibility that his interior workings were trying to find a way to communicate with and control even a remote part of the incongruity’s power. He’d witnessed firsthand what that power and influence had done to both Baron Samiel and the world of the future and while Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles seemed marginally more in control of himself than that slavering time-traveling nutbag, it’d take a blind man willfully ignoring the gigantic shrieking space elephant in the room to miss the fact that that very same imperator was slowly but surely unspooling.
He’d turned down the infinite power of Barnabas Blake’s nanoparticulate, he’d demolished the Platinum King, all in favor of harboring the minute changes wrought wi
thin him during his time as Onyx Brigadier. Some power just wasn't worth having, no matter the edge it gave you.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I take anything from this place into myself.” Garth watched a few luxury sedans roll by before closing his eyes for a moment to recall the shattered wasteland the 25th century was destined to become. He needed to figure out what in the actual fuck was going, and in a goddamn hurry, and what was happening now might have it’s beginnings in the real Dream.
Because it sure as hell wasn’t about saving Drake Bishop…
***
He looked up and stared into the furnace boiling no more than thirty feet away, a wildcat maelstrom that shook and shivered the air with a fury he’d long come to accept. Somewhere in the center of that vibrant fire was either a wayfarer or a longwalker. Didn’t matter which, except if it was a longwalker, the fire would burn out sooner rather than later; your typical fledgling Changed couldn’t handle the pressure of their newfound powers and if they didn’t get a grip, they went up, just like this, nearly every time these days.
It was almost as if the Universe hated them.
He certainly did. Longwalkers were creeps. Wayfarers were barely any better, but only because they’d learned to keep most of what they saw through the veil to themselves.
He suspected he might have had something to do with that, and that was a good thing. Wayfarers and their squires, the so-called longwalkers, were neither human nor beast. They were trapped somewhere in the middle and whenever they showed up in human settlements, casting their auguries and whispering words of what was to come, death and dismay followed hot on their heels.
People in the here and now thought they were magicians or angels or even, in some of the EJ zones, actual devils, sent to this tormented world to plague them all, but he knew what they were.
