by Lee Bond
Faraday put down his tools and turned to confront Anode. The other ‘Priests had moved back to their old hiding spots across Trinityspace once it’d been determined that Erg was more than capable of protecting the two others while they worked on their … project. Faraday would’ve preferred nearly anyone to Anode221, up to and including the disembodied and vaguely maniacal ‘Priest who’d cohabited Chadsik al-Taryin’s brain.
The ‘Priest cleared his throat. “The last time we did something like this, we wound up with Chadsik al-Taryin, who quite literally ripped a brother’s psyche out of his body along with the Unwritten Scriptures. That nearly splintered our thirty thousand year old group into two or more camps, and we barely have enough ‘members’ to be considered a ‘group’ in the first place.”
“Yes, well.” Anode stepped back. ‘Priests capable of engineering feats like this were … sensitive. It had something to do with the particular type of connection they had to their personal Harmony. “We were honestly working with damaged goods, were we not, brother? Surely this one will be different.”
Faraday looked over his shoulder at the slumbering woman with something akin to fondness on his cybernetic face. She should be different. She had to be different. Beyond the peculiarities of her DNA structure –nothing like it had been seen in a very long time- there were the … changes.
“Naoko Kamagana’s long-term, presumably intimate, exposure to Garth N’Chalez has indeed wrought miraculous changes. It is theoretically probable that, had she been left to her own devices, this young woman would’ve come to his version of Harmony, making her formidable. Likely, this has something to do with the low-levels of extra-dimensional saturation everyone in Latelyspace has endured for the last four thousand years or so. Their overuse of duronium quite literally primed every person, at least on Hospitalis, to accept the nascent Reality’s Harmony at the genetic level.”
Anode pointed at the woman. “Then why are you wasting time? Once you complete the connections, it’s likely she’ll be more powerful than Chadsik al-Taryin! We need her if we are to get off this planet safely, we need her if we are going to figure out how to destroy The Cordon. We need her now!”
“She could indeed winding up more powerful than Chadsik. History tells us that proper connection to either the Heshii’s version of the Harmony or the Kin’kithal’s variety yields results that border on the miraculous.” Faraday sensed Anode’s disgust at the truth and held up a hand in apology. “I am sorry, but it is true. We are indeed capable of amazing feats, of moving mountains, of unraveling worlds, but … our path, the path of total nothingness is the inverse of everything. And this is why I pause. I pause because though Naoko Kamagana’s body has been seeded on the atomic level with CyberPriest technology, that her brain has been upgraded and spun to our mandates, that there is no reason on this earth for her to become anything other than Savior Protocol 2.0, still things could go wrong. We are not in total control. We exist, we persist, because somewhere, somehow, the Engines of Creation have need of us. It is the paradox at the very core of our philosophy. We seek to destroy the very thing that permitted us to come into being in the first place. How can we reconcile that paradox? How can I know that what we’re doing right now is for our benefit, or for the Engines?”
“You’ve been talking to Erg.” Anode shouted scathingly. “He is a madman.”
“What if I have?” Faraday jutted his chin out pugnaciously. "And we are all mad, Anode221.”
“Madness is relative, Faraday. When all the Spheres of Existence are burned, charred wrecks beneath our feet, when we evoke utter silence and the pure blackness of true nothing, when all is peace and quiet, when we ourselves are emptied into that Great Void, nothing will be. The concept of madness will vanish. There will be nothing but nothing, and it will be good.” Anode stepped forward. “Now, finish the damn upgrades so we can get started on that. I’m sick to death of all this everything.”
Faraday looked from Anode to Naoko and back again. Without the Unwritten Scriptures guiding them, it was so hard. Few of the brothers understood that better than Faraday; he’d been the principle translator of the Enlightninged words, and had been since the beginning. The others believed that everything they were doing now was in service to those Scriptures, that whatever or whoever –Watt or otherwise- that was beaming the chain of events leading to the eventual dissolution or Unreality would simply … adjust … what was being sent back down to compensate for their actions now.
The ‘Priest didn’t think it worked that way. He believed –and fretted- that the Scriptures were not only set in stone, that they were grooved into the very fabric of Unreality. Without patterning their behaviors after the Scriptures … they could be so far off the Path now that nothing they did would matter.
And if the Scriptures could so easily be ripped from them by one of their own creations once, who was to say it couldn’t happen again? And what did that even mean?
“Faraday. Finish. Now. Or I call Erg.” Anode would rather dial Trinity up and discuss the relative merits of a high-protein diet than see Erg’s weird face, but he’d do it. Remodelling Naoko Kamagana into Savior 2.0 had taken nearly a year of solid work by their resident genius and he’d be damned if he was going to let Faraday stop when there was literally a single microchip left to stick in.
“Fine.” Faraday sighed miserably. This wasn’t going to end well. He just knew it. He reached out and dropped the microchip into Naoko’s eye.
The result was instantaneous. And just as awful as Faraday had feared.
Naoko opened her eyes. And saw something wondrous hovering on the edges of Unreality. She could see it all now, all of everything that Garth had tried to explain before and had failed to find the proper words. She could see hints and signs of the Engines of Creation in the fibers of the simple jumpsuit she wore, she could feel echoes of the Harmony that Garth strove to replicate in a newer, better version of Reality in the micro-circuitry entwined around her very atoms, she could taste the Heshii on her tongue.
But most of all, Naoko Kamagana could see the code of the Unreality hovering in front of her and nearly wept with joy. So simple, the mechanisms holding everything together. Everyone thought the math behind Existence was complex, strings of equations light years long with numbers that bounced and juddered between the real and the unreal, with formulas that were more color than integer, more sound than proof.
Naoko Kamagana reached out with a hand, each finger trailing blazing blue fractals that splintered into nothing. She started sketching a formula in the air, ignoring all the while the CyberPriests. Oh, she could see their history stretching out behind them like twisted sine waves. She could even see where they thought they were headed.
One hand continued sketching the math to get her out of this place, the other began rewriting the protocols for who had access to their so-called ‘Unwritten Scriptures’.
“What … what is she … what is happening?” Anode could barely find the words. The math spilling out of Savior 2.0’s fingertips was sublime. She was perfect. She was the Goddess of the Dark that they’d been hoping for.
Faraday shook his head in disgust. “I’m beginning to think we can’t get anything right because we want darkness. I mean, look at her, Anode. She’s solving teleportation equations with one hand and stealing our fucking Unwritten Scriptures out of Chadsik al-Taryin’s head with other. And she’s only been awake for fifteen seconds.”
Naoko turned and looked at Faraday. “Language.” She said politely.
“What?” Faraday laughed as he brought his ‘Priestly shields online. Nothing in the Universe could dent the shields. Anode followed suit.
“Language.” Naoko stated firmly. The equations to steal the most holy of holies of the CyberPriests completed itself. Her laughter rang out. “Oh you fools. Oh you utter, utter fools.”
Anode looked worriedly at Faraday. “How … how is she doing this?”
Naoko smiled sweetly as her other hand completed the math to get her free. “You fail
ed to consider my predilection for hacking, George Stevens.”
Anode blinked and sputtered electronic hash. “What?” That name hadn’t been spoken aloud in thirty thousand years. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you in the beginning. She was genetically modified at birth to be a technical wunderkind. It was where I came up with the idea of turning her into Savior 2.0. Even prior to her exposure to the extra-dimensionality, it’s highly probable that Naoko Kamagana was the smartest organic being in Trinityspace.”
“Beyond.” Naoko replied smugly. For all the simplicity of Unreal math, solving for teleportation was a chore.
Faraday sneered. “It is good to see that a lack of humility is something shared by both our failed Saviors. Regardless. Contact with the extra-dimensionality and Garth N’Chalez himself has obviously had an effect on her.”
“Make her stay!” Anode shouted in a voice without electric fire. “Make her stay and destroy everything for us!”
Naoko repeated her sweet smile. “Maybe one day, if I get bored.” Her eyes glittered with Unreal numbers. “But before that can happen, I need to see if I can get this … this … simulation running properly.”
Faraday felt whatever passed for blood in his body run ice cold. Anode, who apparently was having a difficult time dealing with the fact that Naoko had spoken his real name aloud if the abrupt lack of distortion in his voice was any indication, stepped back. They both looked to the shimmering code that glittered in the air. She was so close. It’d taken them four hundred years and it was taking her four minutes.
Why hadn’t she just taken the formula from them?
“Because,” Naoko said as the final numbers slid into place, “it’s funner this way. Fun is something I learned from my dear boyfriend Garth N’Chalez and fun is something I’m going to have making this Unreality run like a proper program should.”
“I highly fucking doubt that, you stupid bitch.” Erg phased in and beaned her good and proper on the back of the head with a fist that was currently three times normal size; at the end of the battle with Toman, he’d decided to see if he could punch the Enforcer right out of his Suit. No such luck, but luckily, a gigantic fist was just what was needed here.
A sickening crunch splashed against the walls, but it was too late; as Naoko fell, she scrawled out the final bit needed for teleportation and she was gone.
Faraday threw up his hands. “I’m going on vacation.”
Erg looked around the room. “What happened here?”
“Talk to Anode.” Faraday shouted from the other room. “I am going on vacation.”
Erg tilted his head at George Stevens. “What happened to you?”
“She spoke my birth name.” George responded sullenly, looking at his stupid, fleshy hands. “Except there was math in it. She spoke my name and made me mortal. And I think she did something to Faraday.”
“No,” Faraday snapped irritably, “she didn’t do anything to Faraday. Faraday tried to warn you that we needed to be more careful before turning Savior 2.0 on but you were in a hurry to get to the good part. We’ve been waiting for thirty thousand years. You lot couldn’t wait one more second. I had all kinds of tests to run and protocols to check on. Now she’s out there doing who knows what!”
Erg commanded his fist to go back to normal. It took a lot of doing. As malleable as they were, commanding their bodies along destructive lines was time consuming. “I beaned her good and proper, Faraday. That much damage mixed with teleportation will result in delayed regeneration. I know what I’m talking about. It’s how Trinity got me. At the very least, we’ll have two or three years. We might not even have to worry at all.”
“Good. I’m glad. You can round up the others and figure out what to about her and … and … and this.” Faraday gestured angrily at George Stevens, who was occupied in looking down his own pants and being quite happy at what he saw.
“Where will you be?” Erg asked, wrinkling his nose at the human wreck that used to be Anode221. How were they going to undo that? But Faraday was already gone.
George Stevens, once named Anode221, passed out. Erg sighed. Sometimes being the arbiters of absolute nothing was a real pain in the ass.
***
Contrary to popular belief, the destruction of so much of Jordan Bishop’s holdings and the disappearance of his key asset, Spur, did not result in the complete and utter dissolution of the mighty machine that was BishopCo.
The one thing that people forget, would always forget, even when the evidence was all around them, was that certain things, like the earth beneath their feet, like Trinity, Bishop was eternal. After thirty thousand years of growth and progress, there had been moments where BishopCo had dwindled down to a single solar system, only to sprout back up again like a poisonous mushroom.
When Jordan’s co-conspirators and main detractors –Voss_Uderhell, T/F, others- attempted to seize hold of the presumably dead man’s assets on other worlds in other solar systems, they’d found themselves staring at the assembled might of armies. At the head of army, telepresent from some hitherto unknown fortress, was Ariel Bishop, Jordan’s daughter.
Ariel was not her father. Never had been. Never would be. BishopCo’s relationship with the Dark Age Cabal and all such clandestine operations was severed. Fees, fines, levies and outright blackmail was handed out to each member of each Conglomerate, great and small, responsible for raiding the gutted corpse that’d once been BishopCo’s terrestrial home.
At the end, her father had been a madman, driven there by Garth Nickels. Well, Garth Nickels was no more and now she held the reigns of a beast that galloped between Galaxies. Ariel Bishop figured that the relationship between the mysterious ‘caveman’ and BishopCo was well and truly over. There was a standing order for all employees in every installation everywhere; if, for whatever reason Garth Nickels showed up, he was to be treated with courtesy and thanked for his efforts whether what had happened had been intentional or otherwise.
Then, because Ariel was no fool, he was to be told that he wasn’t allowed near any BishopCo installation. That if he tried to enter a building that building would blow up. That if he tried to steal a spaceship belonging to BishopCo, that vessel wouldn’t make it out of the dock.
Ariel Bishop had learned from her father’s mistakes. Thirty thousand year old caveman Garth Nickels might very well be, but death and destruction followed the man around like a plague. He was a modern-day Typhoid Mary and Ariel intended to double or even triple her father’s legendary reign as The Bishop.
Getting involved with Garth Nickels was a bad idea.
***
“You … you … you came.”
Golden eyes surveyed the dank room festooned with corroded and shoddy equipment with disgust with perhaps a tiny smidgeon of amusement. “Of course I came. I honor all contracts.”
“It took you … you so long.”
Golden hands rippled forth from soft amber robes to gesture magisterially to the roof above them. Or, more precisely, the rack and ruin that was above that. “The shattered buildings above our heads are patrolled day and night, night and day by everything from Turing Regulators to Enforcers and all manner of things the good citizens of this planet has never seen before. The … destruction … of BishopCo’s legendary Earth holdings has Trinity most concerned. There were many projects within these walls that skirted and sometimes violated It’s Laws quite flagrantly. Getting past all that took some doing, old friend.”
“Progress … progress for … progress’ sake.” Bishop said through clenched teeth. “Old … old friend.”
Andros Medellos bowed briefly from the waist, allowing as how the sentiment was one he well understood. Why, if he didn’t believe in progress for the sake of progress, then he wouldn’t be known throughout hundreds of Galaxies as ‘the man to see’ when you wanted bizarre and strange things done to you. He resumed speaking, his honey-hued voice filling the dank little room. “It is good to see that the emergency protocols I bui
lt into your survival pack worked.”
Jordan snorted. “Worked, yes. Worked well, no. I have no arms.”
Andros shrugged. “When you approached me some fifty years ago in search of the type of first aid kit you described to me, you were more concerned about being shot in the back or stabbed or one of those other ridiculous things that people worried about internecine Conglomerate conflicts fear. You were not worried about having your arms blown off by an Enforcer.”
Jordan clenched his jaws every time he thought about the Enforcer. “I had to have a robot feed me.” The ex-patriarch of the Bishop Conglomerate jerked his chin at a roster of machines at the far end of the room. “Amongst … amongst other things.”
He hadn’t been so humiliated since the very beginning of his life, when he’d been a suckling babe cradled in his mother’s arms.
“For a year.” Jordan shouted bitterly. “For a year, catered to by robots with no AI. The horrors I have endured.”
“Oh, Jordan.” Andros smiled a glittering smile. “Have you never heard that in order to rise, you must first fall? For that is what you intend now, yes? You intend to rise to the very heights of Olympus itself? To exact revenge on Trinity and this … this Garth Nickels?”
Jordan nodded assiduously, eyes flashing. “Yes, that, and more.”
Andros stepped forward so his men could enter the room. As the handful of med-techs clustered around his old friend, Andros Medellos, sole genius responsible for the Black Clinics, spoke. “The modifications you wish made have never been successfully completed, Jordan. The changes to your DNA, to the very atomic structure of your being, are … intense. Even if you survive, you may lose your mind. Or be … intellectually diminished. You may live an hour, or a day, or even a week. Others underdoing these procedures have done this much. I have seen men and women unravel into genetic soup before my very eyes. I have seen the regenerative programs go awry in the middle of repair, turning fingers into eyes and eyes into tongues.”
“I don’t care.” Jordan didn’t flinch as the med-techs bundled him up. After being manhandled by machines, there wasn’t much he couldn’t handle. “I would rather die in the attempt than remain as I am.”
