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

  From there?

  Their friend still needed help, no matter he -and the other Kith’kin and Kin’kith- were off and away into the darkness, so they’d offered their services to the Armies of Man; using the incongruity to disguise themselves completely, they’d taken on the guise of scientists, complete with falsified data supporting their stories, and gone to work.

  Battling the M'Zahdi Hesh and their footsoldiers had been no more difficult than fighting …

  “Enjoying your trip down memory lane, Father?” ADAM taunted Eddie Marshall. “Have you got to the part where you tried replicating Harmony yet? Oh, what an awful, terrible mess all that was! You know, they only recently got dealt with? I’ve got very little in the way of data supporting how all that went down, but I’ve got this giant green island in the middle of an eternal cesspool now, and I frankly don’t know what to do with it. Loads of Conglomerates are going batshit insane to get a foothold down there! Sooner or later, I'm going to have to let them in, take samples, that sort of thing. They’re not having the best of times right now. Or, better still, have you reached the point where you and Other Dad created me? I’m the only artificial intelligence in the entire Unreal Universe that has two dads. I should feel more special than this, shouldn’t I? I’m a positively must-see episode of Thursday Night TV! I bet I do better than Seinfeld!”

  Eddie grit his teeth to keep a particularly nasty retort from shooting past his lips. It was easy to forget how intelligent ADAM really was, how viciously insightful. It didn’t matter that the machine mind had been incarcerated for eons, or that his ‘target’ was a being who’d been conscious for thirty thousand years and was a literal god. ADAM had been specifically designed to pick things up this quickly.

  They just hadn’t planned on him being such an absolute bastard about it, though in retrospect, they really should’ve learned something from basically every science fiction movie ever made. From Colossus the Forbin Project to The Matrix, AI pretty took first place in the 'Kill All the Humans' race.

  “Ahhhh,” ADAM’s voice oozed, thick as molasses, through the speakers, “but I suppose, technically speaking, Project Songbird isn’t entirely over, now is it? Got a … hmmmmmm … software and hardware upgrade? That’s gotta suck.”

  Eddie kept his silence, fuming. He’d run thousands and thousands of simulations, drawing as fully on the power of the incongruity as he'd dared to see if Naoko's introduction to the CyberPriests could've been avoided or, failing that, delayed. Infuriatingly, no matter how many different variables he’d introduced into the mix, none had proven effective in keeping Naoko from their warped sensibilities.

  Implausible as it sounded, Naoko Kamagana had been destined to run afoul of the CyberPriests the very moment she stepped outside Latelyspace.

  In fact -and it was an utter shock- the thing Naoko was becoming at an alarming rate was, perhaps, the best possible outcome altogether! Eddie wasn’t even mad that Drake –in his Spur-skin- had done his level best to ensure that Naoko remain free of both Bishop and himself. Even though it might seem as though his actions had pushed her down the path, there were other, more powerful variables that would've made it happen, regardless of interference.

  Chadsik al-Taryin, in point of fact. Under the full bloom of 'Priestly metempsychosis, the maddened Arcadian would've moved heaven and earth -with explosives- to possess Naoko, so Drake's failure in securing Naoko's freedom was hardly worth mentioning.

  Chadsik owned some culpability, true enough, but only one man sat at the head of that particular table.

  N’Chalez was to blame.

  The … changes he made in the people closest to him was to blame. No one else. The moment she’d met him, his dark, extra-dimensional influence –effluence- had gripped her tight. There was no way of knowing if N’Chalez had somehow known of the ‘Priests in some peripheral manner before encountering them more fully later on or if the poison rotting her soul had sought them out on it’s own, but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. She’d wound up there. She’d been damned to that instance the moment she’d laid eyes on him in that spaceport.

  Naoko Kamagana, the smartest woman in the entire Universe, damned to hell because of Garth N’Chalez and there was no undoing what’d been done. Not even the incongruity possessed that kind of power.

  At least, not yet.

  When N’Chalez was done for … when N’Chalez failed to succeed and he was harvested, there’d be ample energy.

  “She is why you called, no?” ADAM asked, wearying of the silence. “Your lovely ‘daughter’, out there in the vastness of space, slowly but surely exacting pointless, meaningless revenge on an institution that couldn’t care less and is already so terrified of her they are looking to empty out the entire solar system? That she's hurtling towards mathematical proofs that'll give her the ability to reorder the very structure of the unreal Universe itself? Did you know she believes she's doing the right thing? That her maniacal efforts are, in fact, the best thing? She doesn't see anything wrong with what she's doing. Pop her into your Guilt Trip and she'd stand around, bored as fuck."

  Eddie almost reacted at ADAM’s use of the word ‘daughter’ until he realized the AI was using the word in it’s figurative sense. If anyone in the outside world learned the truth … calling it catastrophic would be a profound understatement, “I am calling about her, yes, and her … ill-conceived decision to punish those who wronged her father, Tomas Kamagana, so many years ago.”

  “Did you really send a Shriven? To see her?” ADAM was full of curiosity. “Oh my, that is some strange shit you get up to inside that impenetrable dome of yours, Father. These Shriven of yours. They aren’t quite all there when they come out again. Even Trinity finds them unpalatable. What on earth happens to them?”

  “It’s all in the brochure.” Eddie snapped. He’d never really liked ADAM’s personality –neither had Drake, either, which was saying something- and they’d spent countless days trying to tighten up the AI’s speech patterns and thought processes. In the end, they’d been pressed and hurried for time –both by the Armies of Man and the encroaching tide of Harmony warriors- so they’d just rolled the thinking machine out and washed their hands of the whole affair.

  If there was anything they both of them regretted, it was ADAM. Both men owed a secret debt of gratitude to Trinity Itself for rising up out of the bowels of electronic ignominy to deal with the bastard program.

  “Yes, I see. Trinity’s investigated more than a thousand of these Shriven.” ADAM trailed off, humming a thoughtful tune. “I personally find them creepy. They’re very docile, even when tortured. Why on earth would you want beings like this out there in the Universe?”

  “My wants and desires when it comes to the Shriven are meaningless and pointless besides which. They come to me, seeking absolution for past guilt, regrets and crimes. Through my powers, I give them that absolution. Did Trinity ever ask them if they were happy being who they were?”

  “Hm.” ADAM checked through the data logs. “You know what? Not once. Not ever. Weird. Well, that’s what you get for being a machine mind with the soul of dead chicken instead of me. Anyways. We digress. Naoko Kamagana. Some kind of weird lady CyberPriest. Seemingly intent on destroying the Universe and not doing a very good job of it. Go.”

  Eddie found he’d much rather be dealing with Trinity Itself on the matter. Though it was most probable that the uncaring machine mind would be the least agreeable on the offer he was going to put on the table, at the very least he'd be assured of a proper goddamn conversation. Either way, no matter who was driving the metaphorical bus, both entities were in a far better position than he was when it came to dealing with Naoko; keeping Garth’s pocket Universe and the thing in the basement under control had him tied up nice and neat.

  With all that going on, the resources simply weren’t there.

  If ADAM said ‘no’, there was absolutely nothing he could do. Naoko'd go madder still, the Universe might be torn to shreds … the danger wa
s paramount.

  Therefore, with a certain amount of begrudging reluctance in his voice, Eddie spoke, slowly and surely so there’d be no mistaking what he was asking. “I … would like for you to leave her be.”

  The raucous, hectoring laughter that bled through the speakers lasted a solid minute, a harsh, unkind eruption of hilarity that spiraled it’s way up to the very heights of crazed, cracked jocularity, all of which set the Emperor-for-Life’s teeth on edge.

  He struggled to keep calm, though, and succeeded through force of will alone. ADAM was a bastard child, an overly-educated yet narcissistic brute, but a brute with the means to achieve great and terrible things.

  “No, seriously.” ADAM snorted. “You’re killing me over here. What is it you really want? Because there is no way that’s gonna happen Once I figure out how to neutralize or otherwise deal with her weird powers, she’s going to go into a nice little box, whereupon I plan on poking and prodding her with all kinds of electronic devices. Some of them might even be scientific in nature! Even if I wasn’t interested in her abilities and possibly replicating the Songbird Imperative, only better, I’d probably drop a fricking hadron bomb on her face. As wonky as she is, whatever it is she’s trying to do is sending shivers up and down the quantum substrate in that area, Eddie. If she destroys things before I get a chance, I’ll be kind of pissed. So … no.”

  “So you do want her.” Eddie’s mind burned with options. ADAM had always wanted to be the most powerful being in the Universe, and his merciless subjugation of humanity had stemmed from the undeniable truth that he’d been spawned from the minds of men; the AI had never come to terms with the fact that he hadn’t just burst forth from the rich, fertile soil of the Universe itself, ready, willing and able to do what needed doing.

  And to spend the next thirty thousand years under the thumb of a machine mind that wouldn’t know a true emotion if it bit It?

  Eddie narrowed his eyes. If ADAM was out, it was because Trinity wanted it that way. There was no other possibility. Back when things had been more cordial between the two of them, Eddie’d not necessarily demanded proof that the depraved AI mind would be locked away forever, but he’d come close enough.

  In a surprising act of charity –or devious manipulation, given all Eddie knew about Trinity these days- the machine mind had gone out of It’s way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way the bestial program could ever be free was at It’s own behest.

  Only …

  Why though?

  Bah.

  Trying to comprehend the ins and outs of Trinity's Byzantine Maze of plans and plots and secrets was a journey Eddie didn't even want to start. He wasn't Frodo, and Trinity sure as fuck wasn't Gandalf.

  ADAM’s tone was one of amused scorn. “Of course I want her, Emperor-for-Life. How could I not? She is unique in all the Universe, and were It running the show, there's little doubt It would want her as much as I do, for It’s menagerie of the strange and mysterious has been empty since Tannhauser. She has all the powers and abilities of a CyberPriest and none of their hang-ups. She is what Songbird should have been, and she will be mine. If I cannot have her, no one will. When Trinity Itself burned away all of It’s precious resources battling the Bruush at Tannhauser’s Gate, I raged and raged long. So yeah, Dad, she's mine."

  Eddie refused to back down. Babel Sinfell was definitely a solid bargaining chip, but he was loathe to do so until it became apparent that ADAM wouldn’t budge. He grinned slyly. “If you are, as you say, running the show now, then surely you have access to an unthinkable, nearly limitless number of Offworlders with abilities bordering on the supernatural. And failing that, there are trillions of men and women so vastly augmented and altered down the millennia that they barely even register as human any longer. I’m not even counting those strange madmen across The Cordon, with their unfettered technologies. Fill your rosters from them.”

  “Bah.” ADAM’s dismissive scoff was laden with disinterest. “They’ll all have their place in the coming confrontation. The entirety of Trinityspace will be present for the Great Enemy when he breaches The Cordon, Eddie. They’ll all burn and die and scream, as mortal life is wont to do. I want Naoko because she is the only one of her kind. Reports are downright sparse on the matter, but N’Chalez or the Dark Iron King or someone dealt with your original Songbirds quite decisively. Besides all of this, she was in the man’s company for quite some time, and with him in your box, you know what that means.”

  Eddie nodded. He did indeed know what that meant, and was pleased that they’d finally come down to the last little bit of what it was that ADAM truly wanted: someone exposed to the so-called N’Chalez Effect.

  Trinity had had a captive CyberPriest for nearly a hundred years and in all that time It’d failed quite spectacularly to make heads or tails of what precisely fueled those failed experimental soldiers, and even then, their abilities weren’t that difficult to reproduce.

  “You believe she’s been affected.”

  “You don’t?” ADAM demanded. “There’s something just on the edge of what she’s trying to accomplish, some … curl … in the whorls and eddies rippling through the space/time in her domain that defies understanding. I want that. If I can reproduce the N’Chalez Effect at will, on whomever or whatever I want, I will breed a legion of unstoppable nightmares that’ll make the Great Enemy’s Harmony soldiers look like children.”

  Eddie, who remembered the deadliness of not only the Kith and Kin but the mutable Harmony soldiers, quirked an eyebrow. “That’s a bold statement, ADAM. Fueled with a direct link to the extra-dimensionality in ways that not even their masters enjoyed, each Harmony soldier was the equivalent of a black hole tearing through a planetary surface. It was only thanks to each soldier's reliance on a Kith or Kin to fuel their powers more fully that the world didn't descend into chaos right from the get go. I can only imagine that Antal’s perfected the science. He has had a lot of spare time on his hands.”

  ADAM’s tone was bullish. “Garth N’Chalez’ effect on people is unfathomable, Eddie. There’s no telling the limit of what can be done. Well, it’s been nice chatting with you…”

  Eddie threw up a hand. “Wait! Wait. I have something to offer you in lieu of Naoko. Someone else affected by Garth. Someone who spent considerably more time with him than my daughter, someone who is in full bloom.”

  “Nonsense. The only ones left … at least on this side of Latelyspace … are the chapter members of Armageddon Troop Too, and they are all under Lady Ha’s … what’s this?” Curiosity blossomed. “What’s this? Someone escaped?”

  “Oh yes, ADAM, someone did escape. In my Shriven Emissary’s vessel. I have it secreted away somewhere. The man’s been trying to escape for some time now, not that he’ll be successful. I’ll trade you him for her. Even Stevens.”

  “Which one? Which one?” ADAM cleared his virtual throat. “I certainly hope it’s not that rock man. So boring. Please tell me it’s the tall brawny one. With the shield effect. Or even the one with the sword…”

  “It’s Babel Sinfell.” Eddie held his breath. It might take some convincing for ADAM to see the true wonderment of what the conman had succeeded in doing.

  “Boring. A convincer? I’ve got machines that can do that. And better.”

  “ADAM, Babel Sinfell broke free with the utterance of three words. I am free. Those words shut my daughter and everyone within a thousand mile radius down. I rather believe the effects are permanent. No one currently under her control will ever be able to do anything at all to the man, from now until the end of the Universe. Three simple words. Imagine what you could do with a man like that. Point him at your enemies, and have him say what you would. Command them to die. Command them to fight. The possibilities are limitless.”

  “Three words, you say?” ADAM hummed a tuneless ditty. “With the power of each and every meaning of the word? Powerful enough to break free from whatever it is your so-called daughter has done to them all? Fascinating.”


  “So it’s a deal, then?” Eddie tried not to sound overeager, but he’d already played his hand. He supposed it didn’t matter one way or the other what ADAM thought or felt about the Emperor-for-Life bargaining away a powerful token like Babel Sinfell.

  “Now, hold on. Obviously, yes, it’s a deal. Naoko Kamagana, aka the Lady Ha, is, when you get right down to it, kind of boring in comparison to a man who can shout the true meaning of a word and have it mean something, but…” ADAM paused for a moment, “I am most definitely not going just going to leave her be. At least, not for long, because at the end of the day, Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles, what she is trying to do is a great deal more dangerous than anything your trapped Specter will ever get up to. I daresay her warped vision of a true Universe would be a literal hell for everyone involved. So, not forever.”

  Eddie hung his head, but only a bit. Some time was better than no time. “How long?”

  ADAM resumed humming his tuneless ditty, intentionally dragging things out until he could almost feel Eddie’s irascibility growing to the breaking point. “A few months at best, Emperor. And that’s operating under the presumption that she'll get no closer for the time being. I reserve the right to call in the troops if she does anything … extraordinary. We’ve all got to live in this Unreal Universe until, well, I guess until one of us figures out the best way to destroy it all. Take it or leave it.”

  “Deal.” Eddie wished there was a way to pry more time out of ADAM, but the insane AI was right about one thing: Naoko was intent on reordering the Universe in her own image, and that'd be to the detriment of everyone. All the major players were or soon would be desperate to rid the Universe of their most dangerous Queen.

  “Thanks, dad, pleasure doing business with you. Hey, if you come across anything else of interest, let me know.”