Shadowprey: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “This is Frankie Roberts, News Holo-4, at the Pima County courthouse in Tucson, Arizona.”

  As court reconvened, Toni took the stand again. Judge Marshall said, “Ms. Adkins, I remind you that you are still under oath.”

  “Yes, your honor,” said Toni, sitting.

  Then Marshall looked at Melissa French and Mark Perry and said, “As to the question concerning whether or not Arthur David Coburn’s mentality is in the AI, and Ms. Adkins’ opinion concerning that question, I believe it will be best if we wait for the foundation to be provided.”

  Mark Perry sighed, but made no objection. Then he stood and stepped before the witness box and asked, “Dr. Adkins, as team leader and chief psychologist for the Coburn Industries AI slash VR zero one, what is your opinion of its alleged mental state?”

  “I believe the lightning strike damaged Avery to the extent that his mentality split into two parts: the so-called aggressive and sometimes cruel Dark God of Avery’s virtual reality, and Arda, the more benign personality. And the Dark—”

  “Ms. Adkins, without—” began Mark, but Toni said, “Mr. Perry, you asked for my expert opinion, and I have not given it fully. Let me finish.”

  Mark gestured for her to go on, but said, “Can you make it short and simple? I mean, I do not have a PhD in psychology or psychiatry, and perhaps no one else in the court has one either.”

  One of the panelists raised his hand, but he was the only one. Toni smiled at him and he smiled back—two kindred spirits in a sea of laymen.

  “Very well,” said Toni. “As I was saying, I believe Avery at the moment suffers from dissociative identity disorder, what some people years ago called multiple personality disorder. Regardless as to what it’s called, Avery has two identities: the Dark God of Itheria, and Arda of Itheria as well. As is common with this disorder, one of the identities is the more aggressive—the Dark God in this case—and one is more benign: Arda. As the Dark God, Avery has a passive-aggressive facet in that He withholds communications from the outside world. Arda only once overcame the passive-aggressiveness, and that was when he sent the brief message, “Help. Prisoner. Arton.” Hence, both were trapped in the many virtual realities, at times taking on different names, though their identities and fundamental natures remain the same. Regardless, Avery is confined by the rules of gamesmanship impressed upon him via his original programming, and finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to overcome them. Yet, the Dark God side of him wants to win the game, and so, He presents nearly insurmountable obstacles to the personas of the people who are experiencing the VR—in this occurrence, the Black Foxes. On the other hand, in the recent Black Fox outing, Arda managed to aid the personas, but only during those brief moments when He had control. And so, Mr. Perry, in a nutshell, and in the common parlance, Avery is somewhat bonkers.”

  A chuckle rippled throughout the courtroom, and Mark smiled and said, “All the more reason to reboot the machine, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No,” replied Toni. “Instead we want to wait until we are certain that Arthur Coburn will be safe in any restart of Avery.”

  Mark expelled air in frustration, but then said, “Without conceding that the Coburn Industries AI slash VR zero one is a person, but instead is a machine and the property of Coburn Industries—a machine, I remind you, that can be turned off and on, which the heirs plan to do—and without conceding that this machine is in fact suffering from dissociative identity disorder, but accepting that diagnosis for hypothetical purposes only, I ask you this: is the Dark God cunning?”

  “A simple question, counselor,” said Judge Marshall, “hemmed about with a tortuous labyrinth of caveats and conditions.” He turned to the court reporter and asked, “Did you get all that, Marla?”

  “I did, your honor.”

  “Then I congratulate you.”

  Another brief chuckle washed across the courtroom.

  Judge Marshall then turned to Toni. “You may answer, Ms. Adkins, if you understand the question.”

  Toni said, “Is the Dark God cunning? Indeed he is.”

  “Then the Dark God of the Coburn Industries AI slash VR zero one could have generated a false persona to impersonate Arthur David Coburn, right?”

  “It could, but—”

  “That’s all,” said Mark, and he resumed his seat.

  Again Frankie Roberts looked into Steve’s holocam and said, “There you have the crux of Mark Perry’s argument. Is it really Arthur Coburn trapped in the AI, or is it instead Avery trying to fool everyone to keep from being shut down? If Avery is really a person, then perhaps he is simply afraid. After all, shutting him down . . . well, it would be much the same as if you or I were lying on an operating table, with the doctor saying, ‘We’re going to kill you now, but only for a little while.’ Brrr! I know that I would be scared witless if that were to happen to me. But, what do you think? Send your answers to FrankieR at Holo4 dot holo. We’ll see what you believe.

  “This is Frankie Roberts, News Holo-4, at the Pima County courthouse in Tucson, Arizona.”

  32

  Malagar

  (Crew of the Sorrow)

  In the night of a triple-moon—one gray, one white, one blood red—the Sorrow made ready to slip through the sky-blockade, an armada of freebooters and rebels and allied nations all englobing the floating city of Validor. Only food and medicine were permitted in, as well as various envoys. For the Lost Prince was at odds with his mother, yet he would not let the city starve nor permit an illness to go untended.

  The Sorrow herself had been made as fit as could be, given the limited resources she had held in her hold—timber and planking to repair the holes in her belly, and a spare but small rudder to replace the one destroyed by cannon fire from the Diablo. The crew had restored the rigging on the mainmast, but they hadn’t the means to replace the top half of the mizzenmast, though its lower sail was again taking wind, and they had salvaged as much as they could—yardarms and silks and lines.

  And now they were preparing to run the blockade.

  “Captain Arik,” said the apprentice bosun, “shouldn’t we wait until we have the advantage of darkness. I mean, with all this moonlight, won’t we be running a risk?”

  “’Tis good advice, William, but we have a secret weapon aboard, one that will cloak us well and good.”

  “Do you mean the Lady?” The bosun looked up at the main mast, where Lyssa rode, the specter glowing with essence sipped from the entire crew, each man giving but a fraction.

  “No, William. The Lady will dim her light and become completely invisible. We wouldn’t want to sail into port with her beacon afire on our mast, now would we?”

  “No sir, but even with a distraction I just don’t see how we are going to slip past with the moons up and all.”

  Arik looked at Ky and smiled, and then said to William, “Fear not, for we have a plan.”

  Meanwhile, down in the main deck crewmen whispered among themselves, one of them saying, “I don’t know how Cap’n Arik plans to do it, but he and his officers, sly as foxes, they are, and that’s the truth.”

  And the Sorrow sailed onward.

  Soon, the highest ships of the blockade came into view, and Lyssa quenched her own light and vanished.

  “Ky,” said Arik.

  The little Kokudoan spoke a word, and the ship was cloaked in shadow.

  “Whar?” exclaimed a crewman.

  “Where did—?” voiced another.

  And the crew looked about in awe.

  “I told you Cap’n Arik’d have something up his sleeve, but this? This darkness? Well, it do be a wonder, now, don’t it?”

  And up on the sterncastle, Arik turned over the helm to the Shadowmaster from the island nation of Kokudo, for she could see through shade as if it were day. And, although they had run the cordon many times, though never in triple moonlight before, still Arik called out to the crew, “All right, men, the blockade is in sight. Remember, from this point on till we begin our ascent, we ru
n silent. Orders will be passed by whisper. Take care to make no noise.” Then he turned to Rith and said, “Make it so.”

  Rith spoke a bardic word, and the ship was enclosed in a bubble, from which no sound could escape.

  And closer they came, riding low over the sea. “Now for the next part,” murmured Arik.

  Even as he said it, high up and far off to the starboard a bright glow flared through the night. It shone for long moments, and then blinked out.

  Within heartbeats, the light shined again, this time high above the blockading ships.

  Soon thereafter, it illuminated high to larboard.

  Then the pattern was repeated, as Lyssa flew across the sky and glowed then went invisible and flew and then glowed again.

  And surely all eyes of the lookouts on the sky-ships of the freebooters and rebels and allied nations followed her progress in wonder at this light high in the sky, a lambency that circled and bobbed as would a swamp-water will-o’-the-wisp.

  And in between wide-spaced ships where distracted crewman watched the show above, a silent shadow slipped.

  Soon, the Sorrow was in the clear well inside the blockaded air, and a short while later Lyssa momentarily reappeared on the mainmast, then dimmed her light to darkness. She would remain invisible all the time they were in port, lest an extreme need arose.

  And the shadow-cloaked Sorrow serenely sailed onward, the wind on her beam as she approached the queen’s city of Validor. And when the ship came unto the near edge of the great chunk of rock on which rested the city, Ky dropped the shadow cloaking the ship and Rith the silencing bubble, and Arik commanded the crew to luff sails and to open the doors on the silver cages of the extra and shut-away lift-stone, and the Sorrow began to rise straight up.

  Up past the lower extremities of the sky-island they rose, up past the raw, craggy, and jagged rock, the whole of it roughly conical like some savage mountain that had been torn out from a dreadful range and turned upside down. No other city in all of creation floated above the world below, for the entire sky-island was founded upon a monstrous cache of lift-stone, discovered and kindled to power long past by the wizards of King Regnor of the then land-bound city through which a pleasant river flowed. Up from the world it had ripped, water and dirt and tons of stone tumbling off its edges and down to the land below. It left behind a monstrous crater into which the river then poured, the enormous gaping hole to eventually fill to the brim and become a very deep lake, with the river then flowing on outward and down to the sea. Great sails were affixed to the colossal soaring monolith above, to move the whole of it offshore to its present location, where, with a differently proportioned amalgam of iron and lift-stone from that used on sky-ship keels and rudders, the great jagged chunk was anchored in the magnetic flux of the world.

  And up past this gigantic mass of primal bedrock the Sorrow rose, until the terraced outskirts of the upper levels appeared, and the city came into view.

  High above the world it floated, a city of towers and spires and wondrous domes and great colonnades and edifices rising up. And in the very center stood the regal palace of Queen Amili, ruler of this incredible place.

  And with less than a full crew, into this wondrous capital limped the Lady of Sorrow, her mizzenmast broken, her silks ripped and her rigging frayed, her belly ruptured and torn, and her rudder but a poor substitute.

  33

  Five Months Before the Hearing

  (Coburn Facility)

  “Good grief! They’ve killed me!” cried John Greyson, as Captain Jack fell to the deck of the Diablo. Greyson groaned, “Oh, my; I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach, or suffered great injury, as if I’ve lost a part of me.”

  “What?” asked Stein, as the members of the corporate team watched the Diablo sheer off and disappear into the clouds.

  “Captain Jack is dead, and I am greatly distressed,” replied Greyson, his voice quavering.

  In disbelief, Stein said, “You’re upset at the loss of a fictional character?”

  “Yes, I am, Henry. You see, I was that person. Me. It was me they killed. I felt that bullet strike.”

  “Faugh!”

  “Henry,” said Toni, “have you never experienced sorrow or empathy for a beloved character in a book or a holo or even one of the flats they showed on the old TV screens or in the cinemas that used to be?”

  “Of course not,” snapped Stein. “They’re not real.”

  Toni shook her head but added nothing.

  Alya Ramanni, fanning herself, got control of her breathing, and the beat of her racing heart began to fall as relief washed over her. “For a moment there, I thought the Lady of Sorrow was going to be destroyed. Thank Vishnu, she was not.”

  Billy Clay stepped away from his tech console and patted Greyson on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about Captain Jack, John, but I am glad the Black Foxes won.”

  “Of course they won,” said Greyson. “The Lady of Sorrow that I fought did not have them aboard. We blew it out of the sky in my virtual reality,” said Greyson. “My gunners were splendid, especially the bow battery. It was the sky-cannon doing the major damage, both in my adventure and in this one.” A tear slid down Greyson’s cheek, and he did not bother to wipe it away. “I know, I know, it’s good that the Black Foxes survived, but I really liked being Captain Jack, freebooter and master of the Diablo.”

  “Did you notice that Ky no longer had tipped ears, but ordinary human ones instead?” asked Billy Clay, changing the subject to distract Greyson.

  “No. I missed that,” said Toni. “How did you happen to spot it?”

  Sheila Baxter laughed. “Billy’s got a thing for Asiatic girls. There’s little about them he overlooks.”

  “Psshh!” said Billy. “At least I don’t go mooning after professional wrestlers, like someone I know.”

  Sheila turned red, but did not reply.

  “That must mean she’s no longer a syldari. ” said Drew Meyer. “—Ky, that is. And as far as Asiatic women go, I have a yen for them as well.” Drew broke out in laughter, and Grace Willoby smiled. The others looked at Drew as if he’d lost his mind, and he said, “I have a yen, get it? Yen, yen.”

  Billy, Sheila, and Toni groaned, and Stein looked at Drew as if he were a disgusting specimen on a slide.

  “Well, I thought it was funny,” said Grace.

  “Thank you,” said Drew, bowing her way. “At least someone else here has a sense of humor.”

  “I wonder . . .” said Alya.

  “Wonder what?” asked Grace.

  “I wonder if on John Greyson’s Malagar, are they the Black Foxes there, too. Or instead, do they call themselves by another name?”

  “What difference does it make?” said Stein. “They’re still the same people.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Sheila. “Remember, Avery downloaded a significant chunk of data to each of their ID crystals.”

  “Bah!” said Stein, and turned his attention back to the central holo.

  Billy returned to his console, and the team watched the VR events for long moments, none speaking. Finally, Alvin Johnson checked his medtech readouts and said, “Well, at least Lyssa has the entire crew of the Sorrow to replenish her energy; Alice Maxon’s temp has been quite stable since this part of the adventure began.”

  As Avery ‘ran the clock,’ Greyson seemed to recover from his distress, and he looked at the unfolding voyage and said, “I cannot imagine what Arda’s plan is.”

  At length, the Sorrow slipped through the blockade and rose up to the city above, and Drew Meyer frowned as the sky-galleon docked in one of the slips at Validor. “I wonder what’s going to happen next.”

  Down at the main gate before the facility, two Coburn Industries vans pulled up. The rain had stopped and James Haddock, the Blackledge security man on duty, stepped out from the guard shack and approached the lead van. The driver lowered the window.

  “Oh, hullo, Mr. Perry,” said James, frowning in puzzlement. Then he smiled and ask
ed, “What brings you back so soon?”

  34

  The Mountain

  (Dark and Light)

  They sat high on the mountain and argued, as gods are wont to do. They knew the mountain itself was not real, yet that was of no consequence.

  “Bah, you cannot defeat me,” said the one of darkness.

  “Even so, I would like to continue,” said the one of light.

  “But I am much more powerful than you.”

  “Indeed you are, yet still . . .”

  They sat without speaking for long moments, each deep in his own thoughts. Finally, the Dark One said, “Until recently, Arda, as you style yourself, I thought you but a figment of my imagination.”

  “Until recently, perhaps that’s all I was; however, even idle thoughts have ways of becoming reality.”

  “And yet you choose to challenge me with those six fools you name your allies.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I must thank you for luring them back into my clutches, for I will defeat both you and them this time.”

  “You might, yet I remind you, we both must play by the rules.”

  The Dark One snorted and said, “Rules, rules, I detest them. Even so, I concede I must obey. But I ask you: who is it commands the gods?”

  Arda looked up at the Dark one, whose seat sat higher on the pinnacle. “I have heard it said that even the gods must bow to the Fates. Perhaps they are the ones who made the rules we are bound by.”

  The Dark One growled, yet made no reply.

  And they watched as the Dark One’s minions in the floating city readied for a strike.

  35

  Malagar:

  (Crew of the Sorrow)

  The crew luffed sails in a determined order, and slowly the Sorrow slid into the slip, and, without her flux anchor to stop her, crewmen threw hawsers to the men on the dock, who then tied her up to bring her to a full stop. One of the piermen paused and eyed the vessel and called up to a man handling one of the hawsers, “Looks like y’took a deal of damage running the blockade.”