The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  “Brio-Sokol? So your name gets the place of prominence?”

  “That’s not more prominent.”

  Nilah took a malty sip. “It bloody well is. Your name is last, so it sticks in the memory.”

  “I thought you hated coming in second.”

  She clinked her can to Orna’s. “Touché, my love.”

  It hadn’t been easy to crack the Devil’s code. First off, the system physically resisted them in unexpected ways, locking down the outer hatches and disabling the power. Then there were large black boxes at every turn, sucking away the processing power and reallocating it to beg them to stop. Then it threatened them, saying it’d jump from inside the cargo bay to be lost in the Flow forever. After they’d shut off enough of its higher brain functions, it loudly recited rhymes for six hours.

  Then it just blared random annoying alarms.

  But they’d done it. They’d found every reference to Scry and cleared the way for the software module to emerge.

  “Where am I supposed to get another leg?” Nilah grumbled after tripping for the twentieth time. “If we could land on Taitu, I could visit the top prosthesis clinics in the galaxy.”

  Orna savored her beer before swallowing. “I’ve been thinking about that. We’ve got spare actuators on this ship.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Spares for Teacup and Charger.”

  She dribbled a bit of beer in surprise and had to wipe her mouth. “With the strength of a hydraulic vise? That’s rich. What would it weigh?”

  Orna shrugged. “We skip the regraded steel and mill the parts from medical duraplex. Malik has a surplus; I bought us more than we could ever use on the last resupply.”

  Nilah tried to imagine herself with a single huge leg. “I’d look like a monster!”

  “I think it’d be cute.”

  “You’ve got a skewed definition of cute.”

  Orna leaned against her, sweaty skin cold with the air conditioning. “Who else do you have to please besides me?”

  “Oh, I see.” Nilah laughed. “First you disfigure me, then you make me something only you could love!”

  The quartermaster’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow, and she gazed into the lid of her beer.

  “Oh,” said Nilah, “oh, hey. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Orna’s lips went white as they pulled tight. “I was just sure you’d hate me after I—after…”

  “After you did what you had to do.” Nilah wrapped an arm around her fiancée.

  Orna looked down at the peg leg and grimaced. “I hold some serious grudges, babe. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you never wanted to see me again. Even when… even when I brought the blade down, I was thinking, ‘This is it. I ruined her perfect body, and now she’ll hate me.’ But, you know… if I had to choose between your love and your life, I want you to be around to despise me.”

  Nilah gave her fiancée a dark grin. “At least you’ll never be able to get mad when I have a leg up on you.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t lose your hand, because that joke was reaching.”

  “Oh, my god, you made a pun. Everyone, Orna Sokol made a pun!”

  “Stop it—”

  They both jumped as the klaxons sounded through the bay and the Devil flashed. Boots had warned them both about that, but they’d forgotten.

  “Alert: I have reached a conclusion,” said the Devil.

  “It’d better not be, ‘Give the Element Corporation more money,’” grumbled Orna, climbing to her feet to dust off.

  “Of course not,” said the Devil. “You betrayed me and reshaped my mind so that wouldn’t happen, but I guess that’s fine with you.”

  “Yup,” said Orna. “We won’t fall for the guilt subroutines. Tell us what you’ve got.”

  Nilah nodded, still feeling a little guilty for hacking the thing.

  The Devil’s taillights flashed in time with its voice. “There’s a lot more here than I can say with any nuance. I’ve compiled a database of research findings based on priorities I’ve observed within our missions.”

  “What do you mean?” Nilah asked, walking over to inspect the drive housing and make sure their ancient crystal was still in perfect condition.

  “You all said quite a bit to the Vogelstrand, which, I have assumed on some level, is true. I assumed you are targeting a currently living individual named Henrick Witts, who has this new power, alchemy. I’ve analyzed the ship’s database for any potential weaknesses in alchemy, as well as historical context.”

  “You said all of that without boasting?” asked Nilah. “We’ve wrecked your central program, haven’t we?”

  “And because you stole your license of Scry from the greatest assault vehicle in the galaxy,” said the Devil, “I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a handy briefing to present to the rest of your crew, complete with footnotes, archival footage, and target recommendations. I can even use my—”

  With this, glowing steel words appeared in the air, radiating alternating waves of hot and cold:

  “Thermal Anti-Imaging Projection System (TAPS),” announced the Devil simultaneously, with a series of explosion noises for effect. “Using my thermal decoy projectors, no soldier can dare sleep through my briefings! Feel the heat of passing warships! Shiver in the ice of—”

  “Neat,” said Nilah, walking to the intercom and tapping the panel to connect her to Cordell’s quarters. “Captain, it looks like we’re ready to share our findings.”

  “Summon everyone to the mess,” was his bleary reply. She must’ve woken him up. “I’ll be there in thirty.”

  “The Devil is insisting on briefing us, itself,” said Nilah. “It has some… interesting features. I know we don’t have snacks down here, but—”

  “Understood. Going to wash up, and we’ll get to work. What does it have for us?”

  “Everything,” said the Devil, and Nilah gave it a nasty look for daring to butt in on the conversation. “Including a way to eliminate your enemy.”

  “I’ll be there in five,” was Cordell’s amended estimate.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Intensity

  Please, lights out,” said the Devil, and Nilah obliged, rolling her eyes.

  The vehicle had a flair for the dramatic, and she resented the way it acted like a merchant, hawking cheap wares on the streets of Harvest. Using its projectors, it designated the cone of optimal viewing, ushering the others to stand in specific places based upon height. It complained when the captain urged it to get to the point, which caused Cordell to glare at Nilah and grumble something about “your lippy machines.”

  As everyone was plunged into darkness, Cordell said, “Start the show, damn it!”

  The room cooled, and stars poked through the blanket of shadows. A planet spun to life above them—the unmarked world where the Vogelstrand had landed. Nilah recognized the planet’s jagged tapestry of landmasses, even though they lacked any vegetation. This must’ve been pre-colonization.

  With a pink jump strobe and a heat wave, the Vogelstrand appeared in their view with arresting effect. Its radiant body hung before her like a huge model, and she could almost reach out and touch it. She hated to admit the truth: the presentation was already off to a good start. She half expected some musical cues.

  “This is the Vogelstrand,” said the Devil, its voice unusually somber, “a first-generation colony ship containing twenty thousand souls, and the last holdout of alchemy. Those on board had shown a predisposition for the forbidden art, whether they actively practiced or not, and so were marked for death.”

  The ship grew before them as they flew through space, zipping past the hot wash of its engines before closing in on an airlock porthole. The view passed through the glass, and they were standing inside the bridge, its ornate gilding gleaming in the day cycle.

  Nilah looked over to find Boots gawking at the ship’s officers as they rushed to and fro, working their stations. “What’s up?” she whispered.

 
“This is an authentic firsthand account,” said Boots, “of Origin military culture and fashion. Your pal Valentino would be losing his mind right now.” Boots stepped forward, looking over the Vogelstrand admiral’s uniform.

  “Shortly after the colony released its Gardeners to prepare for planetfall,” said the Devil, “a sleeper cell of Origin loyalists released a nanite infection into the crew. The virus built up in their systems over a course of weeks, and the saboteurs triggered a fatal outbreak with a radio pulse—simultaneously killing everyone.”

  The admiral held her hand up in horror as familiar fleshy vines sprouted from her skin. Those who didn’t immediately succumb were chased down by the monsters in their midst. The view careened nauseatingly down the hallways through carnage as the colonists desperately tried to regain control of their vessel. The Devil dragged the scene down into the hibernation bay, and they found cryo pods erupting into vines.

  “So most of them died thinking they’d made it to safety,” said Nilah.

  “Correct,” said the Devil. “Alchemy was deemed too much of a risk to tolerate in the hands of mere mortals. It hasn’t vanished from the galaxy, however. Let’s look at what the colonists stole from Origin.”

  The Vogelstrand disintegrated around them, leaving the firmament of space. Five house icons brushed into existence above the Devil, their strokes glowing gold. They bore the names of the first five colonies.

  “The most powerful alchemists of the ruling class decided that, while the art was too advanced for current human civilization, it was too great a discovery to eradicate completely. They resolved to hide the art somewhere so perilous that only a sufficiently advanced society could locate and extract it. The shard containing the forbidden art was enshrined in a vault on Origin, and the newly captured Vogelstrand was designated a backup vault. The ship was ordered to bury itself and go dark, and Origin was moved.”

  Cordell’s features twisted in disbelief. “‘Moved’? How?”

  “Several hundred alchemists, working in tandem, created a ritual powerful enough to transport the planet and seal it in stasis,” said the Devil. “Allow me to show you.”

  An oceanic planet swelled into being, wrapping water around a core of rock. It spun at a decent clip, each revolution only taking a few seconds, compressing the hours of a day into observable time. The label beside it read ORIGIN, and Nilah’s breath caught in her throat. She’d seen plenty of artists’ attempts to re-create the cradle of humanity, but this had subtle differences in the shape of the land and color of the water. Boots’s enthusiasm for the mystery was catching.

  The view plummeted toward the surface of the planet, its landmasses glittering gunmetal with millions of structures. They sunk lower, toward a city stretching into the sky. The skyscrapers shifted upon their foundations in flowing patterns, changing shape with the rising and setting of the sun. These weren’t the stock-straight soaring glass edifices of Aior. The buildings of Origin were alive, swaying gently, bridging the gaps between one another like kisses, enabling the citizens to walk between their aerial towers without ever stepping outside.

  Nilah marveled at each new delight, and wondered what it must’ve been like to live in a city that reshaped to one’s passing whim. How would it feel to inhabit architecture that could lovingly serve, or experience a new vista every day?

  When the sun once again dipped below the horizon, Nilah gaped at the splendor before her. The city seemed to breathe in, its swaying facets glittering with neon light like a bioluminescent coral reef. Its magnificence was a testament to human potentials.

  “It’s better than I ever dreamed,” said Boots, and Nilah thought the woman might cry.

  The view descended farther, to a twisting structure in the shape of a burning flame. Glass panels, edges aglow with firelight, flexed and folded, giving it a polygonal appearance, like cut crystal. The perspective pushed through the exterior into a circular arena, its risers studded with a convocation of robed magi. Glyphs of every shape and size spilled from their fingertips, forming a spiderweb of interlinked spells in the center of the room.

  At the core of it all was a crystal spike the size of a starfighter, many times larger than the one Henrick Witts had stabbed into his neck. This one couldn’t stab someone, so much as splatter them under a metric ton of magic crystal. Its facets shimmered queerly, like it was reflecting thousands of possibilities beyond reality, and Nilah found herself inching in for a closer look. The Devil dropped a label on the colossal gem: THE WELLSPRING.

  “But these masters were infiltrated,” said the Devil, “and though they succeeded in moving the planet and sealing it off, they lost the Vogelstrand shard in the process.”

  An explosion rocked the arena, sending bodies soaring into the air. The chaos that erupted was unlike anything Nilah had ever seen. There were so many simultaneous spells flying that they formed a sort of deadly static in the air.

  And through it all came a great crack, and part of the Wellspring splintered off, striking the ground with a melodious ring. Two magi rushed the plinth where the shard spun to a halt and seized it, vanishing instantly.

  The view reversed time for ten seconds, to the moment the Wellspring fractured, and paused. The smaller shard highlighted.

  “This,” said the Devil, “is Henrick Witts’s shard from the Vogelstrand. It matches the shape witnessed in the Mostafa Journal.” The Wellspring blinked, and it added, “This is a much bigger shard.”

  “Yes, we can see that,” said Cordell. “Tell us what you’re driving at here.”

  “I would like to propose that you find the bigger shard, and use it to kill the man with the smaller shard,” said the Devil.

  “Can we do that?” asked Cordell.

  “Of course,” said the Devil. “The Wellspring is bigger, and obviously more powerful because of its mass. Did you observe the differences in size, Captain Lamarr?”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” said Cordell, annoyed. “I’m saying we don’t know where this ‘Wellspring’ is, so what does it matter?”

  “I have the exact coordinates of this structure.”

  The Devil’s statement washed over Nilah. It had sounded like a normal enough sentence, but when she examined its context, it was absolutely impossible. It couldn’t be right, because if it were, they would’ve been sitting on the location of the mythical lost world. She looked to her crewmates, who were frozen in various states of squint as they tried to puzzle through what they’d just heard.

  “Could you repeat that last, Devil?” asked Orna.

  “I have the exact coordinates of the Graveyard of the Poets, where the Wellspring is entombed,” replied the vehicle.

  A smile brightened the quartermaster’s face. Nilah had seen her maddened grins, her wry smirks… that pain-relieved smile she gave whenever she let herself be vulnerable about her past. But this one was like a sunrise, painting the bright overtones of a perfect coming day. It was hope, genuine and sweet.

  “Maybe you’ll actually pay for my software now that I’ve demonstrated its obvious value,” said the Devil.

  “Sure, yeah,” said Boots. “We’ll use the proceeds from discovering Origin.”

  “Everyone, please!” barked Cordell, stunning the crew into silence. “Shut down the projection.”

  “Acknowledged,” said the Devil, and the cargo hold returned.

  “I want everyone to be quiet for one second and think. Think about where you’re standing, and who’s still alive next to you.” He tapped his temple as he turned to face them. “Think, think, think. Remember every detail you can. Count the squares in the deck plating, the buttons on your shirt. I want you all to stop joking and memorize the freckles on our faces, the cracks in our skin, the number of white hairs this battle has given us. Think about every cultist we put down, every god, just for a chance to take this mission on.”

  He straightened his shoulders and appraised them. “And remember the war that put us on this path in the first place, and the billions that
died on Clarkesfall.”

  He looked each of them in the eye, his burning gaze nearly melting Nilah in her shoes. “All so we could be standing here.”

  He slapped his hands together, a resounding clap. “I always… always want you to remember where we were when we learned how to put this motherfucker in the ground.”

  Cordell patted his pockets, but stopped, the satisfaction of an addiction broken on his face. He didn’t need to taint this moment with a smoke. “Devil, pass the coordinates to Missus Jan, and let’s lay in a course for Origin.”

  The Devil buzzed an error. “I don’t know. It’s not in my records.”

  “I’m sorry? You said you had the exact coordinates,” said Cordell.

  “Correct,” said the Devil. “I have the exact coordinates of the Graveyard of the Poets on Origin, so once we find Origin, we can find the Graveyard.”

  “I made a really good speech,” said Cordell. “Can you please check again?”

  “Sorry, Captain,” said the Devil. “I wouldn’t make a mistake like that. Maybe with some better queries, I could amalgamate data into something more closely aligned with an answer.”

  Then came a chime.

  “I was, however, able to locate information about the Origin Planetary Defense Grid,” said the Devil, as if to placate him.

  “And?” asked Cordell.

  “Given the substantial magic on the grid, your ship has no chance of surviving a landing attempt.” The taillights blinked, signaling a thought. “Though everything caught in a gravity well has to hit the planet eventually, so if you’d like to qualify that as a landing, it is technically possible.”

  “What kind of defenses are we talking about here?” asked Malik.

  “Hundreds of satellites orbited Origin during its peak, and they were dragged with it to its new location as further fortification,” said the Devil. “They’re referred to in the historical records as ‘Corruptors,’ though little other information is given.”

  Cordell nodded. “All right. I know that was a disappointing end to a great start, but let’s keep things in perspective: we now know of a weapon that can stop Witts, and we’ve probably seen more direct video of Origin than anyone currently breathing. There are bound to be countless clues in the Vogelstrand database, and Boots is just the person to lead the research effort.”