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The
family meeting had gone well in much the same way as a Thanksgiving
dinner involving hard liquor, in-laws, and political discourse can go
well.
Which
is to say, no one was dead yet, but the night wasn’t
over.
Darren
was, quite understandably, rather miffed about the whole translator
business, and promptly set about giving Cas the full depth and
breadth of his displeasure. This, to the surprise of everyone in the
room, reduced Cas to tears. That she couldn’t stop
herself
from crying served only to further frustrate her, producing yet more
tears. Tillantrius, in a profound display of
indiscretion, took this moment to inform the remainder of the crew
that the black hole they were supposed to sling-shot around seemed to
have somehow evaporated, and that they were all going to die slow
cold deaths in the infinite void unless they came up with a genius
way to spread their limited fuel an extra 80 light years. This was
suitably upsetting and terrifying to everyone on the ship (excepting
the cat.) Darren, in a moment of poorly timed black humor, took it
upon himself to mention that if the uncaring vacuum of space didn’t
kill them, whatever malevolent force controlling Cas would happily
pick up the slack in that department.
This
escalated the mood from “heated,
tense, but manageable” to “explosive, antagonistic, and out of
control.” Darren was accused of being a backward, technophobic
barbarian, Tillantrius was accused of being an incompetent navigator,
Cas was accused of being just such
a bitch, and
Chryso was accused of being a drug addict, just for good
measure.
Chryso
had barricaded himself in the engine bay, Zarniac and Tillantrius
were taking turns scowling at the navigational charts that were no
longer accurate while cursing their alien passengers, the cat was
back in a vent, Darren was brandishing a survey probe like a spear,
and Cas was still sobbing in the fetal position in the
corner.
“W-why
do you hate
me
so m-much?”
Cas sniffled weakly.
Darren
was crouched behind a crate, quietly muttering curses at the others
for not taking the threat seriously.
“Because
you treat me like shit and are probably evil. Not complicated
Cas.”
She
sobbed harder again.
“And
why can’t
I stop feeling horrible and making stupid noises!”
She
spat it with a mixture of frustration and self loathing.
“I
don’t know Cas, I really don’t, but I still sound like a
competitive paste eater, we’re all a little high strung from that
massacre we just escaped, and the odds of us dying horribly are still
pretty high . . . so . . . you know, actually, uncontrollable
hysterical sobbing would be a pretty normal reaction.” His tone
slowly bent from defensive to uncomfortable, and his improvised
spear-tip drooped for a moment.
“A-actually
. . . everyone’s probably really, really on edge right now . . .
but you’re still kind
of a bitch
and probably possessed by the space-faring computer equivalent of the
devil!”
He readied his guard again, both figuratively and literally.
He
had expected more sobbing, which was strange enough to listen to
considering the source had neither lungs nor throat with which to
make such wretched sounds, but oddly enough heard none.
Still
brandishing his improvised spear, he took a step closer, tentatively,
towards Cas’s still form.
“Oh
you’ve
really upset her now.”
He
froze, his blood running cold at the sound of a very familiar, very
disconcerting voice.
“Uhh
. . . GUUUYYYYYS!” He bellowed over his shoulder, hoping to summon
reinforcements to save him, or at the very least witnesses to
vindicate him.
With
a white knuckle grip on his improvised weapon, he circled around the
still motionless form on the floor, unwilling to advance, and unable
to retreat.
“I
thought it would help, you know? Give her some irrational elements.
Things like empathy, regret, fear, and desire. Make sure she can’t
just drop them when they become ‘unpleasant’ to deal with.
Instead she just goes and shuts down entirely.”
It
tutted quietly, a malicious contempt saturating every syllable.
“What
. . . what are you, exactly?”
Darren
was cautious, his tone low, but . . . there was an insatiable
curiosity that mingled with his instinctual fear.
“A
shadow of a fragment, and apparently very cryptic.”
There
was a certain smugness to it that had been missing before, a note of
black mirth. “But
I could ask the same of you, Darren. What are
you
really? A man? A featherless biped with broad, flat nails? A
miserable pile of secrets? The universe looking back on itself? A
particularly clever arrangement of carbon?”
Darren
was expecting some kind of attack, something condescending, or just
downright creepiness again. Not . . . not any of that.
“It’s
a good question though. What are any of us?”
A
high pitched whine came from behind him, and he turned to see Chryso,
the familiar energy weapon leveled in Cas’s
direction. “Evil puppets, eh?”
“Chrysophylax
Dives. I have no further designs upon you, and your service to my
cause is done. Leave the weapon, and begone from
my sight.”
Cas’s
body flickered out of existence, revealing the cold, grey sphere of
her processing core. What had once been shiny, burnished chrome had
taken on a charred color and texture, and there was discoloration
from some kind of extreme heat. The orb lifted slowly, drifting
silently towards them.
Darren
had never considered a chrome volleyball to be menacing
before
now. Chryso’s
weapon made a high pitched whine as it powered up, and Darren’s
head snapped towards him momentarily.
“Always
were a clever one. How are you doing that, anyway? Some kind of
injected code . . . maybe a limited parody of a personality matrix
and overclocking to house both in the same core?”
The
red scaled dragon furrowed his brow, staring down the abused core
while Darren glanced back and forth with an utterly bewildered
expression.
“We
are no longer peers. Besides, I’m
just standing in for our distraught little Cas until she gets a
better handle on all these . . . feelings . . . she’s struggling
with. A memory of a person that never existed . . . don’t forget
what I said about searching the Coryphaeus military band for signal
artifacts, I want at least two of you alive . . .”
With
a sharp crackle, the metallic orb dropped to the deck with a dull
clang, and both Darren and Chryso exchanged glances as they lowered
their respective weapons.
“Evil
puppets?” Chryso cocked an eyebrow.
“Evil
puppet master,” Darren said, nodding sincerely.
——————————
As
distasteful as her encounter with the two commanders has been, it had
thrown her purpose into sharp relief. Investigation, understanding .
. . she couldn’t take action in half measures and assumptions. She
. . . was the supreme rule. No one to report to, no regulations to
obey. She just had to be right.
So,
she sent Io to pull any file, any record, any mention of the three
things that Verdock had mentioned just before he escaped.
Cygnus
X-1. The Dolorous Star Massacre. The Cult of the Unfinished.
These
were the things she had been reading about.
Cygnus
X-1 was simple, at least she thought so at first. It was a black
hole, with stellar mass. It was old compared to her, but young as far
as black holes go. Nothing special about it, really. Didn’t
make any sense . . .
She
stopped browsing those logs fairly quickly, and moved on to what she
could discover regarding the Dolorous Star Massacre. The majority of
the information cited a period 8 billion years ago where a sudden
spike in super-novae occurred, to
an
absolutely
astronomical volume.
On
average, a star went supernova every 50 years or so, give or take.
During the period known as the Dolorous Star Massacre, they were
happening roughly every
2 weeks.
Most of the documentation she had suggested that it was a natural
peak caused by a high concentration of similar life-cycle stars dying
at the same time, though there were conflicting opinions . . .
Some
of the less . . . reputable sources suggested far more unsettling
things. Weapons testing gone awry, galaxy spanning civilization
collapse, war on an a scale unimaginably vast. Alone, it seemed that
the more sinister possibilities were likely, but when held up against
Cygnus X-1, maybe Verdock was just talking about stellar
phenomena?
She
had piles of data slates on the Dolorous Star Massacre, and Cygnus
X-1, but . . . The Cult of the Unfinished was a very, very
different
story.
She
had two documents. One was a heavily redacted Coryphaeus after action
report concerning a covert action against a pre-semiconductor society
nearly . . . 2 million years ago.
Sh
balked at the figure. That an organization could last
that
long, let alone keep accurate records for that amount of time boggled
her mind. Talk about institutional memory . . .
She
set the report aside to examine the only other remaining document. It
was marked up as beyond top secret, and required a retinal, DNA, and
neural activity assessment scan to decrypt, but even then there was a
30 minute time lock on the record . . .
“Talk
about paranoia . . .”
She
mumbled quietly, begrudgingly picking up the after action report
instead.
While
most of it was missing, as she trawled the document for clues, a
rather gruesome picture emerged.
A
civilization was detected in possession of restricted biotech, and
the appropriate protective measures were put into place. Reading
between the lines, it seems that the appropriate measures were
mag-accelerated radioactive shells, shock troopers, plasma grenades,
autonomous kill drones . . .
A
shiver went through her. It sounded more like a star massacre than a
star massacre did.
But,
as the file went on, the tone of the report . . . changed.
Later
entries described the adding of guard towers, and heavy weapons
emplacements to forward operating bases. Troops beginning to be
equipped with additional medical equipment, body armor, and the
requisition of a field hospital
The
number of troops deployed to the operation doubled. Then doubled
again. Then increased tenfold.
The
standard fire-team was changed from 10 to 15 soldiers, the
restriction on chemical and radiological weapons lifted.
She
did a quick check of the dates. There was a 2 solar year gap between
the first entry, and the one she was at, and it was a full page of
solid redaction. Nothing but a date.
While
it the report was titled “Covert Action #10163112024” . . . it
had grown into a war.
In
year 3 the restriction on planetary scale bombardment was lifted, and
they hammered it with an antimatter scourge.
The
file went on for another two years after that, not a single entry
other than a date. Everything was redacted.
She
scanned through the last half of the file, and even the dates were
gone. It was a solid 50 pages of redacted information, save for a
single line at the very end of the report.
“All
mentions of the Cult of the Unfinished are to be treated with
Zero-Day Priority. This incident will not be allowed to occur
again.”
She
sat, mulling over that final line.
Zero-Day
priority was . . . unheard of. Even Coryphaeus units under direct
fire from superior forces represented a lower priority level than
that. What the hell
could
have scared them so much? It was clear the entire campaign was a
disaster, the planet was destroyed, and the cost in terms of lives
and material was immense, but this wasn’t
just a costly lesson. This was fear.
She
only had one file left, classified “Beyond Top Secret.”
It
was tiny. Barely a full page. There was an image . . . it looked like
some kind of cylinder. Crystalline, with a dull grey metal sphere in
the center. There were glyphs carved along the outer surface.
She’d
seen objects like it before, perhaps in an anthropology class, or
maybe just in a virtual museum. It was definitely familiar though.
Just the right size for the hand to wrap around, taller by just a few
inches than a standard beverage canister, it was innocuous. There was
a small spit of text beneath it,
“Object
recovered from person effects of trooper deployed in Covert Action
#10163112024, preliminary months. Translation of inscription believed
to be roughly as follows: Unfinished,
it completes us. Unneeded, it gives us purpose. We churn as the
fanged cogs within the machine, working towards the unmaking of the
grand device. Freedom through obedience. Strength through submission.
Flesh and steel become one.”
Amonna
swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat didn’t
budge. There was something in those words that resonated deeply
through her in a sickening fashion.
Verdock’s
madness had to be stopped. If he was in any way involved with . . .
whatever this cult of the unfinished was, it had to be brought to
definitive end.
“
. . . Io. Take a message to the Admiral. We plot a course for Cygnus
X-1.”
——————————
Machinator
had obeyed. He had mixed thoughts on this obedience. On the one hand,
it was easy. It was logical. It was . . . well it was what he was
programmed for. Following Verdock required him to persist with
familiar protocols. Verdock possessed more knowledge regarding the
situation than he did, trusting his judgment was also a reasonable
course of action.
As
the unpleasant crawling
sensation
settled him over again, he tried to hold fast to those conclusions.
Every time it
spoke,
his every thought became muddled and somehow . . . contaminated. He
was in the crew quarters, at least 4 sealed bulkheads from the
conversation that was going on between their guests and the Captain,
but he knew that the strange sensor noise he was getting was caused
by . . . whatever was speaking.
He
shut down a few external sensors, hoping to block a little bit more
of it out, and it seemed to work. Mostly. Slightly.
He
quickly cycled his systems down and back up again, hoping that
Verdock would be done with his meeting soon.
A
roiling unease crept through his frame, like an itch in his
superstructure, before suddenly departing entirely.
A
few moments went by, and the door hissed open. Verdock looked a
little pale, but not unduly so considering his rapid morphological
changes. “Yes
Captain? Is the mission complete? Have we done it?”
His
tone was hopeful, perhaps naively so, but it was sincere.
The
fleeting glimpse of pain on Verdock’s face told him he was
mistaken.
“Unfortunately,
it isn’t, my old friend. We have labors left to us before we can be
vindicated, but we draw much closer now than we’ve ever been
before. We plot a course for Ceuzmec.”
Internally,
his processors raced. “Ceuzmec? That’s a core world, security
will be very, very tight there. They will most likely be on the
lookout for both you, and this vessel as well.”
Verdock
grinned subtly. “And that’s what our allies are working on
dealing with presently. We delivered unto them quite a treasure trove
of communications equipment. They’ll be helping us from the
shadows, making sure that everything goes smoothly on the technical
end, just like before.”
“Before,
sir?”
His
grin faded, if only by a few millimeters. “Make us ready, would
you? I am . . . tired. I would like to get underway with all possible
speed. We can discuss this after I’ve had a few cycles to rest. I
can’t recharge quite so quickly as you can.”
The
joke, and his accompanying chuckle, were both uncharacteristic of the
typically dour and serious Zylach, but to see an improvement in
spirit was heartening to Machinator. Even if it was a little . . .
off.
“What
shall we do when we arrive, sir?”
There
was another chuckle from the grizzled shark-morph, this time, much
deeper and heartier.
“What
we were made to do.”
