by Lee Bond
Aäl nodded, stony face gloating so obscenely it turned every man’s stomach. “Yes, Dreambreaker, when you stand at the threshold of Reality, and you turn your mind to the greatness you have accomplished, and you hold me and my brothers ready to be launched into that newness, do, consider breaking the agreement. Right there at that most glorious and wonderful moment.” His face turned as dark as albino stone could, and his robes fluttered like uneasy ravens. “Consider it only, though. Do anything other, and it’ll all be pulled down around your ears, Dreambreaker, and then we’ll see something interesting.”
Garth jerked a thumb at the hostile God bitterly. “See? This is why I think of my time in your world as ‘DeadShop Stalemate’, fellas. Had nothing at all to do with me shutting Samiel down and putting an end to his DeadShop, though had I known then that he was actually merging human DNA with Bruushian, I would’ve done a whole helluva lot more a helluva lot faster. No, the ‘stalemate’ part comes from dealing with these asshats. There’s always more to what’s going on with them than they let you know.”
“We are Gods, Dreambreaker, not … used car salesmen.” Aäl smiled toothily once more, purely because he knew his appearance was disconcerting for the monkeys. “We’re not desperate enough to offer you everything but the kitchen sink to make the deal. We’ve always got the upper hand and we’re always going to win.”
The opaline entity swarmed closer, the living edges of his robes swirling around the three, his face wide open and brimming with interest. Resignation mingled with acceptance of their fate flowed from Edward Marshall and Drake Bishop, two ancient beings coming to realize that there was nothing they could do but go forward towards what awaited them. It was nice to see that though they were monkeys, they possessed enough higher brain function to realize that the alternative wasn’t the best play.
From the Dreambreaker?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Sweet, blissful emptiness, for now that the Dreambreaker had come to terms with his position in life, he was once again the complete and utter master of his thoughts and feelings. Somewhat of a concern for Aäl himself, who knew that, should Garth prove successful in the endeavor that awaited him, should the Kin’kithal return through the microscopic bridge, any thoughts or plans or tricks that he’d spent his downtime formulating would be hidden away.
Alas, it was the way of things.
Aäl needed his brothers saved from accidental destruction at the hands of two simpering monkeys and needed to arrange the dissipation of the Bruushian Incursion before the dinosaurial invaders realized the truth of where they were and went on a proper hunting expedition. Once they were safe, and alive, and awaiting the End of Everything, he could begin the precarious efforts at uncovering those secret plans.
Because there surely would be some. That was how Garth worked. At least they, the Gods of the Dream, were open and honest and mostly upfront.
The Dreambreaker? Secretive. Some would –and did- call him liar.
There would be time enough for all that once Nickels was back into the Unreality.
“Well, boys?” Aäl tried a genuine smile, abruptly deciding it wasn’t in him a heartbeat later. He wasn’t a nice person. He was a good God, but in humanish terms, that didn’t mean nice. Not at all. “Are we ready for our trip down memory lane?”
“What about my abilities?” Garth demanded, pulling himself free from Aäl’s robey grasp. He indicated his body, then tapped the side of his head. “ChaOS and the quadronium implants are designed for some fairly specific purposes and require an assload of power to get them up and fully functional. Can your brothers assist me with that or am I completely fucked? Because I’ve gotta tell ya, Aäl, if I’m fucking doing this, I’m doing it my way, and that way doesn’t involve using the incongruity at all. You boys got the juice for this?”
Aäl didn’t even need to think on that. “No. I’ve gotten more than my fair share of exposure to the internal mechanisms that you’re now built on, and I can say without hesitation that I’ve got no idea how you’re going to get that miraculous thing fully functional. The trickle feed of energy streaming from the extra-dimensionality is fiendishly risky in and of itself. If the Heshii ever discover the transfer, they might very well come running right to your planar doorstep, Dreambreaker, and that’s something that makes me very nervous. No. What you are now is too bold and brash for our little corner of the Unreality. If you reveal yourself as Universal Destroyer inside the Dream, it will draw even further unwanted attention from the Shattered Dominions. Do not forget, the Bruush aren’t the only powerful creatures that survive there. There are others.”
“So many others.” Drake whispered.
“Wellp.” Garth flashed Aäl an empty smile and nodded towards an imaginary door. “Nice chatting with you, Aäl. Time for us to get a move on. Crawl back inside and this time, be an actual silent partner instead of an asshole. If I catch wind of you fucking with one more person’s existence, it’s gonna be a showdown right there on the spot. You feel me?”
“I personally can’t believe you let him do all that shit to all those people in the first place.” Eddie admitted hesitantly. “I mean, I didn’t look at all their lives, just the most recent ones, and … it isn’t pretty, Garth. He really wants you to be miserable and … did you fucking arrange for my fucking daughter to be kidnapped by Drake’s asshole nth-son? Did you?”
Aäl tapped his fingers together, enjoying Eddie’s sudden spate of emotion on an obscene level. “Had your lovely ‘daughter’ remained in his presence for much longer, Edward, I may very well have done something unkind to her, but Jordan Bishop’s virulent hatred of this one’s entire existence was more than enough fodder for her spectacular … hmmm … rebirth? Yes, that’s as good a word as any. And before you … what’s the term, Dreambreaker? Ah yes, before you ‘fly off the handle’ a third time, remember: the things that stole her away and turned her into what she is now were manufactured by your hands and your hands alone. The deranged monstrosities calling themselves the CyberPriests of Watt were a literal abomination before the eyes of the Unreal Universe and should have never been more than a fleeting dream behind those dull, listless orbs you look through. Even if you were to remove the Dreambreaker from the equation, the odds are intrinsically high enough to suggest that everything would’ve happened in the same fashion. Chadsik al-Taryin would’ve still betrayed them, they would’ve still discovered her sterling genius, they would’ve still arranged to possess her, they would’ve still transformed her into V2 of their Electronic Messiah. Perhaps the only thing that might’ve been different is the damage she incurred, and that would’ve been disastrous. So no, monkey, I had nothing to do with Naoko Kamagana’s abduction or transformation and certainly nothing at all to do with what’s happening out there now.”
Garth cursed. Naoko! In dealing with the lunacy offered up by Aäl’s unwanted appearance and doubly deranged insistence that he travel backwards into the Proto-Reality’s past, he’d forgotten all about Naoko! “We need to put a pin in our alleged arrangement, Aäl. I need to rescue Naoko. There’s simply no way …”
“No.” The single syllable word fell like solid quadronium from Aäl’s thin, stony lips.
“No?” Garth couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’ll come back here, Aäl, I swear it! You know my word is my bond! This is … you’ve got to let me out of here to save her. What she’s going through right now is …”
“Is worse than you, yes, even you, can conceivably imagine, Dreambreaker. In all fairness, if there is another being in this entire Universe that suffers as much as she, I confess, I cannot find them. Her torment is on a different plane altogether, and in her agony, she is doing all she can to uncover the secrets of the Unreality. Should she prove successful, she will then seek to reorder everything into her own image. And that image will be fiendish, tormented in and of itself, a warped reflection of what she now believes is purity and perfection. The entirety of organic and inorganic life inside the Unreal Universe will suffer alongside her, for the
rest of eternity, for if she succeeds, all your plans will fall by the wayside.”
“Then what the fuck!”
“There will be time enough to deal with Lady Ha the Conqueror before the Darkness Falls, Engineer.” Aäl’s tone suggested that any further discussion on the matter would prove not only to be completely and utterly a waste of time, that it would also bring about consequences. “More than enough.”
“If you fucking pull that shit on me again, Aäl, there will be no place for you in Reality 2.0.” The lethal tone in his voice was enough to draw everyone in the room back a step, even mighty Aäl. “I will shred this Universe into confetti before I let that happen a second time.”
“What are you talking about?” Drake wondered, keeping an eye on Eddie; Aäl’s brutal assessment of what Naoko was going through at the moment had completely gutted his best friend. He was standing off to one side, tears brimming in his eyes.
Clearly anguished, full of regret, the once Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles looked as though he was ready to rush their deific captor. Tenderly, he reached out and put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. The man flinched, then relaxed. There was a hint of a nod that said ‘I understand there’s nothing we can do here’, and so Drake relaxed himself.
Because there wasn’t anything they could do. They were snared, and that was that.
“Don’t wanna talk about it.” Garth replied dourly. “Other than to say that when these fuckers start messing with time travel, they definitely don’t play fair.” The Engineer cleared his throat, fixed Aäl with a serious eye, and started laying down some ground rules. “Fine, Aäl. You want me in the Proto-Reality now, you got it. You want me to believe that I’ll have time to fix Naoko’s issues, fine. I’ll pretend I’m cool with being forced into leaving her out there, in the dark, alone and suffering who the fuck knows what. I’ll save your brothers, I’ll save the Proto-Reality from the Bruush, hell, man, I’ll even fucking wash your windows and detail your fucking Spaz Mobile, but if I arrive back here one second earlier than the moment I leave, all fucking bets are off. You feel me?”
Aäl clapped his hands together, laughing and nodding at Garth’s impassioned threats, not in the least bit upset or even angry at the language, for there was simply no getting around the fact that the Dreambreaker’s attitude was entirely deserved. They had most definitely caused him inordinate strife by sending him home as they had.
“Agreed, Dreambreaker. Agreed, in all forms. Even those you’ve not mentioned. I assure you … no. I swear to you upon the very lives of those you seek to restore, should I in any way, shape or form bring you dissatisfaction from our agreement, that agreement will be rendered null and void. You will return to this place, mere moments after your departure. And after that, you may do whatsoever you choose.”
Garth narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, trying to dig through the epic layers of bullshit that Aäl and his breed operated from and found nothing blatantly deceitful. There was always the possibility that the God would try to find a way out later on down the road, but that was then and this was now. “Fine. There’s still the matter of …”
Aäl held up a hand, drawing Garth to silence. “My brothers will aid you in the completion of your secondary task, Dreambreaker. Using their own magnificence, they will gift unto you powers and abilities most similar to those you once possessed when you were merely a Kin’kithal warrior and not the thing you’ve become. Though I urge you to practice great caution and foresight when doing so. As I’ve said, the Bruush are an indomitable force, but they are not the only things out there in the Dominion. You cannot prevent them from coming. That is written in the very depths of the Dream. Once they are there, the whole of the Dominions may be watching, and should you flare too brightly, you will draw the rest of the scavengers to you, and I can assure you, that isn’t something you want. Powerful you may become once more, but …”
“Yeah yeah yeah, I fucking get it, man. ‘Tread lightly’.” Garth was done and he didn’t care who knew it. “I’ve kind of got some fucking experience in that area, okay?” He looked at Eddie and Drake with a raised eyebrow.
The old Emperor-for-Life was hanging on by a thread, completely drained of the fire that’d burned through him for the last thirty thousand years. It was jarring to see a man who, not so long ago, had been willing to destroy everything for his own dark purposes now, quietly weeping at the thought of a woman that wasn’t specifically his daughter, suffering for one more second.
It was nice to learn that some people were still capable of redemption. And Drake … Drake looked just about done. Out of both men, in fact, he seemed the most eager to return home, to become nothing more and nothing less than plain old Drake Bishop, Big Man on Campus, a regular old guy with an obscenely large bank account and a genuine desire to experience everything the world had to offer.
“You boys ready?” Garth asked quietly. The mood was too fragile, too thin for anything less than complete sympathy.
“Yup.” Drake nodded, while Eddie just sort of shifted his shoulders. “We’re gonna be like that bald fuck in the Matrix, right? Cypher? We’re going to be dropped back in to ourselves and we won’t remember anything from this side? From this awful life we’ve led? Back to who we were?”
Aäl nodded. “It is more than you buffoons deserve, Drake Bishop. By far and away a greater kindness than Godkillers like you merit, but yes. Ordinary mortals once more, though … perhaps a bit of age and wisdom will settle into you, yes? A smidgeon of caution and care where before there was nothing but recklessness and tomfoolery? Perhaps in this new Dream you will at long last become the men you were meant to be? Again, more than you deserve, but if I know the Dreambreaker, and I do, he’d start lagging in his mission until you got a better deal, so here I am, being all sorts of generous, right from the start. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Eddie and Drake shared a silent, inscrutable exchange of looks before nodding. Garth’s posture and expression suggested he found the entire situation less than believable, but that he was –for the time being - willing to go along with the whole fucking thing.
“Let’s do this thing, then.” Garth put his arms around Eddie and Drake, drew them in close. “Now listen, fellas. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m just gonna zip in, stop you knuckleheads from getting too fucked up, stop this Bruushian Incursion real quick, then I’ll be right back here. Eddie, I’m gonna save Naoko, undo whatever’s been done to her. I swear it. Aäl might not have had anything to do with it and maybe this was always her destiny, but I’m all about undoing that kind of shit. Drake, man … is there anything you want me to look into, to fix, when I get back?”
Drake shook his head. BishopCo was as stable as it was ever going to be. Ariel was –for now- uncorrupted by the excesses of the power she held as CEO of the most powerful Conglomerate in Trinityspace, so when the time came for the Darkness to Fall, for the entire Unreal Universe to wage war against Kith Antal, she’d be there, ready, willing and able to do all she could.
After all, that’d been the sole purpose of his efforts in the first place.
Garth took the silent gesture as it was meant, then nodded at Aäl. “All right, you dirty sonofabitch, let’s get this over with.”
“Yesssss.” Aäl hissed pleasantly, one hand already plucking power from the incongruity he held in the other. Lambent purple and chartreuse streamers of eldritch power rose magnificently from the strange stone. “Time to return to your roots.”
Garth definitely didn’t trust the excited gleam in Aäl’s eyes, but it was too late to add anything to the deal they’d struck. About the only thing the Specter could count on was the fact that wherever he was going to wind up, his ‘mission’ was going to be considerably more involved than the ‘walk in a park’ situation the God had outlined.
The incongruity grabbed hold of him and everything went …
purple
But Wait… We’re Not Quite Done
Two Old Friends, A Dark Secret, Revealed, A Quest, Given
“Most definitely.” Innit nodded in full agreement. “They will definitely find reason to go running to their duty officers and whoever else they can find. And their situation reports will most definitely out you as a God soldier, implicate me in a number of wrongdoings, and generally cause all kinds of problems.”
Ute followed Innit down the corridor, eyeing the partially skeletal form of the man who’d trained him in that very first iteration of the God Soldier Army. It was an actual miracle that the one they’d called Kaptan Innit –a nightmare for young Onesies everywhere- was not only still alive, but fully functional. Well, minus some of the important bits of skin that was supposed to cover stuff that was usually better off being covered up, but Ute wasn’t about to ask pointed questions.
It was enough to know that his friend … his brother … was still alive and kicking.
That being said, the laisez faire attitude Innit was carrying around didn’t sit well with Ute, not when there was an air of finality there, floating through the air like a massive, unseen predator.
That, and there was the big blue chunk of crystal jammed into the man’s burly chest.
“Nice place you got here.” Ute kicked one of the sectional plates that comprised the wall nearest him. It groaned satisfactorily.
Innit flashed his old friend a toothy grin. “Still with the understatements, I see.” The ex-Goddie nodded. “Nice work if you can get it. The pay is lousy, the chow is worse, though we’ve got guys making runs to some of the more sophisticated systems. We do have an infestation, though. Through here.”
