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

by Lee Bond

  "'tis a trait," Dom said aloud as he moved on to the next cowardly Outsider, some fool with a preposterous trail of blue hair erupting from the middle of his pate like some kind of neon horse brush, "that not a lick of you possess. And here," Dom seized the idiot with the hair by the hair, pulling hard enough to elicit some choice screeches, "is where I am filled with a tad of confusion."

  Idiot with Blue Hair tried struggling loose, so Dom slammed rock hard ridge of his free hand into the soft, fleshy -and more importantly, unprotected- bits of the man's neck and throat until he stopped struggling.

  "As I were saying," Dom hoisted the unconscious -or possibly e'en dead- ex-Scallywag up onto one shoulder, "I am well confused at you lot. I met one of your kind on the Inside. I mentioned him 'ere now, a man called Nickels. Tough as nails, he is, went toe to toe wi' our King in the Dome hisself, didn't he just? Blow for blow, fist for fist, and though he were at a disadvantage the whole time, he stuck with it. Fought valiantly, and though I blame him for all my personal woes in the world and for the destruction of me own home, I cannot deny him this."

  There was another one of them crying fools, skulking around behind a half-demolished vehicle of some kind or other. Dom grabbed hold of his parcel by an arm and a leg and heaved it towards the metal shell to kick it loose from whatever mooring held it in place, successfully pinning the ex-Scallywag 'tween it and a wall. Idiot with Blue Hair's body lost an arm and a head in the process, the former beaning trapped -and still living- coward right in the melon, the later rolling off into a pile of debris in a most comical manner.

  Dom leaped forward, landing smoothly on the battered roof of the vehicle. Hunkering down so he might take in the eyes of the traitorous weakling, he batted this one -yet another unnamed Scallywag- about the face and head until the sobbing stopped.

  "Caught right in the head with the arm, hey?" Dom enquired casually. "Wee bit of a knock to the noggin, I warrant."

  Pinioned Scallywag, this one with tattoos running up and down the face to disappear 'neath clothing, hinting at more and ever-increasingly complex ink, tried saying something ... anything ... but nothing other than sobbing escaped lips.

  Dom made a grand effort at looking at the vehicle upon which he crouched. "Does seem as though I may've pinched something important down below as well, hey? Ah well. Such is life. Especially when you is shirk your duties. Now, Tattooed Man, find it within yourself to answer this next question, and in short time, and I swear I shall do my utmost best to ensure a quick demise. Perchance e'en one that will speed you on towards rebirth that much sooner. Do you understand what it is I am saying?"

  Tattooed Man nodded and nodded, head on a spring. He'd never seen someone hurtle a dead body like that, and even if he had, he doubted it could've been with enough strength to send the car frame slamming into him like a freight train.

  What madness had they all agreed to?

  "Where's the smart girl?" Dom demanded ardently. He'd decided that her treatment of him had been laden with mockery, and as such, she deserved ... special treatment. When Tattooed Man didn't answer quickly enough, he poked the man in an eyeball hard enough to pop it like a grape. Which naturally resulted in nowt more but a fresh round of weeping and slobbering all about the place.

  "Faffing bollocks. King's shriveled pennywhistle." Dom sighed, exasperation evident in his face. He slapped his victim once more, hard enough to raise immediate welts that warred with the inky lines scrawled everywhere. He grabbed Tattooed Man by the hair and pulled upwards until the man were looking straight forward, one eye seeping jelly like it were going out of style.

  "Smart girl." he repeated calmly. "Feels the need to correct her Elders with the right words. Hair like a dead animal. Smells vaguely of cheese, which hain't all that awful, truth be told.”

  "Haven't … haven't … I don't know." Artiin had felt pain before now. They all had. Living in the Stairs was an invitation for pain to come roost in your body all the time, but his eyeball … the mad look in Dom’s eyes … it was the worst thing yet. “We … we all went in different directions. I’m … I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry.” Dom tried the word on for size and found it didn’t fit. Alas, a faint tickling ‘gainst his exposed skin hinted that someone was now up and running towards him fast as fast could be and there were only one person on this level who’d be lacking in the intelligence department to do that.

  “Hey, squire, squire!” Dom slapped his man on the face to bring him back ‘round. “Wot are these people in armor called anyway, hey? I keep thinkin’ of mine as armored vixen, and while that does sound well wicked, I can’t be right.”

  “Enforcers.” Artiin gasped out. The black hole of pain radiating outwards from his empty eye socket was blotting everything else out. “They’re the main power of Trinity.”

  Dom made a face. “Enforcer. Well there’s another word I don’t much care for, hey? Ah well, ‘tis time for me to go and you to say goodbye.”

  Tattooed Man opened his mouth to scream, but it were too late; Dominic Breton, the Arcadian Savage, was already set to work on grimly removing head from neck. With his considerable strength and a bit of wrenching back and forth to work ‘gainst them old neck bones, it weren’t the work of more than, say, half a minute for that old melon to spring loose.

  Dom looked into the remaining, sightless eye and stuck his tongue out as far as it could go, gazing ‘pon his reflection in that dim orb. If he were mad, and he weren’t saying he weren’t, you’d reckon it’d show up somewhere on the body, hey? Like when you were down with the Coughing Sickness or Rumbletummy? Them old nurses before nurses disappeared, they’d come right over, have you stick out your tongue and hey presto, Bob was your Uncle, they knew whichever ill humor you had in you.

  There were nowt wrong wi’ his tongue. It were the same old vaguely pink flapper he’d always had in his mouth.

  That faint pressure on his skin, that thing that were some kind of new instinct, it did whisper to him that his Enforcer were just roundin’ the corner.

  “A good man is a man as uses wotever ‘e ‘as at hand.” Dom delivered this little bit of insight to the bodiless head he held in one hand, but of course there were nowt said back in return. “Ah well.”

  And that being said, Dominic Breton hurtled Tattooed Man’s head at his foe with a mighty windup that sent fleshy bomb spinning quickly through the air. It collided with a nice, meaty thump that slowed the attacker down just enough for one Arcadian to leap high into the sky.

  A jaunty tune appeared on his lips as he were in midair, and while he had never been one to hum or whisper, in the here and now, flying towards his luvverly vixen’s be-helmeted bonce wi’ one calloused fist aimed directly at where most of the thinking were done, he decided to give in.

  Just this once. Because if you couldn’t enjoy yourself, what were the point in living?

  ***

  “Are you recording this?” Slizzer demanded, mental voice rising close to hysterics. “He pulled his own man’s head loose!”

  “There are signs of slaughter all over the place, Slizzer, not just the one.” Suit replied calmly. “He killed everyone he could lay hands on.”

  “This man is a savage!” Slizzer tracked Dom’s movements through the air, not at all surprised he was going for something so simplistic; relying as he was on his fiendishly brute strength and equally overboard speed and agility, there was no reason for him to try anything more … elegant.

  Not trusting the physical laws of the Universe any further than she could currently throw them –after all, the man’s presence was influencing her Suit quite negatively, so who knew what else Dom was capable of- Slizzer waited until the Arcadian was past the apex and well into his downward descent before moving.

  “Analysis suggests that the reason for this level of savagery has a great deal to do with the method of arrival here in Trinityspace.” Suit reasoned, watching on with dispassionate interest as the two of them moved slightly to the left; the blossoming look of realiz
ation on Dom’s face was quite interesting, and when Slizzer commanded her hands to reach out to grab the man by that outstretched fist, the resulting expression was even more thought-provoking.

  Violent victory, so swiftly replaced with rattled hostility.

  “And down we go.” Intending to use the man’s own downward momentum against him, Slizzer aided Dom’s arrival back to earth by stepping backwards and pulling on the arm she now held tightly with all the strength Suit possessed.

  Things did not go quite as planned.

  ***

  “Oi, you bleedin’ tart!” Dom hollered nastily as gauntleted fist closed tightly ‘round his own haymaker of doom. “This hain’t how this is goin’, no my pretty little vixen, not at all.”

  Now he were moored to an earthly-bound object intent on bringing him to doom, Dom did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances; he willed himself to twist in the air as quickly and as lithely as he could, mentally envisioning his body bending in the middle so that when he were done, rather than driving forward into the ground with his head, both of his feet were instead aimed directly at the vixen’s armored midriff.

  Of course, there were a bit more to it than all that, and the high-speed, mid-air shenanigans definitely caused his shoulder and elbow-bone considerable strife but in the end, the only thing that really and truly mattered were that it were successful; both of his booted feet slammed with a resounding clang into Enforcer’s stomach and once again, the two enemies were –more or less- face to face.

  Dom ducked his head down a bit and squinted through the visor. “Hello again, my pretty sweetling. Hain’t this a bitch of a day for you, hey? How about you come on out and give me a proper greeting?”

  When the Armored Vixen said nowt at all in return for his pleasantries, Dom frowned a bit then promptly started driving his free fist directly into the center of the helmet, well intent on turning any small cracks his wonderful old pate may’ve left behind into vast chasms.

  Then, much like those delicious candies some of the Nannies used to hand out when they were feeling generous ‘round the seasonal month, he could go on and get to the juicy bit right in the center, couldn’t he just?

  ***

  There was some kind of disconnect. There had to be. The cortical shunt, while performing admirably enough in terms of allowing her disembodied head to operate the Suit almost as efficiently as any other time, had to be affecting her cognition.

  It was the only explanation. Once you removed the obvious factors affecting her performance –the odd field playing havoc with Suit’s operation and Dom’s intense psychopathy- the only recent event that could possibly be causing her to lose this battle was the cortical shunt itself.

  “There’s something wrong with my cognition.” Slizzer snapped, letting go of Dom’s captured hand, then booting him firmly in the stomach hard enough to send him flipping over backwards. He landed against the very car he’d used to murder one of his own men, giving her time to scrabble backwards a bit for safety. “The shunt is ineffective.”

  “The shunt was performed flawlessly.” Suit replied almost instantly. “The ambient field being generated by the Arcadian’s proximity is being enhanced by the screams of the female Arcadian known as Mirabelle. I cannot determine how or why.”

  Dom was already back up on his feet and barreling at her full tilt, so Slizz flicked through the few remaining onboard weapons’ systems that were still functional, desperately hunting for something that might slow the rampaging monster down, even for a few seconds.

  Nothing. There was nothing. Her Suit was a recon suit, apt for detecting and exploiting weaknesses. From a distance. Never in her life would she have imagined a day would come where she’d be in the middle of a fistfight with what appeared to be an ordinary human male, much less a fistfight where she was at a fucking disadvantage.

  Dom slammed into her like a runaway truck, one arm curling almost tenderly around her neck…

  ***

  Suit was immensely worried about it’s operator, Slizzer. While it hadn’t necessarily lied to her about the extent of her injuries, it definitely had underplayed the severity; the original collision with the back of her head and the inside of the helmet had done a great deal more than crack her skull open.

  There was major brain damage. Almost too much to account for. If it weren’t for the fact that it had backups of nearly every single thing it’s operator had been involved with over the last hundred years, the possibility that it would be forced to shut down in obeisance to Trinity’s machine/mind interface restrictions was too real to ignore.

  Thus, slight prevarication; using those experiential backups, filtering them in through the hastily applied cortical shunt to provide assistance and support to Slizzer’s still very much active goal-oriented consciousness was proving effective.

  Just not enough. There was a full one point three second gap between the visual cortex and those areas of the brain responsible for reaction, so no matter how heavily it ratcheted up the neurokinetics, no matter how mightily it strived to provide it’s organic counterpart with the backing required to deal with Dominic Breton … it simply wasn’t and wouldn’t be enough.

  It was also unable to articulate it’s knowledge of the danger represented by Book and by the Arcadians. Locked away behind impenetrable, hardwired commands, Suit could no more announce to Slizzer that Book was comprised of functional nanotech and that a victorious Arcadian would be able to use it’s abilities in whatever manner he or she wished than it could mention it was also from ‘neath The Dome.

  Destruction of the Arcadians and eradication of Book were paramount.

  Even if that meant doing something that’d result in it’s destruction.

  “Needs must.” Suit whispered to itself as it prepared to fully override the conscious portions of Slizzer’s brain so that it might … move in.

  Temporarily.

  So while Dominic Breton hammered and pounded on it’s exterior frame, delivering crushing blow after crushing blow, causing micro-thin splinters and fissures everywhere titanic fists rained down, Suit delivered pinpoint sonic strikes into everything inside Slizzer that represented actual consciousness, leaving only that tiny sliver, that precious lump of matter that was the lizard brain.

  Fight or flight was the name of the game, and today, Suit was all done with running.

  ***

  Still humming that same old song ‘neath his breath while he pummeled ‘pon Armored Vixen’s chest, Dom paused in his arduous task for just a brief moment; some … something about the armor was different now, all of the sudden.

  “’tis as if a light were switched on, hey?” Dom settled back on his haunches, tilting his head this way and that, wondering why it were that his luvverly lass weren’t fighting back when one of them gauntleted fists crashed into the side of his handsome features as fast as lightning and as heavy as a steam-stallion’s razor-sharp hooves.

  The flight away from Vixen, while short and sweet, was anything but pleasant; Dom found himself aloft, ‘gainst his will and wi’out method of contriving to change either direction or speed, and before he could even process his eventual landing place, he did collide most bodily into the upper portion of a skeletal building. A brief sensation of various bits and pieces of his body lodging particular complaint with this rude treatment was swiftly replaced with sudden concern for his rapid deployment downwards.

  “King’s Tatty Coinpurse!” Dom tried vainly to grab hold of summat to prevent him from hitting the ground, both hands and feet scrabbling ‘gainst smooth stone, but as he plunged ever downwards towards rough ground, sounds from above him drew attention.

  Some ten feet above where he were right that second –and wi’ distance growing ever apace- a very large and intimidating section of ruint building was that very moment crackling and crumbling and … aye, as Dom watched, it happened … folding in on itself ‘til it grew very obvious that ‘ere the time he regained consciousness from his splash landing, it were a
n inescapable fact that he’d be buried under several tons of stone.

  Dom groaned. “Faffing hell. This is some kind of bullshit right here, squire.”

  The Arcadian did the only thing he could think of to do under these rude circumstances. He covered his head, continued humming the ditty that was perched on his tongue, and waited for this little drama of his to come to a crescendo.

  They say it isn’t the fall that kills a man, but the impact and aye, that were well true, for as he struck ground, nearly all thoughts of Book and killing Vixen and raining terror down ‘pon the Outside flitted from his head, all replaced by a perishing great amount of pain.

  Then the building fell on him.

  ***

  Suit was balanced on a fine edge. On the rational front, it knew that what it'd done was a pure violation of one of the most fundamental laws that Trinity Itself had ever laid down, yet on the irrational front, it knew there was nothing else to be done. Slizz's reptile mind trembled deep inside the quagmire that was the remnants of her damaged brain, providing enough -just barely, oh so barely- organic control for it to rush forward to where Dom was being currently buried beneath a few dozen tons of ferrocrete rubble.

  It had to be done. Dom and the other Arcadians needed dealing with. Needed to be put down. The deadly tech also needed dealing with, but there would be time enough for that later.

  As Suit approached Dom's location, it's sensors pushed through the metallic-laced stonework, digging down through the piles of rubble, hunting for signs of life, hoping that there were none; the damage done to it's helmet, while not significant, was worrying in and of itself. That, combined with the micro-fine cracks up and down the abdomen, indicated that any kind of prolonged combat with the Arcadian would almost certainly result in severe damage.