by Alex Raizman
“How?” Potentia asked, her voice cracking.
“Oh, you were damned clever, I’ll bloody give you that,” Crystal said, ignoring Potentia’s question. “I mean, you want to kill someone in their own nanoverse? You have to get them to do it themselves. Even you three, you couldn’t just sucker punch me out of reality. It’s clever as all else, and that’s coming from me. And it would have worked, except your plan had one little flaw.”
Inedia clenched her fists. “And what flaw would that be?”
“You assumed I wouldn’t bloody figure it out.”
***
Asserting “I am” had bought her a moment to plan. A desperate, hopeless plan, but if she could pull it off...the goddesses were recovering from her blow. She had to act now.
Crystal snapped her fingers, creating a perfect copy of herself. Using what she had begun to suspect and understand about her enemies, she imbued the copy with her knowledge and almost all of her power, but without her actual consciousness. It left her feeling weak and hollow, with just enough power to teleport away and cloak herself so she could observe the fight from afar.
The invasive goddesses had rushed to attack and destroy the zombie, which gave Crystal time to think things through and see if her theory held up.
When they removed the masks and revealed her own face, she knew for sure.
***
She gave the trio an impish smile, radiating bravado. She could only hope they would fall for it. “Oh, come on. I gave you credit for coming up with the plan, you should give me some bloody credit for countering it.”
Apparently, they did not see it the same way. The three goddesses flew at Crystal. She didn’t return the charge, and instead planted her feet and braced against empty space. She smiled. I know all of you.
Litura went first this time, lashing out with a bruise-colored whip woven from the forgotten sorrows of Crystal’s existence, the traumas she had erased over the millennia. Crystal held up her hand and leaned into the attack, letting the whip wrap around her wrist. She gritted her teeth against the agony of barbs biting into her flesh, creating wounds made of her own grief. It would have torn her apart before, but now Crystal knew she was fighting an old and familiar enemy.
Herself.
She jerked her hand back, yanking Litura towards her. Litura raised her arms, ready to deflect a strike, Crystal didn’t try a traditional attack. She dove under Litura’s defense and embraced the startled goddess. “You called yourself Litura, love. My weakness. I no longer fear weakness because I am not alone. You are a part of me, and I welcome you back.”
And, before their eyes, Litura screamed and began to melt, flowing into Crystal.
Inedia screamed in rage and lashed out with claws forged in the apathy that had almost driven Crystal to allow her nanoverse to undergo heat death a dozen times over the millennia. Crystal stepped forward and let Inedia bury the claws in her chest. The pain was white-hot and contained a seductive whisper of surrender. In the Core, a wound like this would have killed her.
But they weren’t in the Core. This was Crystal’s domain.
Crystal coughed ichor as she wrapped her arms around Inedia. She’d faced this apathy before, stared into the void and then turned her head aside. “Inedia, my hunger. You always were a bitch. But I welcome the hunger because it reminds me that I am not a ghost and that I am not a monster. I am alive, and you are a part of me. I welcome you back.”
Litura howled and flowed like smoke back into Crystal.
Potentia’s chest heaved with deep, panicked breaths. She didn’t attack but wrapped herself in a web of Crystal’s forgotten ambitions, dreams and goals that had fallen by the wayside after the death of her people and her ancient quest. Crystal advanced on her, and Potentia stepped back, holding up a hand to ward Crystal off.
“This won’t…this won’t change anything!” she screamed. “We are a symptom of the corruption, not the cause! You cannot cleanse this!”
“Oh, Potentia. Dear, dear Potentia. My power. I’m not going to cleanse it; I’m going to fix it. And you told me how, so thank you for that. Now,” Crystal held her arms out for an embrace, and although Potentia tried to pull away, Crystal’s will was now stronger. “I welcome you back, you twit.”
Potentia dissolved.
Crystal gasped, shuddered, and took a few moments to collect herself in a less literal fashion. Then she waved her hand and undid the lingering damage the three had left on the fabric of her nanoverse. One million years old, and you still get to see entirely new things every now and then.
She smiled and headed back towards Shadoth. She was exhausted, shaken, and wanted nothing more than to go back to the Core and sleep for a month. But she would never, ever, neglect her people again, and she had a job to finish.
Chapter 22
Curtainfall
A funeral hush settled over Operations in the wake of the failed ambush and Bast’s threat. Lazzario and Jake had both run to the restrooms, presumably to hurl. Dale couldn’t blame them for the moment of weakness. He’d seen some terrible things in his service, but that…
Doctor Pivarti finally broke the silence. “I told you to detonate the bomb immediately,” she said with an unmistakable note of admonishment.
In Dale’s opinion, there were many things that one simply did not say to an Admiral. “I told you so” might not be at the very top of the list, but it was pretty damn high. He turned towards Pivarti. “Doctor, at this point, I need you to remain silent.”
“Because I’m being insubordinate, or because I’m right?” The doctor asked, her face the picture of insolence. All eyes turned towards her.
“Because you aren’t saying anything useful,” Dale said through clenched teeth. “The only thing I want to hear right now is how to stop Bast before she kills the rest of us and escapes the base entirely.”
“She’s become an anthropophage, Admiral.”
Dale blinked. He’d never heard that word. “What is that, and is it relevant?”
Pivarti grinned wickedly and elaborated. “It’s a being that needs to feed on some part of human beings. It’s a side effect of extended Hunger denial.”
“What-”
Pivarti went on like he hadn’t even started speaking. “The best-known examples of an anthropophage are, of course, vampires and their thirst for blood, but there are several dozen kinds. Most anthropophages can reproduce through feeding some part of themselves to a human, which is what Bast has done to Cassandra.” She walked over to a computer and began typing.
Dale felt a vein begin to bulge in his forehead. “What do you think-”
She interrupted again. “Any time a god or goddess undergoes extended Hunger denial, they become a new type of anthropophage.” She kept her eyes on the computer, all but ignoring him.
Dale’s blood boiled at her absolute dismissal, and the realization that she had been holding out on him. “What is Hunger denial?”
“Oh, it’s not having food, water, sleep, social interaction...all the things we kept away from Bast. Until Cassandra proved that intelligence doesn’t prevent stupidity.”
“Wait...you mean you knew that something like this would happen?” Dale balled his hands into fists.
“Of course. It would have been my first chance to study an anthropophage up close. If I’d known the transformation would happen so quickly, I would have already started. A pity. Bast is the first case of heart eating, as far as I know, so, unfortunately, I won’t have the chance to observe her.”
“You’re damn right you won’t.” Dale’s voice was low and dangerous. “As soon as this is over, I’m charging you with treason and-”
She actually laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t going to charge me with anything, because I’m done here, and I’m going to die. The rest of you will too, when Bast gets here, but I’m going to take care of that business before she arrives. I imagine she’ll be quite angry with me, and I’d prefer to avoid that unpleasantness.”
Sh
e stood up from the computer, and Dale decided that enough was enough. He drew his sidearm and leveled it at the doctor’s head.
“What did you just do?” he growled.
She rolled her eyes. “I emailed all my data to an external server, Admiral. I didn’t go through all this, and do such awful things to Bast, to walk away empty-handed. I also deleted the data from your servers. Can’t leave that knowledge with the US Government, can I?”
“What the hell is going on?” Dale demanded. “You’re talking about dying, and then about walking away? You have three seconds to explain yourself.”
“You really are an idiot,” she said, crossing her arms and giving him a level gaze. “You capture a goddess, a live goddess, and within a matter of days I have a working prototype to pull energy off her nanoverse – sorry, her ‘Black Sphere’ – and a few days after that we’re fielding soldiers powered by divine might. Have you any idea how quickly technology develops? It should have taken months, maybe years. There’s no way I could have made such progress so soon unless I’d already been working on it, which I had, and had access to a lot more information, which I did. I honestly worried you’d see right through me, but you were so eager to believe the story I fed you that it was laughably easy. It appears I initially overestimated you.”
Dale fought for something to say, but nothing came to him. He’d…well, if he was honest with himself, he had assumed that it was divine intervention ensuring they would be ready for the fight.
The doctor continued, her voice dripping with scorn. “It’s taken me decades to get to this point, and this is far from the first time I’ve used government resources. I was on the Manhattan Project. I worked for NASA during the space race. I’ve been wearing different faces and taking part in important research for centuries, Admiral. And I must say that it’s nice to be able to stop pretending to be a man. So are you going to pull the trigger, or just stand there wearing that stupid expression?”
Dale felt frozen. “You’re a monster, like her. You’re one of them.”
“Gold star, Admiral,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Of course I am, you twit. I’m also the last hope for this world. While the rest scramble about fighting over petty matters, someone needs to see to the important things.”
“Who are you? What are you trying to do here?”
“Yes, of course, I’m going to tell you my real identity and expound on my goals. That way, when Bast inevitably captures and tortures you, you can tell her everything.” She unbuttoned her shirt, revealing some kind of white bodysuit. “Put the gun down, Admiral, or pull the trigger. I don’t care which.”
Dale was reminded of cartoons from his childhood, when the coyote would chase the roadrunner and run off a cliff. He’d stay there, floating in the air…until he looked down. “What’s that thing you’re wearing?”
“It’s a little safety precaution of my own design. It’s lined with thermite tape, set to go off if my heart stops. Destroys my body, so I can resurrect at my nanoverse, which is over a thousand miles away from here.”
Dale found his footing again. Even though Bast was coming, and the Myrmidons weren’t going to get to her in time, they had their own super being to protect them. “Then I’m not going to shoot you. If you don’t want to suffer her wrath, you’re going to have to help us stop Bast. And if you could use your power to off yourself, you wouldn’t need to use the suit, or try to goad me into killing you.”
Doctor Pivarti – or whatever her name was – sighed again. “I absolutely can ‘off myself’, as you put it, with or without the suit. The suit makes it quicker and ensures that if I die of non-incendiary causes, my body will still be destroyed. Still, it would be faster and less painful if you shot me in the head.”
“I won’t let you abandon us now!”
“Admiral. You don’t have any choice. You never had a choice. Men like you never understand what it means to fight against the divine. Your only choice, the only one that matters, is which of us you follow. Any other option just results in you getting swept aside or crushed underfoot.” Now she sounded almost sad, bordering on pitying.
“I made that choice!” he snapped. “I follow the one true God!”
Sher laughed, low and mocking. “No one’s seen Him in over two thousand years, at least. There’s still some debate about Jesus, you know. He isn’t the only god out there, and if he’s omnipotent, he certainly isn’t showing it. You’ve chosen…poorly.” She shrugged. “When Bast gets here, give her a message for me? Let her know it wasn’t personal. She was just the first opportunity to present itself, and I didn’t like doing that to her. But it had to happen – the clock, as they say, was ticking.”
Dale realized his hand was shaking. “You think she’ll care about that?” he growled. “We all fucked her over, every last one of us. You think she’ll give a damn if it was personal or not?”
“Maybe in a few hundred years. You’d be surprised what you can eventually get over, given enough time. For now, it doesn’t matter. At this point, Admiral, I really must be going.”
“You can tell her yourself,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you. But if you even twitch your hands, I’ll shoot you in the gut. You won’t die until after Bast arrives. She can deal with you.” Dale didn’t know if it worked that way, but he hoped it might.
Doctor Pivarti smiled. “Fortunately, I don’t need to move. Dahan!”
And before Dale’s eyes, the suit began to glow. The light was white-hot, so bright Dale had to turn away, and the stench of smoke and charred meat combined began to rapidly fill the room. Vents activated, working as hard as they could to clear the ash and smell …and in a matter of seconds, all that remained of Doctor Pivarti was a charred husk.
She hadn’t even screamed.
Everyone was looking at Dale. He should be taking charge, giving orders, but he couldn’t find the words. He was standing over thin air.
Then mist exploded into Operations, billowing from the door and choking off sight at an alarming rate.
“Hello, Admiral,” Bast said, her voice floating through the mist like an ill omen.
Dale’s paralysis broke. He turned his pistol towards the mist and fired into it. Several others in the room followed his lead, and a hail of ichor-infused lead flew into the void.
The gunfire died down, and an eerie silence followed. Visibility had dropped in seconds, and Dale couldn’t see more than a foot in front of his face. As he began to reload, he thought that sight didn’t matter right now. It was the silence that counted, the absence of that hateful voice. She had made a mistake in speaking, especially just inside the doorway where she had been such an easy target, mist or no mist. They’d taken her down, and in a second he would find her body and empty a clip into her head just to make sure. After that-
People began to scream.
The shooting resumed, and Dale hit the floor, knowing that they were more likely to shoot each other at this point. He held his fire, certain Bast would be coming for him, revealing herself so he could blow her away.
A shape passed him-something like a giant cat, but with a weirdly misshapen skull, almost like a human head. It reminded Dale of the Sphinx, only as gaunt as a dried corpse. It was moving at an incredible speed, but he fired anyway, tracking the shape as best he could until his gun clicked empty. The creature gave no sign he’d hit, and Dale prayed that was because he’d missed, and not because the bullets hadn’t had an effect.
Dale reloaded, but the figure was gone.
Seconds later, blood sprayed the floor in front of him, and Kathleen’s head thumped after it. Dale watched it roll across the floor, seeming to look at him in accusation.
Hands shaking, Dale reloaded again. He might not be able to save these people, but he wouldn’t just lay down and die, and there was still a chance to stop Bast before she was loose on the outside world.
Then, as abruptly it had started, the screaming stopped. All he could hear was a horribly suggestive munching sound. Like a dog with a stea
k, but uglier. Ghoulish.
“Oh, this won’t do,” Bast said, and a wind began to blow through the room, sucking the mist out the door and into the corridor. He saw Cassandra hunched over a body, holding a chunk of red flesh and eating with frenetic eagerness, like a starving woman given a five-course gourmet meal.
Then he saw Bast.
He remembered all the times he had seen her before. First as a corpse, then strapped to a table. Then, she had just looked like a woman. A beautiful woman, of course, but nothing special. It had been underwhelming, in truth, to see a supernatural creature that looked so mundane.
Now, there was nothing ordinary about her. Gore coated her mouth and lips, ran from her fingertips to her elbows, splattered her clothing. Her hair was wild, and her eyes shone with madness. In spite of the horror, she was beautiful, like a tiger, a thunderstorm, a viper. Beauty that incited no desire, but inspired fear and awe.
In that instant, Dale understood how primitive man had idolized these beings, long before even the first days of civilization. Seeing her like this, a primal entity of death and carnage, he knew in his bones how his distant ancestors found themselves engaging in rituals with drums and dance and sacrifice. It wasn’t cowardice or superstition. It was a desperate fear to do anything and everything you could think of to appease the being that moved like lightning and spoke like thunder.
