V. Moody's Blog, page 16

Book 2 – 98: Born to Kill

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Level 7.

 

Ubik was very pleased with how things were going. He had expected a little difficulty when they found Ramon Ollo, some kind of extra-effort security measures by the warring aliens to keep him under their influence.

That’s what he would have done if he had the preeminent scientist of recent times under a glass case — keep him nice and secure, off the ground to avoid water damage, in a sealed container to avoid exposure to air.

Big locks, impenetrable packaging, couple of top-level technician droids with multifire laser attachments.

But these warring aliens weren’t even trying. That’s what being top dog in the galaxy for several millennia got you — overconfidence.

Not only were there no guards on duty, Nifell had suddenly appeared with an army of nanodrones to help with the restoration of Ramon Ollo. How had the Antecessors allowed him to slip past their defences? Shoddy.

The nanodrones swarmed over the encased Ramon Ollo, eating the transparent cover as fast as it was being replaced. The thin film seemed to be made of a self-regenerating material that shimmered every time its bonds were broken, quickly reforming them. The nanodrones kept eating, the cover kept coming back. The unremovable object had met the insatiably hungry force.

“What are these things?” said Chukka. She looked disgusted. Ubik was sure her reaction would be quite different if she knew the financial value of just one self-replicating nanodrone. The illegality of the tiny creatures would only make her salivate more.

“Stay back,” said Ubik. “They’re very dangerous. Eat through anything.”

“Won’t they eat him, then?” said Bashir, his disgust couched in fear.

“No, they’re programmed not to harm any of the Ollos,” explained Ubik. “Fig’s immune, too. And I also have a special relationship with them. We go way back.” Ubik bent down to pick up a nanodrone that had fallen off the main heap and was going around in circles. “See? We’re old budd—ah, shit, damn.”

Ubik threw the little critter away as it bit his finger. The cuff of his sleeve began to disappear. He took off his top and hurled it to the ground where it rapidly began shrinking.

“That one seems to be bugged.” Ubik put his bleeding finger in his mouth and sucked it.

Fig bent down and picked up the remaining threads of Ubik’s jacket and plucked one of the many nanodrones still consuming it.

“I think he modified it,” said Fig, looking concerned. “It looks a bit… manic. Are you sure they won’t harm my father?”

“Of course they won’t,” said Ubik. “Nif came to help, didn’t you, Nif?”

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you all,” sobbed Nifell, on his knees, his forehead touching the ground which he was pounding with his fists.

“No, you won’t,” said Ubik.

“I will. I bloody will,” Nifell insisted to the floor.

“You think you’re angry but really you’re just hungry,” said Ubik. “Low blood sugar, it makes everyone a bit moody.”

Niffel leaned back and wailed, an unintelligible roar now aimed at the roof. His suit would have kept him hydrated but he really needed a hot meal. He would feel much better with something in his stomach.

“You have some kind of emergency rations, right?” Ubik said to Weyla.

She looked at him like she had a huge stash she had no intention of sharing with anyone. Her tongue rolled around inside her mouth, picking bits of food out of her teeth, probably.

“It’s an emergency,” said Ubik. “For him. He’ll keep crying like that until he gets fed.”

The Seneca Corps weren’t known for their charity. They didn’t drop food packages to the survivors of their attacks. Optics meant nothing to them. And also, there usually weren’t any survivors.

“Protein bars, I bet,” said Ubik. “Fruity flavours for you. Some sort of seaweed that tastes disgusting for her.”

Neither woman looked impressed by his guess. He was right though, he could tell.

“Order them to cough up,” Ubik said to Fig.

“They don’t follow my orders,” said Fig.

“Tell them you’ll snitch on them to your mother,” said Ubik. “They’re all terrified of her, aren’t they?”

Fig’s mouth went wonky with indecision. He really had to learn how to use his status to his advantage. What was the point of living a privileged life if you weren’t willing to use it against people? Seemed a complete waste.

Fig looked at Nifell who had gone quiet, his body shuddering.

“Do you have any food?” said Fig to the women. “I can pay—”

Weyla threw a small block of something brown at Fig. Some people got everything handed to them without even trying. Fig handed Ubik the bar. It smelled like dates.

“Here you go, Nif, old pal.” Ubik held out the bar and waved it in front of Nifell’s face. He didn’t seem to notice, his eyes staring without seeing. Ubik pressed it to his mouth and his nose twitched. He snatched it out of Ubik’s hand and scrambled into a corner to stuff into his mouth.

“There you go. He’ll be fine now.” Ubik turned back to Fig. “You should ask them for more, I bet they’ve got plenty. Hoarders like the Corps don’t like anyone to know how much stuff they’ve got in case someone points out how selfish they are. Hurts their feelings.”

“It’s not selfish to take care of yourself,” said Fig. Sadly, his mother being part of the Corps had made him into a Seneca apologist.

“Being miserly isn’t an admirable attribute,” said Ubik.

“We aren’t misers,” said Leyla, her face screwed up. The truth was often painful.

“See what I mean?” said Ubik.

“Can’t we bring him in unconscious?” said Weyla.

There was a loud crash as the cover over Ramon Ollo shattered. The nanodrones fell on Ramon Ollo’s body and rushed to cover him like a shroud. Thousands of nanodrones crawled inside his spacesuit.

“I’ve never seen them do that before,” said Fig.

“They’ve never had to,” said Ubik. “They’re trying to revive him. It’s good, saves us the trouble. Your dad really does think of everything. You should have faith in his creations.”

“I do,” said Fig. “You’re sure the asteroid’s network won’t suffer some kind of catastrophic collapse if they manage to get his consciousness back in his body?”

“Almost fifty percent certain,” said Ubik, grinning. He would put it a lot higher than that but low odds were more exciting, and everyone liked excitement.

Everyone stared at the nanodrones, waiting. Everyone apart from Nifell, who was huddled in the corner.

The nanodrones began falling off Ramon, revealing a freshly shaved face and trimmed hair. Why bring someone back from the dead looking scruffy? He really did think of everything.

Ramon Ollo’s eyes opened. He sat up and winced.

“Father?” said Fig.

Ramon turned his head to look at his son. His eyes widened. His mouth went up at the corners and broke into a toothsome smile.

“Figaro?” he said with surprising gusto. “You came.” He threw up his hands jubilantly — inert nanodrones went flying across the room.

“Yes, Father.”

“How wonderful.” Ramon turned so his legs fell off the table onto the floor and he stood up. He immediately put his hands on Fig’s shoulders and looked him in the face. “I am very proud of you. Well done.” He wrapped his arms around Fig.

Ubik could tell Fig was surprised by his father’s behaviour, and uncomfortable in his embrace. Some people had a hard time accepting affection. He gave Fig a thumbs up to let him know everything was going to be okay. Some people did a lot better with a firm lie to support them. And the asteroid hadn’t exploded or anything, so that was a bonus.

Ramon pushed Fig back to get a better look at him. “You’ve come at the perfect time. And who are your friends? Oh, Seneca Corps if I’m not mistaken.” He went over to the two Seneca women and shook their hands vigorously. “Did my wife send you? Good of her. Such a thoughtful spouse. The best.”

He turned to face Chukka. “More friends.” He threw his arms open and hugged her.

“That isn’t how my father usually behaves,” muttered Fig. “I think this is what was left of his mind after they took the other parts out.”

“He’s still functional,” said Ubik. “Who knows, maybe this version of him is the smartest of them all. It’s a lot more friendly.”

“I’ve never seen this side of him,” said Fig.

“Well, everyone has a warm soft side. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Not unless you were made in a petri dish. PT was, that’s why he’s so grumpy. Raised in a vat of amniotic fluid.”

Ubik waited for PT to interrupt with a forceful denial. He didn’t, which probably meant he had encountered some kind of problem. Not entirely unexpected, but there wasn’t much Ubik could do about it. PT would have to take care of it himself, which he was very good at. That’s what being grown in a jar did for you.

“And you,” said Ramon as he walked up to Ubik. “You must be…” For the first time, Ramon Ollo’s smile slipped. It was like he had just remembered he’d forgotten something but had no idea what.

“I’m Ubik.” He shook Ramon’s hand and kept shaking it. Nanodrones fell from the sleeve. “I’m hoping we can work together to bring the asteroid under control. It’s been acting up.”

“Asteroid?”

“Yes,” said Ubik. “This asteroid. Your asteroid.”

Ramon checked his surroundings and his eyes lit up. “Ah, yes. We won’t be needing this old rock any—” He stopped and stared at Ubik’s hand. “That… I don’t recognise the species.”

Ubik lifted up his arm. The organism pulsated. “This? It’s an organic, I think. A variant. What do you think?” He pushed it towards Ramon’s face. The tip of the snake-like creature rose up and swayed from side to side.”

“Beautiful,” said Ramon. “Oh yes, I see, this is just a baby, but once it’s fully grown… the possibilities will be quite dramatic. No time for that right now, though. Figaro, where are you?” He spun around. “Ah, there you are. We have to be going.”

“Going?” said Fig. “Going where?”

Ramon had Fig by the arm, which he raised, revealing the bracelet on his wrist. “Yes, yes, this will be a problem.” He moved the bracelet closer to his face for a better look. “Doctor Yune’s work, I see. We’ll have to remove it.”

“We will?” said Fig. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Well, there’s a risk, but we can’t miss an opportunity like this, can we?” Ramon had his hands on Fig’s shoulders and his knees were bent just enough for their eyes to be level. He was talking to his child. “The Intercessors have arranged everything perfectly for you. They open the door, you walk through.”

“But what is it they want, Father?” said Fig. He didn’t seem upset to be treated like a toddler. It was his father, so that might be it. But no, Fig was actually playing along, acting the innocent to get his father to reveal information. This Ramon Ollo certainly wasn’t the smartest of them all.

“What does anyone want?” said Ramon. “They want to be happy, they want to be safe. There’s an entity who will destroy them and us if we allow it to. It was their creator, a being of immense power, but now it wants to use them — to use all of us — to open its own door that will lead it, not us, to happiness and safety.”

“We have to pick a door?” said Fig.

“Exactly,” said Ramon.

“And you want to send me through it?”

“Right.”

“Without my bracelet. And then I activate my organic and I destroy the entity on the other side?”

“That is a wonderful, noble idea,” said Ramon. “You really are the best son I could ever hope for.” He was almost tearful at the thought of his son’s sacrifice.

“I don’t think Mother would like that,” said Fig.

Ramon looked baffled by this revelation. Ubik knew an imminent short circuit when he saw one.

“Oh, now you’re willing to hide behind your mother,” said Ubik. “Don’t worry, Mr Ollo, I think your plan is the perfect solution to all our problems. Where’s this door we need to send your precious son through?” He pushed past Fig, giving him a look.

It was all very well roleplaying the meek child who needed convincing to do what he was being asked, but there were quicker ways to get answers. This version of Ramon Ollo might be affectionate and filled with enthusiasm for terrible ideas but he was also quite dim. You didn’t have to bother debating things with dim people. You just had to make them think you agreed with their stupid ideas.

“The door?” said Ramon. “We can’t go through it at the moment. It isn’t open yet. But it will be, soon. They’re almost here.”

“Who?” asked Fig.

“The Antecessors,” said Ubik. “They’re the ones who have the door opening technology, aren’t they?”

“That’s right,” said Ramon, pleased to have someone see things his way. “We just have to wait for them.”

So that was their plan. Call the Antecessors, let them think they were opening the door so they could send their creator the key to his freedom — Fig.

Only, Fig wouldn’t be a key, he would be a bomb.

“Great,” said Ubik. “Sounds like a plan.”

Book 2 – 97: Between Floors

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Elevator Shaft.

 

 

Figaro was surrounded by goblins, all of whom were paying him no attention. Figaro had been in elevators where the occupants ignored each other, but never quite like this. It was fascinating to have discovered an unknown alien lifeform, and then to be riding between floors with them like commuters going to work. His training to deal with Antecessors hadn’t prepared him for this. He did a quick headcount but stopped when he got to two hundred.

There seemed to be some connection between the goblins, a way to coordinate their movements so they acted as a unit, but it wasn’t at all clear who made the decisions.

Their heads bobbled slightly as the platform rose up the shaft. There were more goblins scaling the walls at the same speed as the platform.

When he bent down to get closer to them, they leaned away from him. They couldn’t see or hear him, but they could definitely feel his presence. They were an existence he had never encountered before, not even in theoretical papers. His father would have loved to get one on his dissection table to find out how they came to exist. Perhaps he still would.

“Don’t stare at them like that,” said Ubik, staring straight up the shaft, trying to work out their probable destination. “You’re making them nervous.”

They didn’t look nervous to Figaro. He only had to look over his shoulder at the VendX two, Bashir and Chukka, to see nerves in action. Bashir was gritting his teeth and pushing himself into the corner. Chukka was behind him, keeping him between her and the goblins.

“What’s up there?” said Chukka.

“I can’t sense anything with them everywhere,” said Bashir, his eyes glowing slightly. “They’re making too much noise.”

The goblins were completely silent, but that wasn’t the kind of noise he meant.

The other two non-goblin occupants on the platform were the two Seneca mercenaries. They looked calm and unflustered on the surface, as they were trained to be. But Figaro had spent enough time around the Corps to know when they were relaxed and when they were on high-alert. These two had their weapons hanging at their sides and their eyes constantly scanning everything.

“This is going shockingly well,” said Ubik. “I don’t normally get this far into a job without everyone turning on me and trying to kill me. Who knew I’d be this good at working with others?”

“It helps having PT organise things,” said Figaro.

“Right? Who would have guessed putting him in that cradle would work out so well. I would have bet on him losing his mind and ending up in a vegetative state. Still, early days.”

“Does this go all the way to the surface?” asked Chukka. She was already planning her exit route.

Ubik shrugged, which sent a ripple through the crowd of goblins packed onto the platform. They seemed very happy to cling to him. They weren’t machines, so why the affinity with Ubik?

“It doesn’t go all the way up,” said Figaro. “My father would have detected it.”

Chukka’s eyes flicked from side to side, desperately looking for something. She hadn’t stopped doing that since they boarded the elevator. A woman in search of an advantage, intent on coming out of this situation with more than just her life. Even though that would be more than enough for most people. Bashir certainly would take that deal.

But Chukka had other, bigger ideas. Always her eyes would come to rest for a moment on the organism attached to Ubik’s arm. The skinless snake that occasionally rotated around his wrist to get a better grip.

Figaro felt sorry for her. So wrapped up in how to make a profit out of this situation, it hadn’t dawned on her yet that Ubik would only bring her along because he had a use for her. And Figaro had seen the kinds of uses he put people to. His father’s dissection table was by far the better option.

Figaro twisted the bracelet on his own arm, trying to relieve some of the pressure as it bit into his skin. He was grateful it had stopped the organic in his body from activating, but he would appreciate it if he could get it to loosen just a little.

The platform started to slow down. There was no end to the shaft in sight, but there was an opening letting in light. It was wide, taking up one entire side of the shaft, but it wasn’t very tall. The goblins on the wall scuttled through it, from above coming down and in from the sides, disappearing in an instant.

As they came level with the passage, it was about the right height for the goblins if they wanted to run with their arms raised. It was a little on the cramped side for everyone else.

The goblins on the platform streamed out and Ubik and Figaro were carried along with the tide. Although less spacious, the passage was similar to the ones they had entered when accessing the third level. The walls were cut very cleanly at sharp angles, and white lines formed patterns on the surface, filling in grooves.

“This is different,” said Ubik, scratching the wall with his finger. “Who’s in charge here, I wonder?”

To Figaro, the lines suggested this level was controlled by the Antecessors. The lines were straight and geometric in their movements. But as he watched, he saw what Ubik meant. There was something odd about the lines, as though they were struggling to move. They were sluggish and paused sometimes.

“Maybe this is the meeting point between the two factions,” said Figaro.

“The frontline of the battle between Ants and Ints,” said Ubik. “Maybe you two should go first,” he said to the Seneca women.

“Yes,” said Chukka.

Weyla scowled. “And you can take the rear. That’s probably where the first attack will come from.”

“I don’t sense any movement apart from us,” said Bashir. “There’s no one to attack us.”

“Everywhere he goes,” said Leyla looking at the back of Ubik, “someone gets attacked.”

“You don’t have to worry about us,” said Chukka. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Ubik. “The boys will take care of any droids, that’s what they’re made for. Probably only be a few maintenance droids, anyway. Nothing major.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” asked Weyla.

“This level is meant to be secret, somewhere you carry out stuff you don’t want others to know about. Level seven and a half. That means much less security.”

“Why?” said Leyla. “Wouldn’t a secret level have more security?”

Ubik shook his head. “That would only attract attention, which is not what you want to attract to your secret level. You put it between floors seven and eight and you don’t make a big deal about it. You’re thinking of the Antecessors as one big likeminded group all pulling in the same direction. But they were just as varied and competitive as we are. They didn’t agree on everything and they didn’t always do what they were told.”

“And this is where they held their secret meetings, was it?” asked Weyla, as sceptical as her sister.

“I don’t know,” said Ubik. “Maybe it’s where they hid their snacks. We could be on the verge of an amazing discovery. Hopefully one that comes with a beverage.”

Suddenly, the goblins began running. They left Figaro and the others behind as they rushed off, rapidly disappearing into the gloom.

“Where are they going?” said Chukka.

“I don’t sense anything,” said Bashir. He sounded relieved not to be hemmed in on all sides.

“Droids versus goblins,” said Ubik. “My money’s on the goblins. They’re small but they’re full of spunk. You shouldn’t underestimate spunky.”

Ubik proceeded at a more leisurely pace. Figaro tried to get some readings off his suit but the sensors were picking up confused signals that told him very little apart from the immediate layout. The long passage was long and straight and empty. Even the goblins weren’t showing up.

They reached a crossroads after about ten minutes. There was no indication where each of the three options would take them. Figaro’s suit told him nothing and Bashir couldn’t detect anything. And then he could…

“They’re coming,” squealed Bashir in an overexcited babble.

“Who?” said Weyla, weapon up and ready.

“Where?” said Leyla, head swinging from side to side as she checked the three passages.

They came from the passage going straight ahead. It was the goblins, running back at great speed. Behind them, there were large droids keeping pace with them, filling the passage with their menacing black and white bulk. Three that Figaro could see, with their tendrils stretched out in front.

“Those don’t look like maintenance droids,” said Chukka. She was right. Even in the gloom and from a distance, it was easy to see that they were battle droids.

The Seneca women braced for a fight.

Ubik was as relaxed as ever. “I don’t think…”

“Don’t shoot,” said Figaro, tapping Weyla on the shoulder. “The droids aren’t here willingly.”

As the goblins came closer, it became more obvious. The tendrils weren’t reaching out towards the goblins, they were being used to drag the droids along, like a running child holding onto a balloon string.

The goblins rushed to the junction and took the right passage as though they were in a terrible hurry.

Everyone ducked as the droids swung wide, banging into the walls — first one side, then the other — making an awful racket. They were yanked along with no ability to escape. Figaro had seen a lot of footage of droid encounters, but he’d never seen anything like this.

Even when a tendril managed to get free and grab one of the goblins around the waist or neck, it did no damage. When it squeezed in one area, another area just expanded. Some of the goblins had giant heads, others had swollen bellies or chests.

“Perfect counter,” said Ubik. “You don’t need that in a unified society. Goblins to take care of the droids. I wonder what they used to take care of the goblins.”

Antecessors had built ways to deal with other Antecessors. It opened up a whole new way of thinking about them.

“Which way?” said Figaro.

“PT?” called out Ubik. “Hello? Directions, please.” There was no response. “Might as well follow them,” said Ubik as the last of the goblins disappeared down the right passage. “They seem to be having fun.”

Another ten minutes passed and they reached another junction. Bashir called out a warning and they stopped in time to not be trampled by the goblins running from right to left. They had acquired more unfortunate droids. What were they planning to do with them?

They turned left and followed once the train of goblins had passed. Ubik was convinced they were leading them somewhere useful. He liked to bet on hunches and even when they were wrong he would find a way to make the result work for him. Figaro’s background in logic and reason seemed less and less productive the more time he spent around Ubik.

The next junction was actually a square room with three more passages leading off it. But more interesting was the table in the centre.

It was a solid block with a naked figure resting on it, slightly sunken into the surface in an outline moulded to the body’s shape. There was a transparent bubble covering it, much thinner than glass.

“Father,” said Figaro, rushing forward. It was Ramon Ollo, lying in state.

He had found him. Or his body. Or his corpse. He looked perfectly healthy otherwise. His skin showed good colour and his face looked unperturbed.

“Is he dead?” asked Leyla.

“He’s alive,” said Figaro. His suit was picking up faint life signs, similar to those from someone in a coma.

“Is it really him?” asked Weyla.

That would be harder to confirm. With the Antecessors mimicking ability, they could probably fake a body to a high degree of accuracy.

“What is this technology?” said Chukka, walking around the table.

Figaro looked over the readings again. “He’s alive but I don’t think his consciousness is in his body.” There was no brain activity. An empty vessel. “We need to find what they took out and put it back in.”

“Okay,” said Ubik. “Shouldn’t be too hard.” He walked up to the table and banged on the cover with his fist, The sound was sharp and clear, like hitting crystal. “Hello? Wakey-wakey?”

There was no response, which was to be expected, but then again, with Ubik you never knew what would work.

“They’re coming back,” said Bashir.

The sound of hundreds of scampering feet could be heard. The goblins came rushing out of the far passage and straight past and around and over everyone towards the passage they’d just come from. They had no droids with them this time.

“Did they seem different this time?” said Figaro. He could sense something but not quite put his finger on it.

“Yes,” said Ubik. “Sort of more… scared.”

Then a chittering sound filled the room and a wave of tiny black beads flowed out of the passage accompanied by angry screams.

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all.”

Nifell came stumbling out of the passage, eyes wide with madness, hair matted and face covered in dirt. His body was covered with nanodrones. They fell off him as though he was producing them internally and releasing them to overwhelm everything in their path.

He stopped when he saw there were people in the room.

“Hey,” said Ubik with a big smile. “I thought you’d go up top but you came down to help us.”

“I don’t think he’s here to help,” said Figaro.

“Kill them!” shrieked Nifell. “Kill them all.”

The nanodrones flooded the room. There were far more of them now. But they didn’t attack anyone, they headed straight for Ramon Ollo’s case.

“No, no, what are you doing?” yelled Nifell, sinking to his knees. “Listen to me. Listen to me.”

The nanodrones were eating through the transparent cover and swarming over Ramon Ollo’s body.

“I told you he was here to help,” said Ubik. “Thank you. You’re a very useful guy, Nif. Say, you don’t have an organic, do you?”

The organism on Ubik’s arm twitched. Ubik always found a way to make use of people.

Book 2 – 96: Splinter of the Mind

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Intercessor Chamber.

 

 

Point-Two was experiencing an incredible sense of freedom. He could go anywhere, move at any speed, pass through any obstacle. Which was an odd sensation considering his body was currently wrapped up tight in a cocoon of interlocking droid parts.

His physical body was confined and constrained but his mind was flying through the network of white lines that permeated the asteroid like circuit boards inside a giant computer.

Flesh and blood stored in a container he couldn’t get out of. Mental projection soaring through solid rock.

He was under no illusion about why he was able to do all this without interference from the Intercessors. They wanted him to do it. He didn’t know why or what they hoped to gain from it, but he had no doubt they planned to come out ahead in the deal.

Most of the asteroid was inactive. Quiet and dark and empty. Not even worth pausing to turn on the lights for a better look. It would be easy to see it as a dead place other than the control room on top controlling the wormhole. But that would be a mistake.

A ship, as Point-Two knew only too well, was more than just a bunch of rooms attached to an engine. And limitations meant everything needed to double-up. The asteroid was no different.

The control room couldn’t do anything without the black hole at the asteroid’s core, and everything in between was needed to maintain that link. Antecessor technology was very interdependent and multifunctional. Storage space, fortress, weapon, spaceship, but also a link, a modifier, a conduit, a recycler.

The tiny black hole was the source of the asteroid’s power. And the one place he couldn’t reach.

The VendX troopers and the two Guardians he had spoken to earlier were charging through the passages he had lit for them. He could control the lights, open the doors, deactivate the defences. Point-Two had cleared a path all the way to the entrance to the next level. The entrance was closed.

They reached it in a mad rush and came to a sudden stop, confused and panicky, more and more of them piling into the room. The walls still trembled from the aftershocks of explosions on the surface. They knew there was mayhem and destruction above them, but they weren’t too happy about what was below them, either.

“Wait here,” said Point-two, speaking through the walls in surround-sound. Heads turned frantically to find him.

“Who are you?” demanded the female Guardian. “Are you one of the Null Void’s companions? How are you doing this? Do you have control of the base?”

“You’ll be safe here, for now,” said Point-Two. “Just wait until Tezla gets there.”

“Tezla’s alive?” said the male Guardian.

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s with the Null Void.” Everyone was after Ubik so why not use him to buy time? They all thought of him as a prize worth waiting for; until they met him. “She’s bringing him up so just be patient. The Antecessors will be landing soon and you need to defend this position, got it?”

“What’s on those ships?” said the female Guardian. “Droids?”

“I don’t know,” said Point-Two, “but I don’t think they’ll be friendly. And there’s also, the Seneca Corps. They won’t be friendly either, but they’ll be behind them and you’ll be in front, so that should give you an advantage. Between you, I think you should be able to deal with the threat.”

Point-Two did his best to sound confident about their chances. He wasn’t. Whatever was about to arrive on those Antecessor ships, it would be very hard to deal with. The Intercessors considered them more powerful than the goblins and expected to lose. They were so sure of losing, they were willing to allow Ubik a freehand. Desperate times called for desperate measures, so that gave Point-Two a rough idea of how bad a situation the Intercessors considered this.

“What about the other Central Authority ships?” said the woman. “Have they all been destroyed?”

“I don’t know. They’re too far away to be of any help right now. Focus on this place.”

She scowled but had no one to aim her distorted face at. Being a disembodied voice had its advantages.

“Horne, set up a defensive line. We might as well get ready.”

The co-opted VendX troops didn’t look very happy to be ordered about, but then they wouldn’t have been happy no matter who gave them their order.

“Do we still get a hazard bonus?” asked one of the VendX men, as though he would only consider survival as an option if it was rewarding enough.

“No,” said the Guardian. “But I promise I won’t shoot you if you shut up and do what I tell you.”

No one was happy about their situation but they understood the size of the threat they faced. Complaining or demanding answers would make no difference. They readied themselves.

What Point-two really needed from them was time. If they could keep the attacking forces at bay for a little while, Ubik and Fig might have enough time to free Ramon Ollo. Then they might have a chance.

Point-Two moved again. He was able to see where the Antecessor-controlled parts of the facility were present and avoid them.

They didn’t try to intercept him or block him off. In fact, they seemed fine with him running around, helping whoever he pleased.

The Antecessors were happy to keep out of his way. The Intercessors were fine with letting him do as he pleased. They both seemed confident that he was doing exactly what they wanted. They both thought he was advancing their agenda, they couldn’t both be right. Maybe neither was.

He found Ubik and Fig and their faceless army. Ubik was humming, so that was cause for worry. The goblins were following him like he was leading them to the promised land. The Intercessors had allowed this also. They wanted Ubik at the head of this army

“PT?” said Ubik, stopping so a flock of goblins bumped into each other. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” said Point-Two. “How could you tell?”

“The walls get extra squiggly when you’re around,” said Ubik, pointing at the white lines streaking back and forth around him. “How’s your head? Getting any migraines yet? You should take regular breaks. You aren’t used to this kind of mental stress. Maybe get out and stretch for a bit.”

Point-Two couldn’t get out and stretch as Ubik well knew. He was the one who had forced him into this position and left him stuck.

“Thanks for the advice,” said Point-Two, resisting the urge to shout at him. Zenity never seemed to work with Ubik. He still had the alien organism attached to his arm. Point-Two mentally shivered at the sight of it.

 

The wall next to Ubik slid apart, revealing a shaft with a platform.

“You can take this to the seventh level,” said Point-Two.

“Oh, wow,” said Ubik. “I knew there was a reason to put you in charge of logistics.”

It came as no surprise that Ubik would throw Point-Two into a situation with no idea why. Ubik didn’t need a reason to play with people’s lives. A reason would come. Decoy, driver, sacrificial lamb — Ubik always found a good use for his victims.

“Okay, this way everyone,” said Ubik. “We’re going up.”

“Have you come across any more of my father’s doppelgangers?” asked Fig as goblins streamed past him. “I estimate there should be at least four or five if they mean to keep him from functioning at a troublesome level.”

“No, I’ll keep an eye out, though.”

“Thanks,” said Fig, following Ubik onto the platform. What kind of influence was Ubik having on the boy? Point-Two was glad he didn’t have time to consider the possible ramifications of Ubik having a sidekick.

The goblins clambered over each other and began climbing the walls before the platform started its ascent. The two VendX employees entered last, gingerly squeezing in, pressed up against a wall of pale, alien flesh.

Point-Two took a moment to make sure he wasn’t missing something. He wasn’t used to sitting back and watching things from a distance as others took action.

His whole life Point-Two had been the kind of person who worked alone, acted alone, even when he worked with others.

That wasn’t the case here. Not that he had much choice.

Ubik had pushed him into becoming part of the Intercessor network and now he was calling the shots, after a fashion. It wasn’t so bad.

Yes, he hadn’t been given a choice, and yes, there had been a very good chance joining minds with an alien artificial intelligence could have fried his brains, but it hadn’t. And now he had the best seat in the house. The seat furthest from the imminent clash between warring alien factions.

All in all, he had come out of things relatively unscathed. Which was a deal worth taking when you crossed paths with Ubik.

Ubik and Fig had both come up with ways to make Point-Two the victim of their brilliant plans, but he wasn’t too upset about that. They were working with very little room for manoeuvre and trying to extract every advantage they could. Using him to improve their chances was perfectly understandable. He would have done the same to them. He was doing the same to them.

As they rose through the shaft, Point-Two left them behind on the path he had set for them and shot upwards, through each level, up to the control room, still rising until he suddenly broke through the roof.

He was out in the open, outside the base, looking down at it. There was a white mist covering the ground, just enough to cover the wreckage of the destroyed spacecraft. That hadn’t been there before.

With a mental twist he was able to turn his view upwards. The planet of Enaya was a yellow and grey ball in the distance. The swirl of the wormhole took up a large section of the sky, and then there were stars, millions of them. Some of them were exploding.

They weren’t stars, they were ships off in the distance. The strange thing was that Point-Two’s vantage point didn’t exist. There was no drone, no satellite, no telescope on an orbiting platform he was viewing from. The Antecessor technology put his mind in the emptiness above the base as though he really was floating there.

Point-Two turned away to the other side and there were the Antecessor ships, big blocks that showed no regard for any kind of aerodynamics. Longs black rectangles covered in streaks of white light. White light that ran across the surface of the ships and then carried on, like a line being drawn off the page.

The glittering beams shot through space, moving in zig-zag patterns, changing direction, going back the way they had come, being controlled with no regard for physics.

Their targets were the sleek ships in pursuit. Seneca carriers boldly charging forward with no to dodge or defend. There would be no negotiations here. The Corp didn’t negotiate with terrorists, and everyone was a terrorist in their eyes, past, present or future.

It seemed a balanced fight on the surface, an equal number of ships on both sides, weapons that could destroy whole planets let alone a metal box. Except, the Seneca ships were taking damage and the Antecessor ones weren’t. It was easy to guess which side would come out on top, and the Corps had to know that. But they didn’t back down. They were doing their utmost to defend humanity from this threat, which wasn’t really in character for them.

Whatever their reasons, Point-Two was on their side. Once the Antecessors took over the base, things would not go well.

Point-Two decided to take action. The asteroid had defensive capabilities and he had access to them. He took control by reaching out hands he no longer had. He prepared to activate the asteroid, opening a direct channel to the black hole.

Everything went dark. He was being pulled back down, reeled in.

He was back in the chamber with the large faceless head. He had wondered what it would take for the Intercessors to intervene.

“Why did you stop me?” said Point-Two. There was no reply. “I could have reduced their numbers.” Nothing. “Now they’ll overrun the place. Is that what you want?”

The face, or the space where the face should have been, ignored him.

“You want them to land? You want them to face Ubik?”

There was a flicker of something, movement across the huge face.

Point-Two felt like he was missing something, some plan of attack he had failed to recognise. Why would the Intercessors not take out their enemy while they had the chance? This enemy had defeated them before, simply waiting for them to do it again didn’t seem like a very good idea.

But they weren’t quite the same as they were before. Not because they had Ubik — that was a wildcard you would only rely on as a last resort — something else had changed.

“They separated you into several pieces, didn’t they?” said Point-Two. “And they put the most clinical part, the part that figures out how to get the job done, here with me. I should be flattered, I guess, although I suppose you didn’t know I’d be the one left behind. All this access to your asteroid, and Ubik just handed it over like it meant nothing. Must be kind of insulting, how little he thinks of your technology. Of both your technologies.”

The whole time he was speaking, Point-Two kept watching for another flicker. This wasn’t an Intercessor. It had been Ramon Ollo at first but even after it reverted, it didn’t talk or act like an Intercessor. They communicated at a much higher level, exchanging information in volume, no nuance required when every conversation was full disclosure.

“I know you can hear me, Mr Ollo,” said Point-Two. “Even if the face is that of an inhuman monster, you’re the one behind the mask.”

There was no response. The head had worn the face of Ramon Ollo until Point-Two had accused him of being a copy but now he understood that their mimic ability was more sophisticated than simply copying something.

He had called it a mimic, so it had adopted that form. Whatever it took to get what it wanted.

If he was right, it also meant this Ramon Ollo was working closely with the Intercessors. Something Fig would say was entirely typical of his father. As was ignoring Point-Two’s demand for a confession.

Being distanced from the action did give him a new perspective, an overview that enabled him to see things more objectively, to recognise patterns and predict intentions.

The chamber turned, Point-Two felt the shift in gravity. The scaffolding holding his body twisted, the walls rotated.

Point-Two pushed through the pressure clamping him in place and looked beyond the asteroid. He wasn’t there but he could see the Seneca ships come in blasting, hitting the Antecessor ships multiple times.

A beam burst through a crater on the asteroid’s surface and surged past the Antecessor ships. A wave of white light struck the lead Seneca ship and vaporised it.

Wasn’t the enemy of your enemy supposed to be your best ally? The Intercessors had just annihilated the very people who would have gotten rid of their problem.

Unless, of course, they didn’t want the arriving ships to be destroyed. If they wanted these attackers to confront Ubik and company and what? Kill them?

No, that wouldn’t be of much use.

What did Ubik have with him? A bunch of goblins newly born and not particularly effective. Fig who held a great power that they daren’t activate. And the organic Ubik had intended planting inside Point-Two’s body.

Point-Two had the horrible feeling the thing Ubik had attached to his arm wasn’t what he thought it was.

Zenity kicked in. Whatever the Intercessors were looking for here, they weren’t going to find it, even with Ramon Ollo’s help. This was Ubik. Point-Two had confidence in his ability to subvert expectations. He would survive and then he would come back to free Point-Two. That was Ubik. Reliable in the most unreliable way possible.

And then he would insert that organism into Point-Two’s body.

Perhaps it would be better if the aliens won this one.

Book 2 – 95: Limited Company

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility.

 

Ubik felt confident he could get the alien organism inside PT. It would be a little tricky to do it without PT noticing — a little sleight of hand would be required and Ubik pickpocketing skills were a bit rusty — but PT was easily distracted so it shouldn’t prove too hard.

The organism was tightly wound around Ubik’s fist. A little too tight. He would also have to find a way to coax the organism into PT. Hopefully, the two of them would hit it off. These sorts of arranged marriages often came down to first impressions.

“Someone’s following us,” said Bashir.

“Yes,” said Guardian Tezla. “Human.” She kept slapping the side of her helmet in an effort to get her AI back online. It was already online and probably doing its best to get through to her. You could reduce the problems of the galaxy down to that very thing — a failure to communicate.

“Ubik!” called out a voice from behind them.

Everyone stopped and turned around. The goblins — there were over a hundred of them bunched up in the tunnel, some on the walls, others stuck to the roof — milled around aimlessly. They somehow knew where to go while simultaneously bumping into each other like they had no idea where they were.

“Keep moving,” said Ubik. “He’ll catch up.”

Ubik heard Fig call out but it didn’t sound particularly urgent. It wasn’t like his face was being chewed off and he needed immediate assistance. He wasn’t the sort of boy to ask for help even when he did need it. Too proud, too capable. Must have been nice growing up with people believing in you.

Not that Ubik was jealous. He preferred a more challenging environment. It made you more resilient, he felt. More understanding of others. He smacked a goblin on the top of its shiny bald pate to make it get out of his way.

“You know who it is?” said Chukka, looking over her shoulder anxiously as she bumped into the goblins around her. They made growling noises and swiped at her, which she brushed away absentmindedly. She seemed to have come to terms with the creatures she had previously been terrified of, although something else was preying on her mind. The way she kept stealing furtive glances at his arm made it clear what that was.

“Just a friend,” said Ubik. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, we don’t have time to waste. We don’t want those guys back there getting upset at us for not keeping our word. Right boys.” He patted the goblin in front of him, which immediately attacked the goblin next to it. They both went down in a brawling pile. They really weren’t very bright when they weren’t given a clear goal to attack.

Ubik stepped over them and kept moving. Get to PT, convince him to ingest a rather large squid-like thing, and then see how things turn out. It sounded very doable the way he pictured it in his head.

“Wait, Ubik, wait.” Running footsteps closed on them from behind.

The goblins seemed to sense Fig’s approach and stopped. That made it quite difficult to move. Ubik had to push and shove his way through them.

“It’s Figaro Ollo,” said the Guardian. Her suit was still very useful, even without an AI to fine-tune the sensors and regulate the more complex processes. She could see down the long, curving passage and fire her weapons. It just took a little longer.

“Yes,” said Ubik. “He probably got lost.” He stopped and turned, raising his hands to cup his mouth. “Hey, Fig. The Guardian says she’ll assist you. I’ve got to keep moving. Good luck with whatever you’re trying to do.” With that he swivelled back around and kept going. No point wasting time on whatever terrible scheme Fig was working on. He was a good kid — bright and eager to do well — but he lacked experience. And confidence. And stupidity. You needed to be a little stupid if you wanted to really do well, a willingness to ignore common sense. Fig was just too damn smart for his own good.

Something brushed past Ubik, barely disturbing the goblins. Ubik looked back and then forward again, and Fig was standing in front of him.

“How did you do that?” said Ubik.

“Shadow steps,” said Fig. “It’s a martial arts move, allows you to move through crowds quickly. I can teach you, if you like.”

“Thanks, sounds like it would be useful. I’m heading back to PT. Going my way?”

“Um, yes, back to PT, me too,” said Fig, in a way that made Ubik feel he wasn’t getting the full story. Or the full truth. “What’s that?” He pointed at Ubik’s arm. “And why aren’t these creatures trying to kill you?” He looked around him, down at the goblins that barely reached up to his chest. Then he noticed the Guardian. “Guardian. And you’re with VendX, right?” He greeted them both.

“You’re asking a lot of questions, Fig,” said Ubik. “We don’t really have time. The Guardian can fill you in while we keep moving.”

“What do you mean, fill him in? When are you going to fill me in?” She sounded a little upset. And also a little inappropriately sexual. That was the Central Authority for you — a mixture of good intentions and uncontrollable desires.

“He took that thing from the Antecessors,” blurted out Chukka. “It’s some sort of alien life form based on organics that needs a living host to grow, and it belongs to the Ollo family, so you should take it from him.”

Fig looked mildly taken aback by her sudden forthcomingness. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll let him hold onto it for now.”

“Ignore her,” said Ubik, walking away with his alien-wrapped hand held up. “She thinks this will make her rich and fancies her chances getting it off you rather than me. Which is only because she doesn't realise how ruthless you are behind those puppy-dog eyes.”

“That’s not true,” said Chukka. “I am fully aware of what the Ollo name is capable of. My intentions are honourable and any offer I make will be fiscally advantageous to all parties.”

“See? She thinks she can buy you out.”

“Do you know the way back?” asked Fig, keeping up with Ubik. “You know all three of them are planning to attack you the first chance they get, don’t you?” he added a little more quietly.

“Not the tracker,” said Ubik. “He just wants to go home.”

“The third I was referring to were these goblins.”

“You can read their body language?” asked Ubik.

“Yes, but they want to kill everyone, so it isn’t that hard. How did you get them not to? They aren’t part-machine, are they?”

“No, they’re totally biological,” said Ubik. “They just like me.”

Two goblins went down in front of them, wrestling with such intensity that bits of their bodies broke off. Ubik kicked them out of his way.

“How could they not?” said Fig.

“Did you find your dad, by the way.”

“Yes. Sort of.” Fig explained his theory about the splitting up of his father’s mind, and the machine that was holding his body on the seventh level.

Ubik found it very interesting and agreed that putting the mind back in the body would probably bring Ramon Ollo back to the world mostly whole.

“Mostly?” said Fig. “I was hoping to get back the complete thing.”

“Hmm, yes, but it’s hard to put the pieces back in the exact same way they were before, and that’s assuming you can even find all the pieces intact. Bits fall off all the time. And from what I’ve seen, Antecessor technology isn’t meant to be lossless. They just add on new bits.”

Fig went quiet.

“Don’t worry,” said Ubik. “I’m sure we can get pretty close to the original. We can go get him first.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” said Fig. “We should get PT first. He’s probably getting annoyed.”

“That’s alright,” said Ubik. “I don’t mind if he gets annoyed.” There was something off about the way Fig was offering to put his father last. It wasn’t the Ollo way. “With PT running the asteroid, we should be able to find your father much quicker. Once we pop him out of the machine, then we can swing around and pick up PT. No need to rush things.”

Figaro nodded slowly. “No, actually, I spoke to PT and he said there was a sudden attack up on the surface, with the CA and VendX sending in assault teams and a fleet of Antecessor ships arriving through the wormhole and also the Seneca Corps. So it would probably be best to pick up PT first, then my dad, and then keep heading for the exit.”

“The Central Authority are here?” said the Guardian. “Do you know who they sent? How many? Rex, can you read me? Open a channel. Rex?”

“VendX are here?” said Chukka. She didn’t sound very pleased.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Bashir, relief erupting across his face. “Finally, I can leave this place.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Chukka. “You’ve hardly covered yourself in glory.”

“What? I’ve performed my duties fully.” Bashir looked even more worried than when he thought he was going to be torn apart by a swarm of goblins. “That’s what you’re going to say in your report, aren’t you?”

“Now you’ve done it,” said Ubik. “All your talk about conflict and confrontation is getting the goblins overexcited.”

The goblins were still bumping into things and occasionally falling off the roof of the tunnel.

Up ahead, there was a four-way junction.

“This way,” said Ubik, not that he had a proper grasp of the layout. This tunnel seemed to him to have more of an uphill incline. “Next stop, seventh floor.”

“The thing is, I don’t think we can really release my father from this machine without PT there. There may be complications.”

“No worries,” said Ubik. “I’m good with complications.”

“With gravity, I mean.”

“I’ll handle it. PT won’t mind. He’s very reasonable.”

The walls around them filled up with streaks of white light.

“What the hell are you doing?” said PT’s voice. “Where are you going?”

“Rescue Fig’s dad,” said Ubik. “It’s a family emergency.”

“Ubik, there’s an army of people up there, and they’re all looking for you. Which I don’t really mind, but you could at least get me out of this contraption before you go charging into them.”

“I agree,” said Fig. “We should get PT first.”

“See?” said PT. “Even Fig agrees with me.”

“He’s only saying that because he needs someone to replace his dad in the Antecessor brain-eating machine.”

“What?” said PT. “Is that true?”

“Erm… no,” said Fig.

“Look at him lying,” said Ubik. “Come up with a plan to benefit yourself at everyone else’s cost, destroy anyone who gets in your way, betray who you have to. It’s the Ollo way, right?” He threw his arms open and looked directly at Guardian Tezla for an answer.

“I don’t know why you’re asking me,” said the Guardian.

“Because you have a lie detector built into your suit,” said Ubik.

“Which I can’t activate because you’ve done something to my AI,” she responded angrily.

“Please, don’t change the subject. We’re in the middle of a very important discussion here.”

“Ubik wants to use you as a host for his alien parasite,” said Fig.

“Huh?” said Ubik. “Who? Me? What are you talking about? That’s an outrageous slur. I would never do something... Guys, back me up.” He looked around at the goblins. “Boys?” But they just bounced off one another. “Fig, what the hell? You just turn on me like that? Not cool. I was trying to help you, I was about to flip the switch, talk PT around into volunteering, win-win. You and me. But now...” He shook his head.

“You were going to stick that thing in me?” PT sounded upset. “How were you planning to do it?”

“Well, not all at once, obviously. That would be traumatic. But a little bit at a time… you might even enjoy it.”

“Just go and get Ramon Ollo,” said PT

“But…” said Fig.

“You’ve got three people with you,” said PT. “Use one of them if you need a substitute.”

The three in question suddenly stiffened.

“But they can’t be trusted,” said Fig. “You’ll have a lot more power once you’re in my father’s place.”

“Oh, sure. Like he does, you mean?” said PT.

“No,” said Fig. “If Ubik is the one who controls the procedure, I’m sure he can bypass the whole brain fracturing part. I wasn’t going to just leave you there.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad plan,” said Ubik. “I could probably come up with a workaround. Keep most of his brain in one piece.”

“Thanks but no thanks,” said PT. “We’ve only got this far because both the Intercessors and the Antecessors have backed off to see what we do and how it will benefit them. The ships that are about to land contain who knows how many alien droids and biological organisms, and all we have is you two idiots.”

“We’re not idiots,” said Ubik, sounding a little hurt. “He’s a little immature and I’m ahead of my time.”

“You’re not putting me in anything and you're not putting anything in me.” PT didn’t sound like he was open to discussion on the matter.

“Okay, fine,” said Ubik. “What do you want us to do?”

“Send the Guardian to help her two comrades and just kill the VendX agents and get it over with,” said PT.

“Wha—?” exclaimed Chukka. She tried backing away but the goblins pressed in, surrounding her and Bashir. “Guardian, I claim asylum.”

“Request denied,” said Tezla. “Ubik, I can’t help my comrades without my suit’s AI.”

“And give her back her AI friend,” said PT.

“I didn’t do anything to it,” said Ubik.

“Ubik,” said PT.

“I’m telling you, I did nothing. Try turning up the volume.”

“What are you talking about?” said the Guardian.

“The volume on the internal comms.”

There was a short pause. “It’s already set to max.”

“The gauge is upside down,” said Ubik.

“Huh? Wait…”

“Guardian, can you hear me?”

“Rex?” She turned to look at Ubik with eyes burning. “That was it? You turned down the volume?” Her voice was now also a lot louder.

“I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson about paying attention to detail, or something,” said Ubik.

“You have to stay and defend us,” said Chukka, unable to move. “The Central Authority charter says so.”

“No, it does not,” said Rex. “Human life is the responsibility of the individual.”

“Turn that thing’s volume down,” yelled Chukka.

Guardian Tezla lowered her visor, paused long enough to decide she wouldn’t kill them all, and then shot off down the passage.

Chukka struggled to get free of the goblins while Bashir began sobbing.

“Calm down, we’re not going to kill you,” said Ubik. “PT, he’s from a colony ship. Any time something goes wrong, they start getting rid of ballast. It’s a reflex. You’re perfectly safe.” He turned to Fig. “See, that’s how you tell a lie.”

“They can still hear you,” said Fig.

“I know, but they can’t go anywhere so it doesn’t matter. I’m just making a point. You really need to work on your manipulation skills. You’re never going to impress your dad the way you’re going.”

“Just go get his dad,” said PT.

“But if we don’t replace him with a compatible person, the whole asteroid will be destroyed,” said Fig.

“Is that what they told you?” said Ubik, shaking his head. “And you believed them?”

“It’s not true?” said Fig.

“No,” said Ubik. “Probably not. Come on, I’ll show you. PT, light the way.”

The passage ahead lit up.

(Reboot) Chapter 436

Magic. It existed here. If Cheng could produce it, maybe I could, too. Or maybe I could if I was around him. He was obviously a source as the purple glow around him showed.

All I needed to do was get hold of Mandy, use her to free Cheng, and then the world would be mine to do with as I pleased. Well, it would be Cheng’s to do with as he pleased, but I was sure I could get him to do what I asked. I got him to marry Mandy, didn’t I?

The important thing was to make sure I followed the plan step by step. It was like a game quest with the clues laid out in front of me. Find the key, open the door, check for traps, unlock the chest. Loot everything that wasn’t nailed down. Avoid any lore or excessive explanations about game mechanics. Take shortcuts to miss as much content as possible.

Cheng was the quest giver, Mandy was the keyhole I needed to insert the right object into — not a euphemism, I strongly hoped — and Raffo… Raffo was the annoying NPC you had to bring along to show you where to go.

“Why do we need his woman?” asked Raffo. “She will be relieved to see him dead, will she not? If we kill him now, that will probably wake her from her eternal slumber.”

I was beginning to think Raffo had a bit of an overactive imagination. Watched the extended version of the Lord of the Rings one too many times, and thought the best solution to a problem was to chuck it into the nearest volcano.

“The only way to kill an Archdemon like Cheng is to coat the tips of these arrows in the blood of someone the demon is bonded to. You know, because of magic.”

Raffo was staring at me with big round eyes, soaking in my grandmaster-level bullshit.

“Yes, yes, I understand. I thought it would be enough that you were the right person, but it makes sense you would also need the right weapon.” It didn’t make any sense, but whatever. “It’s good that you are here. So this is why she means so much to him. She’s his kryptonite, his Horcrux.”

It was a shame Maurice wasn’t here, these two could have inspected each other’s Magic the Gathering trading cards, the nerd equivalent of sending nudes to someone you’d like to fuck. Fucking for nerds was when you showed the other person your special set of glow in the dark D&D dice which you never used to play D&D. If things got really serious, you might let him roll your D20.

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s not as simple as stabbing him with a sharp object. It’s not like he’s going to bleed to death. No blood, for a start. That’s why we need the blood of the anti-virgin.”

“Anti-virgin? What’s that?”

“It’s like the polar opposite of a virgin,” I explained. “If you knew Mandy, you’d understand.”

Raffo was absorbing all this information like a sponge, getting wetter every minute.

“Okay, good,” said Raffo, straightening his helmet and securing the strap under his generous number of chins. “This will take longer than I projected but we still have time. This way.”

He slowly turned in the vent, like a cargo ship doing a three-point turn in the Strait of Gibraltar.

I followed him back the way we’d come.

“What do you know about how Cheng ended up here?” I asked by way of making conversation. When you're crouched in a ventilation shaft with only two large buttocks to look at, small talk is a welcome distraction.

“I don’t know much,” said Raffo, his voice bouncing off the metal walls. “They found him in China last summer.”

“He arrived in China?”

“Hong Kong,” said Raffo. “Same thing, or soon will be.”

“How did they get him all the way back here? I wouldn’t have thought the Chinese would just hand him over.”

“They wouldn’t but they had their hands full dealing with the riots. Mr Pelago has business interests over there and managed to smuggle the demon out disguised as farming equipment.”

We turned into a shaft that had a strong breeze blowing down it. Raffo seemed to know where he was going, his potato lighting the way.

What state would Mandy be in? If she was in a coma as Raffo had said, it would be a bit tricky to break her out. If I could find a way to activate my healing magic I’d be able to revive her instantly. I tried to create a flame on the end of my finger like I had the first time in Flatland but nothing happened. If I needed to be close to Cheng to siphon off some of his juice — definitely not a euphemism — then I might have to drag Mandy to his room first. Security so far had seemed pretty lax — they probably didn’t expect an attack from inside — but there were bound to be some people about.

“We may have to move her closer to the demon,” I said to Raffo’s backside which was wobbling threateningly ahead of me. “Because her blood needs to be as fresh as possible, like hot out of the tap. If we’re lucky she might be on her period.”

Raffo stopped. Perhaps I had gone too far with my ‘we need her alive’ sales pitch.

“That would be better than having to kill her,” said Raffo. At least he wasn’t a psycho who was happy to kill women for their blood when there was a perfectly abundant source waiting to be tapped if you had a little patience. He sighed. “The Lord never makes it easy to keep the faith.”

It was odd to hear a scientist speak about God. Nowadays, the two tend to be mutually exclusive.

“You believe in God?” I asked him.

“If demons are real, then so must angels. I had lost my faith until recently, but now I see that our world started in a garden with a talking snake and then magic was lost. Now it has returned, which must mean our days will soon end. It will be best to be on the right side of God when the time comes to be judged.”

Ooh boy, that was a lot of variables to take into account. If Raffo believed he was on a mission from God, he was going to be hard to control. Then again, it might make him easier to convince. He already believed in the existence of magic.

And who knows, maybe he was right. God could exist and the fucked up nature of the world was just his way of amusing Himself. The important thing was to use Raffo’s faith to get rid of any doubts he might have about what I was going to ask him to do. A strong belief in a higher power enabled people to justify all sorts of idiotic actions. It was my job to make sure those idiotic actions were the ones I came up with.

“I think this is it,” said Raffo, pausing at a T-junction.

“What’s that noise?” I could hear a metallic buzz in the distance.

“Robots,” said Raffo. “Neil uses them almost exclusively. He doesn’t like human assistants, to fallible.”

I was intrigued. What kind of robots did they have? Skynet or ED-209? And did they have removable batteries or rechargeable ones you couldn’t take out? In movies, you had to run around to avoid machinegun fire and then get hold of a bazooka to deal with our robot overlords, but in reality you just needed to find their power source and turn it off.

Raffo turned left and scuttled forward and stopped in front of another vent cover.

“Oh my, I didn’t expect this.”

I crawled in next to him and looked through the slats. What I saw looked like a hospital room with a big metal bed and lots of machines flashing lights. And on the bed was a girl. A very large girl. It was definitely Mandy, but she was heavily pregnant.

“Was she like this when she got here?” I asked.

“No,” said Raffo. “I haven’t been part of the project, so I haven’t seen her for some months. She looks due. What kind of monstrosity will she give birth to?”

Robots moved in. They looked like the kind you find in a car factory, one long arm hinged in the middle on a rolling base. They seemed to know what they were doing, moving efficiently around the room.

Mandy didn’t look like she was conscious. Her eyes were closed and her hair was damp and matted to her head, something she would never allow if she’d been awake.

The problem was going to be how to get in there with so much going on.

“Who’s controlling the robots?” I asked Raffo.

“Everything is fully automated,” said Raffo.

“But someone must be watching.” I peered through the slats. I could only make out half of the room but I couldn’t see anyone else.

“They may be observing on camera,” said Raffo, “although it’s unlikely at this time of night. Are you sure you can’t hit her from here?”

“We aren’t trying to kill her,” I reminded him.

“Yes, of course. But if she is about to give birth to a demon spawn, might it not be prudent to prevent Armageddon?”

The problem with people who rediscover their faith is that they try too hard to make up for lost time. As though believing everything without question put you in good with the boss. They miss the main point of religion, which is that it doesn’t matter what you believe, it only matters what you do. There really should be a disclaimer at the front of all these holy books.

“Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” I said. “Isn’t that the Golden Rule? You’ll find it all over the Bible. Maximus 7:12, Decimus 6:31, Meridius 19:18.”

“Maximus Decimus Meridius was Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator,” said Raffo, bloody nerd.

“Whatever, it still counts. You wouldn’t want an arrow shot up your fanny if you were pregnant, would you?”

“It doesn’t count if it isn’t human.”

The problem with the Golden Rule, a commandment of many religions, is that it has massive loopholes. It usually comes couched in terms like ’your brother’ or ‘your neighbour’ to make it feel more cosy and chummy, but all that does is give people the excuse to exclude people they don’t like. Different religion, different gender, different hobbies — anything you can come up with, really.

 

Personally, I don’t like the Golden Rule because of the other flaw it has. What if people want horrible things done to them? Is it alright for them to do them to me, then?

Silly rule all around, if you ask me. My Golden Rule would be ‘Put it away, no one wants to see that.’ Think of all the problems that could be solved before they even started.

“The baby will be three-quarters human and the mother is a hundred percent human. Yes, she’s been desecrated by an unholy penis, but if you start judging humanity by that standard you’d have to exterminate most of the Royal family, and quite a few of the female members, too.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?” said Raffo.

A good question. Even if we could get in there, a bow and arrow wouldn’t be much help against robots. What I really needed was better knowledge of the layout. Perhaps I could get Neil to give me a more thorough tour of the facility under some pretext or other.

Raffo looked keen on barging in but he would probably agree to a short delay if I sold it to him as a holy quest with free tickets through the Pearly Gates as a prize.

“Okay, Raffo, here’s what we're going to do. Bear in mind there’s no rush. It’s not like these demons are free to do as they please. First—”

There was an ear-shattering scream. We both pressed our faces against the vent cover to see what had happened.

Mandy’s legs were up and spread wide apart. Her whole body was shaking violently while blood shot out and sprayed the robots a deep crimson. A head emerged.

Now, I’m no stranger to gory scenes. I’ve seen Alien, I know the birthing of a new life isn’t always pretty, but that alien didn’t come out from between John Hurt’s splayed legs. That would have lent an altogether different tone to the movie.

“What should we do?” said Raffo, clinging to my arm far too tightly, holding up his potato like it was a holy artefact. He was regretting giving me the plastic poncho, I could tell.

My immediate thought was that now would be a good time to throw up. Yes, the miracle of birth, a marvellous moment for every mother. Not this time. Frankly, this kid was coming out like Jack Nicholson looking for Shelley Duvall.

Mandy’s lower half jerked from side to side. More body fluids flew out, far more than was acceptable for a regular delivery. The robots were trying to hold her down but she was sliding them and the bed across the floor.

There was a horrible squelching sound and the baby, held up by metallic pincers, began crying. It looked like a normal human baby, apart from the purple glow.

“Shoot it, shoot it,” Raffo screamed into my ear. He tried to get the bow off me so he could have a go.”

I slapped him away. “This is good,” I lied. “Once the baby’s born, Cheng’s power will transfer to it. It’ll be much easier killing the baby than a grown demon that’s had all its shots.”

Raffo stopped fighting me. Obviously, I had no intention of killing any babies. I’ve always been pro-life, by which I mean mine.

The room below, which had been pristine and sterile a moment ago, was now covered in layers of blood, guts and viscera. The baby had wrecked everything, ripped the doors off the hinges, shattered the walls — and that was just what it had done to Mandy’s vagina. Good thing she’d slept through the whole thing.

The robots took the baby away and silence descended. A new, smaller robot appeared and began mopping the floor. Other than the blood dripping off the walls and ceiling you’d never know something untoward had happened here.

“Okay,” I said. “Now’s our chance.” I lay on my back and kicked the cover off the vent.

Book 2 – 94: Filial Traits

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Asteroid Inner Core.

 

Figaro fully understood the ramifications of what he planned to do. Sacrificing PT’s freedom in order to release his father was hardly a moral choice. Not even if PT agreed to it. And from what Figaro had learned about PT, he would not agree to it, meaning he would have to be tricked or forced. Also not a very moral choice.

Morals weren’t really high on the Ollo family priorities, and Figaro was very much an Ollo. You chose a goal and then executed the correct actions in the most efficient manner.

It wasn’t like he planned to leave PT as a cog in an alien machine forever.

It was just a temporary convenience that his father would probably be able to correct once he got his head back together. Ramon Ollo wasn’t one to decline a challenge. Or shirk a debt.

Figaro twisted his head but he couldn’t see anything, not even the ends of his limbs. The lights from his suit bent and curled around him, giving hardly any illumination. The light clung to him and showed little more than the outer lining of his suit, which needed some attention.

There was something solid under his feet, gravity was keeping him in place but he was able to move his limbs, and his father’s voice was with him, although it was impossible to tell where it was coming from exactly.

Figaro tried to lift his foot and stamp it down. He had already broken through one layer of shielding, presumably there to provide protection. This felt tougher.

He took a breath and closed his eyes. Even in the dark with limited movement, he should have been able to detect any irregularities. A door, vent, a tunnel. There had to be a way in and out. There was the way he had come in, an opening far above his head, but that wasn’t much use when he was being kept pinned in place.

Breaking those bonds would help, but if his father was correct about the microscopic black hole in the middle of the asteroid, breaking free would be a little tricky. Not unless he had a little help.

“Can you return me to the chamber I came from?”

“No,” said Ramon Ollo, simply, directly, concisely. This version of his father was very straightforward and clear. That was an aspect of his father he was very familiar with, his main mode of conversing. Usually, though, he was like that because he was carrying out a host of other tasks at the same time. This version was performing no other tasks, as far as Figaro could tell.

“You have no control over this place?”

“None,” said Ramon. “I was placed here to keep you company. They wish to keep you calm while they decide how best to proceed.”

Was that really the only reason to put his father down here with him? They had already tried to activate his organic. Keeping him calm seemed the least of their concerns.

“Why did they try to activate my organic?” asked Figaro. Might as well try to get as much information out of his father’s slightly less smarter avatar.

“They didn’t, not in the way you think. They were trying to bring it to the surface so they could remove it all at once.”

“And this place is the ideal location? Because of the black hole?”

“It isn’t something we have the technology to do, so I can’t be sure of the exact methodology,” said Ramon.

Speaking to his father like this was refreshing. Usually, there would be a lot more questions than answers in an attempt to get Figaro to work out the problem for himself. His father was always the teacher. The teacher who could do everything he taught you better than anyone in the galaxy. An excellent source of knowledge, a terrible point of reference.

“And the black hole? It is below us?”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t exert any influence over it.”

“I cannot.”

“But they can?”

“Yes. If they wish to, they have that power, just as they have the power to control the wormhole above us.”

“The two are connected?” It seemed likely. “But we were able to take over control over the wormhole. Doesn’t that mean we could find a way to take control of the black hole?”

“Yes,” said Ramon.

Getting clear answers was one thing, but the lack of any additional information was a little frustrating.

“I need to find your body, Father, your physical body, so I can return your mind to it,” said Figaro. “Is that possible?”

“There is a machine they used to separate my mind from my body.”

“Yes?”

“It is a very sophisticated machine. I would like to learn how to operate it.”

“You don’t know how?”

“I do not.”

It was slow progress. His father’s body was in a machine, perhaps similar to the one Ubik fabricated for PT. He had to just find it, remove his father and replace it with PT. Perhaps it would not be quite so simple — PT would be… reluctant — but this was the plan now.

“Father, I will find the machine and learn how to use it.”

“You will not be able to do that,” Ramon said with complete confidence. “I was not able to understand how it functions, I recall that quite clearly. If I was unable, how will you?”

A little blunt but no less accurate for it. Figaro had no illusions about his inferiority to his father in such matters, but he wasn’t going to tackle the problem himself.

“Yes, Father, but I have a friend who is very good with machines.”

“You should be careful not to rely on others too much,” said his father, exactly in the way his real and complete father would. It was hard to believe it wasn’t him. Of course, it was him, just not all of him. That was also true of his time spent with his real father growing up.

It was clear this Ramon Ollo would not be able to figure out a way to commandeer the Intercessor operating system and send Figaro back up, and he couldn’t do it by himself. That left him with finding a way to get the Intercessors to do it, or to wait for PT to get in touch. Or work out a way himself.

The first two seemed much more likely to succeed, but far less likely to be offered. He tapped the ground beneath his feet. It was smooth like glass but not slippery. Slightly curved.

A sphere around the black hole?

Could he walk all the way around like living on his own personal tiny planetoid?

“PT, can you hear me?” There was no response. PT had said he couldn’t see down this far, so it was understandable that simply calling out wouldn’t get through to him. Could the Intercessors not see either? They could affect change, as they’d demonstrated by putting his father here and also activating his organic. Limited access.

“Father, can you contact the Intercessors directly?”

“No.”

It had been easy to get here but leaving was proving to be rather difficult. There had to be a way to exit this place. The problem was that his father’s presence wasn’t a physical one. They could just feed him through a tube.

“You can’t speak to them, even if you have something important to tell them? Vital information you received from me?”

“They don’t think of us as having anything of interest to say,” said his father. “What they want from us doesn’t require conversation.”

It seemed Figaro would have to find his own way back. The Intercessors knew he was down here and they were happy to keep him here. His father wasn’t going to be much help.

Figaro dug the tip of his boot into it, trying to flick out a divot. His foot pushed through something and he heard a crack. He dropped a few centimetres and stopped. He crouched down although it felt like he was still standing and had pulled his knees up to his waist. A neat magic trick except he could still feel the solid ground under his feet. He placed his hand down and put his fingers in the cracks he’d created. A little force was all it took to pull the material apart.

Something flew past his field of vision. It was small, a streak of whiteness, a little like liquid in a zero-G environment. Except he could have sworn it had taken a form with arms and legs. It swam out of his lit area and was gone.

Figaro tried to detect it with the other sensors on his suit but there was static blocking him. He kept trying. What had caught his attention wasn’t that it looked like a small figure, but that it had flown away from him, upwards.

If it had a way of reversing the gravitational pull here, perhaps it could give him a ride back up.

Figaro tried to repeat his act of vandalism, stamping and picking at the cracks he formed. It was hard to get any real power into the restricted movements he was able to make. Dust was what he mostly produced, white and flaky. It went floating away from him.

If he grabbed it, it just sat in his fist, trembling. It contained some kind of antithetical power to the pull of the black hole. A bigger piece was required.

Something changed. Gravity became much more intense, forcing Figaro into a low crouch. The white bits of flotsam and jetsam came floating back, resisting like fish caught on a line. They seemed to have coalesced into a bigger piece. Figaro would have reached out to grab it but he couldn’t move his arms.

“What is it?”

“The wormhole,” said his Father. “It’s been activated.”

The stifling gravity stopped and the floating pieces shot off again. Figaro’s grasping hand was too late.

“Can you disrupt the field on me a little?” he asked. “It shouldn’t be too hard if you modulate your voice correctly.”

His father only had his voice, but sonic waves would be enough.

“I don’t think I want to do that.” This Ramon was not one to rush into action. Slow and reticent. Mostly disinterested.

“Father, did you not resist when they captured you?”

“I did. Very much.”

“But you failed.”

“I was overpowered by a superior force.”

“A superior intellect.”

There was a slight pause. “It would be wrong to call it superior.”

“I managed to avoid being overpowered. I came here willingly.”

“You had assistance.”

“So did you,” said Figaro. “They’re all dead now. And those on Enaya immediately betrayed your trust once they thought you gone. Intellect is judged by its choices, including the choice of who it surrounds itself with.”

“You believe your choices were better?” asked Ramon, not confrontationally, but then he never did. He preferred to attack without warning.

“My friends are still alive. Objectively, that is superior to being dead.”

It was a somewhat insolent argument, the type his father disliked. His father would normally be able to turn such an argument against the person suggesting them with ease. His real father.

“The end result is the objective end result, not the current score.”

Figaro sensed the weakness of the argument. This Ramon Ollo, quiet and reserved, was not amused. The stoic side of his father was the one he used most often when dealing with people he found annoyingly beneath him. World leaders, executives of megacorporations, generals of armies. People who demanded respect because of their position and status rather than their reason and logic. It was a side of him he used to suppress his anger.

“I need to go back up but this black hole is keeping me here. You have been down here a while, I believe. More than enough time to work out how to counter its effects.”

“It is a black hole,” his father said with a little edge to his voice.

“It is a microscopic black hole,” said Figaro. “I will find a way to neutralise its effect without you.”

Figaro felt a change in the air. Pressure. Not the kind you could measure with a barometer, this was the kind of pressure people gave off when their psychic energy began to overflow. Disappointment, anger, killing intent — they all had very specific effects on the environment.

They had taken away much of what made Ramon Ollo who he was, but they had also left a lot of the things he kept buried. Buried for good reason.

Some people were naturally sensitive, others had organics that could manipulate and redirect the effect. The kind of pressure Figaro felt now he rarely experienced around his father.

They had split up his persona to prevent him using it against them, but in doing so they had separated his emotions from the intellect that kept everything in check. As impressive as his genius was, it wasn’t the only part of Ramon Ollo’s mind that was overdeveloped, Some were less elegant.

Ramon Ollo didn’t need to rely on primitive solutions when he could think his way out of just about any problem. The real Ramon Ollo. This Ramon Ollo was left with all the questions but only the answers the Intercessors had allowed him. It had to be very frustrating.

“Father, I will reintegrate your mind and body and return you to Enaya where you will be safe. Then I will take control of the asteroid and use it to uncover the true meaning of this place. The Antecessors and the Intercessors are clearly hiding something. You will not need to worry about your safety.”

This was not Figaro’s original plan. Once Ramon Ollo was whole, he would be far too valuable a resource to send away to safety. Nor would he stay there. But his current incarnation wasn’t able to see through Figaro’s ploy. He just reacted to the idea of being put out to pasture like a tiresome burden.

“My place is here.” The voice was still calm but Figaro could sense the change. “There is nothing to be gained by returning me to Enaya.”

Figaro was busy pulling bits out of the ground with his fingernails.

“You will have your equipment and resources available to you,” said Figaro. “And you will be protected from having your mind overwhelmed again. If they took control of you once, we should assume it will be even easier for them to do it a second time.”

“No.”

“You do not have a choice, Father. As the Intercessors placed you here against your will, so will I send you back. Remaining here to simply satisfy your curiosity does nothing but obstruct me. My goal is the only important thing here.”

His father had always been goal-oriented and would understand better than anyone what Figaro was saying. And would find it impossible to accept.

“I will stay here,” said his Father. Any aspect of Ramon Ollo would react the same. “You will remain with me.”

“We can discuss it further once I return.”

Figaro pushed off the surface and rose into the air. He wasn’t going anywhere, the gravitational pull would allow no more than a few centimetres of movement before returning him to the same spot. The trick was to sell it.

“NO!” screamed his father, impotent to stop him.

There was only a tiny amount of interference, not enough to fly away, but Figaro had his hands and pockets full of the material he’d gouged out of the ground. It was like dry cement.

It was working, he was drifting upwards, relatively speaking.

There was another change. The wormhole twice in succession? What was going on out there?

Figaro began floating backwards, reeled in. It might not last long. He held on.

It stopped but he continued to fall backwards. He’d lost his momentum,

The pale white chunks and strips emerged from his suit. They joined together, a snake. He grabbed it, making it squirm and wriggle. It was soft like clay.

He held on, and it pulled him along, up. Not the way he’d come from, though. To the side. There was a wall here, black and rough. Large cracks on its surface.

The white worm slithered into a gap, pulling Figaro’s arm in with it. The space was far too small for Figaro, but he could feet the object in his hand grow bigger, pushing the sides of the rock apart.

Figaro let go of the thing, the creature, and crawled into the wall after, turning sideways and edging his way forward. It was tight and claustrophobic but there was enough room.

He followed the pale creature clambering ahead of him, arms and hands and feet now discernible. He must have climbed for thirty minutes before the creature disappeared and then Figaro’s head broke the surface.

Figaro looked around. He was in a cavernous room with lights coming from globes in the walls. There were stairs ahead of him, leading up to a tunnel entrance.

The creature was trudging across the room, aiming for the stairs. It looked like a pale, naked child, faceless and senseless. But it seemed to know where it was going. Figaro began to follow.

“Fig?”

Figaro stopped and looked around. The voice seemed to come from everywhere. “PT?”

“I thought that was you. How did you get here? Did you find your dad?” PT sounded pleased.

Figaro bit his lower lip. “Yes, I found him. Part of him. I think they’ve split him up into separate parts to prevent him posing a threat. The version I found down there was… quite limited. He couldn’t help much.”

“That’s a shame. The sum is greater than the parts, I guess.”

“Exactly. What happened up here? The wormhole opened. Twice.”

“Yes,” PT sounded surprised. “Antecessor ships. Not friendly, I don’t think. And a bunch of Seneca ships after them. Definitely not friendly.”

“And you? You’re alright?”

“Yes,” said PT.

“Healthy? Able to withstand the stress of assimilation?”

“Relatively. I am stuck in this harness. Not an uninteresting experience, in short amounts.”

“I’ll get you out,” said Figaro.

“Thanks, I’d appreciate it.”

“When I can.”

“Your father first, eh?”

“Yes. Sorry. If I can find the other parts of and bring them together, I believe I can put them back in his body. I think that’s what’s on the seventh level.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” said PT. “Maybe Ubik can help.“

“I’m hoping. Where is he?”

“He was just where you are. With those goblins.”

“The creatures? They didn’t kill him — of course they didn't. What am I saying? Did he kill them?”

“No,” said PT. “He tried to talk them to death but they don’t have ears, so… I’m leaving him to it for now. Listen, I don’t know if we can really trust Ubik completely. I think he might be planning to use us in some kind of experiment.”

“Oh? Why do you think that?”

“Just a feeling I have. I know, not very rational. But since I started living as a huge ball of rock floating in space, I’ve begun to see things a little differently. The change in perspective had given me a better grasp of the big picture, you know? I’m in a very vulnerable position and someone could easily take advantage of me. And who do we know who would do something like that?”

“I’d say you’re being a bit paranoid,” said Figaro, “but he did put you where you are now.”

“Which isn’t too bad, but this is about as far into body-swapping as I’d like to go. I’d appreciate it if you watched my back.”

“Sure,” said Figaro. “I can do that. Can you tell me where Ubik is now?”

PT gave him instructions and Figaro headed up the stairs and into the tunnel. He soon saw the mass of figures up ahead. He was going to need Ubik’s help to betray PT. He was confident Ubik would be only too happy to lend a hand. The problem would be getting him to not make any adjustments — making PT an honorary Antecesor or something. Ubik with a portable black hole did not sound like the last page of any book.

He would have to carefully guide Ubik into retrieving his father, installing PT as a replacement, and then get him to stop.

Getting Ubik going was the easy part. Getting him to stop before he went too far was another matter entirely.

“Ubik! Ubik!” he called out as goblins crowded around him. He was pretty sure Ubik heard him but he kept going.

Book 2 – 93: Double Indemnity

Third Quadrant

Tethari Asteroid

 

Onla reached the relative safety of the overhang in front of the Ollo base before Horne. He had been ahead of her but had double-backed to give the lagging VendX troops some cover. That’s what self-medicating with hormones did to you — made you emotional.

“Horne, get in here,” she shouted into the comms, but in a controlled and professional manner. “You’re going to get yourself killed, you half-witted moron.”

“Incoming! We’ve got more incoming.” He was flying above the running troopers, being buffeted by the wind but using the updraft to remain aloft longer than he would have been normally able. His suit’s deflectors were set to max as he intercepted huge bolts of light that were slamming into the ground and bursting the remains of ships around them.

Onla’s HUD showed the composition, construction and energy potential of the light-torpedoes. They were far in excess of anything the Central Authority could produce. And far more than what Horne’s suit could block.

He didn’t try to block them. Instead, he carefully positioned his shields and an angle that took them away from the panicked troopers. Light was still light. And Horne was still a moron, but he wasn’t stupid.

“I can see that!” An edge crept into her voice, even though her hormones were at the minimum level. “Don’t tell me what I already know, you jackass.”

Troopers ran past her into the area around the main entrance, a huge vertical door that had been raised about a metre and left stuck there. None of them wanted to go in and face the base’s security system, but no one wanted to be out there either.

“I’m seeing over a hundred people out here,” said Horne, his voice fading in and out over the comms. “Also several hundred more still inside the ships, hoping they can wait it out. Don’t think that’s a good idea. How are we going to get them—”

There was a massive explosion as one of the VendX transport ships took a direct hit from a sizzling white beam of solid light. The ship, the people near it and the ground under it, all erupted into a cloud of flame and dirt, the newly created air molecules helping the flames to burn brightly.

Horne went tumbling through the air, crashing into the ground only to suddenly spring back into the air as though he had just executed some perfectly timed acrobatic trick.

“Never mind,” he said. “Problem solved.”

“Ziff, have you heard from the Tranquillity?” she asked the suit’s AI.

“I’m afraid there’s no response,” it said with unflustered politeness.

“Confirm Central Authority fleet status. Are they still in one piece?”

There was a slight pause. “All Central Authority ships showing full hull integrity.”

“Are they coming?”

“All ships are stationary.”

“Why can’t you talk to them?”

“Signals above three hundred megahertz threshold are unable to get through.”

“They’re being jammed?”

“Not by any technology we are currently aware of.”

It was always difficult to get machines to think for themselves in new situations. If they, or any of the devices on the network, had encountered an event previously there was no problem. But the first time something cropped up, it was a nightmare to get a machine to join the dots.

“Find another way to get in contact with them. If you can get a reading on hull integrity, you can find a way to speak to them.”

“I understand.”

Onla peered outside of the alcove. The Antecessor ships that were tiny dots near the wormhole were now slightly bigger dots. Pretty soon they wouldn’t be dots at all. And then they would find out who was piloting the damn things.

“Horne, we have to get inside.”

“I’m not getting any response from Tranquillity,” said Horne, his voice both excited and strained — jacked up on naturally occurring hormones at unnatural levels. He was going all out to protect these worthless VendX workers.

“They’re being jammed. They’ll send help when they can. Now get back in here.”

“Will do. Soon as I—” Horne’s reply was distorted by static, the roar of the winds and the rapid disintegration of the asteroid's surface under light-torpedo bombardment.

The CA commtech was designed to operate and deliver a clear signal under any conditions. Under water, during solar storms, through solid rock kilometres-thick. But there was something interfering, something the equipment hadn’t been designed to anticipate, because no one knew it existed until now.

“ZF-989, can you remotely boot up Guardian Horne’s onboard AI?”

“I’m afraid not,m Guardian. Access codes have been reset by Guardian Horne. I can try to guess his password. Psych-eval strongly suggests it will be a lewd combination of words and numbers. I estimate I can break the code in between three and thirty-six hours, standard.”

“Horne! Stop self-medicating and fall back. We don’t know who’s flying those ships. If it’s Antecessors, you won’t be able to save anyone if you deplete your suit’s defences on these useless plebs. Let them die. Stop being so bloody emotional!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get your space suit’s integrated underwear in a twist. I’m coming back.”

Onla let out an exasperated breath and turned around to find herself facing hundreds of VendX employees, fully-armed, crowded into the alcove, all staring at her. It was then she realised her comms were still switched to enforced public announcement mode.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped at them. “You can’t wait out here. Go inside.”

None of them moved. It was understandable they would be reluctant to walk into an Ollo facility without the correct clearance, but it wasn’t like they had a choice. What was in there might kill them, but what was happening out here definitely would.

“Ziff, lay down warning fire, ground-level.”

A rapid burst of laserfire issued from Onla’s suit, striking the ground in front of the VendX employees. They quickly backed up but were still uneasy about entering the site under the partially raised blast door.

Around them, the asteroid continued to be bombarded but the intensity seemed to have decreased.

“Multiple ships are attacking the unknown Antecessor ships,” reported ZF-989. “Multiple ships have now been destroyed.”

“Central Authority ships?”

“All Central Authority ships have been destroyed.”

So much for the cavalry. The firepower of those Antecessor vessels was incredible, able to pierce the shields of the most advanced ships in existence with barely any effort. The base would pose little problem for them once they arrived at the asteroid. Their only chance was to go deep inside, barricade themselves in and then wait for reinforcements to arrive.

“Where did they come from?” said Horne as he landed next to Onla after falling, running and sliding to a halt. “Antecessor ships actually flying around blowing things up. This is crazy. What now? Fire up the Ollo defence grid and blow them out of the sky? Revenge, right? That’s the play.”

“Calm down, Horne. You’re being too emotional. Drain your lymphatics and take deep breaths.”

“I’m not being emotional.”

“Emotional and overexcited.”

“No. This is the way I always am. Take it or leave it.”

“I’d like to leave it.”

“Tough luck, you’ll have to take it.”

“Excuse me, I’m Chief Office Ghent of the VendX Priority Fleet,” said a stern voice that came from one of the troopers who were huddled inside the alcove. “We’ve made a quick check and we three are the ranking officers. We suggest a temporary alliance until this matter is resolved.”

His battlesuit was the fanciest of the survivors, adding credibility to his claim. The two people with him were a little less ostentatious in their attachments, but all three had a high-level of weaponry.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” snapped Onla. “This is a compulsory buyout. We give the orders, you follow them. Do as you're told or have your contracts terminated, permanently. Lead your people inside the base, Ghent.”

There was another explosion but not so loud. There wasn’t much left to blow up.

“They don’t appear to be targeting the base,” said Ghent. “We can wait out here for now.”

“Go inside,” said Onla.

“I respectfully decline to follow—”

Three quick shots struck the VendX officers, one each in the head. Horne’s sleeve gun hissed and let out a little smoke before retracting. He’d just executed three high-ranking VendX employees.

Numerous members of the VendX fleet activated their weapons. The inside of Onla’s visor sprang into multi-sectioned life as targeting screens showed each hostile action and primed weapons on her suit to take them out. The activity along her arms and shoulders was enough to give her would-be assailants enough reason for second thoughts.

“Okay, maybe I’m being a little emotional,” said Horne. “They started it, though.”

“Guardian Horne has committed an act of unprovoked aggression,” said ZF-989. “Would you like to file a report?”

“Unprovoked?” said Horne. “Are your sensors even working?”

“I apologise, Guardian. My programming requires me to bring this matter to my operator’s attention. No judgement is implied.”

“No, no report,” said Onla. “Classify it as Control Protocol, level three.” It was standard Central Authority practice to remove the leadership of any commandeered group. Once there was no other authority figure to turn to, people became much more compliant. Although, executing them was only meant to be used as a last resort.

“Level three is only valid in the case of food riots and civil unrest,” said the AI. It wasn’t wrong.

“I’m classifying this as a special case. Reasoning to be laid out at a later date when we aren't being bombed to shit.”

“Reclassification noted. Reminder set.”

“And send VendX a letter of complaint for poor training of their salesforce, and demand an apology.” In these sorts of situations, it was best to go on the offensive. As it was with most situations. “Put me on public announcement mode.”

“You are already in public announcement mode.”

“Of course I am. Remind me to speak to you about that.”

“Reminder set.”

She turned to the gathered, somewhat nervous survivors of the VendX Priority Fleet. “VendX employees, as I have already clearly stated, you are now sub-contractors for the Central Authority. Breach of contract will be dealt with swiftly and with no option for appeal. This is a category six emergency, and we only have five categories, understand? You do exactly what I tell you or we will classify you as an enemy combatant and eliminate you. We are the Central Authority and VendX has signed up to our charter. We own you until further notice.”

They weren’t responding very well, as the biomedical telemetry ZF-989 was showing her clearly indicated. Mass readings were imprecise at best but when the crowd all felt the same way, the graphs shot up exponentially, so subtle interpretations weren’t necessary. It wasn’t like they were treated any better than this by VendX, but then VendX rarely executed its own people in public.

“Aren’t you just going to use us as meat shields,” said a hesitant voice.

ZF-989 pinpointed the speaker and offered her the option to take him out.

“No, we don’t need you to be meat shields. Antecessor tech will vaporise you and keep going. We do need you to not get in our way, so follow orders or be eliminated from the situation. We also provide full medical and dental benefits while you are conscripted to us.”

The crowd seemed to settle down.

There was a bright flash and the asteroid surface was painted a brilliant white.

“The wormhole is opening,” said ZF-989.

Reinforcements already?

Onla pivoted to look up at the starry sky. The Antecessor ships were still on her HUD, but now there was a fleet of ships behind them, and they didn’t have Antecessor profiles. Although, they were just as recognisable.

“Seneca Corps has been identified,” said the AI.

“Oh shit,” said Horne.

“Get inside,” shouted Onla.

No one hesitated this time. If there was one truth in the universe, it was that the Corps didn’t give a damn who got caught in the middle of one of their fights. They saw every battle as us against them, and everyone who wasn’t in the Corps counted as them.

Even though the blast door was only partially raised, it was wide enough to allow several dozen people through at a time. On the other side was a long tunnel that led to the main base. The VendX troops flooded the tunnel as they raced to get away before the Corps unleashed their ridiculously overpowered weapons that would probably cause more damage than the Antecessors ever would.

The ground was shaking already.

Onla reached the base control room and tried to get some kind of response from the Ollo network. Everything looked turned off and depowered. The doors at the far end refused to open despite the VendX troops doing their best to prise them apart.

“Receiving no response,” said ZF-989.

“Is it dead?” If the network was down that would at least mean it couldn’t target them.

“No. It is being suppressed. Source unknown.”

“Someone’s controlling it?” This was an unexpected turn of events. People had been known to destroy one of Ramon Ollo’s devices, but no one had ever managed to hijack one.

“Hello everyone,” said a voice in everyone’s comms. “I’m Hollet 3.2.”

The people crowded in the control room stared blankly at their companions.

“You’re the Central Authority, right? I’m here with Guardian Tezla. Well, she’s around here somewhere. Look, it’s not really safe up there. Why don’t you come down here? Not that it’s safe here, either, but, you know, safety in numbers.”

The doors on the far side opened. It was clearly a trap. Onla would have hesitated if she didn’t have hundreds of meat shields to help out.

“Everyone, go through,” she shouted. “It’s our only chance.”

They ran into the gaping entrance to the Antecessor site.

Book 2 – 92: Hostile Takeover

Third Quadrant

Tethari Asteroid

 

Two metal tubes stood erect on the surface of the asteroid, their bottom thirds buried in the hard rock as though it was soft mud, unbending against the howling wind.

There wasn’t supposed to be any wind on the barren, atmosphereless surface and also no howling. The asteroid was changing into something new, something never seen before. Not by humanity.

Panels slid aside on each tube and two Guardians stepped out, their suits protecting them from the misplaced elements.

“Full analysis,” said Guardian Onla. “Here to the base.”

“We already have a full analysis taken from the Tranquillity’s sensors,” said her onboard AI.

“I don’t recall asking,” said Onla. “Full analysis, ZF-989.”

“Please call me Ziff.”

“No,” said Onla. “If I have to ask a third time, it won’t look very good on your record, ZF-989.”

“Analysis is complete. Displaying results now.” The inside of Onla’s visor lit up with numbers and spectral graph readouts. “I followed your orders the first time, Guardian. Concurrent advisory suggestions are provided as an extra benefit to be used at your discretion. No time was wasted as I am able to multitask.”

The only thing worse than being saddled with a fastidious AI — which was all of them — was getting saddled with one of the smug ones. She knew they weren’t programmed with personalities, yet they somehow always managed to develop the most objectionable ones.

“Windy,” said Horne, flapping his arms as though he was preparing to take-off. “Have to be careful we don’t get blown away.”

The readings told her very little. There was an atmosphere but no indication of where it had come from. The air wasn’t breathable but would be in around twenty hours from now. The temperature was increasing steadily.

Wind speed was gusting up to 60 km/h. Her suit kept her rooted to the ground. Horne was running back and forth in front of her, leaping into the air and seeing how long he could remain airborne. The low gravity enabled him to stay aloft for several seconds before crashing back down several metres away.

“Ping Guardian Tezla’s location,” said Onla.

“No response,” said the AI. “Ollo base is shielded below ground level. No life signs on the surface.”

“None from up here, either,” said Horne as he soared past for the third time.

“Could you take this more seriously? We’re here to do a job.”

“I’m doing my job,” said Horne. “Weee, I’m flying.”

“Your suit has rocket propulsion,” said Onla.

“Yeah, but this is flying like a bird, all-natural, tech-free, no organics. Once the air stabilises, I might try it without the suit, naked. Hey, do you think not being able to blink counts as a malfunction in a new body? My vision’s okay but my eyeballs feel a bit dried out.”

Horne was a good Guardian. His record spoke for itself, full of successful missions and few repercussions. But as a colleague, he was deeply irritating. He insisted on activating the hormone secretions in his body and leaving them on beyond what was physiologically necessary, which could make his behaviour somewhat erratic. He claimed it made him feel more human.

“We might as well enter the site,” said Onla. “We won’t get any more information from up here.”

“Do you want to get together after this is dealt with?” said Horne.

“No,” said Onla.

“I have eye-drops somewhere, if you find the intensity of my gaze uncomfortable.”

“Ops-1 is sending me updated orders,” said ZF- 989.

“Why weren’t they sent directly to me?”

“You were busy. I thought it would be easier for you to focus on one thing at a time.”

She could see she would have to take corrective measures against her suit-bound partner.

“What are the orders?”

“A VendX repair team has been allowed access to the planet for emergency work. We are to check for any drones or satellites they might try to send to the asteroid.”

“What the—” Onla looked over the report scrolling across her visor. “They let them through?”

“Is there a problem?” asked the AI.

“Get me Ops-1.”

“Sent. No immediate response. Perhaps I can assist you,” said ZF-989. “Is there a problem?”

“Is there a problem? Command has just let through a VendX strike force.”

“You are postulating an attack on Enaya?”

“How do they even let you out of the factory with this many bugs in your system?” Onla shook her head. “Is there no QA at all?”

“I was not built in a factory,” said the offended AI. “And my internal systems are bug-free. My last screening showed a—”

“VendX is headed here,” said Horne, jumping fifteen metres to land next to Onla. “They’ll send a drop-ship over here once they’re masked behind the planet.”

“There is no current evidence suggesting they will overstep their clearly delineated boundaries. Such a breach would be highly prejudicial to future relations between the Central Authority and VendX Galactic. Probability of such an action is less than five percent. Still no response from the Tranquillity.”

“Great,” said Onla. “Send an urgent communique to all Central Authority vessels telling them to prepare for one or more ships in their vicinity to fake an accidental explosion that will target their engines, weapons and communications array.“

“Probability of such an action is—”

“I hope you’re multitasking while you’re wasting my time with your babbling.”

The AI stopped talking.

“Weapons online?” said Horne.

“Yes,” said Onla. “See if we can make it to the base before the ‘surprise’ attack. Haven’t heard much from your AI. Why isn’t it annoying you with poor advice.”

“Turned it off,” said Horne. “Never use them. Voice in your head telling to do things you know are wrong — I find it a little creepy, to be honest. Hey, what’s your take on pubic hair — yay or nay?”

“Ships detected,” said ZF-989. “Approaching on an oblique vector. Verification is being blocked.”

Onla looked up at the endlessly starry sky. Her visor display turned into a grid, highlighting the dots that were the approaching ships. Twelve of them with flight paths disguised to seem like they were just passing. Very convincing.

These sorts of ‘accidental’ incursions were standard practice for a company of VendX’s size — smaller companies would try to sneak in undetected, bigger ones would obtain clearance. The VendX-sized ones thought they could get away with it because usually they did. Central Authority drone ships accepted their excuses at face value and apologies were documented and filed. Fines were imposed. It was hard to program an AI to see the difference between an honest mistake and a cunning deception. That was why they employed the Guardians.

“Cannons deploy, safety off, arm with anti-armour rounds.”

Her suit vibrated as sections unlocked and weapon turrets emerged.

“Request for live fire sent,” said ZF-989.

“Field override,” said Onla. She doubted they would hear back from the command ship anytime soon. “Cause of override: mission objective interference. Confirm.”

“Confirmed. Would you like to hail the approaching ships?”

“Yes. Open fire.”

“Send a hail or open fire?”

“Both. Multitask.”

 

***

 

Third Quadrant.

VGV Executive Order

Planet Enaya - orbit

 

Daccord stood beside the captain as the reports from the drop-ships came in live. The bank of operators down on the floor were coordinating the attack and the main screen showed their positions as they closed in on the asteroid.

“We are under fire,” screamed a shaky voice. “Sensors identify two Central Authority sources, outputting fifteen hundred megatons of damage each. Taking evasive action. Recommend we abort. Please advise.”

It was undoubtedly Guardians, at least two of them. They weren’t on the CA ships, they were already on the asteroid, and they weren’t waiting for an explanation. Guardians rarely did.

Not a welcome deviation from the Chairman’s itinerary but not a completely unforeseen one.

Daccord leaned forward and spoked in the mic on the captain’s left armrest. “Negative. Do not abort. Broadcast preloaded message delta.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing?” snapped the mission leader. “We’ve tried beta and gamma also. They’re ignoring us.”

The screen showed the ships weaving through the hail of missiles directed at them. They were doing well, only minor damage so far. But it would be a lot more than that if they tried to land. The Guardians were letting their displeasure be known.

No surprise there. Guardians didn’t care for corporations asking for help, genuine or not. They saw it as a waste of resources on entities that had plenty of their own resources to spare. They also liked to pick and mix from any wreckage, as was their right under salvage laws.

“Request permission to return fire. We could claim a misfire.”

“Request denied,” said Daccord. That would only lead to an escalation and a terrible mess. There was only one way out of this. “Mission leader, I want you to cease evasive manoeuvres and take the hit.”

“What? You want us to sacrifice a ship?”

“I want you to sacrifice all of them. Take damage and then crash land on the asteroid. The ships can take it and you have the latest anti-crash protection installed. Testing indicates at least seventy percent of you will be fine, and you’ll be on the rock through no fault of your own.”

It was a solid plan. If the Guardian’s shot their ships down, it would be their fault VendX Galactic was on Ollo property. He could definitely work with that in a court of arbitration.

There was a long pause before the mission leader responded. “Hazard pay authorised?”

“Half-pay,” said Daccord. “For survivors, only.”

“We’re going in.”

 

***

 

Third Quadrant

Tethari Asteroid

 

“This is ridiculous,” said Horne. “How do they keep dodging our missiles? Did we buy these things from VendX?”

That would explain it but Horne was just venting his frustration. The suits were built by the Central Authority, the missiles were generated from stored energy by the turrets. The VendX ships just had better defensive tech. As long as they remained far enough away to be able to calculate trajectory, they would be able to—

There was an explosion, followed by another and another. The ships were being hit. For a moment, Onla felt a pang of satisfaction, but it was quickly quelled as the ships changed course and came crashing down.

Clever. A deliberate ploy to justify landing on the asteroid. Well, they wouldn’t be able to dodge if the ships were on the ground.

“Target crash site,” ordered Onla.

“Central Authority regulations require me to inform you—”

“Do it while firing. On low volume.”

“Looks like they’re offering to surrender,” said Horne.

“It’s a trap,” said Onla.

“Probability of survivor’s needing medical assistance is high. Seventy-eight percent and rising.”

“What’s the overall percentage for Guardian overrules being correct?” said Onla.

“Thirty-eight percent.”

“And what’s the overall percentage of AI suggestions being correct?”

There was a slight pause. “Twelve percent.”

“Keep firing.”

The VendX ships had crash-landed in a cluster, creating a crater filled with smoking hulls. They had all managed to remain mostly intact, apart from some wings and external housing. Troops were pouring out, straight into a hail of laserfire.

The CA suits were built to destroy entire planet defences. They converted light into lethal energy blasts, adapting form to fit the target. Anything from tiny pellets spread over a wide area to torpedoes that could take out a battleship. A few VendX repairmen wouldn’t pose a problem.

A blinding flash of light caught Onla by surprise. She turned her head and her visor instantly darkened. Above her, the swirling eye of the wormhole was opening.

“What is it?” said Horne. “I thought it’d been shut down.”

“It was,” said Onla. “It’s a forced opening. Maybe Seneca? Or one of the mega…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the first ships to emerge. Even at this distance she recognised their distinct profiles. Antecessor ships had a very unique look to them, although this was the first time she’d seen one actually moving.

“Are those Antecessor ships?” said Horne, awe in his voice. “Who’s flying them?”

Points of light glittered around the newly arrived ships.

“Shut up and run,” said Onla. She was already moving. “ZF-989, open a channel, public, enforced. VendX Galactic, I am issuing a compulsory buyout order. You now are all temporary employees of the Central Authority, provision of the… Ziff, what’s the treaty?”

“The Deathbed Treaty. Treaty 19, section—”

“Yes, yes, I’m issuing Deathbed. No negotiations, no opt-out. Look it up in your own time. Get to the base and leave behind the injured. Move.”

Figures ran, bouncing across the wreckage. Horne went soaring over her head.

The first light torpedoes hit the asteroid just as she reached the base. It was the same technology as the lasers in her suit, except the Central Authority had only managed to get them to work at a six percent efficiency. She doubted the originators of the tech would suffer from the same limitations.

Book 2 – 91: Disarmed

Third Quadrant.

VGV Executive Order

 

Daccord tapped the screen with the tip of his thumb and scanned the summary on the datapad to make sure he had everything in order. He had made a short list of key events for quick reference. The Chairman’s plan had to be implemented in the correct sequence to guarantee success.

As expected of the Chairman, he was able to combine these elements in his head, switching them around until he arranged them in the precise progression that would yield the desired outcome. Even with the blueprint for success in front of him, Daccord found it hard to see the natural leaps in logic that would force the Central Authority and the Enayan government to authorise the VendX fleet to enter the restricted area where the Tethari asteroid was located.

He had to let his mind idle and allow the rational part of his brain to withdraw. He had to think like a customer. He had to let himself want to believe. Then it became obvious. It was the only path they would take. Take willingly.

And the Chairman could see it all without technological assistance and with the additional and voluntary handicap of being blind. He refused to have his sight fixed until the person responsible for causing his injury was caught and suitably punished.

That task now fell to Daccord, and if he failed to accomplish it, the person suffering Ubik U Ubik’s rightful penance would be him.

“The Central Authority have hailed us, Mr Secretary,” said the Captain.

Daccord looked up at the man in the command seat. He looked a little pale, a little clammy around the face, but otherwise in reasonably good shape. His right arm was in a sling, bound to his torso by metal cables that prevented any kind of movement.

“Yes,” said Daccord. “As expected, they are using standard protocol.”

You could count on the Central Authority to act as expected in any given situation, no matter how strained. They followed guidelines and took matters one step at a time. They acted calm and restrained at all times, which made them very open to external management procedures.

“How many other ships are on the perimeter?”

“One hundred and forty-seven,” said one of the ensigns. “Eighty from rival corporations, Twenty-six content providers, twelve independent salvage teams, three observation platforms and the rest are private contractors with crews of three or less.”

It sounded about right for an unprecedented event like this. Opportunists and observers for other parties. No one knew what to expect — most likely nothing — but they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss out on something big. An Antecessor site left unguarded could provide a bauble or two for someone passing by who ‘unknowingly’ stumbled across an invisible perimeter.

The only problem was the Central Authority and their ships. They followed rules and were slow to act, but when they did, it was usually without mercy or remorse.

“The Priority Fleet?” said Daccord, checking his datapad one more time. This had to be done right.

“Ready to join us.”

“Captain? Are you ready?”

“I…” He didn’t look ready for anything other than a return to the M-Aid machine. They’d had to pull him out a little early, but most of the work on his arm had been completed. He was in the recuperation phase and his contractually agreed period of leave from active duty due to traumatic loss of blood, tissue or bone had elapsed. “I am ready.”

The man looked green and unsteady, but he was sitting in a fully supportive sustain-harness with all systems set to cognisance delta-3, the lowest level of brain activity that still enabled speech. They needed him to be able to hold a conversation. He had to do it personally. The Chairman’s plan didn’t allow for anyone to take his place. The ship would keep him conscious and alert, even if his organs failed and his central nervous system collapsed. The hypodermic needles inserted into his back fed him drugs to soothe and stimulate him in automated sequence.

“Captain, please,” said Daccord, giving him a sympathetic nod to continue. “You may begin with stage one of the action.”

The captain gave a slight nod back, careful not to lose control of his recently un-braced neck, and turned his chair with a tap of his finger on the armrest. The chair swivelled to face the large screen at the front of the bridge.

“This is Captain Maharash of the VendX Galactic Vessel Executive Order. Responding to a distress call from the Enayan General Assembly.”

The screen flickered from the centre in seven different colours, a pebble dropped in a pond, radiating outwards; the call sign of the Central Authority. No Guardians — that helped. They didn’t bother with visual identification when Guardians weren’t available — they were faceless computers — but they did require anyone they hailed to show their faces. And if you told them your ship was suffering some sort of technical malfunction preventing you from doing so, they would gladly send a drone to punch its way through your hull with a camera.

“This is Central Authority Vessel Tranquillity,” said a soft, sexless voice. “We have monitored no communications between the planet Enaya and VendX Galactic. This region is currently under lockdown, by order of the Central Authority, Treaty 7, section 3. Full terms and conditions of the treaty are available as an attachment with this communication and also as a downloadable file from the Central Authority hub.”

“We are aware of the lockdown order,” said the Captain. “The distress call was automated and sent encrypted via the VendX internal network.”

“Currently, we are experiencing technical difficulties with the Tethari asteroid and won’t be allowing access to this area for the immediate future. Please remain behind the Ruben-Sadar line to avoid being destroyed by Central Authority artillery, as sanctioned by Treaty 19, Sections 4, 6, 9 and 12. We apologise for the inconvenience.”

The Captain’s eyes flicked to look at Daccord. He knew what was at stake. A lot more than his arm.

“We aren’t here about the asteroid,” said Maharash. “This is a humanitarian emergency regarding the Enayans, not the Ollo Dynasty. Please contact the Enayan government for confirmation.”

“Please wait.”

The screen went dark and Captain Maharash let out a long, jagged breath. The needles in his back pumped up and down like tiny pistons and the lights on the harness lit up as they corrected for the deficiencies in his body, boosting his immune system and secreting synthetic cell tissue repair hormones into him. The cost for his medical maintenance was already far beyond what the man’s health coverage allowed for.

Daccord checked the datapad which was relaying the Captain’s readings in real-time. The important thing was to make sure he survived. For now.

“Continue with stage two when the Tranquillity reconnects.”

“Yes,” said the Captain without turning his chair.

The screen radiated colour again. “Executive Order, this is Tranquillity. We have connected General Assembly Acting Chief Officer Toaku to the call.”

A face appeared, filling the screen with sombre intensity. The face of a military man, that much was obvious from his bearing, his scars and his stiff collar with military markings. He looked haggard and worn out. A man struggling with problems on a global scale, with no time for pointless conference calls. Daccord checked the datapad. It was the man the Chairman had told him to expect. Of course.

“This is Colonel… Chief Office Toaku. We can not accommodate any kind of—”

“Ki…” said the Captain, recognition flooding his weakened voice. “Is that you?”

The eyes of the man on the screen narrowed. “Tareq?”

They knew each other. From long ago, they had met as junior officer and up-and-coming salesman. The Captain of one of VendX’s flagships had to start somewhere, and he had to be pretty good at it to climb the ranks so spectacularly. What was even more spectacular was the Chairman’s awareness of an unremarkable meeting that occurred decades ago.

“Yes, old friend.” Toaku’s feature softened. “It has been a while. How much easier things were then, eh?”

Nostalgia, familiarity, relief — susceptibility was already trending up.

“Please continue with the confirmation-denial decision,” cut in the Central Authority.

The man on the screen, Toaku, grimaced, then pressed on. “We can confirm VendX equipment installed at thirty-six thousand sites across the globe have suffered catastrophic failure. We need those vending machines operational but we can not currently open any landing sites. Unfortunately, we will have to—”

Daccord hit a tab on the datapad screen. The needle just below the Captain’s right shoulder injected an oily liquid and Captain Maharash let out a stifled yell. He arched his back, careful not to slam his back into the seat. Even in great pain, he remembered he was sporting a harness full of sharp points.

“What is it?” said Toaku, leaning into the screen with concern. “What happened to your arm?”

The move back revealed more of the Captain’s injury.

“Nothing, nothing. I am recovering.”

“Get it seen to, man. VendX have the best healthcare equipment in the galaxy, that’s what you always told me, isn’t it?”

“For a price, yes. Sadly, I’ve used up my quota for the month. Don’t be alarmed, I am in no immediate danger.” He hissed air out of his mouth. “What’s important is that I’m here, as I said I would be. You remember how I told you it was called the mythic package for a reason? That’s why I’m here, Ki. With the whole Priority Fleet. We’re going to get those machines up and running, even if we have to airdrop our mechanics from orbit.”

It was a bravura performance. You could take the man out of the sales team, but…

“You came here, in that condition, because…” Toaku was choking up. “It was my arm, last time…”

Daccord wasn’t aware of what Toaku was referring to. It wasn’t in the records. But the Chairman knew. As he always did.

“That’s right,” said the Captain. “You pulled me out with only one arm. I can at least do the same for you.”

Shared hardship, mutual obligation, parallel empathy. Susceptibility would be off the charts.

“Current Central Authority directive states that no vessel may—”

“Damn you,” shouted Toaku. “Can’t you see how desperate this situation is? Mass panic, half the planet evacuated, our supply chain with neighbouring planets cut. This is all because of you. You allowed those Seneca…” His lips twitched in an attempt to curtail the vitriol trying to get out. “And then you stopped anyone from coming to our aid. Food and water are already running short. Snacks and reasonably priced beverages could save the lives of millions. Let them through!”

“Please wait. Consultation in progress.” The screen went dark again, Toaku dismissed.

Daccord found himself holding his breath. Everything had gone according to plan, but the Central Authority still had the ability to do as they pleased. They had lots of rules to follow but that also meant there was always another path they could take, justified by another series of treaties. At least they weren’t dealing with a Guardian. Then there would be no way to tell which way the CA would jump.

The screen flickered back to life. “Passage to Enaya has been authorised.”

“Thank you,” said Captain Maharash, a sigh of relief slipping out of him, although it could just as well be a response to the heavy drug intake he was currently experiencing. “We will begin our approach.”

“Sending coordinates,” said Toaku’s voice. “It will be good to see you again, Tareq.”

“And you. Executive Order out.”

“Good work, Captain,” said Daccord. “Continue to stage three. I will inform the Chairman.”

“Wait, I…” The captain’s chair swivelled back around. “What am I supposed to say to Ki… Toaku?”

“It doesn’t matter. We aren’t going to the planet. Keep an eye on the Central Authority ships. They shouldn’t suspect our true purpose here, but if they try to intercept, inform me immediately. And Captain, try to get some rest. The support harness is yours to abuse until this action is over.”

Daccord swiped the screen and sent control of the harness to the captain’s chair. He left the bridge and took the elevator up to the hospitality blister. He once again had to suffer through the security inspections to make sure he wasn’t an assassin, as usual, and then he proceeded to the Chairman’s darkened suite.

There were to be no electronically communicated reports between them. Nothing written down or sent digitally. Everything had to be done face to face. Even when it was carried out in the shadows.

“They granted permission,” said the Chairman’s gruff voice from the darkness.

“Yes, sir. As you said, they could not refuse our act of professional devotion or our contractual obligation.”

“Of course they couldn’t.” There was a smile on the Chairman’s face. Unseen but carried in his voice. “The Central Authority worship the legally binding signature. Their respect for their own laws is their greatest weakness.” The rumble of laughter filled the far end of the room.

“Captain Maharash has been the captain of the Executive Order for three years,” said Daccord. “He turned out to be the ideal person to win their trust. His injury played its part, as I’m sure you knew it would. A stroke of genius. “

“Are you trying to flatter me, Daccord?”

“No, sir. I don’t believe it is necessary. I am, as always, astonished by your foresight. Nearly four million vending machines collecting personal information on Enaya and its inhabitants, but nowhere in our databanks is there a mention of a shared moment of trauma between our captain and the interim leader of the Enaya Grand Assembly.”

“No?” said the Chairman. “How very remiss of someone. You have to know what you’re looking for, Daccord. Then it’s much easier to find.”

“Yes, sir.” A valuable lesson, but a secret data collection method short of being useful.

“The government on Enaya is on the verge of collapse,” said the Chairman. “They won’t pose a problem. But there is still much to do. And much that can be mishandled.” The threat was hard to miss. “Have the Priority Fleet started moving.”

“Yes, sir. They are in formation and ready to move with us.”

“Have the tail-end remain behind the Ruben-Sadar line. Six ships.”

“Our supply ships? Won’t we need them?”

“Not once we blow them up, no.”

A safety measure to take care of the CA ships and the rest of the competition. And all for the low low price of six ships.

Book 2 – 90: Team Building

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility

 

Ubik could tell he had lost the room. It was his showman’s instinct letting him know it was time to bring out his A material. If you let the crowd turn on you, it would only get harder and harder to win them back. Especially when you had a tough crowd like this one — no eyes, no ears, not even noses. All the wonderful smells he could produce would do him no good here.

But it wasn’t too late. If he found a way to wow them with some premium quality moves, they’d jump right back into your pocket.

“Everyone calm down.” Ubik raised his hands, one towards the pale creatures incandescent with rage ( literally, they were glowing with an inner white light), and the other hand facing Chukka and Tezla, making sure they felt no need to jump in.

Nothing ruined a good set-up like someone trying to help when you had everything under control or were about to very soon, most probably.

“You stupid idiot,” hissed Chukka.

“Wait,” said Tezla. “I’ve seen him worm his way out of worse.” Which was enough to stop Chukka from telling Ubik what she thought of him.

Ubik was grateful for the Guardian’s intervention. Not because he appreciated her faith in him — faith that was entirely misplaced since he had no idea how he was going to get out of this — but rather because he had no interest in hearing Chukka whine and complain. He definitely wouldn’t want her giving his eulogy?

She continued to glare at him like this was all his fault. She was the one who had stolen the crystal pod or whatever it was. He would never have broken it if she hadn’t been holding it in the first place.

Ubik slowly descended the steps. The creatures had yet to convert their anger into violent action. They were hardly paying Ubik any attention at all, in fact. They were too busy forming a loose cordon around the larval organism that had emerged from inside the shattered crystal, which was now lying in a puddle of its own making on the floor below.

It looked smaller than it had a moment ago.

The lights from all around the cavernous chamber held steady; bright and revealing. Everything looked so much clearer fully illuminated, and so much worse. Nowhere to hide and nowhere to run without being seen. Hardly the ideal staging.

“This isn’t as bad as it looks,” said Ubik, tilting his words up at the walls.

That was where the eyes and ears were. The other crystal pods embedded in the walls of the chamber held some kind of unified intelligence. They thought as one, commanded the pale creatures as one. All he had to do was convince them everything was okay and then the rest would fall into place. Easy.

Ubik jumped down the last few steps, landed in a crouch and picked up the prematurely freed organism. It was translucent grey, with ridges covering its long, slippery body. He stood up and held it over his head, squeezing it gently so it would slide out of his grasp. It bulged and rippled either side of his hand.

The lower end hanging limp whipped sharply around his wrist and slithered tongue-like around his bare forearm. Ubik felt multiple tiny needles try to pierce his skin, then ease off, then try again. Then the whole body went slack.

“It’s fine. It’s alive.” Ubik shook it a little bit to make it look like it was still moving. “Even the colour’s coming back. See?” It was turning a darker grey.

None of the creatures attacked him, which was a surprise; a welcome one. This was going better than he’d expected. Something dribbled down his arm but Ubik ignored it.

The creatures stepped back. There was something in the way they moved that suggested to Ubik that not only were they not going to attack him, they were thinking about running away.

It was then that it occurred to Ubik how strange it was for them to have stood watching their defenceless little responsibility die. They might be of alien origin but, usually, when the thing you're trying to protect falls on the ground, you rush to pick it up.

That had not happened.

You could put it down to shock. You could also put it down to fear.

Ubik looked up at the thing in his hand. It wasn’t moving. It was about the length of his forearm, if it was stretched out.

“Why aren’t they attacking him?” said Chukka. There was a disappointed edge to her voice.

“I don’t know,” said Tezla. “I think they expected him to die.” She nodded towards the creatures. They were crouching and edging forward now, but leaning back as they did it, the way you might if you were trying to approach something that might explode at any moment.

“From this?” said Ubik, lowering his hand. The creatures shuffled backwards. “This isn’t as bad as it looks. I’ve fished out a lot worse from the sewers back home.”

Chukka made a disgusted face. She looked over at the Guardian, who winced. These were people unused to living an unrefined life. Ubik really didn’t understand how people like them expected to understand the universe without looking in the dark places.

The voice of Chukka’s despondent subordinate came wailing from the other side of the chamber. “Get me out of here. The wall’s eating me.” Which didn’t even make sense. Typical VendX exaggeration. Anything to make a sale.

“Hold on,” said Ubik. “We’ll get to you in a moment.” He took a closer look at the thing in his hand. With everyone on pause, now was a great time to figure out what to do next. It was these quiet moments when everyone was too horrified to move that Ubik was able to really shine.

It was soft and rubbery. It had no appendages or openings. It looked like a snake or an eel. Something that lived underwater. Or perhaps in the depths of space. His eyes lit up.

“I know what this is. It’s a baby space whale!” He looked up at the walls. “Am I right?”

The lights on the walls dimmed.

“No?” said Ubik, disappointed.

“Space whales don’t exist,” said Tezla.

“Not finding something doesn’t prove its non-existence,” said Ubik. “Open your mind, Guardian.”

“It’s an organic,” said Tezla, mind resolutely contained inside that bald head of hers. “A big one. Rex confirms it.” Her eyes flashed from side to side, seeing sensor readings on her HUD. “It probably can’t do anything to you because you’re Null Void.”

It wasn’t a bad guess. Ubik had never actually seen an organic before they were inserted into a person’s DNA, but he knew they were smaller than this. A lot smaller. But what if they grew to this size under the right conditions? Conditions humans hadn’t been able to replicate, so they put the immature forms into themselves and assumed that was the final product.

How much more powerful would they become if their organics were as developed as this one? Would that power be controllable?

“Isn’t it a little big to be an organic?” said Chukka. She kept her eyes on Ubik’s wrist. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. The look wasn’t one of disgust or fear, it was something else. Something more like avarice. What did she think? That she could get him to smuggle it out of here and then she’d claim it off his corpse to offer to her superiors in exchange for a promotion? Wage-slaves were so predictable — always looking to please their masters.

“It’s bigger, but it has the same basic structure,” said Tezla. “Rex’s readings are conclusive. It was trying to find a way to get inside Ubik’s body, but it couldn’t. If it got inside an appropriate host, it would be able to assimilate rapidly, far more efficiently than we’re capable of. After that… who knows?”

“How could something that large get inside a person?” said Chukka. “It would kill them.”

“You’re assuming it needs all of the person,” said Tezla. “If it takes over the host body, it might only need rudimentary functions to work.”

Ubik held the organic up to his face. The lower end jumped into his mouth. He spat it. The tapered tip shot up his left nostril. Ubik blew it out and then sneezed.

“I think you’re wrong,” said Chukka. “It just wants to kill him.”

“Hmm,” said Tezla, like she was seconding the motion.

“I think you’re right,” said Ubik, holding his arm as far from his face as possible.

“Which one of us?” asked Chukka.

“Both of you,” said Ubik. “I think it wants to find a host and I think it wants to kill me. That’s it. That’s what we have to do.”

“Let it kill you?” asked Chukka.

“No, find it a host.”

“It’s an alien parasite that will overwhelm its host and run rampant with an unknown level of power,” said Tezla. “We’re not here to speed up the end of humanity.”

“You’re looking at this situation very negatively, Guardian.”

“You’d like to give the end of humanity a positive spin?” asked Tezla.

“Oobie wouldn’t end humanity, would you Oobie.” He held up the flaccid organism and it lashed out at him again. “See?” said Ubik, dodging. “Harmless. Mostly.”

“He’s named it after himself,” said Chukka.

“No. The spelling’s completely different.”

The lights on the wall flickered, some message that was near impossible to decipher. Ubik closed one eye.

“I think they like my idea.”

“Can you get us down now?”

“One minute, Bashir,” said Chukka. “You want to implant that thing inside someone and let it take them over? Who? Who’s going to let you do that?” She was more curious than objecting to his idea.

Ubik gave her a long look.

“She has an organic already,” said Tezla. “Very weak but her receptors are blocked.”

Chukka seemed surprised by the Guardian’s declaration, but she didn’t deny it.

“So do those three.”

Ubik looked over at the Seneca women and Chukka’s friend stuck in the wall. So not anyone already with an organic. He turned his gaze to the Guardian.

“It won’t work with a cloned body,” she said before he had a chance to say anything.

The lights flickered. They were getting impatient. Then the lights pulsed rapidly. Ubik couldn’t follow them at all.

“Ubik?” A voice filled the chamber, scattering light across the walls.

“PT?”

“Yes. What are you doing? Why aren’t the goblins attacking you?”

“Goblins? Them?” Ubik gave the creatures a look. “Why would they attack me? We’re practically family.”

“We have incoming. More goblins. Advanced ones. Those ones are supposed to be a defence against them, but now you’ve neutralised them I guess we’ll have to come up with another way to protect ourselves.”

“They aren’t neutralised, they’re just resting. Right, guys?”

The goblins didn’t move. They could have been made of marble.

“What are you holding?” said PT.

“Hm? Nothing.” He put his hand behind his back. “I’ve got a hangnail. By the way, you have a high CQ, don’t you? And you don’t have an organic or anything, right?”

“Why do you ask?” said PT, his voice thinning into suspicion.

“Oh, no reason,” said Ubik. “You still in the same place? We’ll come to you. I’ve got something to show you.”

“Well, you better hurry up. I’m seeing more new arrivals and they’re headed down here. They seem to be heavily armed. Central Authority and VendX and a bunch of others.”

“Finally,” said Guardian Tezla.

“Have you been stalling all this time?” said Ubik. “That why you’ve been so agreeable? Waiting for reinforcements? You’ve got to learn to work with what you’ve got, Guardian.”

“Rex, activate a beacon.” She paused. “Rex?”

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” said Ubik. “He’s probably busy or something.”

“What have you done to Rex?” said the Guardian. She sounded as suspicious as PT. If he didn’t know better, he’d guess they’d been practising together.

“We better get moving.” The lights dimmed, the goblins twitched. “Okay. You up in the walls, this is it. The moment you fulfil your destiny. I know they left you here in forever-sleep, forgotten. Your wait is over. I’ll be back for the rest of you after I find a good home for Oobie. Be ready.”

“I think he’s working for the enemy,” said Chukka.

“Or they’re working for him. Rex. Rex, come online. The scan was clear. Reboot, damn it.” Tezla slapped the side of her helmet.

Ubik turned to look at the goblins. The name suited them. A deaf, blind army, but they might have their uses. They couldn’t hear him but he felt he should say something.

“My Grandma always used to say to me, ‘Work hard, play later,’ but she would also say, “Play hard, work later.’ Then she said, ‘Work play, hard later,’ which was when I realised she had a corrupt file in her voice matrix. So I deleted that file and now she’s a lot less bossy. Okay, that’s the commencement speech over. Follow me to victory.”

Ubik raised a fist in the way he imagined generals of old would galvanize their troops. The goblins showed no reaction.

“They can’t hear or see you,” said Chukka.

“They don’t need to.” Ubik tapped the side of his head. “We have a connection. Let’s go boys. Or girls.” He checked them for any signs of sexual organs. Not even a hint of a bulge anywhere, top or bottom. “Let’s go… people.”

“They aren’t people,” said Chukka.

“Bigot. This way.” He took a step up the stairs and looked back. None of the goblins moved to follow him.

“What about us?” called out Bashir plaintively. “You can’t just leave us here.”

There was a loud crash as part of the wall on the far side crumbled and the two Seneca women walked out like it had been a bank of snow.

“You could have freed yourselves all this time?” said Ubik.

“No point being free if you don’t have an exit planned,” said Weyla, brushing herself off.

“The Corps trains you to be patient and find the right moment to act,” said Leyla.

“Does the Corps train you to wait until a man comes along and saves you, too?” asked Ubik as the two women approached through the goblins who remained impassive.

Four women now surrounded him. For the first time, he noticed that all four were taller than him. He didn’t like it. The strain on his neck was already becoming painful.

“One moment,” said Ubik.

He made his way to through the goblins, all of whom were shorter than him, to the wall where Bashir had been entombed alive. He brushed away some loose rock and then tried to break Bashir out but one hand was wrapped in alien rubbery flesh, and the other hand made little impression on the granite-hard surface.

“Little help?”

Pale hands emerged around him and pulled pieces of rock away from the wall. In a few seconds, Bashir stumbled free. He fell to his knees and then jumped back to his feet, startled by the faceless goblins crowded around him.

“Calm down, they won’t eat you. No mouths. They can strangle you at best. Would take ages with a fat neck like yours. Are you hurt?” There was dried blood on the man’s regulation VendX-issue suit.

“She… shot me,” said Bashir.

“The suit stabilised you, didn’t it?” said Chukka, sounding annoyed at the accusation. “It was a calculated risk, which saved your life. Don’t make me amend your report.”

The suit had self-sealed over a hole in the chestplate. These kinds of suits were cheap and basic, but they did have basic life-sustain features in case of injuries. More cost-effective to bring employees back wounded and alive, and then terminate their contract, than to pay out the life-insurance VendX made them subscribe to.

“Listen,” said Ubik in a lowered voice, “there’s four of them but two of us, plus my boys. Or whatever. If things get rough and the ladies turn on us, it’s you and me, bro. I’ll take care of Chukka — I know you’re contractually obligated not to attack your supervisor — you handle the other three. You with me?”

“No,” said Bashir, shaking his head vigorously.

“They may all be deaf and blind,” said Weyla, “but we’re not.”

“Huh?” said Ubik, turning around sharply. “I was just kidding.” He looked back at Bashir and whispered, “Wait for my signal.”

Bashir shook his head even more vigorously.

Ubik returned to the stairs and headed up. This time the goblins followed, calmly and in orderly fashion. The four women stepped aside to let them pass. Chukka stared greedily at his alien-encircled arm. Tezla scowled at him while trying to get Rex back online. Weyla and Leyla took turns checking their weapons while making sure one of them had eyes on Ubik at all times.

Ubik smiled to himself. One would be easily distracted, one wouldn’t be able to trust her own suit, and two would stay close enough to him to provide him with a convenient shield. He could work with that.