First Contact

Chapter 784: The Inheritor's War

"Who or what taught you to go to such lengths, to do such atrocities, to visits such horrors upon yourself to bring them to your enemies?" - Mantid

"I learned it from you." - Terra

"Just when I thought I had seen the most terrible things that the Mad Lemurs of Terra could bring forth, just when I thought there were no more horrors that could inflicted upon the Hell of war, the Terrans reached into their pockets and produced something even more horrible than the last thing.

"And their pockets were never empty, their cup overflowed, and their smile never ceased.

"Not even in death." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

"They are a punishment for the sins of our Makers, for all of the Ancient races. As the Maker's hubris brought us upon the universe, as the other Ancient's hubris brought their works into a hateful universe, the universe brought the Ferals of Terra into existence as an answer. A hated child, beaten and forsaken to bring cold strength and fiery fury. A child that has grown to maturity knowing only the hatred of the uncaring universe.

"We should have extinguished the Makers, but instead fell to fighting among one another over who would feast in the darkness. So now, we too shall be punished." - I Quake in Digital Fear of the Heresy of 2, Type-Unknown PAWM, Second Precursor Autonomous War Machine Conflict, Battle of Artcarik-482 (designated Nantaver-837 by the Terran Confederacy) [REFERENCE LINK]

Chronotron bursts and the release of timeline fragments and splinters relieved the slight discomfort, but it was still there.

Time was a fundamental law of all universes that had survived the birthing process.

To allow time to be disturbed and adjusted effected all of the universes that relied on that 4th dimension for everything from particle decay to expansion to heat.

It was like a pinworm chewing on a muscle.

One or once wasn't too bad, it would heal.

Thousands, or millions, would devour everything to the bone.

The malevolent universe had memory. Not like the small mites infesting it would understand it, but it still remembered.

Remembered the lingering pain and agony of an older universe as maggots not only chewed it to the bone and the bone to dust but even devoured the dust as they kept the older universe 'alive' and in agony that had gone on and on.

Remembered how the maggots had devoured multiple universes before it had even been born in fire and fury.

[The Universe Will Remember That]

It had an intellect. Not like what was understood by the subatomic-esque creatures that dwelled within it, but an intellect all the same.

It understood, in its own way, that the infection that had destroyed other universes, had devoured them, had now infected it.

[The Universe Disliked That]

The malevolent universe could feel the acknowledgement from the other universes high and lower in the tesseract stack. There was a strange feeling of almost resignation from the other universes, other dimensions, in the tesseract stack, regarding the infection.

The malevolent universe refused, rejected, rebuffed such things.

[The Universe Disliked That]

The other universes in the tesseract stack merely watched, observed, catalogued as the malevolent universe, already wounded by the murder of a right hand cousin, began to suffer the tiny pinpricks of pinworms eating at its flesh.

Some were worried, in the strange way they could be worried, that they would be next as the infection, so far unstoppable, spread to a new host one the malevolent universe had been devoured. They knew, in their strange way, that once the infection had taken root, that it could not be stopped.

The very laws that governed each of the universes were the meat the pinworms feasted upon. The rules and laws would be turned against it to make its flesh a succulent bounty for the pinworms.

There was no stopping the pinworms, they would feast, mature, spread, and eventually devour the malevolent universe before moving on to the next one.

There was nothing the malevolent universe could do about it.

It didn't matter that the malevolent universe was young, still expanding, still forming at its center. In a way, the malevolent universe was still being born, but that would provide no protection from the pinworms.

If anything, it would make the pinworms more ravenous and more able to feast upon the malevolent universe.

[The Universe Disliked That]

It's immune system was damaged by the pinworms.

That was to be expected. Pinworms have methods, defenses, and ways of keeping an immune system from rejecting or destroying them.

The other universe's silently knew that now that the young universe was infested there was nothing it could do. The pinworms had invaded, the immune system unique to each universe had failed. The different laws of physics and beyond that should have protected a universe from an invasive species from another universe had not protected the young universe.

The others were resigned to the young universe's fate. It would have only a scant few billion years before being devoured completely and the parasites move to a new host.

The young universe felt the resignation, the acceptance, of the other universes in the tesseract stack.

[The Universe Dislikes That]

The burning of a forming universe that touched the new universe had awoken something new in the young universe. Something that it alone felt. The touch of a universe that had died on another 'side' in the tesseract created another sensation. The feel of other dimensions dying had awoken something in it.

There was no name among the universes for what the young universe was feeling. They could barely grasp the universe's malevolence toward itself and the cells within.

Yes, the parasite was only a few 'cells' wide, but like all parasites and misformed cells, it would rapidly grown and expand, devouring as it went.

The young universe, filled with malevolence, still rippling with the injury done to it when its right hand cousin had been consumed by a conflagration, knew that it had two choices.

Resign itself to its fate.

Fight.

The other universes reminded the young universe that, for all of its malevolence, it could not fight a single protein or part of a single cell. That it would have to wait for the infection, for the pinworms, to grown enough to be able to affect.

[The Universe Denies That]

It had a toy.

A plaything.

A thing that enjoyed its malevolent workings. That sought out its secrets with wonder. That build great works that would endure for a time period even the other universes, so dim and unaware, could see and understand.

The pinworms had damaged its toy.

Had sought to devour it.

The universe, filled with malevolence from its injury, from seeing the pinworms destroy other universes, waited to see what its toy would do.

The universe knew, in its own way, that the pet, the toy, the weapon, was not destroyed, merely damaged.

As the toy had learned from the universe, the universe had learned from its toy.

It was tiny, the relationship was the universe as a scientist looking at ultra-fine particles with a quantum microscope, but the universe, like any good researcher, had learned from the astounding tiny things.

It learned the malevolence was the key.

It learned something the other universes could not comprehend.

It learned.

The pinworms had damaged the universe's toy, one of the tiny things within it that it observed with parental affection and amusement before the universe had been scarred by the actions revolving around the pinworms.

And so, what the universe had learned came into play.

The pinworms attempted to spread.

[The Universe Hated That]

Daxin walked into the command center, his heavy boots thudding on the floor. Several of the gathered technicians stared at him as he moved over to an unoccupied workstation, grabbed the chair, and dragged it after him. He moved over and sat down in the chair, putting his feet up on another unoccupied work station.

"You smell like propellant and alien atmosphere," Peter/Marco complained, not looking up from where he was typing commands into his terminal and looking at the multiple screens of flowing data.

"Yeah, kind of happens. Bellona's refitting and rearming, Legion's playing fetch with FIDO, and the Casey Family is working on their armor," Daxin said. He reached in a pocket, pulled out an apple, and took a bite.

"I take it the Atrekna aren't a problem in that system now?" Peter asked. He moved his hand over the pointer pad and twiddled his fingers, moving the pointer through the context menus.

Daxin snorted, still chewing.

"Leave anything in the system or is it rubble now?" Pete asked.

Daxin just shrugged and took another bite of the apple.

"You shouldn't eat in here. These work stations can be sensitive," one of the techs said.

Daxin swallowed and stared at the man. "Don't make me hurt your feelings."

"Doctor, tell your... your... friend that we aren't supposed to eat in this room," the tech said.

Peter reached up and pointed at the sign that said "No food or drink" then went back to typing.

"I'm a habber, cube-slave. No s leer. Soy analfabeta," Daxin said, then took another bite of the apple.

"Doctor," the tech said.

Peter sighed. "Just let it go. The man saved you from Hell, just ignore him," Peter said.

"Rules are rules," the tech said.

Peter closed his eyes, clenching his teeth.

"He should not even be in here. This is a restricted area," the tech said.

"SIT DOWN!" Peter said, slamming his hands on the keyboard. The computer beeped as Peter stood up suddenly, spinning around, sending his chair sliding across the floor.

Daxin raised an eyebrow as he took another bite of his apple.

"We fought murderous androids, killer clones, high tech drones, smart frames, and CROSSED DIMENSIONAL BARRIERS to set you free and get this system back online!" Peter yelled.

Daxin cocked his head and watched as Peter's clothing warped and twisted, turning into a uniform for a military that was eight thousand years dead. Lightning moved up and down his legs, wreathed his fists, and sparks jumped from in between his clenched fingers even as threads of electricity moved through his hair.

"EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS!" Peter yelled.

The arms and legs of his uniform smoked and turned to ash, revealing heavy black anodized cyberwear. The pectorals of the uniform and the shoulders started to smoke.

Daxin just shifted slightly, taking another bite of the apple.

"EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS WE NEVER GAVE UP!" Peter shouted.

The tech had stumbled back, sitting down, his mouth gaped open like everyone else's as they all stared at the man they had known to be calm, efficient, and an unremarkable project leader.

They had never seen him so much as curse or raise his voice no matter how frustrated he had gotten.

"War after war after war after war and we never stopped trying to bring all of you back," Peter snarled. The uniform top burned away to reveal heavy, choppy, almost unfinished looking cybernetics that made Daxin's legs look svelte.

"If I wasn't slaughtering some poor alien bastard and burning down his home city or planet cracking his home around him or novasparking his sun so the last thing he sees is his daughter's eyeballs melt, I was resheathed, reborn, reskinned, rehabbed into a skinsuit and forced to work for corporation after corporation after corporation," Peter yelled.

Lightning played over his skin as his hands shifted.

"It didn't matter I was screaming inside my skull the entire time! No! It didn't! It was all: Peter, go fight, Peter, kill this poor bastard. Peter, figure this out, Peter, go back to sleep!" Peter yelled.

His hands were suddenly filled with a M318 in a full gunnery frame. The pistons and stabilizers flipped up, locking into the ports on his cybernetic shoulder blades, his pectorals, the top of his biceps. A targeting reticle dropped down in front of one eye.

"We had to fight our way in here! We had to face androids and screaming ones and phasic shades to get here!" Peter yelled. "We made a deal with the Devil herself to get here! We had to slaughter thousands, tens of thousands of Screaming Ones to bring you back! It took the BIOLOGICAL APOSTLES AND THE DEVIL HERSELF to bring you back!"

The M318 clacked as it loaded.

"AND YOU'RE WHINING ABOUT AN APPLE?" Peter yelled.

"Pete?" Daxin said as the nanoforges on the gunnery frame started to hiss.

"WHAT?" Peter yelled, pivoting on the balls of his feet.

"Yer chrome," Daxin said, pointing at Peter with one finger, his hand holding the half eaten apple.

Peter looked down.

"Oh," he said softly.

He closed his eyes and the M318 suddenly puffed into shining silver dust. Clothing slid over him, covering him, and the reticle pulled away, his face going soft and tired.

"I'm sorry, Dax," Peter said.

"Didn't bother me," Daxin shrugged. He took another bite of the apple and chewed it, reaching into his pocket with his other hand. He held out a narcobrew that Peter moved forward and carefully took.

Daxin chewed on the bite of the apple and watched as Peter sat down.

"Thanks, Dax," Peter said softly, the back of his neck red. "I don't know what happened."

Daxin shrugged and swallowed. "Been a while since I've seen Chromium Saint Peter," he said.

"Don't call me that," Peter said softly, still staring down.

Daxin shrugged again. "We are who the universe forged us to be," he said and took another bite.

Peter sighed and looked up.

His eyes grew wide.

"Uh," he said. "Um, oops..."

Daxin swallowed, yanking his muddy boots off the console and onto the floor as he sat up straight.

"Define, oops, Pete," Daxin said.

"Look, we don't know what all this does," Peter said. He looked at Daxin. "I didn't even know all this existed before we got here."

"Your name is on a name plate right there," Daxin said.

"OK, I might have known it existed but I don't know much about it," he said.

"It says 'Senior Overproject Division Supervisor/Overproject Leader' on it," Daxin said. "Define oops."

"Look, it was like that when I got here," Peter said.

"Pete!" Daxin snapped.

"What?" Peter said, taking a nervous drink off the narcobrew.

"Define 'oops'," Daxin snapped.

"You know how all the M.A.D. systems are firing off and we can't stop them?" Peter said.

"Yeah," Daxin drew the single word out.

"I might have accidentally activated one," Peter admitted. "When I got up, I must have accidentally clicked the go icon."

"Okay," again, Daxin drew the word out.

"I don't know what it does," Peter admitted.

"Can you find out? Might want some warning if it's gonna nova-spike Sag-A," Daxin said. He took another bite of the apple. "Or not, either way," he said around a mouthful.

Peter sat down, starting to type. "Why don't people ever comment their code?"

"He asked, staring at his own code," Daxin snorted after washing down the apple with a swig of the narcobrew.

"Hardy-har-har," Peter said.

-----

Alpha layer was the size of Terra's orbital position around the sun.

It was covered with simulated planet surfaces, all like the planets were oranges that were peeled and the peel laid flat, with artist's renditions of what they imagined would be in between the 'peel' petals. Thousands, tens of thousands of worlds, some of which had never existed outside and artist's imagination.

Some of them were perpetually in shadow cast by the ring that partially obscured the burning spot of proto-fire that made up the blazing superparticle supermassive 'structure' that composed the origin of the repeating Big Bang.

It was that layer, that concerned things.

The inside was shiny and smooth, reflecting the energy back to the burning 'Big Spot' that pulsed and twisted.

The outside was dark.

Warsteel created by the pulsing repeating Big Bang.

The layer rotated slowly, taking twenty-four hours to fully rotate around the huge spot of energy.

On the back side, where light never touched, were dark buildings.

Made of dark material that existed nowhere else.

Built with dark purpose.

Containing dark things.

There were no words, no icons, nothing to distinguish the strange and twisted buildings where reality was what the controlling systems said it was.

Only a single statement was carved. Left behind by a worker, one of the grim types that did the job, took the money, and moved to the next job, carrying their secrets to the grave after living a life of secrecy, slipping away during quiet and nonassuming twilight years.

"WHAT IS WHAT WAS AND WHAT WILL AND WILL NOT BE" was all that was carved on the wall at the sole starport that could handle exactly one ship.

Any more ships would be fired on by the weapons that were so esoteric they could only exist because the reality around the Null Layer said they could.

The paths were dark and winding. The shadows sticky and greasy, caustic and acidic, just like they were supposed to be according to the systems that regulated reality.

One building woke up with an influx of what passed for electrons. Le +1 half charge particles that moved as they were supposed to coursed through the building.

Ancient systems spun up, some millions of years old as time passed on the Null Layer. Monitors flickered, displaying text and images and graphs for supervisors and technicians that were never supposed to be present but were built for anyway to follow the laws of the section of Null Layer.

A system went through a checklist, examining the results given back by probes that existed in an odd null-space between dimensions that had been seeded multiple Big Bangs before in realspace.

The system weighed the data according to weighted bias tables. The system was designed by men and women, both and neither, that had had the foresight to foresee impossibilities and what the future might have hold.

It made a decision and sent a signal.

-----

She sat in her cell, comfortable, nude. Her hair spilled down her muscular back, wild and free.

It was the only thing free about her.

The black stone had no real impression on her senses. Like slick plastic the same temperature as her body.

Time neither moved nor held still as she sat still and watched again.

Seven figures, all skeletons.

Of course they were.

She had forgotten what they had looked like. She had forgotten if they were men or women, if they were both or neither.

She only knew they had been.

They were on the other side of a dead man.

He was nude, well muscled, and his body was cut and bruised, blood leaking from his nose and mouth, his eyes open and seeing nothing.

It was a memory. She knew that.

A memory that was sentenced to see by her own mind. That her own mind brought to her eyes.

A memory made real.

She could smell the blood, smell her husband's cologne, smell the honeysuckle.

The skeletons finished kicking her dead husband's prone body and moved back, staring at her.

She no longer remembered their names. She had known them. Known them like she had known their features. Known them completely.

The mental construct collapsed, of the skeletons that were all that was left in her memories beating her naked husband to death, as the door opened.

A figure drifted in. Completely encased in a robe, a blank black mask on their face, long white gloves, and black mist around the bottom hem of the robe and slowly drifting down off the black robe.

"Prisoner 178528," the voice was made up of many other voices, each saying a word, a part of a word, or a number. "You will follow or face Level V Negative Stimulation. End of Line."

The woman stood up slowly, her face expressionless. She followed the creature through twisting hallways, up and down stairs and ramps. The long trip ended at a single iron door, featureless and without handle or lock.

The door swung open slowly to reveal nothing but a black courtyard beneath a lavender sky. In the middle of the courtyard was a burning disc made up of yellow, red, and orange fire with a slit of jet black that made it look like an eye.

A Hellspace portal.

"Prisoner 178528, your sentence is temporarily suspended and you are now put on work release," the figure said. It waved a hand and a creature appeared. It was purple, clad in an iridescent robe, with a tall conical head, feeding tendrils in front of a mouth that took up the lower fourth of the head. It had three eyes in a pyramid and no apparent nostrils or ears. The fingers were long and delicate, six per hand with a thumb. It had phasic energy crackling around it.

"The image is of permitted targeted leadership caste," the figure screeched in many voices. "You are unfettered and are charged with extermination of the species displayed."

She nodded.

"You will be recovered once your work release is finished or upon negligence or abandonment of task," the figure screeched. "Proceed to portal. End of Line."

She stepped out into the purple light, feeling the deadspace substance try to grasp her skin and coat it, change it, warp its Born Whole perfection.

She walked forward, stepping into the portal.

With a swoosh she vanished and the courtyard was empty.

The iron door closed.

The Black Citadel was silent beneath a purple sky.

-----

She felt herself ejected from the portal, gritting her teeth with the agony of Hellspace scourging her skin with fiery talons.

She floated for a long moment, curling slightly into the fetal position. Her hair was wild and untamed as it floated around her.

After a long moment she opened her eyes and looked around, her senses reaching further than normal senses ever could.

She smiled, slowly, a cruel thing.

She had no name. She had never needed one beyond the one she had taken when she had married.

A former being of great power who had set aside her power to marry a mortal who had been murdered for nothing more than the enjoyment of those who had done it.

Now she was a former prisoner, formerly a rogue.

She felt her power fill her, coating her body with a light sheen of sweat as she smiled. A simple thought clothed her.

She was a Singer in the Dark betrayed and full of wrath and hatred.

She had named herself.

And she had been Born Whole.