by Lee Bond
“The devil you say!” Mira and Dom grew closer and closer to tantalizing prize. Now, in between assault and battery, they reached out wi’ desperate hand, fingers twitching ever closer. “Mirabelle, twisted and damned and progenitor of Young Luther, piece o’ the machine as did in truth aid in Ickford’s downfall, did all that on the Inside?”
Chevy nodded somberly, letting nowt but his silence drive home the point.
Agnethea considered that in all it’s fullness, lips pouting prettily. “I don’t quite know how to take that, Kennelman Pointillier. In all my years, and wi’ all she and the others on her side did, and the dank darkness of it all … never ever would I have truly believed in such a rebirth. Since we’ve pulled ourselves out of the game, I confess I found no reason to heed her pleas there at the beginning, and now, well …”
Chevy jerked his chin at the duo. “Looks like we’re about to learn what happens when an Arcadian slaps her hand on Book, milady. I … I suggest we … batten ourselves down somewhat, hey? Like as not, the introduction will be … stormy.”
Agnethea followed Chevy’s suggestion, hunkering down ‘gainst the side of debris-laden Hill and hoping assiduously that whatever did come from Mirabelle possessing Book, it found more reason to burst outward than downward.
“In 3 … 2 …” Chevy winked boldly to Agnethea, who burst out wi’ genuine laughter at an old man’s cockiness, “1 …”
High atop Hill, Mirabelle, Lady of the Weeping Eye and leader o’ a Clan she’d never wanted but now could not do wi’out, she did finally reach Book in the merest, most briefest of moments before Bloody Dom o’ th’ Rags.
And …
***
Nowt.
Nowt did happen because Book weren’t no fool, hey? As much as a thing like Book –spawned from King’s Own Will and full of Garth’s knowledge as it were- were capable of genuine thought, it were filled with a machine’s form o’ remorse o’er what’d happened, but ‘ere it’d found itself on th’ Outside, trapped inside Trinity’s machinations, it’d espied no other recourse than to let things play out on their own.
Kick-started into life by those as worked for CalEx~Briu only to find itself deprived too soon of enough power to bring it into full ‘life’, it’d done the only thing it could’ve done under such circumstances, for the only thing worse than a fully awake version o’ Book on the outside were summat as were only partially there.
And so, it’d dug. Spread fingers of Will throughout the level, firstly eating matter to provide fresh bursts of power, but never enough, and dangerous besides all that; some of the things it’s nanotech fingers encountered had been strange, difficult to digest safely, resulting in potentially lethal residues that’d eat upwards and downwards throughout Stack, all unchecked, ruining anything and anyone else left alive.
Leaving … them as lived. Them as ran and screamed in the dark, alone, terrified, fleeing from starvation and madness only to be snapped up by jaws invisible, split into components, then cracked down further for power, leaving behind nowt but basic matter similar to dust.
Book knew no way to feel true guilt or sorrow. Knew no method of engendering it’s own apologies. It weren’t capable, not on it’s own, for it were a Book, and Books were meant to be read, the knowledge and wisdom within destined –hungry- to be used by someone wi’ a mind, and a heart, and a need to …
Seek redemption, for while it couldn’t feel, it could know, and it knew it’s genesis on the Outside had brought terrible things to light, knew reparations needed to be made.
And so.
It’d chosen Mirabelle ‘ere the moment she’d stood wi’ a crowd o’ frightened, lonely people, offering a sliver of hope, seeing inside the shattered Golem’s heavy heart and right into the truth of who she’d become since being reborn on the Outside.
A woman, capable of holding all of Garth N’Chalez’ rage and blackness and letting out only the light, the need for all of everyone who had ever drawn breath and for all of those who would ever draw breath to have their chance, their brief moment of happiness, ‘ere the Falling Dark and the Rising Light did sweep them all up and away into some new world.
So, when Mirabelle did lay her slender, bleached hand on Book, Book did no such thing as a burst o’ light as tossed the unworthy hither and thither, nor did it call for the air to fill wi’ music, nor thunderclaps, nor anything so prosaic as all that.
Because there were one thing it needed to do above all else.
Book felt itself being picked up, hefted thoughtfully, twisted in hands, then …
***
Dom scurried up after that mangy whore, Mirabelle, bloodstained, tatty fingernails stretching hungrily towards the Golem's wispy white robes, unkempt, seething viciousness turning his blood into festering lava. There were no way that Mirabelle were going to lay hands on Book. It weren't hers, would never be hers, weren't right that she were even here. If anyone t'other'n him should have it, why, Dom supposed he'd prefer it be Old Man Pointer o'er anyone else, and even that option were just awful.
"You hain't goin' to get it, dingy Golem slut, no you …"
It were as if a jolt of lightning slammed through him, so dread were his reaction to realization that even as he were in the middle o' stopping her, Mirabelle did manage to lay hands on Book after all. Every ounce of rage and fire and black hunger to own Book -all feelings as had followed him from Inside to filthy Outside- plummeted out through the bottom of his toes.
He stood shakily, a faltering smile on his face. "Here now, Mirabelle, you did say you'd leave all us Arcadians alone 'ere you held the prize 'tween your hands..."
"Aye," Mira nodded agreeably, shifting heavy Book this way and that until it settled in her hands comfortably, "I did, at that." Her eyes turned briefly down to where Chevril and Agnethea stood, plainly disinterested in pursuing their goals towards owning Book; it were well and good they'd done so, at long last showing the sort of wisdom people their age should've always owned. They were free now, free to become the beings they wanted to be, relieved from pressure of being Arcadian.
But Dom...
Oh, Dom did deserve to die. More than anything. All the blood and death and agony caused by him since coming to the Outside, it were egregious. The doings of a maddened cur, a fully-gripped gearhead in the worst throes of Kingsblood sickness. E'en now, as he stood before her, sly smile on his lips, banking on her promise of life where none was deserved, he fairly jittered and danced with evil intent.
"Welladay then." Dom dipped his head in recognition. "May Book bring you what you want. I shall take my leave of you, this stinking Stack and quite possibly this shite-stained planet. Aye, I'll do that, and burn bright elsewhere in the stars of bedraggled Outside."
Bloody Dom O' Th' Rags spun on a heel and made to head down, where Agnethea and Chevy were e'en then heading their own ways off Stack 17.
"Dom." Mirabelle breathed the word gently, intent on sounding as sweet and innocent as pie, a soft lure to gain a desired effect.
"Aye, Lady Mirabelle?" Dom paused, then turned, not sure what he'd hear or what she hoped to gain.
Savage sharp end o' Book's heavy metal cover slammed into the side of his head, digging cruelly into his eye with enough force to pop his peeper like a grape. He yowled furiously and, half-blind, he did try to reach out and grab Mirabelle in his deadly grip regardless of her power, only to find that the brutal force o' her blow had sent him flying through the air; as the seething red blanket as covered his vision cleared, he learned with a shaky laugh that he were indeed airborne, already over a hundred feet up and nearly three times that far away into the bowel o' Stack 17.
"Good on you, Mirabelle, good on you, lass." Dom slammed into the wall furthest from where the other Arcadians were stood, then did fall into a darkness as swallowed him whole.
***
Chevy nodded, albeit briefly, to Mirabelle as she climbed down the Hill. "Queen o' th' Hill, owner of Book, well met."
Mirabelle said nowt. There were no
thing to say on the matter; there were other things as needed to be said, and said quickly, and firmly, so that there were no misconceptions in either Arcadian's mind.
"What I said before scrabbling up the hill, I did mean." The Lady o' the Weeping Eye nodded to each before her, well pleased to see studious concentration on their faces. "I shall leave you alone so long as you leave me alone. What is in Book is for King and King alone, though I must perforce indulge in a little bit 'o those knowings for my own purpose. After that, and until the moment King does draw the curtain on this Outside place closed, it shall remain in my care. Do you hear my words?"
Chevy nodded again, this time with a bit more enthusiasm. He felt that Book had made it's mind up long before any one of the four of them had even made it close, and that decision were therefore better informed and more wisely made than he could ever hope to glean. "Aye. Your words are understood, Mirabelle. I hear them loud and clear."
Mirabelle turned to her old Queen and curtsied. "And you, my Queen?"
"Queen no more, Mirabelle." Agnethea ran a hand through her filthy hair. "Least, no Queen of no people as were mine to begin with. And as it comes from Pointer, so too does it come from me. I wanted Book for no other reason than I were the one as rescued it from the Shaggy Men. Never had no plans to use it, nor e'en look inside. What do you plan on doing with it, whilst you hold on to it for King Nickels the Absent?"
Mirabelle smiled at something, then pointed one long, slender had behind the two Arcadians. Both Chevril and Agnethea turned to see what had her attention, and when they took in the crowded, huddled mass of men and women and the occasional child, they were so startled that they stumbled backwards a step or two.
"And …" Agnethea struggled to find the proper words. "And … and who be these people?"
Master Ragar, seneschal for the Clan of the Weeping Eye stepped forward, Warmaster Marshak right by his side, head held up high. "We are the Clan of the Weeping Eye, Arcadian, and we follow our Lady wheresoever she would lead."
"They are my new family, Agnethea of Ickford, and I would take them to a home they can call their own. Now, go you both, find your way, and on steps light and quick. Book does contrive to show me a method of moving this many people to safety, and I do believe it means the full end of this level o' Stack. I would prefer not to be called liar so very soon. Fly!"
And so it was that Kennelman Chevril Pointillier did kiss the knuckles of Pirate Queen Agnethea before heading back the way he'd come. 'ere she left, Pirate Queen did bow most deeply to a woman on her own path to redemption, bosom ablaze wi' hope for her own journey towards same.
After all, if one broken Golem could do it, why could the other not do the same?
Who Loves a Good Nutshell? Garth N’Chalez, That’s Who! Loves Him Some Nutshelling!
"Let me get this straight." Eddie held up a hand, forcing everyone into silence. Down below, in the center of the amphitheater, the thing that they'd all believed was Garth who was, in fact, the operating system for Garth's quadronium circuitry stood there, next to actual Garth, who'd been pretending to be an Ushbet M'Tai this whole time, who was himself standing there, looking just about as smug as one human could without ascending to some higher plane of smugness. "You aren't an Ushbet."
"That's a negative, chum." Garth shook his head, smiling ear to ear. He was totally okay in giving Eddie the time he needed to get the whole situation under control, and frankly, didn't blame the guy for his epic levels of confusion. "Not now, not ever."
QOS chortled. "Had you fooled, though, didn't I? Both of you! And all I did was eat."
Eddie slammed his hands down in frustration. There were so many gaps in his understanding that it had him feeling as if -somehow- the last thirty thousand years had been false.
It wasn't a great feeling.
"And somehow," Eddie pointed at Drake, who was doing his best attempt at nonchalance, "this guy gave you all the information you needed? During what? The ride home? What the fuck did you tell him, Drake? How in the hell did all this happen?"
Drake wanted to know the answers to that himself, was, in fact, busy running through everything he'd said to Nickels in his guise as Spur; it wasn't difficult to do, but even as he confirmed to within ninety-nine percent accuracy that he hadn't said anything damning, there was a voice in the back of his head that said something else entirely.
The blonde-haired displaced Englishman showed his palms to Eddie. "I told him nothing but what is already known to those who come here, man. It's not like it's a huge secret."
"It's more of a secret than you might think, bro." QOS -still sounding like Garth, though with a smidgeon of electronic buzz to his voice- shook his wireframe head. "We looked everywhere, just like we did when trying to find answers about Arcade City. Not a single person we talked to told us anything! It's like they didn't trust us! Us! Well, him, I mean, because I'm not really alive, but still! It was super rude!"
"Slow down, there, Captain Chaos." Garth regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth; the QOS wireframe was suddenly dancing all over the place, hooting 'Here comes Captain Chaos! Evildoers beware!' like it was some kind of goof or something. He gazed up at the people his oldest and best friends had become. "Yeah, but, no, it was super difficult to get any information. I wasn't too pleased about coming in blind. A second time."
"What did you say, Drake?" This time, the question came out deflated. All this time, all this effort, and there was nothing to show for it but a completely broken simulation and a worrying lack of access to the incongruity's power source.
"Only that he'd be forced to live through his greatest regret until he found his way through to the other side. Same as any EuroJapanese adherent would learn if they looked in the right places." Drake tried to find some frame of reference for how they'd been so thoroughly hoodwinked, and … just failed. It was that easy.
It had to be impossible. Though Drake had spent considerable time away from the Emperor and that whole thing, he’d spent enough of his life here in the Unreal Universe assisting in the ‘grief purge’ that Eddie’d set up to know that the system –powered by the goddamn temporal incongruity- wasn’t just something you could ‘con’, much less shut down.
That wasn’t the way these things worked.
Chaos calmed down and resumed being a normal, displaced wireframe quadronium operating system.
“They’re not getting it.” he said to Garth, who shrugged.
“Let ‘em think about it for a few more minutes. It’s kind of a big thing to deal with, I suppose. Oh, hey!” Garth snapped his fingers. The sound bolted through the amphitheater like a gunshot. “Did you get the, uh, y’know?”
Chaos tapped his head, glistening blue wireframe fingertips pushing inward slightly at the temple, causing the wires there to shift a bit. “All in here, all right. You got nothin’ to worry about.”
Garth rubbed his hands together. “Ohhh, yeah. This is going to be so awesome. When I have time, of course. Got the whole End of the Unreal Universe thing to kick off first, though. Then I should have a couple of days to fuc…”
“What in the hell are you two talking about now?” Eddie –brain almost on fire from the sheer volume of data he was ripping through in a frantic need to uncover whatever it was he’d missed- snapped angrily, looking around again for something to throw at smug Garth and the bloody blue wireframe … puppet.
“Recipes.” Chaos answered simply.
“Recipes.” Eddie drawled in complete disbelief.
Garth nodded briskly. “Oh yeah. Recipes.”
Chaos held up a hand and started ticking off fingers as he ran through the list. “Slappy Burger’s Secret Sauce. Slappy Burger’s French Fry Suprem-O Recipe. Base Ingredient list for Slurpees, including how to make it properly fizzy. Slappy Burger’s UltraSecret Super No Tell Burger Rubs, one and two.”
“Ohhhh.” Garth licked his lips. “You got two? How?”
“Believe it or not,” Chaos turned to talk to his programmer, “
it was almost as hard as breaking into the NSA’s servers! Towards the end there …”
“No.” Drake pushed up from the chair he was sitting on, shaking his head. “No you didn’t.”
“A),” Garth shouted so everyone in the room could hear properly, “both you guys got to work on cutting people off mid-sentence. It’s super irritating and it breaks the flow of the conversation. And 2),” here, Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez winked and nodded like he was in some kind of cheesy slapstick spy movie, “I totally, one hundred percent did so.”
“Wanna tell me what’s going on here?” Eddie demanded, watching Drake as he worked his way through the various stages of disbelief.
Whatever had Drake so wound up, the Emperor-for-Life Eddie Marshall somehow knew he was going to like the revelation even less than his friend.
Drake pointed at Garth; down below, Nickels flinched and held a hand to his heart as if he’d been shot. Beside him, the weird thing that was the physical representation of the most powerful AI system in the Unreal Universe was making weird combat noises with it’s invisible mouth. “He manipulated the moment of overwhelming grief that was supposed to’ve been the place he wound up.”
“Not possible.” Eddie shook his head firmly, jaw set so tightly you’d need a plasma powered jackhammer to pry the man’s mouth open.
Chaos nodded. “Oh yeah.”
Drake looked apologetically at Eddie, who was just shy of fuming mad all over again. There was no factual data on any of the incongruity’s computers to corroborate his story, but when you stepped back and considered the man they were talking to, the man they were supposed to’ve been running through a gauntlet, there was simply no other answer.
“Not only that,” Drake continued, “but I’m fairly confident he changed his memories of the events in question.”
Eddie took a deep breath and held it for a long, slow count of ten, all to keep from screaming until his larynx erupted in a shower of flesh. “I am just willing to accept that he was capable of somehow choosing the historical moment of grief he'd endure, but there is honestly no way that he could massage his experiences to the point where the incongruity’s mechanisms missed the edits. People have tried this before.”
