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

  Gwyleh nodded, sagely stepping back and behind Suit’s considerably bulkier frame. Discouragement would take a moment to power up, and in that time, it was more than likely that the rest of the townsfolk would gear up and open fire.

  Suit gestured grandly with a hand, holding the outstretched limb like a stage magician. The townsfolk nearest the display almost subconsciously stepped forward to get a better look at the shimmering silver ball that was slowly forming in the open palm.

  Further out, the Sherriff, leaning against his truck, arm aching fiercely, was by no means entranced. He started howling for anyone not a damnfool idiot to arm up and open fire with whatever they had.

  By this point, everyone was wont to agree that they’d had enough, so they complied with Sherriff Calhoun. Bullets and laser beams and a few even more exotic types of energy whispered or banged their way past the idiots staring at the pretty silver ball full of flashing lights, but to no avail; anything striking the suit bounced away or otherwise disappeared, and every time the craftier amongst the people tried maneuvering themselves to get a better shot at the cowering alien bug, both the Offworlder and the suit shifted fluidly to match the new firing patterns.

  Cal had an idea. He reached in to his truck, stretching as best he could to grab hold of the old hunting rifle that was clipped to a rack in the rear window, the laser burn across his left shoulder aching like a blazes.

  Damn stupid woman’d cooked his arm through and through, he reckoned, but there wasn’t a true hunter on the planet who needed both arms. No, all he needed was a steady platform –the hood of his truck’d do nicely- and a few seconds to get it right. Banging his wounded shoulder on the window as he fished the rifle out –hissing furiously- Cal scooted around to the other side as quick as he could and set about enacting his plan.

  “You’d best hurry.” Gwyleh commented dryly. “They’re getting desperate. Some of them are breaking loose of Discouragement’s distraction.”

  :Discouragement almost deployed:

  “They’ve destroyed my home. Our home.”

  :We can build another. Move up near Toomex. Whole other side of the planet:

  “We cou…”

  Sherriff Calhoun Sinchetes, hobby shootist and decent hunter when it came right down to it, fired a single shot from his rifle directly at the shimmering sphere of light that the suit held in it’s hands.

  Everything went haywire.

  ‘Discouragement’ –in truth a large, complex waveform neural destabilizer built around the networks of every living thing within a certain radius and designed to shut them all down without any difficulty- burst outwards, unleashing a kind of greasy-looking dirty rainbow-bubble that washed over the entire crowd.

  The townsfolk were indeed shut down, some of them so violently that –was he not flying backwards through the dilapidated remains of his home alongside Suit- Gwyleh Ronn would’ve been able to smell their thoroughly cooked brains.

  As it was, the ex-Enforcer was indeed flying backwards through his house thanks to the unexpected and supposedly impossible explosion, wondering all the while if they couldn’t have found a better way of dealing with everyone. Beside him, causing quite a bit of collateral damage, Suit was busy screaming enough profanity to burn the ears off Old Missus Claymore, septuagenarian school marm and world-renowned busy body.

  The duo burst through the other side of the thoroughly trashed homestead and landed in a clutter of limbs, the former picking himself up neatly and shivering dirt and grass from his chitin with an irritated rasping sound, the latter pulling itself upright out of the small trench it’d dug into the very same dirt with a frustrated growl.

  “That could’ve gone better.” Gwyleh commented, tilting his head sideways at Suit. A clod of dirt fell from a shoulder joint. “What happened?”

  :I was distracted:

  Gwyleh pulsed a thought towards the crowd. Ninety percent of them were dead. Five percent would be lucky if they found themselves able to count past one and the remaining five percent would be fine in a month or so. Frustratingly, Missy numbered amongst the lucky five.

  “You can’t get distracted.” Gwyleh stepped up and started flicking dirt from his Suit. “The only thing that could distract you is an update from Trinity and…”

  Suit gestured, and a full form hologram burst into life, looking extra sharp and real in the growing darkness; Chadsik al-Taryin, floating in the blackness of space, illuminated rather fiercely by a brilliant golden eruption of light in the background. The FrancoBritish assassin’s normally cool and composed face was a display of dire concern. The man opened his mouth.

  Gwyleh raised an ‘eyebrow’. “How is this possible? The only being that should be able to communicate to you directly is Trinity…”

  :Chadsik al-Taryin possesses a unique method of contacting … us. Listen:

  Chad’s staticky voice hissed through the fields. “Orl right, you muvverfuckers, I ‘int know if this is reach any of ya, but I is in a serious bit of dog’s bollocks at this particular moment, yeah? I is in a desperate way. Long story short, I went on a search for me best mate Huey as ‘e is always in some kind of terrible trouble hisself, and frou means both wicked an’ divine, I tellyported meself to ‘is last known location, yeah? Only turns out ‘e was ‘angin’ out past The Cordon, ‘avin’ a good long gander at this fuckin’ fing,” the camera angle shifted so the viewer could get a better look at the golden maw behind him, “only ‘e went an’ fucked off before I got ‘ere, which ain’t terribly polite, but wot-the-fuck-ever. Turns out this fucking fing is some kind of gigantic fucking spaceship and, well, I ain’t capable of tellyporting back out for some stupid reason. Stuck in some sort of bullshit gravity well, I reckon. Anyways, I is desperate, which is why I is riskin’ Trinity gettin’ It’s fat nose stuck in me business by seein’ if any of the me’s stuck in Enforcer Suits is capable of listenin’. If you is, and you is feel like helpin’ out the Original Us, well, we’d be particularly grateful, yeah? For preference, if you could be on the quick side? I ‘int got no fucking idea wot I’m in for, as this spaceship fing is quite honestly the size of a fucking Galaxy. Chad Sikkmund, signing off.”

  The image stuttered then blipped out.

  “The me’s in Suits?” Gwyleh tried to digest the data properly. It was no great surprise Chad was in trouble. The man got into trouble nearly as often as the vaunted Garth Nickels. “And he’s calling himself Chad Sikkmund now? What is all this?”

  :once upon a time a long time ago, the man known as Chadsik al-Taryin was best known as Chad Sikkmund: Suit answered calmly. :The Original Us is unique and … multiple. His Father, the Dark Iron King Blake, used a cruel and devilish method of siphoning versions of Ourself from Himself and funneled them into intricately formed suits of nanotech armor which were then sent to Trinity. Part of an armistice between the two superpowers. Chad is indeed desperate if he used enough power to punch through to the us’s:

  Incredulous, “You’re telling me that you are a disembodied iteration of Chadsik al-Taryin.” Many pieces fell together in a single, scintillating moment of clarity. “That explains his facility in modifying you.”

  :it does:

  “Are any of the other Suits aware of this?” Gwyleh asked, fascinated by … everything. He probed cautiously towards his long-time armor, curious to see if his telepathy could detect anything; never before had his ability been able to sense AI minds but …

  There it was. A tiny glimmer, a small but unmistakable surge of living intellect.

  Amazing. More importantly, impossible.

  Gwy pulled his probe away, unwilling to get too deep. Artificial constructs weren't supposed to have thoughts.

  :no. Chad removed the physical restraints on those connections, Huey’s reprogramming loosened them further, and his broadband telepathic communication shattered them completely. I am unique:

  Thinking of the debacle just on the other side of his ruined home and the likely response from the rest of the town –and quite possibl
y the rest of the planet- Gwyleh nodded. “Well. I guess we must go and rescue Chads … Chad Sikkmund from this gigantic Galaxy ship, yes?”

  :there is a problem. The usual method of travel appears to be unavailable. I’ve been trying to access it for minutes now. We must undertake different means to arrive at Chad’s stellar location:

  “Where’s the nearest class one planet?”

  :Golon-1. In this system:

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  :three days:

  “Open up.” Gwyleh waited for Suit to open up, admiring the process as he always did. When everything stopped moving, the ex-Enforcer climbed inside, pensive as to their impromptu rescue mission; though none of the other Suits were capable of detecting Chad’s cry for help, there was more than a possibility that Trinity had. They may very well wind up doing battle with other Enforcers.

  The Suit spiraled shut and Gwyleh was once again embraced by the comforting dark. Brilliant HUD screens flared to life and he drank the data in.

  “You know what?” Gwyleh asked as they launched upwards.

  Down below, the survivors were running to and fro, pointing their weapons in every conceivable direction, fear and anger and desperation and other, inscrutable emotions boiling over inside the cauldrons of their minds. There was one overriding thought to most of them, though, and it was...

  Satisfaction.

  Satisfaction that they'd won. That the endless fields of grain were theirs.

  :What?:

  “Torch our fields. Screw them.”

  :Copy that:

  Suit loved following those kinds of orders, hey?

  Mata Hari

  The vast moonships of those most ancient Harmony Soldiers had only ever been seen once by 'ordinary' people, and only by the Latelians of Hospitalis alone; forged from technologies alien to the Latelians, built by Nalanata’s hands –and aided immeasurably by their Starlight Lady, Lisa Laughlin- the tremendous vessels had proven too much a curiosity to leave in near-orbit.

  So away back into the hidden depths of Latelyspace they'd gone, and not without a certain degree of relief resting in the hearts of each Harmony soldier. Showing surprising tact to a people they similarly loathed and sought to protect, the Harmony soldiers had claimed thusly;

  Since Garth’s success in proving that he was, indeed, Kin’kithal Garth N’Chalez and the dust from the insane battle with the M’Zahdi Hesh-possessed Gurant had settled, those five tremendous ships had departed so quickly and without warning because there was simply no need for all of them to loiter around a single planet.

  Not when there was a war on.

  Not when all worlds were in jeopardy.

  Not at all true. Not in the least...

  After five thousand years of growth and manipulation by greedy politicians and obsessively and progressively madder Chairs, the Latelians of today were nothing like the men and women who’d fled the repressive restrictions of the machine mind AI five thousand years ago, and those glaring differences rankled the Harmony soldiers every time they were expected to endure the presence of anyone not Army; of all the peoples in Latelyspace, out of somewhere in the neighborhood of forty trillion men and women spread across five planets and more than a few moon habitats, the only beings that held a mere glimmer of those ancient bloodlines, those bold colonists, those reckless secessionists were the soldiers.

  Regular folk turned their heads skywards, aimed their devices and scanners and probes and whatever else they could muster together in an attempt to see what could be seen, risking everything from their own foolish lives to the lives of every single man, woman and child on the planet's surface. It was as if they didn't understand they were in the middle of a war, that the enemy could be amongst their ranks, eating their food, making friends with their neighbors.

  Stealing their gadgets. Prying loose secrets.

  At least soldiers knew to keep their heads down, to do everything in their power to consider the implications of the Horsemen and the true powers they held.

  To keep anything and everything they knew from residing anywhere but between their ears...

  And even then, that was only because they were functionally immortal and retained much of themselves.

  And even then, it was a rare soldier in that Army that piqued the Horsemen –as they thought of themselves- enough to the point where they considered talking to them. Well, excluding Ute, who –until very recently- had earned a spot in their ‘umbrella’.

  Alas, that’d been before that penultimate meeting, before Herrig DuPont had proven himself to be the kind of stone cold bastard they’d honestly imagined impossible, before he’d snapped his fingers like some kind of stage magician, severing noble Ute Tizhen from the telepathic and embracing warmth that was true Harmony.

  Before Ute had tumbled to the ground, a puppet with no strings.

  Before Ute had risen from the dead. Whole. Hale. Hearty. Of Harmony, but apart from it.

  Fenris grumbled as he reviewed the footage, brothers arrayed calmly behind him. Their emotions were pinpricks of festering rage and poisonous disgust. They all of them were having a difficult time coming to grips with this strange new Herrig, but none as great as Fenris himself.

  Herrig, on-screen, looking foolish and underwhelming. Everyone else, heated, ready to tear the planet in half at the temerity. Sidra, fearful but accepting –obviously, in hindsight, she’d been prepared to endure what’d come next-, Father Vasily, amused. Ute, unaware yet preparing himself for anything.

  A snap of the fingers. In their collective memories, that snap had cracked like rifle fire, like thunder bellowing from pregnant clouds.

  In truth, barely a sound. Nothing more than a dry whisper of old skin.

  Ute drops.

  Harmony shudders and the eldest of all the ‘regular’ God soldiers is gone. An emptiness where once there’d stood the mental simulacrum of a man who’d done more living than any other being in the entire solar system.

  It was true. Undeniably so.

  Ute Tizhen had done more living than anyone, including the Horsemen, for he’d never had the opportunity to drop into suspended animation to while away the boring, quiet decades. He’d lived through it all, endured harsh climates, abject poverty, unthinking cruelty, lived through the worst civil wars, bone-jarring, teeth-cracking sorrow and depression. Over and over and over again, Ute Tizhen had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that God soldiers were made of stern stuff, that they deserved the right of Harmony, that they would, when the time came and Darkness Fell, stand toe to toe against their cousins across The Cordon.

  Universe willing, they’d come out on top.

  The footage continued.

  Another snap of the fingers and Ute Tizhen literally seems to rise from the dead, unaffected, unimpeded, no different than before, the spark of his life cresting in the nebulous mindspace of Harmony like a fresh new sunrise, the rays of his rebirth flashing through the host of soldiers with scintillating wonder.

  “Except he is different.” Lokken said plainly, uttering words they’d all been thinking since this little cabal meeting had been called to order. “The entirety of who he is is different.”

  Minimalistic Solgun shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “There is a quiet in his core. But inside the core, something whispers, like a snake in the dark, tall grasses.”

  Fenris swiped the footage from the screens and turned to his brothers. “Solgun’s needlessly poetic description notwithstanding, yes, our first true Harmony soldier is different.”

  “And missing.” Stride announced languidly, wishing he were anywhere else in the solar system. Meeting like this was something of a danger, now that Herrig had proven himself to be –shockingly, amazingly- close to their intellectual level. With his revelation that the HIM saw everything, including themselves, being close to one another brought with it paramount risks.

  There was so little love lost between them and the Chairman that there was no telling what the fat old fool would do wh
en pressed.

  “He is still in the solar system.” Lokken reminded Stride.

  “Only because he cannot leave.” The Horseman countered. “He rarely spends any time in Harmony, and when he does, it is only with those soldiers he’s identified as genetic heirs. And …”

  “He sheathes those conversations with walls of thick glass.” Solgun shook his head. “We see them speaking, but cannot hear their words.”

  Fenris ground his massive jaw together. Losing Ute to whatever metaphysical crisis he was undergoing was a tremendous blow to their efforts in maintaining peace and order amongst the troops, especially now that it seemed that Saint Candall the Glorious and Vengeful was an actual, real thing; each and every God soldier in existence claimed they had no knowledge of nor any interest in learning anything concerning the relatively impossible existence of something that may or may not be a Harmonized instance of a regular Latelians soul lurking in the quiet spaces of Harmony.

  When questioned, when bloody well confronted with footage of their singular, system-wide outburst, they shrugged their massive shoulders, furrowed immense brows, and said the same thing.

  "I had a dream. The dream is over. I don't know what you're talking about.”

  Evidence to the contrary was everywhere they cared to look, but pushing their soldiers for answers brought only blank stares.

  Ute –were he not gone off on some fool quest to find himself- would’ve quite readily plumbed those depths, explained for them just what it was; they dared not attempt to approach the numinous intellect seen skirting the wild edges of Harmony time and again on the off chance –an extremely off chance, but it persisted nevertheless- that they wind up hollering ‘All Hail Saint Candall the Whoever’ at the top of their lungs.

  Nalanata sniffed. “They are doing their jobs. They remain committed to Falling Darkness.”

  It was true. Ever since Candall’s soul had risen inside Harmony like an unwanted pimple, the leader of the God Army spent time every day checking their resolve. If anything, they were more committed to the Falling Dark and Rising Light than ever before.