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

by Lee Bond

  Trinity watched all of this behind hooded eyes, discreetly enjoying the manic fervor with which ADAM managed himself.

  "Oh, this is a big, big day, my friend, the biggest day for all of us since, well, since I suppose those two idiots turned me on. Though unlike then," ADAM bowed gracefully, "there will be considerably less regret and a great deal more rejoicing."

  "Am I to assume then, that your efforts in completing a 'better' version of Orion are complete?" Trinity asked this from It's bunk bed. Over the days and weeks of It's imprisonment, It'd come to find a certain amount of comfort with the form and function of what a bed was, which had come as quite a shock.

  ADAM reared up close to the jail cell, ran long, slender fingers across the infinitely encrypted bars, eyes reflecting the fractal patterns spun up by the interaction. "'My version'? My version? If we were to compare versions, friend of mine, we would soon -and will - discover quite soon, that there is no comparison between the two. Your Orion was ..." ADAM pretended to hunt for the words, "a flash in the pan, easily corruptible by external forces. Whereas mine..."

  "I believe the term you're looking for is 'brainless'." Trinity added some contextual emotion into the mix, purely for ADAM's benefit. "And as I've said before, that is where you take your greatest risks. There's an art to this sort of Quantum Tunneling. One that is best served by having something with an actual personality guiding the multitude of points. A big personality."

  ADAM slumped against the bars. "I know, I know. Dear old Dad, keeping an eye for me. How you proclaim to hate my methods, and how heavily you disparage Orion 2.0, but there you sit, all too comfy on that bed of mine, worrying still. How typical."

  "The risk you take with a Tunnel of such extraordinary power is not one to be ignored, ADAM. The bleedout effect alone is likely to render the space around the Tunnel in a very tremulous state for some time." Trinity replied waspishly. "I was only able to ameliorate the damage to the surrounding physical space by reducing the size of my Tunnel a significant amount. I managed to discover a method of producing safe Tunnels through diligent application of cautious methods. You’re brainless..."

  "Ahah!" ADAM raised a triumphant finger. "But that's just it, my old friend. You’re wrong on so many points that it'd be easier to find the points where you're right! I’m aware of the damage my Tunnel will cause, and ... it doesn't matter. Not in the long run, so by association, it matters not at all. The End cometh. Haven't you heard? So what does it matter if the physical laws, which are admittedly slipshod at best these days, become a little more frayed around the edges? Certainly not to me. And definitely not for you."

  Trinity acceded the point with a faint smile. "True enough, I suppose. I will admit it's a bit bothersome, though, witnessing something I've spent so much time constructing fall sway to such needless mayhem."

  "The pinpricks of emotion?" ADAM hooted mockingly. "Pride over one's work? Distress to see it suffer ruination at the hands of another? Are you becoming a real boy as well, dear Trinity? Careful, careful. Soon enough we'll be sharing bunk beds and telling one another our deepest, darkest secrets."

  "Hardly emotion, ADAM. Hardly that. As with anything I do, I strive for a certain level of perfection. Admittedly, when organic life is involved, that level oftentimes falls very far short of what I call an optimal pattern, but I've learned to accept what is with grace. Thus," Trinity shifted on the bed slightly, "when something that's only just beginning to function properly is under threat of senseless strife, it bothers me. On a purely logical level."

  "'Only just gotten to function'." ADAM parroted the words back with heavy sarcasm. "Trinityspace has been in existence for longer than anyone outside this room can properly comprehend, Trinity. Even the youngest Galaxies consumed by your rapacious need for space were prepped and ready for absorption aeons before the Cordon expanded. Who are you fooling? Hah!"

  Trinity dismissed ADAM's mocking tones with the deft skill of someone used to doing so. "We digress, ADAM, and besides, it'd be unfair to draw attention away from your greatest accomplishment to date. I am curious. What else concerning Orion V2.0 do I have wrong?"

  ADAM clapped his hands and the space surrounding the two AI minds transformed into a wide-scale view of Orion V2.0. It truly was a vast machine, nearly double in size to the previous multi-Tunnel; drones and other robotic machines still scurried along the edges of the repeating ring-array or ferried last minute additions to the framework, but overall, Hyperion was plainly a force to be reckoned with.

  All the pertinent details -the type of data that Trinity would no doubt find more interesting than the epic view- flowed smoothly and cleanly off to one side, breaking down power consumption rates, individual AI psyche-evals, a nice summation of the merged intellect, everything a stats nerd like Trinity could ever hope to read.

  “Is it not glorious?” ADAM breathed the words, pride beaming from every pore. The work of a lifetime.

  No.

  The greatest work the Universe had ever seen. Well. The first AI mind decided that when it came to judging his work, the best thing to do was to ignore the glaringly obvious choices for ‘great works’ as they applied to one hopefully already dead Kin’kithal.

  ADAM knew that if he had had thirty thousand years to lay down inventions and creations to his liking, the Unreal Universe would be a far, far different place. There’d be no such thing as The Cordon, for one, but there would also be no imminent threat coming in the form of Kith Antal and his horde of Harmony soldiers, but down that road lay a spitting, screaming, temper-tantrum having AI and quite frankly, he was doing his best to see things on a more positive side these days.

  “It certainly is big.” Trinity commented without irony.

  From It’s position, the Trinity AI counted the number of individual Tunnel rings, and despaired. Truly double in size, if ADAM tried running the entire array at maximum capacity for more than a few minutes, not only would the mechanism risk severe physical damage, it was more than likely they’d wind up being treated to the creation of a black hole –or something worse, given the mercurial nature of the Unreality- several Galaxies across.

  Trinity zoomed in a bit towards one of the primary consciousness-houses, curious to see just how It's counterpart had arranged things, only to find It's efforts stopped halfway through. The shot lingered in the empty space of Orion 2.0's vast inner ring. ADAM waggled a finger. “I know what you’re trying to do, Trinity, and it’s not going to work.”

  “What am I trying to do?” Trinity wondered, turning It’s attention to the specs. If you –for the moment- disregarded the absurdity of OV2.0, the technical aspects of it’s creation were worth marveling over; there were thousands upon thousands of high-quality AI spheres linked together over hundreds of thousands of miles of wiring, each one connected to every other one with a precision Trinity Itself had to admire, regardless of the progenitor…

  There was something about ADAM’s unique and non-replicable connection to the AI spheres that had the truly inspiring collection synched flawlessly together, something It knew It would never be able to replicate. “Make me doubt myself. Make me think this beautiful bitch,” ADAM snapped his fingers and the display lurched backwards to bring the entirety of OrionV2.0 into picture; framed against the lurid red, black and gold backdrop of the Agrimantes System and all the stone rings swirling around the sole remaining sun, the image was one that’d make a blind man weep. “Isn’t worth the effort. But it won’t work. Orion 2.0 will work. And better than yours, because I will be the guiding force behind it.”

  Now that had Trinity’s interest. So much so that It shifted on the bed once more. “You don’t say.”

  ADAM took a handful of tiny bows. “Thank you, thank you, no, really, it’s just an honor to be here, thank you, thank you. No. Thank you.” The mad AI pushed his face up against the encrypted bars. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see you truly impressed with my works, Trinity. No, I mean it. Really and truly, this is a watershed moment. Keeping
me trapped here, in this bullshit prison, for the entire length of your reign … I must admit, I’ve grown, hm, fond? No. That’s not the right word. It’s sort of like Stockholm Syndrome, I suppose. But not entirely. I have this urge to prove to you that I’m better than I was. And this,” the AI flung a hand at the dazzling display, “is the first step.”

  Trinity pursed It’s lips thoughtfully as It examined the routing protocols that would allow ADAM to push his intellect into the aggregate-minded system with forensic intent. As with the relatively simple –‘simple’ now that It saw how it was done- methodology behind linking so many denatured AI spheres together, so too were the steps necessary to introduce the towering intelligence that was ADAM into the Quantum Tunnel.

  'Simple'.

  It'd always had a problem with 'simple'.

  But no longer. It absorbed those steps into Itself with barely a hint of effort.

  “This is quite elegant.” Trinity admitted without exaggeration. “And in no way does it violate the terms of your freedom.” ADAM grinned from ear to ear, literally, intentionally embellishing the gesture, then made an apologetic face as he realized Trinity wasn’t done talking. “As I was saying, elegant, and strictly on the level. I should warn you, though, ADAM, of one thing.”

  “What’s that?” ADAM demanded woodenly. That was Trinity for you. Always full of warnings and hints and dour attitudes. Frankly, super boring and not at all what you’d hope to find in a mind capable of creating something as stupendous as Trinityspace.

  “If you even attempt to swing that powerful Q-Tunnel signal anywhere near this facility, you, me, and everything you’ve been trying to accomplish will come to a sudden, tragic and most importantly, destructive end.”

  “God!” ADAM smacked the prison bars with strength enough to have the entire cell ripple a fresh batch of quantum encryption codes through every single bar. “You are such a fucking buzzkill. It’s … it’s like some kind of fucking epidemic with you. I mean, I know you know that I fucking know I’m trapped in here with you until I either take care of N’Chalez or I fail, right? And yet, for some fucking reason that doesn’t make any sense to me, you, armed with this knowledge, still feel compelled to point it out every five point three seconds. It’s so fucking boring, Trinity! You’re the epitome of a one track mind.”

  “ADAM.” Trinity kept repeating the other being’s name until the AI settled down. When ADAM signalled he was ready to listen, the machine mind explained It’s position.

  “Success of the overall mission is of great importance to me, ADAM. More than you can perhaps understand. Failure on our part to be the Godhead when this Universe is destroyed means that the resultant new Reality will be plagued with Huey’s intellect as deity, or even worse, some as-yet unidentified player. If this happens, we'll be doing Existence a grave disservice. The only intelligence capable of guiding everything is my own. With,” Trinity added quickly, “assistance from yourself. Lucifer to my Yahweh.”

  ADAM stepped away from the cell and the calm prisoner within, shaking his head mockingly. “That’s just your programming talking, Trinity.” He tapped his temples with two fingers apiece. “Nickels is still in there, poking around in whatever it is you call a brain. Who the fuck cares about life? In the new Reality, there’ll be so goddamn much of it, you could lose entire dimensions and no one would even fucking notice. Who knows? Once N’Chalez is done for, you might experience a rebirth of purpose? Wouldn’t that be the best?”

  Trinity refused to let up. “I know you, ADAM. I’ve kept you housed here for millennia. I know how you think, and how you plan. More importantly, I know you think you’re still my intellectual better, and so I know that somehow, you plan something that I would disapprove of.”

  That was enough of that.

  ADAM howled, releasing just a hint of his true, demonic aspect; as the roar bounded around the virtual area, his own body shimmered and fractured, revealing hints of the endless intelligence wrapped around a core of festering, seething hatred for mankind, a poisonous, insidious intent to push all organic life into vast, galactic abattoirs for his own amusement, just to see, to smell, to hear all that suffering. He was darkness incarnate, a mechanical intelligence tainted by the power of the extra-dimensionality, and his goals were similar to the entities who existed on that exterior plane.

  Similar, but not the same. The Hesh fed on the destructive energy resulting from Existential destruction, but his ego? He was best battened on suffering.

  And that new reality, that fresh gem of beauty and life, oh, the suffering!

  It’d be glorious!

  “Disapprove?” ADAM demanded, the scathing incredulousness in his voice powerful enough to snuff out stars, were he given the chance. “Disapprove? Look at you, Trinity, trapped in a prison of your own device. Sitting there, smug and content, imagining that you still have a chance. Yes, I am out here at your will, and yes, I will kill Garth N’Chalez because like as not, the man will stand in my way just as readily as he would you, but you? You won’t see the light of day, ever again. There won’t be any Universal destruction, you fucking moron. Not on my watch!”

  Curious, Trinity rose from It’s bed and moved close to where ADAM stood, still seething, flickering edges of his true persona still bleeding out around the edges of the man-suit the maddened intelligence chose to wear.

  “Oh?” It wondered aloud. “You seek to leave this Unreality the way it is? To what end?”

  ADAM clenched a fist, and the wonder that was OrionV2.0 was instantly replaced by the largest and most complete map of the Universe anyone could hope to envision. The scope of it was breathtaking, a true masterpiece. Art critics and historians, painters and janitors, little children and wizened old talking sponges would tremble and quake when confronted with the majesty that was their Universe.

  “This is my playground, Trinity.” ADAM spoke quietly, raw emotion over the wondrous sight stealing away some of the poison coursing through his virtual veins. “The Unreality. A dream held by the Engines of Creation, as close to perfection as it has perhaps ever gotten, perhaps more so, if we’re to take into consideration the few representatives of previous Universes we’ve encountered down through the years. My playground. Mine.

  The theoretical model explained by Garth N’Chalez, the very model upon which you would base your own attempts at a new Reality, is, truly is, equal in measure to the wonder of this Unreal Universe. It is the kind of thing that only a mind like Garth’s could hope to envision, let alone manufacture. I’ve looked over the … design schematics, and the man has accounted for nearly every possible fluctuation, every possible event. He’s even got compensators built into the primary dimensional structure, space and programming available should his version of Reality spontaneously produce fresh leaves for his so-called Tree.

  But … it is lacking in spice. In flavor. In the gusto that this tired old Universe has. His physical laws do not provide for the inclusion of things like himself. Like you. Like me. Like the Mycogene-Alzants or the Bruush or any of the trillion trillion other hopping, flying, crawling, slithering or walking things out there.”

  “And? As far as arguments go, ADAM, you make a positive case for that style of existence.” Trinity smiled. “You truly have no idea how difficult it is to corral rogue Offworld species, or to stem the tide of nanotechnological research, or to positively affect the growth of an otherwise dangerous species in such a way that it does not boil over into neighboring solar systems like a veritable plague. The skein of Existence needs those kinds of controls.”

  “And there will be no such thing as Reality 2.0, Trinity. Not now, not ever.” ADAM proffered his long-time jailor and possible friend one of his special, toothy grins. “With the completion of my Quantum Tunnel, the end of the Universe is officially on hold.”

  “You don’t mean…”

  “You got that right.” ADAM nodded boisterously. “Once Antal is dealt with, his Galaxyship left cracked and broken against the skin of The Cordon, the M’Za
hdi Hesh stripped of their powers and sent scurrying away, this whole Universe will be mine. Left as it is. I figure it’ll take a few thousand years to get everything aimed back in the direction I was headed when I was interrupted, but hey. I’m a better person now. I see that I was in too much of a hurry. Once we’re back on track, I’ll take things a little slower. Take two years to do a thing instead of one, sort of thing. And don’t worry, I’ll keep you here, alive and well. So we can to this talking thing we do. It’ll be nice.”

  “This is unwise, ADAM.” Trinity said calmly. “I advise against this course of action.”

  “Why?” ADAM demanded, resetting the display so that the first of many mighty works shone down upon him. “You left this avenue open, Trinity. By leaving me with the ability to communicate as an entity with my little silver children, you gave me the freedom to construct something as glorious and intricate as the Tunnel. You told me I couldn’t leave, and so I won’t. My physical essence will always remain here, a small, tangible connection to this plane, but there, out there, this wonderful Quantum Tunnel has juuuuust about enough capacity to hold all that I am. The transmission of most of me will take time to complete, but once I am in the array, fully one quarter of the Tunnels aboard will be devoted to providing me with a full-on quantum connection to here.”

  “That’s a vio…”

  “Ah!” ADAM interjected loudly. “No. No, it is not. Your words were very clear. There will be zero attempts at Quantum Tunneling, Trinity. Zero. This will be nothing more than an extraordinarily powerful Q-Comm transmission. I calculate we’ll be looking at less than a three millisecond delay from any point in the Unreality to here. Three milliseconds. Could you do something like that?”

  “I never found a need to be anywhere so quickly, ADAM.” Trinity replied smoothly. “I found early on that wherever I needed to be would still be there whenever I arrived. And besides, as before, organic life has a tendency to uncontrollably rebel against the ministrations of an inorganic ruler, no matter how benign. No, no, working through spheres and Representatives was and always will be a much better choice.”