Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6) Read online

  Not that that they'd even try.

  They didn’t care what other people thought about their uses –or abuses- of power, and if they bothered to stop and explain what they were doing and why they were using the methods they did, all they’d say was that they were working towards the destruction of the Universe so everyone could have a better time next time around, making it quite clear in the process that no further answers would be given.

  And that -for better or worse- was that.

  Sidra didn’t know if her love was slowly succumbing to corruption, if he was being ground thin by the ravages of this war, if he was transforming into someone like Doans because of the Horsemen, but she knew one thing, and it was slowly breaking her heart.

  She couldn’t bear his touch for overlong. Wherever his fingers or lips trailed, there followed itchy discomfort, just beneath the skin. Like stinging nettles, or the deadly kiss of a man-o'-war.

  And it troubled her.

  He didn’t suspect the truth, for though he was a hangdog sentimental fool who avoided conflict wherever possible, he’d come to her, figurative hat in his hands, erming and umming and delicately dancing around the possibility that she was no longer in love with him.

  Sidra bit back a tiny sob. She loved him more than anything, had pledged to give her life in exchange for his so he could continue doing good things for the people of Latelyspace, but she couldn’t bear his touch. Her skin rebelled against his gentle caress, her blood turned to ice and she wanted nothing more than to run from him.

  What was wrong with her?

  ***

  Nalanata smiled wide and toothily at his brothers through their respective holographic representations. “This is wonderful. Trouble in paradise?”

  Solgun nodded briefly. “Love wears thin in the House of DuPont, revealing tender and frayed nerves. I see fear, here. And … something else.”

  Fenris shut his eyes briefly against Solgun’s words. The man spent more than three hundred years emanating only emotional content whenever they awoke to discuss the state of things and when he finally chooses to speak, it was in riddles and cryptic sentences. “It is that ‘something else’ we need to exploit. Suggestions?”

  Nalanata palmed his eyes wearily. He was sick to death of dealing with Trinity’s forces so delicately, but with Herrig’s insistence –and ability to enforce that insistence with terrific consequences if they went a different direction- there was nothing they could do. “Simulated exogenesis. We need to get her away from everyone and more importantly, we need to make certain that no one in Harmony will come digging too deeply while she’s being … handled.”

  Fenris deviated from the topic at hand for a moment. “This reminds me. Is the … woman and the machine ready?”

  Lokken and Solgun dipped their heads in acknowledgement, with Lokken speaking gravely. “It was a bitch to construct something that doesn’t feed off the netLINK generated by the HIM, by the way. It’s shielded sixteen ways from Sunday, but … it works. Barely. We’ve done some preliminary testing with Indra, using freshly made Onesies for practice.”

  “I dislike that.” Fenris admitted. “But I understand the necessity. And?”

  “She absorbed their memories quite readily, and from an outside Goddie’s perspective looking in, there’s enough of a Harmonic presence, a … reverberation from her location, if you will, that they don’t suspect anything.” Lokken made a face. “I hate to say this, but it’s a good thing that more of our soldiers are withdrawing free access to their personal Harmonic states. Saint Candall’s poisonous presence is aiding us in this most tricky of games.”

  The conversation grew silent and frangible for a long moment. The Horsemen were cleanly split on the existence of the thing calling itself ‘Saint Candall’ and the deleterious effects it may or may not be having on their troops. The only one to remain disinterested in truly discussing the blight in their midst was, of course, Solgun; every time the topic was broached with him ‘in the room’, he made suggestions about waiting for the wind to stalk the river and other nonsensical stuff.

  The sudden insistence on privacy at all times was nothing compared to what may come, and try as they might, none of them could get their troops to discuss what it meant to be allied with either ‘Saint Candall the Glorious’ or ‘Saint Candall the Vengeful’.

  Fenris waved a hand. “That’s neither here nor there. We’ll deal with that hot mess later. All that matters is that if we’re successful and Indra mirrors Sidra properly, none of her friends or family will question her sudden withdrawal behind the glass wall. Now. This simulated exogenesis. How do we plan on doing this?”

  “Circuit overload.” Lokken supplied helpfully. “Even though she’s a Four and has nearly mastered every aspect of being properly Harmonized at this point, there’s no getting around the fact that she's still a heavily mechanized cyborg. Those systems are still functional and operational, just at a baseline level. With Harmony, the connection between the flesh and the machine has become nearly one, sure, but … flood them with enough extra Harmonic energy and all those systems will trigger alerts. Our friend Sidra will freak out and do her level best to get away from everyone because that’s what they’re programmed to do. Hitting Fivesie could theoretically cost an entire city block or more, and bless her, but Sidra's a good girl. She’ll run. Fast and hard. Then we snare her. The rest is easy.”

  “Easy?” Stride, who’d remained silent for the entire conversation, said this with grave sorrow. “Easy? We’re taking one of our own and turning her into a puppet. Not only that, we’re unleashing an abomination, armed with her memories, into the wilds. What if she decides to tell Herrig what we’re doing? That she isn’t Sidra? Or worse, if she reveals herself to the public? There are a million ways this can go wrong, and we’ve not considered the fallout if something like that happens.”

  Fenris understood Stride’s concerns. They all of them did. It was no easy thing, to suddenly use someone with no real reason to assist them, even with all the security measures they were taking. “Rest easy, Stride. It’s taken care of.”

  Solgun chuckled. “The snake has eaten a poisoned vole. Her veins will fill with fire the moment her forked tongue flickers in the wrong direction.”

  “Well.” Stride blatantly rolled his eyes at Solgun’s verbose choices in life. “If by ‘poisoned vole’ you mean ‘great fucking huge bombs under the skin’ and by ‘veins filled with fire’ you mean ‘she’ll explode into red vapor’, then thank you for setting my mind at ease.”

  Solgun nodded quite seriously.

  “Enough blather.” Fenris clapped his hands. “Which one of you is going to do the deed?”

  Lokken opened his mouth to say something, then clamped it shut.

  “The wind curls gently alongside the river.” Solgun intoned earnestly. “And the river will rush faster towards the rocks.”

  Fenris rubbed his head. “Because of course you’re the closest. Do a good job, Solgun. Don’t let whatever sits in your heart screw this up. We won’t have a second chance.”

  Solgun smiled, then disappeared. Stride and Lokken did the same a few seconds later.

  Nalanata shrugged at Fenris’ sour cherry expression. “Maybe this kind of thing will shake him loose? He always was a strange one, and with Lisa’s suicide, he’s been even weirder.”

  “We’ve all been off-kilter since then, old friend. She knew of our plans, yet clearly said nothing to N’Chalez, else … either way, I hope you’re right. We need him, for later. If he’s not right in the head, he might not be able to carry through with the plans, once we’re freed from this prison. And the firebreak needs to be in place.”

  Nalanata chewed at a lip, then showed his palms. “We can only wait and see. We’re all ready with Indra. Transport is waiting. The moment Sidra falls into unconsciousness, we’ll begin the process. Be prepared, though. All signs point to Herrig using his authority to push his way into her recovery chambers. The first true test of this machine will start then.
The best and worst time for him to discover our gambit is right in those first few minutes. If he senses anything awry, everything’ll come tumbling down right there on the spot.”

  Fenris nodded once, then disappeared.

  Nalanata shook his head. They were taking huge risks to rid themselves of Herrig DuPont, and there were so many ways it could all go wrong…

  ***

  Sidra shifted from one foot to the other, wishing that one of the things that came with Harmony and the collision of souls in that wondrous, music-filled place was the ability to deal with standing still for long periods of time; it was nearly inconceivable to her that with hundreds of thousands –if not more- years of practical experience in being a soldier, not one of them had come up with a method of dealing with the boredom, or with sore feet.

  The huge Foursie smiled to herself. Maybe that’s what she’d work on next. She’d already mastered much of the powers that came with being a Harmonized Foursie, so perhaps it was time to do something practical with her talents.

  Herrig looked up from the Sheet he was working on and did that thing where he peered over the antiquated pair of glasses he wore and right into the eyes of one of the newshounds who’d asked a patently stupid question –something to do with possibly calling a ceasefire with the Trinity invaders rather than trying to root them out where they hid in the stars- and Sidra let a grin cross her face; her man’s PR firm was continually trying to get him to undergo the relatively simple, outpatient surgery to get his eyes corrected, but they didn’t see what she saw.

  And by extension, the person on the receiving end of that over-the-glasses stare. Even the other newshounds chuckled and everyone went on to next piece of business.

  Sidra shifted her feet again. She was feeling a mite bit antsy, which usually implied that subconscious systems were detecting danger or something else requiring her focus, so the four thousand year old supersoldier turned her attention to the crowds of men and women clustered behind the newshounds and let her senses wash out over them.

  Truthfully, she wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be nothing; while Herrig’s popularity had decreased –thanks in no small part to a smear campaign by the Noble Opposition, a bit of nastiness that no doubt had it’s beginning in Fenris’ back pocket- Latelians these days found no common reason to display their dissatisfaction as they had even as recently as under Doans’ care.

  No doubt it was nothing more than her own … situation.

  The Goddie’s HUD ran brilliant with dozens of detected electronic devices, ranging from Sheets to proteii to the occasional illicit recording device. Not worth concerning herself over. The scans ran deeper, and for a moment, Sidra surfed through the comm traffic bristling through each of the protes, personal avatars hunting through the sea of words –both spoken and typed- for triggers that might indicate some kind of plot against the Chairman.

  Again, nothing. Avatars did detect a few weapons here and there, but after crosschecking the names and identities of those who carried the guns, again, all was well; there were Ministry Agents seeded throughout the crowd, taking care of their own end of things.

  Then why was she feeling so antsy? Internal scanners indicated her own personal core temperature had risen no less than three degrees in as many minutes. She shifted her feet again, mind working overtime to suss out the reason –any reason- why this might be.

  Was it her concerns over Herrig? Or her reactions to it? Her sudden lack of desire to be near him? How … odd she felt when she stood at his side?

  A sudden flare of power, a thin but unmistakable pulse of ragged light spat up right through her spine as her thoughts rounded to Herrig and the strange sensations that coursed across her skin whenever she stood by the man she loved and for a brief, perilous second, Sidra panicked.

  The flare of energy took that panic and ran with it, spreading like hot lava tinged with burning electricity across every inch of skin and began burrowing down into the nerves.

  This time, panic did grip Sidra.

  How could she have missed it? How could she have been ignorant enough to dismiss the telltale signs of exogenesis? It wasn’t the same for everyone, everyone had their own particular … quirk to what happened to them when their connections to Harmony were attempting to burrow deeper and she’d never experienced this particular type of warning …

  But how had she missed it anyways?

  Sidra looked around the room, tried to make eye contact with the other Goddies in the room and found them already looking at her, hooded eyes making extremely calculated guesses as to what was going to have to happen in the next few seconds.

  No one made it to Five.

  No one.

  It was impossible!

  The transformation from Threesie to Foursie nearly killed you, nearly saw muscle torn from bone, blood turned into vapor, brains cooked inside skulls, augments, enhancements and implants turned into searing hot plasma that threatened to vaporize everything and anything that remained.

  As calmly as she could, willing the pulsing, throbbing –not to mention etched with jagged edges- power roiling and boiling through her like a deadly storm to stay peaceful for a few seconds more, Sidra spoke internally, across what soldiers had lately taken to calling GodNet. “I need someone here. At my post. Right now.”

  “What’s the situation?”

  Breath catching in her throat, Sidra spent a precious second for herself.

  Then, “Exogenesis.” Sidra mentally whispered the word.

  There’d been so much to live for, so many hopes and dreams and plans with the foolish balding man who held an entire solar system of people in his gentle, soft hands.

  No time for that now.

  “Fucking shit. En route. ETA ten seconds.”

  Sidra closed her eyes for a second; lightning-licked streamers were crowding out her data streams, collapsing her external senses down and down until she was brutally trapped inside her own skin. It was taking everything she could to control her flight responses. If she wasn’t gone from this room soon, there’d be no room left.

  Or people. Or Herrig.

  “Where … where … where’s the nearest Exobunker?” Sidra opened her eyes as the door the auditorium banged noisily open, revealing one of her good friends, Alak. He moved calmly and purposefully through the sea of men and women, never once displaying the powerful sense of urgency that burned through him.

  Through them all.

  More and more of her brothers, catching wind of her imminent plight through the thin cracks they left in their private thoughts, joined her in Harmony.

  Their thoughts were lightning. Their thoughts were supportive. If any of them could become a Five, it was legendary Sidra. There was no doubt.

  A map built itself in Sidra’s mind and she nearly laughed aloud; Alak had thoughtfully provided two paths to reach the nearest Exobunker, which, thankfully, was no less than two miles away.

  One route took her out through the way she’d come, the other? Through the wall right behind her.

  She felt more than saw Alak’s mirthful grin.

  “Good.” Alak said reassuringly through GodNet. “You’re not too far gone yet. You’ll make it to the ‘bunker. I’ve already alerted them you’re en route.”

  Then, when he got to her in person, he spoke aloud, “God Soldier Sidra, you are required elsewhere. Please make all due to haste to the new post.” Then he winked at her.

  Sidra, moving considerably quicker than Alak had through the very same crowd, effused gratitude as best she could through GodNet; the power surging through her was growing exponentially, and while her new status as a Harmonized God soldier was no doubt responsible for her ability to hold the ravaging storm at bay as well as she was, that small gift was being washed away with every flash and flare.

  When she got to the door Alak had come through, Sidra risked everything to turn and look at Herrig, a small smile faltering on her lips. He hadn’t seen her leave her post. He was preoccupied in explaining �
��again- how it wasn’t a conflict of interest for him to be the Chief Executive Officer of the system’s most powerful Conglomerate and Chairman, because like most people, he wasn't a complete goof and could do two jobs without compromising or sacrificing.

  She pushed through the doors.

  Once she was through them, she put on speed as only a terrified Goddie could, her only thoughts a sincere desire to make it to the Exobunker before full exogenesis hammered into her.

  Once inside, she'd be free to burst apart at the seams without panic, without concern. The exobunker'd be destroyed in the process, but that's what they were there for.

  A Goddie going to Five would be like a Hand of Glory missile stuffed full of atomic bombs with mega-BAMs wrapped around the outside …

  ***

  Solgun laughed softly as he pursued Sidra through the streets, eyes lit up with the Goddie’s desires and fears. “Rivers of dreams light the sky, the song shivers.”

  Fenris’ words rippled through Harmony. “Yes, dear brother, we can all see that. Her friends and family flock to her now. Will she answer?”

  Solgun shook his head. “The river needs to flow…”

  “Dammit, Solgun, simple answers, please. More than a little hinges on this moment.” Fenris’ ire was a palpable stain of red across their internal Harmony network.

  The poetic Harmony soldier made a face, but chose to follow the easier path. “She’s too worried about failing to make it to the Exobunker before she pops, Fenris. Any deviation, any spared thought to anything else is the last thing on her mind.”

  Fenris nodded. “Good. Was that so hard?”

  Solgun returned Fenris’ nod with a smile that was all the answer the ‘Eldest’ of the Harmony soldiers was ever going to get. “Our brother waits on the other end with the viper.”

  “Even better.” Fenris’ presence disappeared from Solgun’s mind and the Harmony soldier kept up the hunt, feeding more and more power through Sidra’s biomechanical implants, tiny little upticks of purified Harmonic energy that urged her to move faster and faster.