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

by Lee Bond

  “Yeah, about that …” Chad, pale ear pressed so tight against the sensation-less stretch of Cordon that he could feel his own cybernetic heartbeat pulsing in the cockleshell of his ear, had a few moments to spare. “I is assume that these clone fellas burn out right quick the faster and harder they is move, right? So I is also assume that Antal is presently whippin’ through ‘is larder o’ clones at a pretty exponential rate? Wot is ‘appen to alla them fellas as dies on the light-year road?”

  “Their depleted matter is collected by machines, redirected back to th’ clone worlds, and reintroduced into th’ replicators. The cells are examined at length to determine whether or not th’ clones that died encountered anything dangerous or otherwise innerestin’, and if they did, those cells are left untouched.” Griffin spat through his teeth. “An’ if all they did was die like idjits, cells are pulverized and put into the mix as standardized goop.”

  “Ohhhh,” Chad replied excitedly, wishing it weren’t such a good idea, “that is well brilliant, innit just? We is ‘ave a rough road ahead of uz, in’t we?” Just then, a thin, quavering voice rose up through the multitudes. “Holy shite, squire! I is not believe it!”

  “Whut?” Near as Griff could tell, his Grandaddy wudn’t doin’ anything sneaky-like. Old Crystal was prolly just as concerned about Sauron’s Other Eye as they were, and wanted to come at the huge burn mark head on so he could avoid any tricks.

  “Me call!” Chad slapped The Cordon with a palm. “Me fuckin’ call! Not only did it reach someone as is capable o’ ‘elpin’ uz through this bullshit, it’s the fuckin’ Suit as is belong to me old pal, Gwyleh Ronn! Welladay an’ all that fancy Arcadian shite! This is well wicked!”

  ***

  “Well I will be fucked sideways.” Chadsuit said over comm. “Chad Sikkmund!”

  “Don’t you mean Chadsik?” Gwy’s odd-sounding voice sounded even weirder over comms.

  “If you is ask me that a year ago, mate, I would of said absolutely one hundred percent, but we is in the ‘ere an’ now, an’ the laddie buck as is on the other side of this here bullshit is none other than Chad Sikkmund of Taryn. Our man ‘as been through some adventures, hasn’t he just? Oh! An’ there’s so many more of uz in there wiv ‘im. Oh, that is well wicked. ‘e’s whole!”

  “I have literally no idea what the hell you are talking about.” Gwy’s frustration was apparent in his tone.

  “It be a long story, squire, longer than I is ‘ave. Alls you is need know is that when our man is say ‘we is’ and all that, ‘e is lit’rally talkin’ about roughly two hundred thousand different versions of ‘imself, all looped upside.” Chadsuit hammered on The Cordon. “I is ‘ere, Chad, I is ‘ere! Wot can we be doin’ about this here mess, hey?”

  ***

  Chad started snapping his fingers to get Griffin’s attention; the wee lad were spendin’ all his time an’ energy starin’ at the rush o’ Harmony clones comin’ their way when there really weren’t anything they could do to stop ‘em.

  The Arcadian reckoned that if they didn’t get out of here through this particular patch of bunged-up Cordon, they’d be well and truly fucked, and for one pretty obvious reason.

  They were outclassed. Aye, sure, the lad had a power that could move summink as big as a Galaxyship from one patch of space to another, and aye, he were a fully-fledged and conscious Platinum Brigadier with an operational nanotech forge inside him, but Kith Antal was without doubt the sole power in this volume.

  The crystallized entity was a walking superstructure of extra-dimensional connectivity. He’d subsumed the M’Zahdi Hesh and was intent on destroying the Universe for his own purposes. If he were even plannin’ on doin’ that anymore. There was a really good chance the indestructible Kith was doin’ everything just to get back to Garth N’Chalez.

  Get back to him, and torture him for an eternity, laughing madly while the Universe itself ruptured all over everywhere, whole entire sheathes of Galaxies destroying themselves under the grotesque strain it was already under.

  Chad couldn’t think of any punishment greater for Garth.

  “Whut!” Griffin tore his eyes offa the light-year road. “Whut?”

  “Squire.” Chad pulled his head away from the patch of Cordon and pointed right smack dab at the middle, right where he’d stuck his ear. “On the other side of this spot is an Enforcer Suit. One as is believe it’s conscious. It’s certainly got enough o’ the old me inside to be doin’ wot it’s doin’, at any rate, and we is goin’ to use it to our bennyfit, hey?”

  “All raght, I’m wi’ ya’ll so far. But how’re we’ gone git through?” Griffin’s forehead beetled. There were times –such as now- that he wished he’d paid more attention during the Armies of Man forced lessons, especially the ones on Critical Thinking. He’d always been a ‘burn first, walk away into the sunset looking badass’ kind of guy and not a ‘let us consider the ramifications of this action before we go forth into battle, so that we might see what could occur afterwards’ fella.

  Chad shot back a few feet, waving his hands in a huge circle. “This whole area is still recuperatin’ from th’ Tunnel’s blast, yeah? Like, we is safe to say that there were significant damage done to wotever it is this shit is actually made from?” When the flame-topped human nodded, albeit dubiously, the Arcadian continued speaking, excitement prompting him to speak even quicker and more heavily accented. “If we is smart an’ you is willin’ to work wiv a lad ‘ho be just a wee titch mad on th’ best o’ days, I reckon we is got enough mojo ‘tween the two of uz to blast a whole right frough this frickin’ mess.”

  “Whut didja have in mahnd?” Griffin drawled, skin crawling with power. He could feel it seeping through the pores of his skin, tiny, invisible motes of heat.

  “Orl right.” Chad held his hands up and made a square with thumbs and forefingers. “I is got about enough Will left to construct some sort of lattice or wotever right? Some kind of fing that will attach itself to The Cordon and if I is terribly good at wot I is do, it should lock them damaged bits an’ bobs into place, right, coz as we is float ‘ere lookin’ like a pair o’ dangly bits, I is not ‘elp but notice that the diameter of this here Other Eye ‘as shrunk by about three thousand miles. By lockin’ the atoms o’ the Cordon inter place, we is slow the repair process down.”

  Griffin nodded slowly, working through the language barrier and over the high-minded concept. He didn’t know a goddamn thing about how Chad’s powers worked other than to say that once the man started thinking about what he wanted, odds were generally pretty high that whatever that thing was, it’d appear, so while –under normal circumstances- the Arcadian’s profound generalization of what they were going to attempt might seem disheartening, the fact was, as long as Chad could articulate what he wanted, they were on solid ground.

  “So whut d’ya’ll need from me?”

  A brilliant smile split Chad’s face. “Oh, you is like this a lot, me lad. You, son, is goin’ to unleash one of them frankly fuckin’ terrifyin’ Fire Vortexes right smack dab in the middle o’ me gewgaw. Should pop a nice chunk o’ Cordon right out the uvver side. Like an eggshell or summink.”

  Griffin sucked at a tooth, nodding.

  Destroying stuff. That was something he was pretty good at. “All raght, son, git to it. My daddy always said if the sun’s up, gun’s’re up, too.”

  “You is an odd fella, Griffin, but I is fink we is goin’ to get along just fine. Once you is start to speak proper King’s English.” Chad Sikkmund of Taryn reached down inside himself to where the free matter he’d stolen from Antal resided and set to work. Aided by the considerable intellectual weight of all those other hims, the concept of a machine that held the atomic superstructure of summink like The Cordon into place was nicely delivered to the nanotech forge.

  Something inchoate and shadowy sprouted into being against the flat portion of The Cordon, a thing hinting at gears and cogs and gyros and, most importantly, unbreakable metal tips to spike into place.
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  ***

  “That raght there is the goldang strangest thing Ah ever did see, Chad, and Ah been all over everywhere. That is weirder than figurin’ out that the ladies o’ Holforth-Terawl had themselves the wangs and the fellas the … uh … well, ya’ll know.” Griffin flushed.

  “Well, I’ll be.” Chad beamed like a proud poppa at the Will-forged device, a giant, clanking and hissing machine stuck to The Cordon. “Griffin can’t say the words for them all-important lady bits. We is at a loss for words.”

  “All raght, all raght, ya’ll c’n tease if y’want, but Texan boys are polite about such thangs. Not like ya’ll, droppin’ the c-word every fifteen seconds. Mah momma’d smack ya’ll so hard she’d knock the accent outch y’mouth.” Chad pointed at the device, which looked like a mirror-less frame bolted onto The Cordon with cruel-looking spikes. The majority of the frame was as simple a shape as you could get, though it was weighed down with what had to be numerous superfluous gewgaws. “Whatcha’ll need me t’do, exactly?”

  Chad held up a slender finger. “First, I is tell other Me wot we is do. Don’t want Chadsuit too close to the epicenter if things go wrong, hey? I suspect that you could quite easily destroy an Enforcer Suit with your abilities, Griffin, and I would be sorely disappointed if we is lose the opportunity to thank one of two people responsible for our rescue. Second, when I is well out of the way, you is fire your Vortex right into the middle.”

  Griffin sketched the mirror-frame out with two fingers, saying, “An’ this here machine?”

  “As we were in the middle of designin’ it, we is ‘ave a thought.” Chad nodded at the sly smile on Griffin’s face that said he was quite surprised that any thinking was happening at all, then continued. “Your blast o’ power is quite undeniable, if a little … raw.”

  “Hey now!”

  “’tis true, squire, and hain’t no reason to squawk. You is been trapped ‘ere wiv your cu … sorry, wiv your arsehole Granda, who in’t have no need for finesse.” Griffin seemed mollified by the response, so Chad continued. “In addition to ‘oldin’ the atoms and all in place, wot this beautiful machine is do is grab your flames and even ‘em out so it can distribute proper power to where it’s needed most. As an added bonus, if you’ll notice ‘ow it’s shaped …”

  “No crawlin’.” Griffin made a face that was half-dismay and half-acceptance of the older villain’s efforts. He’d always been a little … raw. If they got through to the other side, he’d look into fine-tuning … everything. “Ah s’pose it’ll do. Go on now, talk t’yer robosuit. Let ‘im know we’re comin’ through hot.”

  Chad Sikkmund scooted back to The Cordon, running a loving hand down one side of the mirror-less frame. He laid his head against the black matte surface and started beaming their plan through to the other side.

  ***

  The Universe really was coming to an end. It was the only factor in this drama that made any sense, that allowed for the strict impossibility of an Enforcer Suit that was, in fact, powered by an iteration of Chadsik al-Taryin, that explained away the fruitless endeavor of telepathic communication across The Cordon being successful, that permitted even the –frankly speaking- harrowing madness that rose from even considering burning a hole through the one thing that’d remained insistent for thirty thousand years.

  Gwyleh Ronn deftly moved his ship out of the way, as asked for by both Chadsuit and Chad, curiosity crawling through his guts. As far as most things went, the Empator-Tyrene imagined he understood the extent of Chad’s powers and he most definitely knew what a Suit could do, even one that was operating under it’s own cognizance, and nothing about either one of those ‘men’ said they had the kind of power that the latter suggested was about to be in use.

  As an Enforcer, you learned to think outside the box, or, in this case, Trinityspace. You did that, or you died. The fundamental violation of the physical laws of Existence that was The Cordon all but forced everything and everyone on the other side to adapt to suddenly mutable laws, allowing for things that were never meant to exist to not only do so, but persist.

  Gwy knew his knowledge of The Cordon was incomplete.

  The bug chittered scornfully at his own presumptions, multi-faceted eyes watching Chadsuit as he flitted back and forth.

  His knowledge of what lay beyond The Cordon would fill a thimble. Adding the most ancient warrior and scion of the M’Zahdi Hesh, who arguably understood the laws of Existence better than any other entity, into the mix and you had … something defying conception.

  In his time as Enforcer, Gwyleh Ronn had encountered forgotten robots tens of hundreds of feet tall, buried under millions of tons of rubble, rising up from the grave to swoop clumsily at the microscopic threat. He’d been snared, once, in a Myriad Trap, generated by a conscious orb of fiery green light. He’d seen worlds, normal sized worlds, full of people so small an entire country could fit in the palm of his hand.

  The world that lived beyond The Cordon was a wild, unruly place, both in terms of how the people were forced to exist, and the things that could happen to them.

  “People think Trinityspace is dangerous.” Gwy watched on as Chadsuit arranged glowing beads of light in a crude shape right at the center of the disturbance; the rays streaming out from the Enforcer Suit’s efforts were brilliant, very nearly casting shadows against the endless matte black surface. “They’ve got no damned idea what’s on the other side.”

  Was it possible that Chad had the power to cut through The Cordon in this weakened state?

  Gwy shook his head. He knew the Arcadian well enough. Had seen the man in battle, had quietly and unobtrusively come to accept what the EJ was either missing altogether or simply could not see; that his power, that his very essence, was in violation of … was in violation. Gwy supposed he might not know the totality of Chad’s abilities, but he damned well knew what direction they pointed, and it wasn’t what Chadsuit suggested was going to be used to free the cyborg.

  “Which begs the question,” On-screen, Chadsuit finished laying down the portal’s frame and jetted off to one side, literally emanating excitement through the depths of space to smack a slightly –and regrettably- bored Suitless Enforcer, “who or what did Chad find inside Antal’s Galaxyship?”

  As far as bad ideas went, this one’d have Garth Nickels shaking his head and wondering aloud if there wasn’t another way they could go. In the end, the madman would do what needed doing, but even he had sense enough to know he was staring down the barrel of a FARS-cannon.

  “Are we sure it’s Chad you’re hearing?” Gwy winced even as the words were being broadcast to Chadsuit; on-screen, the floating suit of armor visibly twitched when the communique was transmitted.

  “Who the fack else would it be, squire?” Chadsuit’s voice was irritated enough to be sand down someone’s shorts. “I is tell you larst time, it in’t like we is chit-chattin’ on, like, emergency broadcast frequency freakin’ A or summat, Gwy, we is bein’, worl, it hain’t properly tellypaffic but is close, right? Like, I is a version o ‘im or summink, and ‘e’s got a transmitter or wotever inside ‘is noggin, and through that, we is chinwag. Fink of it as Chad Sikkmund Radio and only them as are subscribers can ‘ear it, yeah? Quit your bellyachin’.”

  Gwy couldn’t help but persist. They were messing around with The Cordon.

  It wasn’t just Antal it was keeping away. There was The Trival. There was Quangor. There was the Assemblage of Dust and the Sorrowing Blade and The Wizard.

  Entities and enemies of Trinityspace. Powerful enough to hold Galaxies under their sway. Powerful enough to swarm towards dreaded, hated Trinityspace, evil enough to do precisely as Antal sought and for no real good reason other than that there was hatred in all of them.

  And with Nickels nowhere to be seen, very little existed to stop one, let alone all. God soldiers might be able to stem the tide of destruction raging into ‘free space’, but they were presently preoccupied in dealing with the fact that Trinity Itself had decla
red war on them.

  Then there was Antal himself.

  “I only ask because … because.” Gwy tried ignoring how irritated Chadsuit looked out there in space and succeeded only in paying more attention. He rushed to explain better. “I more than anyone would like to see Chad again. Especially because he’s stuck inside Antal’s ship. We traveled together, Chadsuit, you know that. I’d move heaven and earth … hell. I traveled with you to get to this point, and I’m fairly certain I’ve got a death sentence on my head in every system we passed through, even the ones where we moved quietly. But … his power doesn’t go in these directions. Who…”

  “Hush now, squire.” Chadsuit interrupted loudly, stretching out his arm and pointing with one long armored finger at the center of the area he’d marked out. You could barely see it, but the damaged matte black section of wall was the faintest bit brighter. “They’s doin’ the impossible. That there spot will pop loose, Chad and friend will pop on through, yon invisible Node will repair the damage an’ Bob’s yer Uncle, hey? Friends an’ family all returned, nice and warm in their beds. From there, adventures and explosions for all.”

  Sensors trained on Chad Sikkmund’s egress pinged, then erupted into impatient alarms.

  Temperature spike. Definitive. Not accidental, not fading.

  Rising.

  “Fuck my life.” Gwy moved closer to the monitors. “This really isn’t a good idea, but it’s too goddamn late. Please, please let this work…”

  ***

  “Well Ah will be goldang dipped in tar and feathered fr’m head t’toe.” Griffin had to shout to be heard above the furious plasma streams burning from flame-soaked hands towards The Cordon. “Ah do thank it’s workin’!”

  Chad pulled back from one of the deadly streamers burning so hot that they’d passed from white-hot to some never before seen color, some … pure expression of heat that hadn’t been seen since the Universe had been pulled out of the oven, freshly conjured cigarette smoldering.

  The Arcadian Brigadier took a long, lazy puff from his newly lit ciggy and smiled. “I is always want to do that, though I do fink we is get a bit of a tan from bein’ so close. And o’ course ‘tis workin’, laddie buck. We is do it togevver.”