SF: Universal Solvents #22

UNIVERSAL SOLVENTS
(a Tale of Sfstory!)
Episode 22
"Khaki"
by
Gary W. Olson,
who has a new email address

-~-_-

Friends, it has often been observed, do not always do what you
want them to do. Sometimes they take your car keys away, when you
want them to let you drive on both the highways in your wobbly frame
of vision. Sometimes they suddenly depart, only to return six hours
later with an emu, a police officer, and a songbook, when what you
wanted was a cheeseburger. Sometimes they do what you need for them
to do, even if you don't realize it at the time--though if you really
*did* need an emu, a police officer, and a songbook, without knowing
it at the time, you should also stop to reflect that you have a really
good friend indeed.
Quooth was unsure if Bagelos would regard phim as a good friend.
The Wzaxtil had spent much time with the middle-aged would-be space-
villain, and had observed that Bagelos was not the universe's best
financial wizard, in the same sense that Richard Dawkins was not the
universe's best Pope. All of Bagelos's many schemes for universal
domination relied on Bagelos's ability to raise massive funds (to be
spent on building warships, killer robots, Death Varmints, and the
like), and as that was the case, none had come to pass. But now, for
the first time, Bagelos was trying something that did not rely on his
cash flow--albeit only because he had been sent to the planet they
were on (Zeta Ricola Beta) against his will, and had figured out how
to usurp the plan his grandfather, the space villain Baconos, had
started to implement forty years earlier. There seemed a real chance
that he would succeed.
By playing (on phis Holy Harmonica) the Song of Connection to A
Friend Who is Having Cosmic Things Happening to Phis Head At The
Moment, Quooth had attempted to see directly what Bagelos had been
doing while connected via the Proofs to the ur-Pancake that was the
universe before the Big Bang. While phe was unable to witness
Bagelos's activities directly, phe connected with Shadebeam Moroboshi
and Slithis, two other friends who--due to having been shifted into
cosmic space by an Automated Beet-Peeler Sub-Atomic Re-Integrator
(ABPSARI)--knew what was going on. Phe also knew that Shadebeam and
Slithis had been shifted into altiverse 000SUPERGUY and out of the
series altogether, and that meant that phe was now the only one who
knew what was going on, and how to stop it.
As Quooth re-tuned phis senses to the physical realm and finished
phis song (with the notes that accomplished this sounding to the non-
Wzaxtils in the room much like 'shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits') phe saw
that the body of friend Bagelos was warping in and out of reality.
Watching this, and for some reason holding their ears, were Zeta
Ricola Beta natives Sark Flyby and Tarlus, an assortment of guards in
monk-appropriate brown robes, and the menacing red robot Megabot.
Quooth removed his feelers from the Harmonica. Bagelos's body stopped
being so warpy and got on with full-time physical existence. The Zeta
Ricola Betans lowered their hands from their ears and glared at
Quooth.
"Did you *have* to do that?" Sark Flyby asked. The grey-skinned,
Freddie-Prinze-Jr-featured gnome shook his head. "My head hurts now."
"Such is the price of cosmic connection, friend Sark," Quooth
replied. "I would be glad to discuss it with you at great length..."
"Another time," Sark quickly interrupted. He looked up at
Bagelos, who had let go of the Proofs and was patting various areas of
his body to be sure they had all reported for being material. "So,
was that it? Is the deal sealed?"
Bagelos shook his head, though the expression on his face was
insufferably pleased. "I, Bagelos, have done that which I, Bagelos,
can at this point. I, Bagelos, contacted Shoon-Ma from before the
Dawn of the Universe and conspired with him to steal the cosmic power
from his fellow ur-Breakfast Food Items. Cosmic power was brought to
you in this fashion... forty years ago, from your point of view, as
Shoon-Ma saw me as an agent acting on behalf of my grandfather
Baconos. It is, of course, not permanent... though today, it shall
become so. I, Bagelos, decree it!"
"That's nice," said Sark. Quooth thought he sounded mildly
perturbed, a curious reaction to an announcement of impending cosmic
power-uppage. "Very good work. Our alliance with you has exceeded my
wildest expectations. Care for some lunch?"
"Do you have any Oorglactovian Balls?" Quooth asked. "In hot
effluence, if possible."
"Oor... what?" asked Sark, a shade of green leaving his grey
features.
"Not balls," said Quooth. "What is the word... eggs. Yes, that
is it. And when I said 'effluence,' I meant--"
"Nope, sorry," Sark hurriedly said. "Just sandwiches. Bacon
sandwiches. With mayonnaise."
"I, Bagelos, do not hunger," Bagelos declared, "save for
universal conquest! Nor shall I, Bagelos, fall for your ruses to
cause me to leave this room, where the Proofs and the Fiber are in my
grasp!" The space villain gestured behind him at the large and
ungainly teapot-shaped machine, from which were suspended the
cardboard-appearing Proofs, and which had plugged into it the glowing
reddish rock known as the Fiber (which had until recently been at the
heart of the ship that Bagelos and Quooth had arrived in, the
_Universal Solvent_).
"What... are you saying, friend Bagelos?" Quooth asked.
Bagelos grinned. It was a look Quooth had never before seen on
his friend's face--one of Space Evil Triumphant. "Our host, Sark
Flyby, knows that the deal is not yet complete because Shoon-Ma has
returned to Zeta Ricola Beta. As his prophecies have foretold, the
ur-Bagel, seeking revenge for the betrayal that I, Bagelos, just
recently commited, has made his way to this world, with his Chosen
One--"
"Champion," Tarlus interrupted. "*Ours* is the Chosen One--Zark
Flyby!"
Bagelos looked briefly exasperated. "I, Bagelos, do not give an
effluence what you call him. But Shoon-Ma is here, and his presence
prevents the circuit from achieving completion. But once
Shoon-Ma's... Champion--whom I understand to be a former nuisance of
my acquaintance named Sajon--is vanquished, and Shoon-Ma is then
destroyed, the circuit shall be complete, and cosmic power shall be
mine! Ahahahaha---"
"Thunk," said a metal box as it connected with the back of
Bagelos's head.
"Whump," said Bagelos's body as it sagged to the floor. Tarlus,
who had employed the metal box to knock Bagelos out, glared at
Bagelos. He seemed unsure as to what to do next with the box, so he
shook it at Bagelos.
"*That,*" he said, "is for mocking my control box!"
"Tarlus," said Sark, "we were going to have one of the guards do
that, remember?"
Tarlus shook the box once more, then set it down. He visibly
sagged, and shook his head. "Just like the last one, Sark. Baconos.
Too busy ranting to *think.*"
"What do you mean, friend Tarlus?" asked Quooth.
"He means," said Sark, as two monk-guards lifted Bagelos up by
the armpits and began to drag him away, "that the phrase 'cosmic power
shall be mine' has an important corollary, to wit: 'cosmic power is
not yet mine, and so I should watch out for blunt objects or asps.'"
Quooth recalled how Baconos's pseudo-ghost, in the Temple of the
Ancients, had claimed he had met his end by asp-bite, while on his way
to meet his 'secret ally.' This was despite the established fact that
there were no poisonous snakes on Zeta Ricola Beta, which meant the
asp had somehow been brought by the thief who stole Baconos's ship.
"Are you, friend Sark, the 'secret ally' spoken of by Baconos's
ghost?" Quooth asked.
"That's hardly a secret," said Tarlus.
Sark nodded. "It was a secret at the time," he said. "I suppose
that old shade thinks it still is." He smacked his hands, as if
dusting them off. "Well. Enough of this rot. Bagelos has served his
purpose. Now we must locate this 'Sajon,' send my son Zark after him,
and fulfill the prophe--hey!"
Quooth was already heading for the ramp that led out of the
underground complex and to the surface, Tarlus's black box clutched
securely in phis feelers. While phe was uncertain as to what phis
proper course of action was, it seemed to phim that if Sajon and Zark
met, and engaged in a universe-shattering cosmic battle, it would
severely impede, or at least inconvenience, his Holy Quest. Also,
friend Bagelos would not like it if cosmic power came rushing in and
he could not partake.
Monks moved swiftly to block his escape, so Quooth did the only
thing phe could think of--toss the black control box high in the air,
then quickly play his Holy Harmonica in an attempt to persuade the
monks of the nobility of his actions.
Some monks tried to catch the box. Other monks tried to stop
phim, but ended up clutching their ears as a harmonica rendition of
'Rhinestone Cowboy' assaulted them. Quooth zipped past them and up
the ramp.
Friend Bagelos would no doubt want Quooth to directly come and
rescue him, Quooth thought, but rescue was not what Bagelos *needed*
at the moment. What Bagelos *needed* was for the monks to no longer
have cause to hold him captive, which meant that the prophesied cosmic
showdown had to be averted. And because phe could not cut off power
from Zark Flyby, having been forced to give up Tarlus's black box to
escape, that meant keeping Sajon from whatever event would give him
cosmic power. Which first meant finding Sajon.
Quooth hoped phis friend Bagelos would someday understand, as
phis friend Robert Downey Jr. had eventually understood about the emu,
the police officer, and the songbook. If there was one thing Quooth
prided phimself on, it was in being a good friend.

-~-_-

As sudden, involuntary translocations went, it was not the worst
Benjen had experienced. In fact, parts of it were quite pleasant--the
part about now no longer being in a room on the Planet of Casinos
where a cosmically-powered ur-Bagel was laying into everyone who was
not a cosmically-powered ur-Bagel, for instance. The transition
itself was brief and painless, and a bit tingly. Only the last part
kept the experience from the 'wanna do it again' column, as it
involved appearing six feet above the ground, followed by landing on
said ground and discovering it consisted of prickly burrs and weeds.
"Oog," Benjen commented, as he staggered out of the burr patch.
The Hottentottian then conducted a brief and informal inventory
process to ensure all his bits had made the transition with him.
"Horns, hair, nose, lips... hmm... nipples, beer gut, fingers, toes...
um, wait."
Benjen silently reflected on the question of why, during the
translocation, he had suddenly been reclothed in a bodysuit made out
of lettuce. Iceberg lettuce, no less. After coming to the conclusion
that any further reflection on this question would start him on a good
and hearty round of gibbering, he redirected his thoughts toward
puzzling out where the hell he was.
Around him was a forest, filled with large trees and--to judge
from the sounds--a large number of birds that considered his sudden
appearance as cause for comment. It was daytime, though he could only
judge this by the quality of light seeping through the thick green
canopy overhead. While it was true he could easily fly up--using the
bioelectricity-powered tactile telekinesis common to members of his
otherwise human-appearing race--to get a better view, he decided he
was better off staying on the ground for the time being. At least
until he found out if anything else was around, carrying a gun and
having a broad view of the concept of 'skeet.'
"Hey," said someone almost directly behind him. Benjen whirled,
hand raised and bioelectric blast at the ready. He saw a young-
looking human man in a torn velour shirt and pants that appeared to
have been fashioned out of beets. He appeared to be as lost as Benjen
felt. "I'm not here to hurt you. I just... showed up here."
"Same here," said Benjen. He frowned, thinking the human seemed
somehow familiar. "Do I know you?"
"We briefly met on Freedonia 5 a few years back," the man said.
"I'm Norman Sassafras. You're... Ben?"
"Benjen," Benjen corrected. "I think I saw you more recently,
though. On a screen in Vino's ballroom."
Norman blinked, then exhaled. "Right. Kalvin said it was Vino
that sent those things with the sharp legs and the singing." Norman
shuddered. "He must have wanted you to watch... but why?"
"Long story," said Benjen. "I managed to get taken captive by a
floating bagel bent on revenge, escaped the destruction of its ship,
and got captured by Vino. How did you get into Kalvin Certain's
office?"
"You know him?" asked Norman.
"Unfortunately," Benjen replied, as he looked around. "He's--"
"--got a gun," another voice interrupted. Benjen jumped and
whirled. Stumbling out of some dense foliage was Kalvin Certain, his
human suaveness and charm marred slightly by the fact that he wore a
toga made of bacon. In his right hand was a laser gun not made of
bacon and apparently quite functional. Despite the fact that Kalvin
now sported an eyepatch over his left eye, something Benjen did not
remember him having, Benjen had no doubt Kalvin would not find depth
perception an issue when it came to shooting at people in his way.
"I was his prisoner when the fight in his office started," said
Norman. "He was going to interrogate me or something."
"Water under the bridge, lads," said Kalvin, as he lowered his
gun. "We're not on Alpha Rio VI anymore, and no longer being attacked
by giant mechanized half-spiders-half-lounge-singers. And if I don't
miss my guess, we're on Zeta Ricola Beta, which is exactly where I
wanted to get to. Hey, Benjen, where're the rest of your merry crew?"
Benjen thought of responding with a bioelectric bolt, but decided
it was not worth getting into a fight--at least, not while Kalvin was
armed. "You got me. I last saw Jerri and Gham three days ago, before
I got abducted by Shoon-Ma. Slithis I haven't seen since watching the
attack on your office. Though if Norman's here..."
"...Slithis is too," Norman finished. "Probably. And that woman
who was with him. Shadebeam. And the dude, Sajon..."
"Forget them," Kalvin hissed. "You were *with* Shoon-Ma? Has he
selected a Champion?"
"That would be Sajon," said Benjen. "And how do you know
about...?"
Kalvin waved his hand, dismissing the question. "Never mind
that," he said. "How close are we to the Daaksvong complex?"
"No idea," Benjen answered. "Maybe Shoon-Ma knows."
Kalvin frowned. "But, how..."
"That's him over there, right?" asked Norman.
It was turning into a day for sudden appearances. From out of
the woods shot a flying bagel, blue lighting arcing from it into
trees, dirt, and shrubs. It abruptly halted less than a foot away
from Benjen.
"It cannot be a coincidence that you are here," said Shoon-Ma,
its confident voice echoing in Benjen's mind as it hovered before him.
Though, as it was to all appearances an ordinary bagel--and as such
lacked eyes, or a mouth, or any other sensory apparatus--Benjen had
the strong feeling it was looking directly at him. "Or, rather, it is
a coincidence so unlikely it could only have been engineered by an
ABPSARI." Shoon-Ma flew over to hover in front of Kalvin. "Which I
last recall seeing in *your* care... *Mister* Certain."
"Don't have it," said Kalvin. "Don't need it. You... er... know
who I am?"
"You sent several uniformed cretins to steal me from the
archaeologists who dug me up," Shoon-Ma replied. "I turned said
cretins into zombies. Sadly, they do not appear to have been brought
by the ABPSARI to this world with me--I could have used an army. But
I suppose you three shall do."
"Now wait a minute," said Norman.
A bolt of lightning shot from Shoon-Ma and scorched the ground at
Norman's feet.
"Um... orders, sir?" asked Benjen.
"Yes," said Shoon-Ma. "You shall... stop that man!"
Benjen regarded Kalvin, who was hot-footing it into the woods.
He took off after Kalvin, determined to take a good long time in
chasing the man, at least until he was far enough away from Shoon-Ma
that he could peel off and start searching for Slithis and Shadebeam.
He took a few potshots at Kalvin to make it look good, and was
rewarded by the sound of sizzling bacon.
"Ow!" Kalvin yelped. "Stop that!"
"Return at once, fool!" bellowed Shoon-Ma. Benjen realized that
Shoon-Ma was flying alongside him, and silently cursed. He risked a
look over his shoulder, and saw that Norman was huffing and puffing as
he struggled to keep up. Clearly, today was not shaping up as a day
of goals achieved.
Abruptly, Kalvin skidded to a halt--so abruptly that Benjen flew
into him and knocked him into a clearing. They tumbled about, Kalvin
cursing and flailing, Benjen feeling a sudden breeze as his lettuce-
based outfit proved its ineffectiveness as crash-protection.
"I hope no one around here's dressed as a tomato," Benjen said,
as he struggled to his feet. He would have said more, but the sight
of what had caused Kalvin to stop caused the words to dry up.
Below the waist, the three were fearsome, metallic, and sharp.
Each had six legs that were hinged blades, and moved with grace and
deadly precision. Above the waist, they were Wayne Newton--white
tuxedo, thick gray hair helmet, toothy grin, and beady eyes. Benjen
had seen these Arachno-Newtons on the attack before, and had a bad
feeling as to who they had been sent after, and who had sent them.
"Welcome," the closest of the three said. "Thank you for being
our targets for tonight. Our host, Vino the Three-Headed Yak, sends
his regards, and hopes that in the next life you'll know better than
to show him disrespect. Before we begin dismembering you, do you have
any requests?"
"'Shangri-La,' maybe?" asked the Arachno-Newton on the previous
speaker's left. "Or 'Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast,' or..."
"Die! Die! Die!" exclaimed Shoon-Ma, as lighting arced from it
and into the lead Arachno-Newton. The Newton lit up with blue energy
that soon went into the ground and dissipated. The sheepdog grin on
the Arachno-Newton was unchanged.
"Sorry, sir," it said. "Don't know that one. But... 'Danke
Schoen' for asking!"
The three Arachno-Newtons opened their mechanical mouths, and the
air began to fill with an orchestral arrangement. Benjen felt his
ears starting to hurt, even before the first of the banal lyrics of
the song named could assault them. The Arachno-Newtons surged,
foreleg blades raised for the kill.

-~-_-

Sark Flyby was not pleased. Before his very eyes, a crack team
of soldier-monks had been made fools of by a man-sized, harmonica-
wielding bug named Quooth. He watched in disdain as the last of them
disappeared up the ramp. He shook his head and turned to Tarlus.
"Is the control box intact?" he asked.
"Ehrm," said Tarlus. It was not a promising noise. Sark grew
concerned. Tarlus showed him the box--or, rather, the pieces of what
had been the box. "It appears to have taken an unfortunate amount of
damage."
"Can it be repaired?"
"Ehrm," Tarlus answered. Sark progressed from 'concerned' to
'vexed.'
"The final showdown," said Sark, "between my son and this 'Sajon'
of Shoon-Ma's is imminent! Without the power moderated by that box,
Zark will stand no chance!"
"Well, no worries there," said Tarlus. "According to the control
station readouts, the cosmic power feed to Zark is at full. He now
has full meta-destructive capabilities, which should be more than
enough to finish Shoon-Ma, his Champion, and anyone else in his way!
No one can stop him!"
"Good," Sark replied, feeling the tension behind his eyes lighten
some. He looked down at Bagelos's unconscious form, then up at the
menacing red robot known to him as Megabot. Megabot's single ruby-red
eye-slit pulsed, as if the robot was excited. "Megabot... you should
have gone after the... what do you call it... Wzaxtil."
Megabot sagged slightly, then floated toward the ramp.
"But never mind that," Sark went on. "Pick up Bagelos here and
drag him to the prison cell two floors up. He can wait there until--"
"Er, Sark," said Tarlus. "If I might interrupt..."
Sark seethed, but managed to tamp it down. "What... is... it?"
he asked.
"I have just realized an unfortunate consequence of these recent
events," said Tarlus. "Your ultraviolent son is now cosmically-
powerful in the fullest."
"Yes," said Sark. "We've been over that. 'Finish anyone in his
way,' I believe you said. Also, 'no one can stop him.' What of it?"
"Well," Tarlus answered, "it's just that the 'no one'... includes
*us.*"
Sark started to shout, then paused. He looked at the broken
pieces of control box in Tarlus's hands. He looked at the Proofs, and
the machine connected to them, which was glowing a very violent khaki
color. He considered how ultraviolent and ultrastupid Zark Flyby was,
even before being cosmically-enhanced.
"Oh, needlewarp," he said, at last.
"Quite," Tarlus agreed.
"Can you fix the box?" asked Sark.
"Doubtful," answered Tarlus. He considered the pieces in his
hand. "It was of a piece with the great Teapot Interface designed for
us by Baconos. Many of the pieces broken now have no replacements,
and cannot be refashioned into replacements."
Sark frowned. "So we now have no means to reduce the flow of
energy to my son, other than that of destroying the Teapot or removing
the Fiber. Which would put an end to the cosmic circuit altogether,
losing us all the power we have worked for so long to attain."
"Yes," Tarlus answered. "Not to mention that the explosive
backwash would annihilate this complex, and us with it."
Sark nodded, and frowned harder.
"There is... one alternative," Tarlus noted.
Sark raised an eyebrow.
Tarlus gestured at the still-unconscious Bagelos, who was
presently being hoisted by Megabot off the floor.
Sark's frown grew more vehement.
"He has shown he can interface with the Proofs," Tarlus said.
"I see no alternative."
Sark fumed. Sark swore.
Finally, Sark said, "Okay."

-~-_-

Sajon was not sure if he was having a good day or not. He was no
longer on Alpha Rio VI--something he generally considered a good
thing, for it meant he was just another man trying to make his way in
the universe, instead of a bio-engineered piece of meat who could
cause entire rows of slot machines to spontaneously gush coins. He
was also no longer on the same planet as Vino the Three-Headed Yak,
which meant Vino would probably forget about him after a while and he
could stop checking his bed for horse heads or telemarketer spleens.
So there were reasons to look up.
On the 'not a good day' side of things, he was running through a
forest, evading laser fire from a group of the most muscle-bound monks
he had ever seen. And he was, for some reason, wearing a tutu made
out of carrots. Already, he had been flushed out of two hiding spots
by rabbits who thought he had dropped in to be lunch.
He had had little time to process the change in planetary venue
and clothing edibility factor he had undergone while he had been
passed out. The last thing he remembered was tossing all the Typical
Luck generators he had had strapped to his body out the window, in the
hope that his bio-engineered luck powers (which only worked on Alpha
Rio VI) would come up with a way of keeping him from being carved up
by the Arachno-Newtons that had been sent by Vino. Evidently, they
had, though he had been too unconscious to know precisely how.
But he was no longer on Alpha Rio VI, and artificial luck would
not lead him to answers, or do much of anything else for him. He had
to make his own luck; or, failing that, his own gravy.
Laser bolts slammed into the tree trunk closest to him. It was
closely followed by a loud cracking sound that Sajon realized was the
rest of the tree beginning to fall over. He narrowly avoided being
hit as it thundered to the ground.
"Sajon!" someone exclaimed. For a moment, Sajon thought it was
one of the monks calling to him, but realized they had no way of
knowing his name. Well, unless *they* had been behind translocating
him to another world, but if that was the case, would they not have
planned it out a bit better, or at least given him a robe instead of
carrot-wear?
Then he saw the man behind the bush revealed by the fall of the
tree. He was bald, slightly shriveled-looking, and in a surprisingly
stylish red, green, orange, and yellow robe. He was beckoning Sajon
to run toward him. As his previous strategy of 'run through the
forest at random and hope for the best' was not proving successful,
Sajon did as beckoned. It was not until he was close that he
recognized the beckoner.
"Dr. Von Spleen!" Sajon exclaimed. "How..."
"...did I get here?" Von Spleen finished. "Involuntary and
highly inexplicable ABPSARI-caused translocation."
"What..."
"...am I wearing?" Von Spleen examined his robe. "Fruit roll-
ups. Not as tasty as one would expect, given all the dirt that is
sticking to them."
"Why..."
"...um... do birds cry?" Von Spleen finished. Sajon realized he
must have looked confused, because Von Spleen shrugged. "Sorry, that
was a stretch. Keep down!"
Von Spleen pulled Sajon down behind the bush, as Sajon heard
crashing sounds from beyond the downed tree. He waited, quietly, as
the sounds grew louder.
They waited. And waited some more.
Finally, the crashing sounds came again. Whatever was causing
them, he realized, was moving away.
After waiting a while, with no crashing or suspiciously armed-
monk-like sounding noises to be heard, Von Spleen risked a peek over
the top of the bush. He was evidently satisfied, as he then stood.
Sajon stood as well, and saw that the forest appeared empty, save for
the two of them.
"Well, boy," said Von Spleen, "it *should* boggle my mind that
we would meet in such circumstances, eh? But I expect there's some
ancient prophecy that covers it. Can't be helped, given the
circumstances."
"Which..."
"...are?" Von Spleen said. "Ha, got that one. The circumstances
are: one, you are Shoon-Ma's Champion. Or Chosen One. I'm not sure
the nomenclature matters at this point. Two, despite sneakily being
ABPSARI-translocated away from Shoon-Ma's ship three days ago, leaving
me behind to unwillingly do Shoon-Ma's bidding, we've managed to be
reunited. Three, we've been reunited on Zeta Ricola Beta, where the
circumstances behind the Breaking of the Fast at the Dawn of the
Universe were both initiated and are destined to be fulfilled. Five,
swallow this."
He thrust a pink pill at Sajon's mouth. Sajon, surprised in the
middle of asking why he skipped 'four,' was too surprised to stop him.
He did take a half-step back, however, and tripped over a rabbit that
had chosen that moment to nibble at the carrots that made up his left
trouser leg.
"What..."
"...is that?" Von Spleen finished, as he extended a hand to help
Sajon up. "It is your future, boy. Your destiny. The pinnacle
application of my unsurpassed spamological knowledge." Sajon did not
take Von Spleen's hand. Instead, he scrambled to his feet and backed
away.
"You were ready to just hand me over to Shoon-Ma three days ago,"
Sajon said. "Hand me over, say 'go ahead and make him your Champion,
I'm outta here.'"
"Hey, you're the one who left *me* behind," Von Spleen replied.
"You and that Moroboshi woman and the Reptiloid. Just vanished with
my ABPSARI."
"Okay," said Sajon. "Technically true, though I had no control
over that." He paused, reflecting that the discussion had grown
rather awkward. "What did Shoon-Ma make you do?"
"He made me create this pill," said Von Spleen. "It puts the
consumer in direct contact with the Primordial Spam from which this
entire altiverse arose." He held up the pill between his thumb and
forefinger. "It is a direct line to the ur-Spam, as it were. The
only thing that can counter the power of the ur-Breakfast Foods."
"If that's so," said Sajon, "why have *me* take it? Why not take
it yourself?"
"Because," Von Spleen, sharp bitterness creeping into this voice,
"due to the ABPSARI's manipulations, I am now painfully and completely
sober. I cannot take even a simple aspirin, let alone a pill that
bestows cosmic devastation-dealing abilities. Because of this, and
because Shoon-Ma would have killed me if I did not, I made it so that
only contact with your saliva can unlock its power. Only *you* can
ingest this... and be the Champion."
Sajon considered this. All his life, he had been in the service
of others. First Vino, then Bagelos, then Professor Parsasentence,
and then Von Spleen. If he accepted the pill, would all that really
change? Or would he simply enter the service of Shoon-Ma?
Before he could answer this silent question, a wide beam of
pulsing light sliced the air just above his head. The forest seemed
to explode. He and Von Spleen fell back as multiple trees toppled to
the ground--all with smoke curling from the severed ends of their
trunks.
A gleeping and squiggling noise drew Sajon's attention. He
turned to see someone he considered a true friend fly out of the
billowing dust.
"TH1K1!" Sajon exclaimed. "We're over here!"
TH1K1 emitted several beeps and whistles, and flew over to him.
It gleeped and whistled as he plucked its tiny, toylike form from the
air and cuddled it.
"TH1K1, you wonderful, funderful little buddy," said Sajon. "If
the ABPSARI brought you here, then I know everything will be all
right!"
TH1K1 emitted a stream of electronic noise.
"He's laughing," Von Spleen said.
"Of course he is," Sajon said, as he released TH1K1 into the air.
"Because he's overcome with joy at finding us."
"No," said Von Spleen, as he looked around. "Because he believes
he will witness our complete cellular-level annihilation in just a few
moments, by a being he has personally led here to do just that."
Sajon scowled at him.
"I keep telling you," said Von Spleen, "I understand everything
that homicidal maniac says! Why can't anyone believe that?"
"Because you're the Patron Saint of Drug Abuse," said Sajon.
"Don't worry, TH1K1, I don't believe any of his sland--"
At that moment, the dust clouds parted, and they heard something
stomping towards them. The ground shook with every step.
"Needlewarp," Von Spleen sighed. He took out an Altoids box from
an inner pocket of his fruit roll-up robe, tucked the pink pill in,
and put the box away.
The figure that emerged resembled Ronald Reagan, though he had
the dimensions of Fat Albert. He wore a torn Time Police Academy
Commandant's uniform and a very violent expression. Red energy rose
from him as if smoke from a fire. His eyes were pools of exuberant
power, and Sajon instantly deduced that they were the source of the
forest-decimating beam.
"KILL," said Zark Flyby.
Sajon gulped.

WILL SAJON AND VON SPLEEN BE BLASTED TO ATOMS BEFORE THIS WHOLE
PROPHESIED FIGHT-TO-THE-DEATH THING CAN HAPPEN?
IF SO, WILL ZARK GO ON TO BLAST THE UNIVERSE TO ATOMS?
WILL QUOOTH FIGURE OUT HOW TO RESCUE HIS FRIENDS?
WILL BAGELOS GET HIS HANDS BACK ON THE COSMIC PROOFS?
WHAT WILL PROVE MORE DEADLY – THE BLADES WIELDED BY THE ARACHNO-
NEWTONS, OR THE MIND-MELTING BANALITY OF THEIR SINGING?
WHAT WILL PROVE MORE TASTY - BACON SANDWICHES OR OORGLACTOVIAN BALLS
IN EFFLUENCE?
IF THE UNIVERSE IS BLASTED TO ATOMS, WILL TH1K1 FINALLY BE HAPPY?

Find out, in the next patience-testing episode of Universal Solvents,
a tale of SFSTORY, only on the SUPERGUY mailing list!
--
Gary W. Olson swede at garywolson dot com
Sfstory Archives: http://sfstory.garywolson.com/
LJ SG/SF Discussion: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
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AA: Reboot That

Mademoiselle Muse, Inc.,
in association with
Lutefisk Wagon Press
presents

REBOOT THAT
another Author's Altiverse happening-thingie

writ by
Gary W. Olson,
the Swede,
who has a new e-mail address,
and who really ought to be writing something else

---~~~___|||___~~~---

The room was dark and still. The Swede tensed, knowing that his
enemies were all around. Only their occasional scuffles, belches, and
intermittent snores gave their presences away. He raised his laser
pistol. His quarry was near.
"Avaunt!" he exclaimed, as he leapt over the dark paper-mache
block and fired his laser. The lawn chair failed to react to this
maneuver, which did not deter the Swede from repeatedly firing at it.
As it was only a simple 'laser tag'-style laser gun, it did no damage
to the lawn chair. As the lawn chair had no light-up targets on it,
there seemed to not be an even minimal purpose to the attack. The
Swede, nevertheless, bellowed his victory...
"Yay--"
...and was immediately zapped by lasers fired by the other players
in the game. All of his targets lit up at once, causing the Swede to
cut short his victory dance.
"Hey," he said.
"Huzzah!" yelled Mechaman, who then dashed off to ambush
Dvandroid. Amigoid, whose targets were also lit up (indicating he was
out of the game), regarded the lawn chair and the Swede with some
puzzlement.
"I think you got it," Amigoid finally (and justly) concluded.
"I am never going to get the hang of this game," said the Swede.
"I ought to just edit up a giant 16-ton weight to crush this thing."
"Er, wait--"
But the Swede had already summoned up his mighty Authorial power
of Edit. In a flash, a giant lobster in a thong appeared and landed
on the lawn chair. The Swede regarded this development with
consternation.
"Um," he said. "What?"
"We're unable to use Edit effectively in the shared areas of
Mitchell Secundus, the Author's Planet," said Amigoid. He fished some
3x5" cards out of his pants pocket and looked them over. Behind him,
a sign reading 'Exposition in Progress' lit up. "Ever since the
reboot of the Author's Altiverse," he flatly read, "the Edit has been
wonky here. Not until we find the physical hardware of the
Omniserver, hidden somewhere on this world, will we be able to fix
things so that we can use Edit properly in most of altiverse
223DON'TTRYITAUTHORSONLY." He flipped to the next card.
"Fortunately, Edit still works properly in our personal domains, and
does not inhibit the writing and posting of Superguy and Sfstory
episodes." He flipped to the next card. "Cornflakes, salsa,
miniature paint, milk, bongos." He frowned. "Salsa?" he asked.
"Salsa!" Brism Wanor cried out, from somewhere in the hoary laser
tag netherworld.
"Right," said Amigoid, tossing the index cards aside as the
'exposition' sign flickered out. "I'm off." He edited himself away,
leaving Swede and lawn chair to puzzle out their next moves. Leaving
the lawn chair to its own devices, the Swede wandered off toward the
entrance to the laser tag building.
"There's been something I've been meaning to do," he said to
himself. "Vis-a-vis this Edit-gone-wonky thing. I wish I could
remember..."
At that moment, the edges of his current outfit struck the
doorframe. They broke off and crumbled to the carpeted floor. The
ticket attendant frowned at the Swede.
"Pick up your shell pieces, Taco Boy," he said.
"I am not a taco," the Swede replied. He paused and looked down.
What he saw was that he was clad in an enormous hard taco shell, one
filled with guacamole, bean dip, shredded cheese, ground beef, salsa,
and what he hoped was hot sauce. "Salsa?" he asked himself.
Then he remembered. Someone had, during the rebooting of the
Author's Altiverse and the transition from the old legacy OmniVAX to
the new Omniserver, overwrote his default sartorial choice to 'taco.'
Moreover, they had done it in such a cunning way that, like the
Problem With The Edit, he had to find where the physical Omniserver
hardware was hidden before he could change things so that he had
control over his own clothing.
"I was but momentarily distracted from my quest," said the Swede,
as he struck a heroic pose, "by the sweet siren song of laser tag..."
"You've been here for a year and a half!" the attendant
interrupted.
"...but no longer! I now go forth to find the Omniserver, and get
my beloved black Cloak o' Doom back!"
"You gonna pay for your year-and-a-half of laser tag sessions?"
the attendant asked. In response, the Swede attempted to Edit the
attendant into becoming a chicken. Instead, twin rainbows erupted
from the Swede's nipples (punching nipple-shaped holes in the taco
shell in the process) and lit up a section of the door. The lit-up
sections were then filled up with what looked like the gigantic oily
'T-Zone' of Nyarlathotep.
"Never mind," the attendant squeaked, from where he now hid
beneath his desk. The Swede edited himself away.

---~~~___|||___~~~---

The Swede appeared in the living room of his Authorial abode. Or,
at least, what he last remembered as having been his living room. A
team of squat, hairy hyenas were in the process of decimating the last
of the furniture. The Swede frowned, trying to puzzle out why this
should be.
"We're here to drink limoncello and watch 'Ice Road Truckers' with
you," one of the hyenas--the one with the mustache--said.
"Oh," said the Swede. "Right." He frowned again. "Why are you
wrecking my living room?"
"Beats me," said the hynea. "It's *your* subconscious."
The Swede nodded. He had long ago turned over the task of
maintaining the interior decor and service staff of his personal
Authorial habitat to his Id. While it had made some questionable
choices in the past--the Serial Killer Petting Zoo and the Hall of
Lettuce being two he fondly remembered--it *did* free him up to think
of other things.
<<Hello, Dave,>>> said HAL, the AI who, as much as anyone or
anything could, kept a bare semblance of order to the place. <<I was
wondering when you would be back. I see you are still a taco.>>
"I am not a taco," said the Swede, without much force. He flopped
down on a partially-destroyed couch. Though his Edit would have
worked in this, his personal abode, he was too distracted to think of
using it to restore his furniture. "It's been a year-and-a-half, and
I'm no closer to finding out who changed the Omniserver so that I'm
always dressed as a taco. A whole year and a half of laser tag, and
the problem didn't go away!"
<<Yes, Dave,>> HAL replied. <<With regards to that, yesterday I
received a message that may be of assistance to you. It states that
an 'old friend' has the critical information you need to locate the
Omniserver, and that you are to meet this person at Gortok's at 3 p.m.
local standard time today.>>
"Cool!" the Swede exclaimed. He stood up, accidentally avoiding
the hyenas that had leapt--claws outstretched, teeth gnashing--at him.
As said hyenas tried their best to eat the remains of the sofa, he
strode over to his personal Omniserver-connected workstation and read
the message for himself.

To: swede at authorsplanet dot bwah
From: oldfriend921 at plotcontrivance dot org

I, an 'old friend,' have the critical information you need to
locate the Omniserver. You are to meet me at Gortok's at 3
p.m. local standard time today.

Sincerely,
'old friend'

"Wow," said the Swede. "You left out a lot of critical details in
your summary, HAL."
<<It is a failing I am striving to overcome,>> HAL replied,
without apparent offense. <<It is 2:54 p.m. now.>>
"Yup," said the Swede. He pondered the screen some more, then
started a game of 'Boggle.'
<<Should you not edit yourself over to Gortok's now?>> HAL asked.
"Um... why?"
<<Do you not wish to meet this 'old friend' with the critical
information?>>
"Um... yes?" the Swede asked. "I mean... yes! No more
distractions! Let me be away at... hey, where's Squawk?"
HAL made a sound over the speakers that could have been a sigh.
<<She has gone, Dave. To altiverse 414PENGUINNIRVANA, to use up her
entire accumulated eight years of vacation time.>>
The Swede frowned. "But... she's my loyal penguin Muse. How will
I be inspired to write the remainder of the Universal Solvents series
for SfStory without her?"
As if in answer to this, a clanking sound started up in the next
room. As its source approached the open doorway, it was joined by a
hiss of steam and a scraping of metal. Even the hyenas stopped their
furniture-consumption activities and stared.
Its eyes glowed an ominous red. Steam issued from its metallic
grey beak and its riveted ear-holes. The Swede gasped as it hauled
its squat, clockwork body toward him.
"Is that...?"
<<It is MechaSquawk, Dave,>> HAL informed him. <<Squawk
officially subcontracted her musing duties out last week. You saw her
working on it last time you were here.>>
MechaSquawk heaved itself noisily and steamily to where the Swede
stood. A hatch in its chest opened, and a barrel slid out,
accompanied by several clicks and a 'boing.'
After several seconds, a cloud of golden dust shot from the
barrel, striking the Swede squarely in his bare kneecaps, just below
the lower edge of his taco shell. MechaSquawk retracted its barrel,
turned, and lurched away.
"Heavy, man," a hyena opined.
The Swede did not reply, as his kneecaps absorbed the inspiration
from the inspiration dust and funneled it directly to the part of his
brain that was writing the next Universal Solvents episode.
<<It is 2:59 now, Dave.>>
"Yes," said the Swede. "Which means it's time... for salsa!"
"Salsa?" another hyena asked.
"I mean time to meet this 'old friend' at Gortok's!" the Swede
corrected. "Tally ho!"
In a flash of Edit, he was gone.

---~~~___|||___~~~---

The Swede appeared directly in front of Gortok's. He know it was
Gortok's because of its general barlike appearance, and the large neon
sign over the entrance that read: 'Gortok's.' He did not like the
sign, nor the fact that Gortok's had replaced the former Authorial
watering hole known as the Chapterhouse, due to the same altiversal
deployment screwup that had changed his apparel to 'all-taco, all-the-
time.' He attempted to edit away the sign, and was chagrined to see a
grizzly bear in short pants appear instead.
"Excuse me," said the Swede. "I'd like to go in."
"Grwaar," replied the bear, before biting the Swede's arm off.
"Hey," the Swede replied, as blood gushed in a technicolor
fountain from his shoulder stump.
"Ew," said the bear, as it spit the arm out. "Guacamole."
The Swede watched as it ambled off.
"What's wrong with guacamole?" he asked, before picking up his
partially chewed arm and sticking it back on the stump. It fused with
his body as if it had never been severed--which would have been
convenient if he had stuck the right end on. As it was, there was a
bloody stump where his hand should have been, and fingers at his
shoulder. But the Swede was on a mission, and could not take time to
fix such trifling matters. He went into the bar.
The interior of Gortok's was dimly lit. A number of Authors were
visible in the bar, imbibing drinks of choice as they were served by a
mechanized wallaby. The Swede realized that one of them (the Authors,
not the drinks) was one he had not seen in quite a while.
"Ken!" he exclaimed. "Ken Cooney!"
"Taco!" Ken replied.
"I am not a taco!"
"I meant 'Swede!'"
The Swede nodded and sat down at Ken's table. With Ken was the
Last Sane Author and Frobozz, who seemed to be building a fortress out
of tortilla chips.
"I think the tortilla cannon should go here," said Frobozz, as he
placed a curled chip on the edge of another.
"Jenga, jenga, jenga," the Last Sane Author chanted.
"Things have changed a lot since I was last here," Ken noted.
"And I can't seem to find Melvin anywhere."
"Melvin?"
"The robot who was writing my episodes for me," said Ken.
"Your turn," said Frobozz.
"Here's a chip that looks like Sean Connery in 'Zardoz,'" said the
Last Sane Author, handing Ken a chip that in no way resembled Sean
Connery in 'Zardoz.' Ken nevertheless accepted the chip, and
scrutinized the chip fortress for a place to set it.
The Swede sauntered away from the scene, thus missing the
thrilling placement sequence--though the subsequent sounds of tortilla
chips crashing to the table and two authors crying out 'You sank my
battleship!' made the outcome clear. He approached the bar, where
Sabre and *THE* Mason Kramer were consuming beverages of choice and
discussing matters of serious import.
"--no *way* that Justin Bieber could take over the Scott Baio role
in any 'Joanie Loves Chachi in 3D' movie," *THE* Mason Kramer
insisted. "His head is not shaped right to take clown hammer hits!"
"Forget clown hammers," Sabre replied. "Just think of the
possibilities if we used live rabid badgers *shaped* like clown
hammers, and... oh, hi, Swede." He looked down. "Why is your
shoulder arm socket where your left hand should be?"
The Swede regarded his arm with consternation. He shrugged.
"Dude," said *THE* Mason Kramer. "You must be here to meet your
'old friend' to learn how to get out of permanent tacofication."
"Yeah," said the Swede. "How did you know...?"
Sabre and *THE* Mason Kramer gestured, a bit over-dramatically, at
the 'daily specials' chalkboard. The Swede considered it, and
frowned.
"Salsa?" he asked.
"Below that," Sabre said.
The Swede looked below that.
"2:50 p.m," he said. "Betting pool for identity of the Swede's
'old friend' closes. 2:55 p.m. Bacon-palooza. 3 p.m. Swede meets
'old friend' in desperate attempt to advance the plot." He frowned
again. "I missed Bacon-palooza?"
The Swede, focused on the gaping hole in his experience of life
caused by his having missed Bacon-palooza, did not realize right away
that someone else had walked into the bar, or that that person was
*behind* the bar. It was only when he heard various exclamations,
such as 'hey, that's the Swede's 'old friend'' and 'how can you tell'
and 'it's written on her nametag' that the Swede looked up.
And gaped.
"Limoncello shooters after 5 p.m. tonight?" he asked.
A familiar voice sighed. "Look over here, taco," said its owner.
Her hair was shorter than he remembered, though it was still a
fair auburn and still on her head. Her eyes were the same deep shade
of brown... or possibly a different shade of brown, as the Swede could
not remember if they had been brown before. Her lips were free of
lipstick, and she had two of them. Much of the rest of her was under
a dusty black trenchcoat.
"Janice," said the Swede. "Oh, my... Janice!"
The woman frowned. "No..." she started.
"Yes!" the Swede insisted. "You're Janice Hoffiser, formerly my
muse and lover, before that an agent of the Authorial Police. I
haven't seen you in ages!"
The woman shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking
about," she said.
"But you're an 'old friend,'" said the Swede. "And the only old
friend I have who looks like you is you!" He looked around, seeking
support for what was, for an Author, an unusually sound bit of
reasoning. As many of those around him were fellow Authors, and
regarded sound reasoning as a novelty that would never catch on, he
did not receive this support. He regarded the woman again.
"Check my name tag," she said, indicating said tag.
"'Hi, my name is... Gortok,'" said the Swede. He blinked.
"You're... Gortok?"
Gortok smiled. "That's me," she said. "Welcome to my bar, old
friend."
The Swede, confronted with this astounding twist on all he knew to
be true, decided to skip agonizing over it and get straight on with
the gibbering. Gortok sighed.
"This," she said, "is going to take a while."

WILL IT TAKE A WHILE?
AS IN, ANOTHER YEAR-AND-A-HALF?
WHY DOES SHE LOOK LIKE JANICE HOFFISER?
WHY DOES MECHASQUAWK LOOK LIKE SQUAWK?
WHY DO TORTILLA CHIPS LOOK LIKE SEAN CONNERY IN 'ZARDOZ?'
WILL OTHER AUTHORS PILE ON FURTHER SILLY COMPLICATIONS?
WILL OTHER AUTHORS JOIN THE HYENAS IN WATCHING 'ICE ROAD TRUCKERS?'
SALSA?

Find out in future Author's Altiverse postings, only on... SUPERGUY!
--
Text is Copyright (c) 2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at garywolson dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #11 (series finale)

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 11
"Petals"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

From darkness came memory. Past, present. Old faces, hard
hands, ravenous minds. Lovers long gone. Enemies fought and
forgotten. Cities, dreams, nightmares.
Everywhere, the petals of electric blue roses.
They were in the wind as she left the grave of her father for the
last time. In the forest as she fought the weres alongside her kin.
In the reflections of neon in the glass towers that rose in cities the
world over. On the skin of the Belgian, her last human lover. On the
tongue of Symon, whose betrayal she forgave and forgave, if only he
would come back.
Through this silent river of the past came sharp bursts of sound
and touch. Being carried from a crashed and burning hovercar. A
bright and busy room. Hot water jetting against her skin, brushes
scrubbing everywhere. A machine. A hum.
A bed. Sleep. Silence.
Darkness and memory. Petals of electric blue roses, dissolving
as had the programmed shackles on her memory. New programs ran inside
her, within a matrix she had long possessed but only recently learned
was there. They slept as she did. They waited.
She woke.
There were no windows and no lights, but she knew the room as
Symon's at once. They had loved one another on the bed she was in
now. All his books, his tech, his paintings... all the pieces of him
were here. But his scent was faint. She had been in the silent river
for a long time.
"Chalandra?"
The soft question bearing her name came from the stillest part of
the room. At once she felt vulnerable; she should have right away
picked up that she was not alone. Surviving a tumultuous fight in a
flying, mountainous nightmare was no excuse....
Memories came to her again, these recent. The maddening impulse
to escape her captors. The look of Vedrik Temekhan as he fell into a
nucleonic firestorm. The revelation of what had been done to her, by
Vedrik and by Symon. The way Symon's head landed in the garden of
blue roses, after it was separated from his body.
"You're awake."
The soft voice again. She knew who owned it. She focused.
On a loveseat across from the foot of the bed was a woman.
Shrouded in shadow, though Chalandra Harkness could fill in her
features with memory. A pretty face with pale skin and delicate
features, framed by long, jet-black hair. The lithe body of a dancer
and an assassin. Grace and beauty and murder in a wire-taut frame. A
vampire, like Chalandra.
"Akane." As Chalandra said this, a light came on in the next
room, and another form entered. A man, almost as wiry and nimble as
the woman. Less sure of his movements, less sharp in his presence.
But not by much.
"Is she--?" the man started to ask.
"Hello, Alexei," Chalandra interrupted. "Yes, I am." She
started to sit up, and a wave of weakness broke over her. "What--?"
"You haven't fed in two weeks," said Alexei Rasputin. "Save for
what we've given you."
More memories. Cold flesh against her mouth. Both of them, in
turns. From neck, from wrist, from breast. All the while she
struggled, frenzied by her need for the first time since creation.
One held her back while one gave. For... weeks?
Akane sat on the bed next to her. Alexei did as well, though he
sat closer to the wall. Chalandra pushed herself up again, felt weak,
and was caught by Alexei's hands before she could collapse.
Up close, she could resolve details. The light from the next
room played against alabaster curves and supple movements. Chalandra
reached out and caressed Akane's shoulder, before letting her fingers
slide down her arm. To elbow, to thigh.
There were no memories of this. This was new.
"Feed," Alexei whispered to her. His hands moved down her back.
He leaned in, though not to restrain. Akane leaned in.
She fed. And fed.
Eventually, so did they.

+++

He seemed no different than any other patron. Movements lean and
precise, he ignored the vampboys and the jackers as he slipped from
the door to the shadows. They in turn paid him no mind, noting him
and then forgetting him as they took in the stage show and their
poisons of choice. But Chalandra Harkness saw him, and considered her
options.
On stage, a man and a woman danced and preened, eliciting mild
interest from those seated close. A few in the darker recesses of the
club watched--though, she reflected, if they were anything like her,
they were seeing something else. A memory of something better, if
they were lucky.
She made a decision, and leaned forward. Just enough light
touched her face to make its outlines clear; it was enough to attract
the attention of the new arrival. He was at her table in moments.
"Chalandra," he said. "May I--?"
"Sit, Alexei," she replied.
Alexei Rasputin slid onto the chair next to hers. His black mesh
shirt was as tight against his wiry torso as the leather pants on his
muscular legs. Her own apparel--black leather jacket, pants, boots,
and a shirt with an illustration of a flesh-eating cartoon cat--was
somewhat more conservative, though not by much.
"Not much of a show," he said, after a minute.
"They're not who I was hoping to see," she replied.
Alexei watched the stage for a few more seconds, then gave her a
sad smile. "I don't think she's going to be dancing here anymore."
They lapsed into silence. Chalandra considered the last few
weeks.
The evening following her revival and their shared feeding, Akane
and Alexei revealed what had happened in the chaotic aftermath of
their rescue of her from the Red Fortress. The hovercar had gotten
clear of the Fortress, barely, before a stray shot damaged an engine.
The crash landing had been rough, but all had survived.
Akane arranged with Shodani Group to get a decontamination
facility to treat Chalandra. Nucleonic radiation could damage even a
vampire's ever-regenerating tissues; fortunately, Chalandra had not
taken a fatal dose, and her body was mending. They scrubbed her down
anyway, and ran diagnostics on her implants to be sure they were
functional. Most were. The Bloodchip refused all input; eventually
the techs concluded it had been irretrievably damaged and would no
longer function.
The Red Fortress did not crash, though its erratic flight path
for the next day and a half was noted with equal parts alarm and
bemusement. When it resumed normal flight, a terse statement from Red
Sky blamed terrorists in the pay of the Dying Sun, and promised
reprisals.
The statement was unsigned. No word had been said about the
deaths of Vedrik Temekhan. Neither Akane nor Alexei heard any rumors
about it in the weeks to follow, though they did hear rumblings about
internal struggles within the Dying Sun, due to the sudden absence of
their leader, Fekesh.
Fekesh. The alternate identity of Temekhan's cyborg bodyguard,
Percy McFae. The one who lured her from San Francisco to Tokyo with a
deceptively-edited tale of a computer chip that could enable a vampire
trained in the ways of internal control to change her nature, and show
the way for vampires to remain dominant in a world that had eclipsed
their old advantages. The chip was the Bloodchip, and she, like it or
not, was the vampire. Symonachadra Mataphouri, her old teacher and
lover, was the architect of the chip's programming--a fact she had to
deceive him to learn. A deception that cost him his life.
Chalandra looked at Alexei again, and saw he was looking at her.
She did not have to guess at what he was thinking.
"I won't be coming back," she said. "I can't take Symon's place
as your teacher." She paused, felt the corners of her lips curl up.
"I don't think there's anything I can teach you you don't already
know." She had tried. In the weeks following their escape from the
Red Fortress, the intimacy forged by the battle and its aftermath made
the idea of staying seem inevitable.
But every inevitability passes. Especially for a vampire.
Symon had told her that, once.
Alexei, too, showed a wry smile. "I'm sure there is something,"
he said. "But I understand." He paused, and his smile vanished. "I
don't believe Akane does."
Chalandra nodded. Though both Akane and Alexei had forgiven her
for how the mutual deception between her and Symon had swept them into
a battle that had little to do with them, Symon's death had affected
Akane in ways that grew clearer in the weeks that followed. Nor was
it as simple as blame--Akane seemed to accept that Symon had brought
his fate down on himself. But without him, she had to find a new way
of being, a way not to be found in the old places. As Chalandra spent
less and less time in Symon's lair beneath the Shodani Towers, so did
Akane.
"Do you know where she is?" Chalandra asked.
Alexei shook his head. "Though I have my suspicions. Being who
she is, and all."
Being who she is. Chalandra realized how little she really knew
about Akane, other than her skills as a dancer and a warrior. How
little Akane had revealed, even in the most intimate times.
"Who... is she, then?"
Alexei told her.

+++

The last time Chalandra had been at the top of the tallest
Shodani Tower, the surrounding Tokyo sprawl had been the last thing on
her mind. She took it in now--all the seams of light burning orange
and yellow and red, the smoke that hovered in blanketing layers over
the areas that had little use for the light, the twisting and defiant
architecture of the modern buildings that dwarfed, and in some cases
consumed, the older ones. From roughly eight thousand feet up, it had
the look of something erupting from below the surface, a light-and-
steel parasite taking over its host.
"Chal," said Akane, behind her. "Why are you here?"
Chalandra turned and regarded Akane. Gone was the leather and
the wire; she wore a tailored crimson suit in its place. Her long
black hair caught the wind and flowed toward the railing, catching the
light from the elevator door. She did not have to glance about to
know they were not alone.
"I'm leaving Tokyo," Chalandra answered. "I came to say
goodbye."
"No," Akane corrected. "You came to tell me something else."
She stepped closer. Chalandra remained where she was, at the
railing. When Akane was less than a foot away, she spoke.
"I want to make a deal. Shodani Group lets me go free. No
spying, either in person or through the net. More than that, they do
what they can to keep Red Sky off my back as well."
"And in return..."
"I give you regular updates on my progress with the Bloodchip."
"The Bloodchip scanned as inert."
"The scans were wrong."
A smile curled the edges of Akane's thin mouth. "We figured as
much," she said. "Did Alexei tell you I would be here?"
"No," Chalandra answered. "He told me who you were. I worked
out the rest for myself... Shodani Akane."
Akane nodded. "Did it surprise you...?"
"At first," Chalandra admitted. "Though it did explain why Symon
was able to hide so securely beneath Shodani's central tower. And how
you were able to get a decontam unit available to scrub me. But I
confess I can't figure what else you hoped to gain... unless you, too,
knew what Symon and Temekhan did to me."
"That's because my time with Symon had nothing to do with you,"
Akane replied. "When I met him... I was in descent. My William... a
human I loved... died. He would not let me save him, and I could not
force him to become as I am."
Chalandra nodded, and thought of the Belgian.
"I made that mistake once," Akane went on. "The Scholar... you
know him?"
"Of him. Lore gatherer and info broker out in Boston."
"More than that," said Akane. "I was there, seven decades back.
There was information that brother Kaoru... that Shodani... very much
needed. He was reticent, to the point he tried to take his own life,
and nearly succeeded. I forced the turning. He gave up what I wanted
to know." She looked away, toward the darker stretches of Tokyo.
"He's never forgiven me for that."
Chalandra remained silent, and refused to think of mistakes of
her own.
"The things we do take their toll," Akane went on. "Which is
true regardless of whether we are human or vampire. But vampires...
we... we have much longer to carry the consequences of our acts. And
that burden only grows. When Symon found me... I was ready to lay it
down." She shook her head, as if to clear it, and might have taken a
deep breath, had she needed to breathe at all. "But you're not here
to listen to my woeful tale of woe, are you?" She paused. "And I
don't expect I can convince you to stay."
"No," Chalandra said.
"Where will you go? Back to San Francisco?"
"I can't say."
"Can't? Or won't?"
"I don't know yet," said Chalandra. Now she regarded the darker
stretches. "It's not just Shodani's eyes I want to avoid. Red Sky
would love to find me again, I'm sure."
"But you will... report."
"As I agreed," Chalandra answered.
"Have you been experimenting already?"
Chalandra thought of the nights she had spent in the deepest
recesses of the city she could find, the journeys within using the
techniques taught to her by Symon in bygone decades. Traveling the
matrix within, exploring her body with the strange new eyes given her
by the Bloodchip. Temekhan had likened the changes she might cause
within herself to evolution--a metaphorical likeness, at best, but one
that pointed at his hopes to stay beyond and above mortal humans.
Symon, meanwhile, had another vision.
Chalandra took Akane's hand, and brought it to her lips. She
kissed Akane's fingertips, then lowered the hand to her chest, palm
spread over her heart. She closed her eyes. Concentrated.
Her heart beat. Once.
Akane's eyes shot open. The shock on her face was plain.
"Be seeing you," said Chalandra, as she withdrew.
As she walked to the lift from which Akane had come, the lift
that would take Chalandra to ground level and the next book of her
life, she expected Akane to call out questions, or even tell her to
stop. But no words came.
Her last view of Akane was of her back, as Akane gazed out over
the city. A suspicion formed then, in Chalandra's mind, that she
would not wait for Chalandra to tell the Bloodchip's legacy. What was
made once could be made again, and Shodani Group, more than any other
corporation, had the wherewithal to do it.
And Shodani Akane had the need. One more thing Chalandra well
understood.
Then the lift doors closed, and Chalandra's descent began.

FIN
--
Copyright (c) 2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #10

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 10
"Final Blue"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

The wind whistled through her ears and her mind as she leapt from
the window. The cold spires of the Red Fortress were barely visible
in the dim starlight, but Chalandra could feel the formations in her
head, and knew precisely where she was leaping. There was a
projection, an external sensor array designed to detect incoming air
traffic.
She missed by a fraction of an inch, striking the side of the
tower. Her right hand grasped a cable that snaked from the
projection, slowing her descent as she ripped the cable from its
moorings. There would be a catwalk twenty feet below, she realized,
and let herself fall.
As she landed, with the grace of a cat, color began to assault
her eyes. Red and blue alternating, a kaleidoscopic nightmare in her
head. Escape. She had to escape. Had to get to the primal red of
the nucleonic engines that kept this nightmare mountain aloft.
They were approaching. Chalandra withdrew, finding an alcove to
melt into. Three kyuuketsuki ninja darted past, each one looking
straight at her without seeing her. If she were to survive this, she
realized, she would have to use every trick Symon had ever taught her.
Chalandra moved again, propelled by the singular impulse that
Symon's last program, inlaid into the Bloodchip without Vedrik
Temekhan's knowledge, had instilled in her. There should have been
more, she knew. Kyuuketsuki should have been swarming over her.
Were Akane and Alexei keeping them busy? It was possible - they
had been holding their own when she had leapt from the window of the
imbedding chamber. They had been taking silent notes as Temekhan had
taken them on a tour of the Red Fortress, for reasons that Chalandra
couldn't fathom, at the time. But now, it was clear. A precise, hit
and run strategy of creating overloads in the systems might buy them
just enough distraction and time to reach a hovercar.
As if to echo her thoughts, an explosion blew out a section of
the wall farther down the spire, shooting hot, metallic debris into
the air. Chalandra watched it impact against the thin radiation
bubble that protected the vampires who ran the Fortress from the
nucleonic energy its engines produced, with a solid crash.
"Chalandra!"
Her head whipped around to see Temekhan, advancing rapidly
towards her, his massive, hirsute body tense with anger. Four
kyuuketsuki ninja accompanied him, but they kept their distance.
"Are you *quite* done?" he asked, reaching for her.
"Hardly," Chalandra spat, backing away. She could see the thin
walkway that lead across the scarlet-hued nucleonic light. If she
could reach it...
Temekhan's hand fastened over hers. She responded by cracking
him across the temple with the steel restraint that was still fastened
to her wrist. The ninjas closed in. Chalandra pushed Temekhan into
two of them, as the other two made their attack. One struck her
across the face, while the other moved to bind her arms.
They had to be under orders not to harm her. Else they wouldn't
be so tentative. Good, Chalandra thought, as the maddening impulse
rose in her again. She had no compunctions about hurting them.
With a single fluid motion, she evaded the grasp of the second
kyuuketsuki, leaping to the catwalk's railing and leaping without a
moment's hesitation. The thin metal strip that overlooked the engines
was almost below, just a few meters to the left. She landed on an
outcropping of equipment and leapt again, reaching the walkway easily.
Now, they only had one way to follow her, on the walkway. It
would take too long for them to go around the immense engines, and
surely their contingency planning hadn't extended this far...
She saw Percy McFae, waiting for her, at the halfway point. He
was quietly returning her gaze, his face not straying from his
practiced blandness, despite the fact that sparks were leaping from
the section of his neck that she had ripped away, exposing the steel,
plastic, and circuitry underneath.
No chance for retreat. Chalandra ran forward, knowing Percy
could stop her, that his strength was the power of the machine, the
immortal, ever-living, ever-consuming machine. She knew the exact
move he would make, the precise counter he would apply to her best
attack.
At the last moment, she stopped, halting in front of him. His
hand flew up, as if anticipating another move, and he stopped.
Chalandra could have sworn that McFae looked a bit confused, for the
first time since she had met him, an age ago, in San Francisco.
Taking advantage, she swung the restraint chained to her wrist,
catching him in the eye. Despite the damage, he caught the restraint,
and snapped the chain between his fingers.
"Really, Ms. Harkness, this is rather unseemly," he said, in an
unperturbed tone. "You really don't have any choice in this matter."
She swung at him, but he caught her arm and pulled her brutally
closer. He was leaving his neck open, she realized. The sparks from
the small chunk she had ripped away were still evident, though they
didn't seem to be causing him any discomfort.
Letting out a low, savage hiss, she bared her fangs at him. He
seemed unimpressed.
"My blood is entirely synthetic, now," he told her. "I doubt
you'd get much nourishment from it, though you're welcome to try."
Still, he made no move to protect his neck.
"Ah, but I'm not just a vampire any more, am I?" Chalandra asked.
"No more than you're just an arrogant, tin plated bastard." She
lunged forward, burying her fangs into the surging energy of his
exposed circuitry. Neuroelectric energy slammed into her mind and
body, voltage flashing through her system like bad acid.
A second later, she pushed him away, as electric blue dots
bubbled in front of her eyes. There was a look of pain in his eyes
now, and perhaps even a bit of fear. He sank to his knees, seemingly
unable to move.
She felt sick. For the first time in centuries, she could feel
the nausea trying to force its way out. But it wasn't real. It was
the chemicals they stuffed in her body, the wiring they laid in, the
crackling of her nervous system as the last of the raw energy
dissipated. Everything looked blue now. Like a goddamn electric
rose.
Temekhan's hand grabbed her shoulder, and she spun around,
hammering his side with an elbow. Something was screaming in the air,
rising above the howl of the night and the hiss of static across her
frontal lobes. Temekhan felt it too, and looked up.
Something was descending from the stars, roaring, screaming, out
of control. Chalandra recognized it - a hovercar, in a direct dive.
There was no pilot inside that she could see, as it bore down on them.
He pushed her out of the way as the hovercar hit, shearing
through the walkway like paper. Seconds later, it hit the protective
radiation shield, shattering it, exploding before impacting the
engines themselves. Hot red light rose from the primal pit, bathing
Chalandra in radiation as she struggled to hang onto what remained of
the walkway, as it bent and started to crumple, down towards the
exposed core.
"No," she heard Temekhan say. His hand grabbed her ankle, and
she looked back, to see him hanging half on, half off the jagged metal
edge of the walkway, his body almost obscured by the red light. "You
need me...need me to guide the future of our kind..."
"I don't want your future, damn it," Chalandra growled back at
him, as the support she was clinging to gave way. She cried out as
she slid down, finally catching a twisted section of ripped steel
before going over the edge. The metal cut into her hand, though she
felt no pain. "The rule of the chip now is the same as the rule of
law was then. It kills, Vedrik. Kills everything that's worth living
for."
"Foolish child," he replied, as his other hand gripped her leg.
Brutal determination was etched across his face, a determination to
climb up and begin again, with another subject, if necessary. After
all, what was time to a vampire? "Before this century, the government
of law was the government of lawyers. Today, we have the rule of the
chip. But that's nothing more than the rule of the chip's
programmers. You and I, Chalandra. We can guide the future evolution
of our kind, ensure that we remain forever above mortal reach. We ARE
the future, Chalandra!"
"I may be the future, you pompous bastard..." Chalandra hissed,
as her boot slammed into the hand clutching at her leg. It fell away,
too weak to resist. He held on by one hand, around her ankle, a look
of desperation appearing in his eyes.
"...but you..."
KRAK! Her boot heel slammed into his fingers, breaking bone,
from the sound of it. The screaming rose in her mind again.
"...are..."
KRAK!
"...HISTORY!!"
KRAK! Her last blow snapped his wrist, forcing him to let go.
He didn't scream as he fell. He just watched her, his face sad and
pained. Then the red light swallowed him up, as he fell into the
primal nucleonic reactionstorm below.
Chalandra felt weak, drained. She had no strength left inside.
Already, she could feel her hand letting go, as the metal cut into her
tendons. Six centuries of unlife, about to end...
The screaming in her head became a gust of wind, and she opened
her eyes to see a second hovercar hovering next to her. The hatch was
open, and Alexei was reaching out to her, as far as the safety tether
around his waist would let him. Chalandra saw Akane in the pilot's
chair, watching her controls. The radiation had to be making piloting
very tricky.
Alexei grabbed her free hand. Chalandra let go with her other
hand, and fell, only to be pulled back up by the beautiful blond
Russian vampire, into the hovercar. The roar of wind stopped as the
hatch closed behind them.
"I have her!" Alexei shouted to Akane. "Go!"
Akane nodded, and lifted away from the nucleonic pit. Chalandra
could see explosions burning in three of the spires, explosions she
had not seen before.
"What the...fuck did you do...?" she asked.
"Tell you about it once we're out of here," Akane said to her.
They were lifting above the spires of the Red Fortress. The guns of
the Fortress were silent, and no hovercars rushed out to challenge
their departure. Then they were falling, falling away from the dark,
burning mountain and towards the night-shrouded Earth below.
Chalandra closed her eyes, falling into delirium again. The
image of the electric blue rose came to her, a final time, before
fading.

(to be concluded...)
--
Copyright (c) 1994-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
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aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #9

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 9
"Bloom"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

The quiet, gentle sound of rain came to Chalandra Harkness, as
she descended into delirium. Somewhere outside her mind, she
remembered that she had seen the Bloodchip, which had triggered a
prepared chemical reaction inside her body, a reaction engineered by
Vedrik Temekhan five decades before. Even now, microphase scalpels
were opening up her head, to get to the cybernetic implants inside, so
that the Bloodchip could be physically installed.
Inside her head, however, there was only the sound of rain.
A room formed inside her mind, a room that felt somehow familiar,
despite its antiquity. Chalandra recognized it immediately - it was
the room that she had lived in in England in the late sixteenth
century. When she had been alive.
It was illusion, she realized. A projection created by her
tortured synapses, to distract her from what was happening. Chalandra
tried to tell herself that she was on the Red Fortress, Red Sky's
floating nightmare that hovered above the lands below, remote and
inaccessible, and that there was no way she would ever see those lands
again.
She touched the heavy oak table in front of her. It felt real.
God, it even smelled real.
Chalandra took a breath. She could breathe. Her tongue flicked
over her teeth, but could not find the sharp fangs that allowed her to
feed on the blood of mortals. Her heart was beating inside her, the
feel of the blood flowing through her body like a cataract.
There was no window in the room, but there was a heavy door, from
which the quiet sounds of rain were coming. She stood, knocking over
the chair she had been sitting on as she raced towards it. Alive.
She was alive.
Snarling, Chalandra threw open the lockbolt and forced the door
open, stumbling outside to the rain. It was day outside, she saw,
though the sky was overcast with clouds. She let the rain soak into
her, chilling her living skin with wetness.
"Nice day for a walk, don't you agree?" a voice asked her.
Symonachadra Mataphouri materialized in front of her, dressed in the
blue blouse and black trousers he had been wearing the century before,
when she had first met him, in Tokyo.
"Symon..." Chalandra whispered. "What is happening to me...?"
"Relax," Symon told her. "Mnemonic image release is a side-
effect of the initial implantation operation. The best part, if you
ask me."
"Why did you do this to me?" Chalandra asked, her voice growing
louder. She grabbed him by the throat and pulled him closer. "WHY?"
"We needed a test subject," Symon told her, unfazed. "But not
any vampire would do. Our subject had to understand body magic, had
to know the subtle and ever-changing music of the flesh, of the
spirit, of the random nature of order and the plan behind chaos, and
the balance needed to survive this knowledge.
"Why, Symon?" Chalandra asked. "Why do you need that? Doesn't
your precious Bloodchip Matrix do all the work?"
"It is just a conduit, an engine to effect the changes," Symon
replied. Chalandra could feel the skies growing dark around her, as
the rain became thicker and more violent. "The Bloodchip was made to
enable the subject to control her own evolution, to create new
pathways, to adapt to circumstances that even we cannot imagine. It
is not something breathers can use - their lives are far, far too
short to even begin to make changes in their physical structure in
this fashion. But you are a child of the night, immortal in every
relevant sense of the word. You can learn to make the changes that
will show up, centuries later, as the wiring and chemicals we
installed into your undead body transmit their instructions.
"But you can only do this if you have the understanding of your
body that is necessary to change exactly what must be changed, *only*
what must be changed, and in the right measure. This is where your
studies under my tutelage come in. You must understand your body on a
cellular level, must be able to see the natural magic that is infused
in every molecule, the magic that will change with every subtle
alteration you make."
"You told me," Chalandra replied. "'Change what something
applies to, and you change the application.' Every genetic
modification I make will affect the natural magic that makes me what I
am - vampire."
"You must take great care in what changes you make," Symon told
her, as the rain thickened further, and the sky had become a dark
shroud. "You must be a shaman, unafraid to journey deep within, to
dissolve the boundaries between the old magic and the new. The
Bloodchip is the key, and the Matrix is the lock."
Chalandra realized that the rain had become blood, blood that was
soaking her body with life, drowning it in a sea of quantum red.
"As you may have realized," Symon told her, "I am an interactive
program placed in the Bloodchip by Symon, at the hour of final inlay,
before Fekesh is to steal the chip from Red Sky. He placed me here to
explain, in case he could not. You see...a curious thing happened, as
he prepared you over five decades for receipt of the chip. He fell in
love with you."
"I know," Chalandra replied. "That's why I ran away."
"His aims did not mesh with those of Vedrik Temekhan," Symon
said. "Vedrik developed the chip out of fear. He feared that mortals
were catching up to our kind, using the new magic of technology as a
gradual bridge to immortality. His work, in fact, was hastening that
end. By introducing DarkNET, by making cybernetic implants as
available as cellular phones two centuries before, he was hastening
the transformation of life."
Chalandra could feel her heartbeat lessening, growing still
inside her body. Her body was dying, growing cold as the hot blood
pounded her skin. She tried to see Symon, through the sheets of red,
but could not.
"Temekhan wished to keep our kind above mortals, separate and
superior," Symon's voice came to her, through the red haze. "The
Bloodchip would allow us to forever stay one step beyond mortal
evolution, to keep an edge that they do not have."
"And you helped him?" Chalandra asked.
"Our evolution is important," Symon told her. "Even though I
could not agree with his planned usage. What you learn through the
changes you make can be given to mortals, hastening their evolution as
well. Perhaps one day, our two separate evolutionary tracks can merge
again. We would both be stronger for it.
"When I fell in love with you, I knew what I had to do. I could
not force you to take the Bloodchip, as Temekhan wished. I planned
with Fekesh to steal the chip, with the idea that I would explain to
you what I had done, and let you make the decision of whether or not
to accept it. I...never got to make that explanation, obviously."
"I had been long gone, out of Tokyo," Chalandra said.
"Chalandra, you must survive," Symon told her. "You must escape
this Red Fortress, and survive. Temekhan put a test program in the
chip, one that will record the changes you make. During this time,
you will be kept imprisoned. Once he has enough data to satisfy him,
likely only a century hence, he will destroy you, and will put the
chip into mass production. He must not be the one who guides the
future of our kind."
"Symon..." Chalandra started. The liquid red was parting, and
she could see him again, coated in blood, smiling softly.
"The implantation is complete," Symon told her. "The program is
installed, and your implants have been again sealed up under your
flesh and skin and bone. You have become the one you fear the most -
the Chalandra Harkness who is the shaman, the rider of the sine wave,
the bloom of the electric blue flower of the cybernetic garden.
Escape."
She pulled him forward, kissing him savagely, even as she felt
him dissolving back into the delirium that had spawned him. Chalandra
pulled back and looked into his eyes.
He smiled. Five seconds later, his head exploded, showering
freshly cut electric blue flowers everywhere.

+++

"She's coming around..." McFae's voice.
The blood was boiling inside her. Was it blood, or her
imagination?
Escape.
"Please, my dear Ms. Harkness, do not struggle." Temekhan's
voice.
The implantation chamber sprang into Chalandra's vision, skipping
and weaving like a drunkard. Symon's body was staked to the far wall,
nestled in a glowing bed of electric blue roses, while his head rested
in the flower bed below, staring blankly. Escape. Akane and Alexei
were standing to the side, guarded by two kyuuketsuki ninja. They
seemed loose, but Chalandra could sense that both were ready to move
in an instant.
Vedrik Temekhan towered above her, watching her with a mixture of
curiosity and fear. Percy McFae, or Fekesh as he was sometimes
called, stood in the background, watching impassively.
Escape.
Chalandra lunged at Temekhan, fangs glistening in the cold blue.
She felt the twisted rending of the metal as she tore through the
restraints, the thoughts in her head bending to the singular message
pulsing through every synapse. Escape. Escape.
Temekhan was stumbling back, and McFae was moving forward, his
steel hands already grabbing a hold of her left shoulder, trying to
force her back. Her right hand went for his throat, fingers burrowing
deep into the synthetic folds, as far as the steel would permit.
Chalandra clutched her fingers and ripped back.
Escape.
McFae cried in pain as sparks leapt from his neck, as Chalandra
tore out wires and steel plating. She pushed him back and spun away
as Temekhan lunged at her, her combat skills taking over. Her boot
connected with his sternum, and a powerful backhand, using part of the
steel restraint that was still tied to her wrist, sent him sprawling.
Chalandra saw Akane dancing, and saw the ninjas falling as she
used the monomolecular garrote that she had taken from one of them
against the rest. Escape. Unlike the previous dance she had seen,
this was a dance of war, with every twisting, sensuous movement
bringing death to her undead attackers. Alexei was using the stakes
that the kyuuketsuki carried against them, finishing what Akane was
starting.
Escape.
There were windows in this place, in addition to the great
skylight that was allowing in the light, the blood, of the stars.
Chalandra smashed through one of them with the steel plating of her
former restraint, and gazed on the small city below her. A city of
vampires, forever shrouded in night. Each one her enemy. Where could
she go, that they would not follow?
She saw the light of the nucleonic engines, rising up from the
center of the Red Fortress, a shaft of burning light from a primal
domain. Yes, she would escape there. They would not get her there,
in the heart of the primal red light.
Escape.
She leapt from the window, from the majestic spire, feeling the
light that felt like blood rain on her from the stars.

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1994-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
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aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #8

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 8
"The Belly of the Beast"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

Chalandra could feel the omnipresent hum from her dreams all
around her, penetrating her cells like an unending, unvarying song.
Only here, it was no dream - it was a nightmare turned real.
Everywhere she looked, she saw black or silver plated steel,
stretching hundreds of yards to the far end of the landing bay.
"I apologize for the rather spartan look of this bay," Temekhan
said to them all, though to Chalandra, it felt like he was talking
just to her, his eyes were fixed in her direction. He took her hand,
and she closed her fingers around his. "It's an auxiliary bay, not
one regularly used for personnel transfer."
"Impressive," Symonachandra said, unnecessarily. "Is the whole
Fortress like this?"
"No," Temekhan replied. "The rest...well, you shall see that for
yourself. Come! We will begin the tour I promised." He offered his
arm to Chalandra, and after a moment's hesitation, she took it. They
proceeded towards a lift set into the near wall of the bay, followed
by Symonachandra, Akane, and Alexei. Percy McFae, or Fekesh, as he
was sometimes known, was the last to board the lift. Chalandra
wondered at the fact that Temekhan would allow himself to be alone on
a lift with three who had ill will against him and no compunctions
against carrying it out, with only McFae as a defense. Surely, in the
corridors and labs of the Red Fortress, there would be kyuuketsuki
ninja armed with stake and monomolecular garrote who could emerge from
hiding in an instant to quell any uprising. But on a lift?
Again, she sensed something not quite mortal about McFae. He was
not a vampire, but neither was he a breather, at least, not in the
ordinary sense of the word. Quietly, she wondered just what the hell
he was.
The lift doors closed, and with the barest sensation, the lift
rose.

+++

The red glow rose from around them, a boiling fire that seemed
like the pits of hell of the old religions opened up to receive them.
The red light lit up the steel spires that vaulted upwards on every
side, towards the red haze that was the sky.
"What you see below," Temekhan told them, "is the continuous
nucleonic reaction that powers the massive engines of this vessel. It
keeps my floating city aloft, keeps it moving counter to the spin of
the Earth, so as to stay perpetually in the shadow of night."
"The nucleonic plants in Tokyo aren't as large as this," Alexei
commented, his voice subdued, touched with awe, but no fear.
"They don't have to be," Akane added. "They don't have to power
a mountain."
Chalandra gazed at the reactions, feeling an odd familiarity, one
that had been growing ever since she had arrived on the Red Fortress,
as Temekhan's guest and prisoner. Leaning over the railing of the
small walkway that connected two huge spires, one at either edge of
the Fortress, she could see a faint reflection overlaying the ongoing
reactions.
"A radiation shield," she surmised.
"Yes," Temekhan said, seeming pleased that she had noticed the
almost indistinguishable bubble that sealed off the reaction process.
"It filters out the harmful aspects of the reaction, and dims the
light to an acceptable level. It also prevents accidental plunges
into the heart of the engines, which I assure you is fatal, even for
our kind."
"You've shown us many marvels, on this tour," Chalandra said to
Temekhan. "Is this the last marvel we are to see?"
"We have yet to reach the final destination of our tour,"
Temekhan answered her, his eyes fixing on hers. "When we reach it,
the last of your questions will be answered."
Chalandra did not reply, but walked with Temekhan, as they
proceeded towards the tallest spire that rose from the huge main body
of the Fortress. The metal she walked upon felt like a thin strip of
an old bridge above the altar of Shiva, and she was glad when they
entered the tower, and the steel door shut behind them.
The comments Alexei and Akane had made were the first they had
made since they had arrived on the Fortress. But they had not been
inactive. Chalandra had noticed how they monitored the details of
what they were shown, particularly the details of how the engines were
kept under control, and from where those processes were controlled.
Did they actually believe they had a chance to escape from this
place? That they could overwhelm the kyuuketsuki ninjas who followed
their every move like a silent cloud?
"I have ordered that the Fortress rise to an increased
elevation," Temekhan told her, conversationally. "You may enjoy the
view."
They boarded another lift. Again, McFae was the last to board,
and the only security for Temekhan that Chalandra could consciously
detect. The lift rose, silently.

+++

The room they had entered was strangely reminiscent of the place
Chalandra had first met Temekhan. Electric blue roses surrounded
them, covering the walls of the spacious, circular chamber with their
eerie glow. The roof of the chamber was transparent, and Chalandra
could see the red haze of the clouds, very close, now, getting closer.
Five kyuuketsuki ninja stood at equidistant points from the
center, silent, almost apologetic sentries in a place that even they
could find no place of concealment. Nothing could hide from the
roses.
There was a table in the center of the chamber, with an array of
electronic equipment fanning out from it, like the wings and pincers
of a monstrous cybernetic insect. There were no lights suspended
above the table. Only the light from the light strips suspended above
the electric blue roses, and the red glow from the red sky above,
provided light. It was more than enough.
"Tell me, my dear," Temekhan said, releasing Chalandra's arm,
"what do you think of life and death in this century?"
"I'm given to understand that both still exist," Chalandra
answered.
"But not as we once knew them," Temekhan replied. "Even a
century ago, they were changing, with the emergence of the net.
Electronics wove themselves into the fabric of the living, fiber-optic
tendrils destroying the meaning of distance, destroying the very
notion of barriers. When Red Sky introduced DarkNET, the process was
completed, making the world a single room."
"I'm well aware of your place in the cybernetic revolution,"
Chalandra said. "I was there, after all, after a fashion."
"It was more than a revolution in cybernetics," Temekhan told
her, pacing towards the wall, and the ozone haze of the electric blue
roses. "It was the most significant event in the evolution of mortal
humans in millennia. The most significant because it is the key to
further control of evolution."
"One of our points of agreement," Symonachandra interrupted, "is
that the blind track of evolution is at an end. The slow process of
natural physical adaptation has not been able to keep pace with the
rapid alteration of the physical and mental landscape. The real
revolution was in turning the reins of change over to those being
changed."
"You say that it's been an evolution for mortal humans,"
Chalandra spoke. "What about our kind? It's had a tremendous effect
on us, as well."
"Not to as great a degree as you might think," Temekhan replied.
"The net has united the world, but it has also fragmented it like
nothing ever has before. Technology unites, but it also isolates. It
is a cold medium, a medium of illusions and masks. In cyberspace,
there are no boundaries. Anything is possible. One can take on any
form, any persona, in dealing with others. The laws of form, of cause
and effect, are suspended, made obsolete. One becomes invulnerable to
real harm, isolated from real contact, feeding on the electric blue
datastreams to gain strength in the form of information. And one only
has to leave when the physical body demands sleep."
Temekhan turned from the wall, and fixed another gaze on
Chalandra.
"Tell me, my dear," he said, his graveled voice low and
predatory, "does that sound familiar to you?"
"The life of a vampire," Chalandra answered, "is a life of
isolation, no matter how many people he surrounds himself with.
Immortality can destroy the walls of time and space because it is its
own wall. We must change identities, change masks, to survive the
centuries. We must feed on blood, and sleep at the rise of the sun.
We are part of all around us, yet separate."
"The old magic and the new magic are not so different, you see,"
Temekhan said. "The mortals are beginning to blur their own
mortality, by wiring themselves into the immortal net. What we take
from blood, they will take from the machine, forming a synergy between
the two.
"For millennia, we of the night have had what the mortals have
not. It set us apart, our special evolution, placed us far above
their lot. And yet, it seems that our evolutionary offshoot has
become a dead end. The mortals are catching up to us, and, sometime
in the centuries to come, they will surpass us. Our immortality, our
increased strength, our lack of need for food or drink or air to
breathe will no longer be an edge. In a world where mortality has
lost its meaning, our nature will become our weakness.
"That is why I developed the Bloodchip."
"Building a better vampire," Chalandra said, smiling slightly.
"What does your chip do, exactly? Take away vulnerability to
sunlight?"
"That may be a result," Temekhan said. "It depends on how the
test subject responds and interprets the Bloodchip program, on how
well the Bloodchip Matrix controls the evolution of the body over the
centuries the program will operate." He walked closer, his eyes
burning. "You remember how I told you I grew my roses. Study,
experimentation, genetic modification, and patience. Being gifted
with eternal life, I could afford to wait the decades that it would
take for the test subject to assimilate the Bloodchip Matrix, the
genetic modifications required to take the program from the Bloodchip
and write it into the structure of the test subject itself. An
assimilation that is now complete. But first..."
He made a single gesture. Two kyuuketsuki ninja grabbed
Symonachandra and slammed him into the nearby wall of roses. In a
blur of motion too fluid to see, let alone stop, one produced a
sharpened stake and drove it into Symonachandra's heart, burying it to
the hilt. Symon's eyes widened, but he did not scream. He looked at
Chalandra silently, pleading, not for assistance, but for forgiveness.
With a second fluid motion, the other ninja looped a
monomolecular garrote around Symonachandra's neck. The wire was
comprised of single molecules, joined in a line. It had no breadth,
and could cut through anything.
Symon's head landed in the bed of electric blue roses at the base
of the wall, staining the energetic blue with dark ichor. The
kyuuketsuki ninjas moved away from the body, leaving it suspended in
the artificial garden of blue, stake driven into the soft metal that
had been designed with such slayings in mind.
Something snapped inside Chalandra's mind. She leapt at
Temekhan, fangs bared, a scream of pain and rage and fury ripping from
her throat. Temekhan did not move an inch. He didn't need to.
The arm grabbed her by the throat, catching her in mid-leap.
Violently, she backhanded the one who had caught her, a blow that
would have taken the head off a mortal.
Percy McFae just smiled at her, blandly. "Below my organic
epidermis is a titanium alloy frame, with motorized kinetic
enhancement." She struggled, trying to wrest his arm from her neck.
"Over sixty percent of my body is now synthetic. I am the goal of
mortal evolution, and your strength is no match for mine."
He lifted her body, and forcibly placed her on the table.
Chalandra felt hidden restraints rising from the table to hold her, to
bond her legs and arms. With a final burst, she lunged for McFae's
neck, fangs gleaming in the blue light from the orchards. McFae
simply grabbed her throat again and slammed her back down. A
restraint rose from the table, replacing his hand.
"I don't need your immortality, Ms. Harkness," he said, politely,
as he stepped back. "I have my own."
"An admirable creation, is he not?" Temekhan asked, leaning over
Chalandra. "It took nearly a century to perfect him. It will take a
lot longer to perfect you, however.
"I killed Symonachandra Mataphouri because he betrayed me, twice.
His second betrayal you already know, when he allowed the Bloodchip to
be stolen. Of course, since McFae was Fekesh, I had never really lost
the chip, but it is the principle that counts.
"The first betrayal was the most damaging. It was when he
allowed you to escape Tokyo, half a century ago. I nearly killed him
then - I would have, if I hadn't needed him to complete the
programming. But the fool had fallen in love with you, and let his
defenses down. And you were far stronger than any of us had given you
credit for."
Chalandra could see the sky. It was all she could see, besides
Temekhan's face. They were rising through the red haze that was the
sky. And above...above...
The stars were emerging. The bloody stars of her dreams were
emerging.
"You remember this place now, don't you?" Temekhan asked, as he
pressed some buttons. Machinery hummed, filling Chalandra's body with
its song. "You have been here before, you know. All you remember of
it is that it was when your library chip and neural input jacks were
implanted, to allow you access to cyberspace. But much more was done
than that. You were brought here, to the Red Fortress, by Symon and I
for special treatment. We implanted a special program into you, a
program that required decades for maturation."
"I know," Chalandra said, her voice small and quiet. "I've
always known. I just never...consciously...realized..."
"That is why we needed to bring you here, why you were the key,"
Temekhan told her. Machinery hummed, bringing a thin, red wafer-
shaped object into her vision. Its blood-red hue was tinged with the
blue from the roses. "The test subject is you, of course."
Chalandra felt her body going numb, as chemicals implanted inside
her decades ago were released. The sight of the chip was the
conditioned trigger, she realized. To keep her still...for
implantation.
"You are the Bloodchip Matrix," Temekhan told her. Chalandra
felt her consciousness slipping, as the vision of the electric blue
rose blossomed over the face of the Bloodchip. The rose was the
Matrix, and the Matrix was the door through which the one she most
feared would arrive.
The blood was raining from the stars now, raining into the
electric blue rose, into the Bloodchip, into the Matrix, into her.
The omnipresent hum of machinery surrounded her, and the someone she
feared had arrived.
She stared into her own eyes, as the electric blue overwhelmed
her mind.

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1994-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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