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

by Lee Bond

  As it were with all things, though, her upward momentum was rapidly –some would say unfairly- replaced by an altogether stomach-lurching downward spiral.

  Naked, bruised, disappointed in life thus far and secretly concerned about where she was going to find a fitting costume replacement ‘ere she managed to meet up with the others of her kind –no Pirate Queen ever fought a battle with her peers nekkid, as it were, leastways not Queens of the High Seas named Agnethea- Agnethea’s hilarity was brutally altered.

  “Oh now, really, this is inappropriate.” The once-Golem readied herself for her bath, soot-stained forehead beetling over her concerns as to whether she’d … weather … the forthcoming choppy seas.

  ***

  “Alert.”

  Shuman fought for consciousness; he’d only gone and smacked his head royally on the inside of his damned helmet and as he fought the claustrophobic tide of darkness threatening to sweep him under, the Enforcer felt a lovely thick stream of blood pouring down his face from not one but two separate eyebrow gashes.

  “Alert. Alert.” Suit’s mechanized voice rattled unbelievably loudly through the small confines of the helmet. “Temperatures in excess of ten thousand degrees.”

  “Fuck off.” Shuman grated. Where was the autodoc? Enforcers taking damage inside the Suit was a common enough thing for there to be an automatic doctor, one armed with quite a few surprising tricks, considering the lack of space for free movement. He wasn’t even that hurt. He was blind as a bat because of the blood, and he really could use some wound sealant. That was all.

  Then he could get around to figuring out what the hell was going on.

  “Temperatures approaching critical.”

  “Fuck yourself.” Cool, cold air –or something similar- blasted into his forehead, turning the dull throbbing gouges in each of his eyebrows into sharp, stinging instances of profound bullshit. The coolness continued on down his face, numbing his cheeks and in particular bothering his nose enough to have Shuman worrying about sneezing inside the helmet.

  Luckily, no sneeze came, and as he calmed down, the Enforcer felt the blood on his face crack, then turn into tiny bits that’d eventually get sucked into Suit’s waste management systems.

  “Temp…”

  “You are a goddamn nanotechnological supersuit of armor, Suit. You fucking fly through space. I’ve been inside suns. This is … this is nothing.” Shuman moved to yell and scream at his suddenly stupid as hell Suit when something he’d only been peripherally aware of up until now thanks to his wounds decided it was high time he started paying extreme attention.

  His arms and legs were warm. Slowly crawling towards hot.

  “This … this isn’t right at all.” Shuman cast about the HUD, looking for environmental controls.

  Blacked out.

  He checked the hardware connected to environmental controls, hoping to see something approaching ‘not terrible news’ and was confronted with a whole string of blacked out systems.

  “Do …” Shuman licked his lips nervously. Was it his imagination or were his extremities getting hotter by the microsecond? “Is … is there anything functional? I’d like to not boil to death inside you. No offense or anything.”

  “Checking.”

  Shuman held his breath. He couldn’t even radio out to the other Enforcers to tell them precisely how much of an effect Agnethea’s mere presence had on his Suit. He didn’t even know if Clint was on the ball enough to realize what was going on.

  “Checking.”

  Shuman let the breath he was holding in out as slowly as he could. Yes. His arms and legs were growing uncomfortably hot. He could only imagine the kind of damage the exterior armor plating was undergoing right that second. Always under the protection of the absolute best in ablative shielding Trinityspace had ever seen, his Suit was capable of diving deep into the hearts of suns –should the need arise- and all without a single scorch mark.

  Without that protection, he was wearing a human-shaped barbecue pit, and he was piggy in the middle.

  “Cryogenic ports are still functional.”

  If only there was room to hang his head in shame. Shuman cursed under his breath.

  Death by barbecue or trapped solid in the middle of a frozen lake of metal and re-set stone?

  “I made a terrible choice in getting out of bed this morning.” Shuman set his lips. “Fine. Fuck it. Maybe this bitch will laugh herself unconscious. Maybe she’ll leave me alone. Fire the ports, you piece of crap.”

  Sounds of Suit prepping the cryogenic ports filled Shuman’s ears.

  ***

  Pain. Were it only a thing of the long lost past, Agnethea knew she'd sing praises to whichever person deserved it most, but alas, it seemed to her that, as she crawled miserably out of the boiling soup hot enough to have all her parts resonating painfully, the Unreal Universe truly were dead set 'gainst any person who drew breath from having a small sliver of peace.

  Concern for her well-being surged to the forefront of all rational thought; 'ere she'd risen in this new flesh, she'd not felt a single bit of pain at all, or e'en a mere nugget of discomfort, yet the magma she paddled patiently through right then would -should she fail to be free any time soon- certainly consume her altogether.

  "In the future," Agnethea did all she could to keep her head above these dangerous fiery red waters, ever mindful of the splashes caused by her bid for freedom, "I shall have to avoid these kinds of situations. Still," the Pirate Queen risked a look over her shoulder to spy on the Enforcer, "I am in a better position than … oh for the love of the King and his wilted pecker, my bleedin' hair!"

  For the time being, her lovely tresses were only smoldering from the heat, but Agnethea knew down to her water that it were just a matter of time before each lustrous strand went up like the wick on a candle.

  "There hain't never been no bald Pirate Queen neither." The Arcadian set her jaw tightly and picked up the pace, struggling 'gainst the thick molten metal and stone magma with every ounce of strength she could muster.

  Behind her, the Bogged-Down Buccaneer's suit of armor -which, as she'd looked upon it, had turned the most remarkable shade of red, truly a bad sign for the man inside- started issuing forth all manner of strange sounds.

  Then it spoke, in a very authoritative tone. Agnethea deRois had never heard the phrase 'cryogenic solution' 'ere this moment, yet she were schooled enough to know what 'cryo' meant.

  "I think me I should be loose from this puddle before yon suit applies it's cold solution to this miasma, hey?" Skin turning from mildly irritated to deeply aggrieved and showing all the signs of cracking and blistering soon enough, the Pirate Queen redoubled her efforts. "'tis like swimming in me old mum's homemade molasses, isn't it just?"

  Beeps reached her ears.

  "Well, shit." Agnethea muttered blandly. Beeps of this sort never did mean anything good. The edge of the miasma were just within reach, a softened patch of ferrocrete yielding way to solid, stable -and most importantly, liquid fire-free- land. "As Master Nickels would say, this is some kind of bullshit right here, isn't it just?"

  The beeping behind her grew frantic…

  ***

  Shuman was missing something. Some vitally important factoid about … something. Between his shattered nerves, disgust at how poorly he'd fared against a naked female Arcadian and the growing realization that he was probably going to die a very terrible death, he was missing something.

  Suit was quietly counting down the seconds until it deployed it's cryogenic payload.

  "Ahhh, shit." Shuman banged his head against the inside of his helmet, reopening one of his eyebrows. "Suit, stop it. Stop the release! We've got a few seconds here, we can think of …"

  "Cryogenic solution being deployed. Prepare yourself."

  "Prepare myself?" Shuman hooted crazily. "You stupid motherfucker! I don't have any environmental shielding! This shit's gonna crack like a fucking egg! Goddammit!"

  Sound of external plugs popping
loose were quickly replaced by a vibrating sensation and the very strange, ear-rattling squeal of superheated metal and stone being introduced to absolute zero cold air, the very same cooling systems used to survive in the middle of a star ushering forth to quench the magma.

  ***

  Raw, animal panic seized Agnethea 'round her heart with cold dread hands, and suddenly, all pretense at being anything less than an organic being not done with life thrown right out the window, the Pirate Queen heaved herself forward with desperation evident on her face.

  Behind her, the molten lake squealed and screamed as bitter, bitter cold swept over and through the surface of the deadly conflagration, stealing it's life away. The racket was intense, filling the air on all sides with the sorrowful keening.

  Awful, actual cold caressed Agnethea across bare shoulders, bony fingers from the Grim Reaper on her heels. The Arcadian shivered and threw herself back into the effort of outpacing the seemingly unbeatable cold, panic morphing into grim determination.

  Through it all, that strange, off-putting yowl of superhot metals hammered into frigid compliance by the Enforcer's intent to live careened off broken buildings and slid around unkempt rubble heaps, the death throes of an elemental given rise by the day's deeds.

  "I will not perish here." Agnethea shouted her will into the ungodly sound-maw. "I am the Pirate Queen Agnethea deRois. I have battled worse things than a hot puddle. I destroyed the Platinum King, died and came back. You. Will. Not. Have. Me. Not now, not in any life."

  Agnethea's petrified hands closed around the softened ferrocrete lip of the Enforcer-created lake and she grabbed hold for all she was worth; right behind her, so close she could feel the lava in which she swam grow thick and cool, the Enforcer's 'cryogenic solution' continued ever onwards.

  Faced now with being caught in what would definitely be a far more difficult to beat trap than the one laid down by Barnabas Blake to catch Garth N'Chalez, Agnethea pulled herself upwards and outwards, hands digging into the soft 'crete, bare feet scrabbling against the walls of the lake. As she climbed, 'crete 'neath hands and feet both began to slough away, ever so slowly, filling Agnethea's fretful bosom with the growing feeling that she were falling back and back and back…

  She did not know where the effort came from, or e'en the method, but suddenly, she was up and over the lip, spared quickly, blissfully from chill Reaper's ever-hungry scythe.

  Agnethea flopped over onto her back and lay there, hands on stomach, doing nothing more complicated than breathing and staring up at the barely lit rooftop that had once beamed brightly down upon hundreds of thousands of lives and …

  … laughed.

  Just as she had during her flight from the warren of Shaggy Men with the Book her and three other Arcadians were presently hunting for, Agnethea laughed her defiance at the face of death, mocked the Reaper brutally for once again failing to snatch the breath from her lungs and the twinkle from her eyes.

  She laughed and laughed and laughed. It were well wicked to be alive, e'en in a Universe that loathed the living with every fiber of it's endless being.

  "At least now there's no fear one of t'other displaced Arcadians laying hands upon that which is mine." As Pirate Queen, it was important to find good things to look forward to at all times, especially during those moments where it seemed there were nowt but bleak tidings ahead. "Now. Firstly to check on Buccaneer the Stupid. Then to find poor Jarvis, who shall aid me in the location of clothes, and from there? Well. I suppose I shall meet with my brothers and sisters of The Dome and we shall discuss the terms of their surrender."

  Agnethea went to rise and found that she could not. Summat was gripping the back of her head so tightly that it was as if she were manacled to…

  "Nay." The Golem shook her head defiantly. "Cannot be true. ’t’isn't true! Must be mine foolish Enforcer, wi' a hand closed 'round my lovely locks and nowt else."

  Wiggling this way and that, trying to maneuver herself into a position to see the Enforcer's hand locked around her tresses, perhaps using some weird Outside weapon to hold so firmly to each individual strand.

  Nothing. Still nothing. She could barely move, let alone properly gauge who or what –though Agnethea was fairly confident she already knew - had her pinned down with her own two eyes. Sounds of gunfire and warfare reached her ears, and as she lay there on cold ferrocrete ground, the most terrific, soul-sinking shriek suddenly lanced through the other sounds of violence like a hot knife through butter. It was an exhortation of purest rage, an almost incandescent, frothing virulence for all things living so intense that e’en Agnethea shivered.

  “Surely, ‘tis cold and nowt else. For I am stuck here, in the nudd, laying on ground.” The explanation sounded good to her ears, yet as another screech split Stack 17 in twain, the Pirate Queen knew she weren’t fooling no one but her own self, and e’en then, not terribly well.

  The owner of the lungs, the generator of the rage, well, it had to be Mirabelle, didn’t it just? The two lads, being ex-Gearmen, weren’t the sort to run about screaming at anything, leastways not in any kind of manner that left you thinking you were about pee yourself in front of the enemy. Weren’t ordinarily cert as she’d do either, but Agnethea were inclined to believe that if being resurrected in the Outside had wrought such magnificent changes to herself, then pure common sense and that alone suggested that Mirabelle had undergone her own metamorphosis.

  Lips pursed in emotion just shy of actual concern, Agnethea considered her options. Well, in truth there were but a single option available to her, it was just a matter of wrapping her head around what needed to be done and the consequences thereof.

  “I love my hair.” Agnethea explained to the empty air, or perhaps floating Enforcer high above them all, who flitted to and fro, eyeing the supposed carnage, playing scribe for Trinity Itself, so that when all was said and done, the cruel orchestrator of the tune they were playing could see just what It’d brought to life. “’twere one of my only redeeming features, back when I were a vile and horrific Golem. ‘twas the one thing all of my victims agreed ‘pon, weren’t it? Aye, evil and cruel wi’ a face mangled by anger, but my lovely locks … this is absolute Kingly dogshite.”

  Agnethea kicked her heels against the ferrocrete.

  Time was up. She’d had her little womanly snit. It were time to do what needed doing, weren’t it just, and there were no percentage in dilly-dallying any longer.

  Agnethea deRois, majority of her lovely locks trapped fast in cryogenically re-frozen ferrocrete, wrenched her head this way and that, intent on either tearing her skull loose –which would be an absolute disaster no matter which angle you looked at her from-, snapping the remainder not trapped in frozen metal or somehow, magically, mysteriously happening upon summat as would shatter her follicle prison.

  No such luck on follicle prison shattering, but as she worked her head back and forth methodically, Agnethea felt strands snap and break thanks to her efforts.

  “Fine.” Agnethea’s voice was flat and devoid of emotion. “To the battle I will be rejoined, with a fresh haircut. And woe betide the buffoon who says anything other than ‘nice look’.”

  Pirate Queen deRois continued on working to free herself, humming a tune to distract herself from the distinct pain in the roots of her scalp.

  ***

  “Still alive.” Shuman whispered the words, could only whisper the words, but the depth of sentiment was enough to send children crying, men nodding with manly tears in their eyes, and to have women swoon. “Barely, but alive is alive.”

  The Enforcer couldn’t feel his arms or his legs and knew without even turning his eyes to one of the few readouts that were functional that his extremities were a complete write-off; the very same cold used to keep him from melting away into a puddle of Enforcer-goo had indeed saved his life, but at the price of turning his arms and legs into icicles.

  It was, Shuman supposed, a fair trade. In this day and age, the loss of limb wasn’t even really a
terrible thing, not even if you were poor. There were free clinics all over the place that’d do the absolute best they could to have you walking and feeding yourself, and he was an Enforcer. He could have his choice of medical procedures. Freshly grown clone limbs or top shelf cybernetics.

  Hell, even a combination of the two.

  It didn’t matter. Because he was still alive. Shuman chuckled at his survival. He’d been really scared there at the end, petrified that the absolute cold would shatter his Suit into millions of nanotech chunks the moment solidifying magma struck the external, ultra-hot layers, but thankfully that fear had been completely misplaced.

  “Trinity really knows how to build stuff.” Shuman promised himself that the next time he had an occasion to speak with the machine mind, he was going to go out of his way to thank It. It was highly likely that Trinity Itself would have absolutely no idea how to respond to the thanks, but there were some things you just needed to do.

  “Now.” Shuman cleared his throat. “Let’s have a look.”

  The first thing the Enforcer did was cast about the HUD in search of any icons indicating Suit’s AI was still operational; it wasn’t strictly necessary for the AI to be up and running for him to find some way free of the frozen lava-pool because there were purely mechanical systems in place to compensate for those moments when you came across an enemy capable of overpowering your Suit, but the thought of having to battle his way free of his icy tomb under minimally augmented strength was tiring.

  All of Suit’s icons were gone. Not red, not blacked out, not even grayed out, just … gone. The HUD-space devoted to the AI’s processes was just an empty patch of internal helmet.

  A zing of fear curled around his intestines, but Shuman quashed it’s attempts to blossom into full-blown panic.

  “This sucks.” The Enforcer then spent a minute or so maniacally laughing at the fact that he, too, was talking to himself. When he was done chortling and hooting at his predicament like a goddamn lunatic, Shuman spent a good five minutes trying to remember if they’d ever covered a scenario like this in Enforcer School; bereft of even absolute bargain basement, minimal level AI control as his Suit was, there simply had to be a way to power up the purely physical components.