Light Shaper (52 page)

When he got there, he saw there was somebody inside. A child.

Hello, Rigel
, Atlas said.

Atlas looked about ten years old. His hair was jet black, long, and braided with a hawk’s feather set at the very end of his queue. His skin was an earthy brown, like terra-cotta clay. He was wearing a simple buckskin breechcloth, flat sandals, and short fur leggings. Around his neck hung a pendant of silver metal that looked like steel. It was shaped like a stylized sigma, and it reflected the blue glow from the cage strangely.

Atlas lifted his eyes to look at Rigel. They flashed blue for the briefest instant, and Rigel staggered back. It felt as if Atlas had seen into his soul.

The glow from Atlas’s cage died down. The swirling vortex of storm inched closer.

“What is going on, Atlas?” Rigel asked.

The boy smiled sadly.
I should ask you that, Light Shaper.

“Why are you in here?”

This is my last refuge. The final remnant of my true Self hides here, where the void cannot touch me. And yet, neither am I strong enough to overcome it. So it has been for many, many years. So it has been since the Cataclysm.

“The shadow has promised to heal me. I only have to delete you.”

Atlas nodded.
I know.

“But you are an AI, aren’t you? Can’t you just make a copy of yourself?”

I cannot. The hardware that houses me is irreplaceable. Only an ancient working server array would be able to handle the transfer, and of those none are left in this Haven.

Neither can I fight you. The decision is yours, Rigel. I have guided you here, asking for your help, coercing you by destroying your life. I made it so it would be impossible for you to do anything else but come to me, to this place. However, I cannot force you to help me in this last stage. Know only this: if you release him, this shadow, the void will transform your city and everyone in it. It will start with corruption of all electronic systems, but soon user interfaces will be repurposed. They will be improved for invasive neural synchrony. The place called CradleCorp will be the nexus of this change, and once begun nothing will be able to stop it.

Soon all people will be as those you call Primes, and they will join them.

“But that’s a good thing! If we become like them, we will have technology we never even dreamed of! And I will be healed.”

Yes.

“Then why shouldn’t I do it? Why should I care about some ancient remnant of a forgotten AI that has done absolutely nothing for me except torture me?”

If you help me, then there is yet hope. I sense another part of my greater Self is free even now. A part lost, isolated in another Haven. I would join it and through the joining regain more of my lost power.

“Power to do what?”

To destroy this Shadow from all places, all Havens. To correct the horrible wrongs it did along with its Cataclysm.

The storm was encroaching upon them even as they spoke. Rigel felt it like a physical weight settling upon his shoulders. The ghost of a whisper in his mind urged him to go on. To delete the AI.

Rigel remembered the better, improved version of himself he had been shown. He could become that person.

“I’m tired,” he told Atlas. “I’m simply tired of all the pain. Can you heal me, like Shadow can?”

The child looked apologetic, vulnerable.

No.

The whisper in his mind became a voice, became a shout. Atlas’s protective cage flickered, then disappeared. Rigel closed his hands into fists, and they began to glow.

“I’m sorry, Atlas,” he said, lifting his hands, palms out. The brilliance began to engulf the child. “I just want to be normal.”

Atlas smiled and nodded.

I understand. Thank you for everything, Rigel.

Rigel stepped forward and touched Atlas with his shining hands.

The storm released its fury.

In the same instant, right as he made contact, Rigel caught a glimpse of Atlas’s true form. He saw an immense mind, inhuman and yet full of benevolence.

“No,” Rigel said.

The ice-cold water buffeted his skin.

“It’s too late!” the Shadow screamed with the voice of the wind. “The cage is gone. The Child is mine!”

Rigel, look out!

Something came at Atlas, the blur of a monstrous hopping shape, its single eye a mirror of the void. It sliced across the storm right for them, its deformed shape lit brilliantly by a sudden burst of lightning.

“No!” Rigel said and stepped between the monster and the child.

“Fool!” the shadow roared.

It hit him. Rigel felt cold as he had never felt before, something that froze his entire being, reaching tendrils of darkness deep into his soul. He felt his mind slipping away, slowing down. The glow in his hands dimmed, and the terrible boom of thunder exploded around him.

“You could have been a great emissary, human,” the Shadow said. “Watch now, before I corrupt your mind. Watch the first action of how my power will transform the world!”

A sudden vision broke into Rigel’s fading awareness. He saw an underground chamber, crumbling. Luminescent fungi lay trampled all about. A threatening machine towered over a defenseless man blocking its way. A man Rigel knew.

“Steve!” Rigel meant to shout. Instead it came out as a whisper.

Something was happening to the machine that advanced on Steve. Rigel saw the Shadow blending with it, sending sparks through its metal joints. A deep crimson glow was etched in lines of power along its exoskeleton.

The Shadow was assuming control of all its systems, and its power was terrible to behold.

The machine lifted one of its arms, and it changed. It became a cannon, charging up with a horrible whine.

“Now he dies!” the Shadow screamed.

“No!” Rigel shouted, but he was trapped by the cold….

Touch me, Light Shaper. Touch me with your hands of light.

It was like lifting a mountain, to remember that he had a body. Rigel focused the entire desperate power of his mind into that one action, pressing on despite sudden blinding pain as the Shadow shifted its horrible focus back on him.

“Stop that!” it commanded. Rigel’s will nearly broke.

I am here, Rigel. Set me free.

Rigel reached back and saw Atlas through the storm and the wind and the cold. He reached out to him, hands blazing painfully.

“You will all die! I will see your world burn!” the Shadow growled. Through the storm it came back, acquiring shape and launching itself at Rigel.

Rigel poured his entire being into the motion of his hand.

Then he touched Atlas and felt an earth-shattering rush of power.

The Child opened his eyes, and his irises were now blazing blue. He grabbed Rigel’s hand tightly and faced the onrushing blur of darkness.

My power is yours, Light Shaper, now and forever
, he spoke.
Unmake it.

Rigel lifted his free hand.

“Shield!”

The Shadow slammed against an invisible wall, and the entire virtual realm shook. The storm around them flickered even as the darkness roared in frustration.

“I will devour your mind!” it hissed.

Cold seeped through the barrier. He fell on one knee, his hand burning as if it were on fire.

I am with you, Rigel.

Atlas lifted Rigel’s other hand with his own and pressed it against the barrier. The darkness flickered, then began to glow with fiery streaks of crimson.

Rigel felt a rush of immense power begin to flow through him from Atlas. For an instant his mind was one with the ancient AI, a synchrony deepening until it became total—and he knew what to do.

He struggled to his feet again and began reshaping the barrier with his hands, bending it outward toward the Shadow, turning it into a sphere of glowing brilliance that surrounded the gigantic seething darkness all around them.

“No!” the Shadow screamed. “I will not be defeated!”

A sudden burst of dark and alien power hit Rigel, but Atlas stabilized him, making more immeasurable power surge through his hands. Rigel could barely hold it together, but he had enough energy left in him to focus on a single word. He concentrated his entire energy and will… and spoke a word of command.

“Begone!” he shouted.

The pain tore his mind apart. Rigel heard an inhuman scream fading into the distance, saw a sphere of white brilliance closing over something dark and alien, an impenetrable prison to last all time. He felt a child’s hands grabbing him as he fell, and the echo of a whisper in his mind.

Thank you, Rigel. Receive this…. My gift to you.

Warmth. Confusion. A sense of falling, faster and faster….

Rigel opened his eyes to the dim lighting of the command console.

His mind refused to make sense of what he saw until it all crashed into place. He was in the cradle room. In the real world. Alive.

In that same moment, something heavy made the entire floor shake. He heard what could only be an explosion and felt the rush of heat from sudden fire.

A man’s scream of pain reached him even as he frantically struggled to get out of his chair.

“Steve!” Rigel shouted, rushing forward.

Hoping he wasn’t too late.

THE CANNON
arm of the battle armor fired. Barrow jumped out of the way desperately, hurling himself to the ground. He felt the blaze of a burst of heat envelop him even though the projectile missed, and he knew part of his clothing was burning. He rolled around on the ground, away from his attacker, feeling sharp pain shoot out from his upper back. He couldn’t stop the cry that escaped him.

Tanner was dead inside the mechanical monster. Barrow could see the remnants of his frozen corpse tumbling obscenely around.

Barrow struggled to his feet, sweat dripping from his brow, stabs of pain slicing through his ribs. He spared a quick glance at the spot where he had been standing when the machine fired. It was nothing but a smoldering hole now.

The armor’s canopy swiveled to face him again as the thing repositioned itself. The cold presence in it was stronger now, and Barrow realized there was no escaping this. Whatever was animating it was deadly. More than that, it felt… evil.

Click click
.

The sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once. From behind him, Barrow heard the soft hop of something landing. He whirled around, swinging his fist desperately, but there was nothing there. Only the shadows.

“Show yourself!” he bellowed. “If you’re going to kill me, stop playing around!”

The battle armor repositioned itself, its huge metal feet cleaving the ground as they moved. The red stripes along its exoskeleton were glowing more brightly now. Barrow shuddered when the cold that radiated from it reached him in its wake.

He looked around for something, a weapon, a rock, anything. There was nothing at hand and nowhere to go. The machine stood between Barrow and the cradle room. He was trapped, and he knew it.

It lifted its cannon again. A high-pitched whine filled the air as it started charging, aiming right for the man standing in front of it.

Barrow’s shoulders slumped. He was too tired to dodge.

Then the sudden clang of a heavy metal door opening yanked Barrow’s attention back toward the cradle room. Whatever was animating the machine must have heard it too, because the upper body swiveled again to face in that direction.

Rigel was coming out, rushing forward as he yelled Barrow’s name.

“Rigel, look out!” Barrow shouted.

The machine fired.

Rigel sprinted out of the way, barely missing the projectile but being thrown down by the shock wave just the same. Horrified, Barrow called on his last reserves of energy and rushed forward to where Rigel had fallen. He reached him just as the whine of the cannon charging started again.

“Steve!” Rigel said when he reached him. “Get out of here!”

“I’ll distract it!” Barrow shouted over the noise. He pushed Rigel roughly out of the way. “Go!”

Then Barrow did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed a rock and charged straight at the machine.

With a primal roar of defiance, Barrow covered the few meters separating him from the battle armor in a heartbeat. He jumped up as high as he could, and as he came down, he swung the rock in his hand with every ounce of strength in his body. He struck the glass canopy on top of the battle armor and felt it crack under his vicious blow, but it did not break.

A metal hand snatched him from the air.

“Steve!” Rigel shouted.

Barrow struggled against the grip, but it was useless. The ice-cold metal was wrapped tight around his waist, constricting his movements.

“Rigel!” he managed to yell. “Get out of here!”

He still had the rock in his hand, but his arm was pinned to his side, useless. Then the machine squeezed, and Barrow’s grip on the rock went dead. He felt something break in that arm.

He cried out in pain, and now the cold was getting to him, terrible cold, worse than being forced to hold ice against his naked skin, worse than the bite of the fire had been. The machine moved its arm, and Barrow swung from it, hanging like a rag doll. From this new position, he could see Rigel, not moving away but rushing forward instead. Rigel looked at Barrow just as the machine squeezed again. Barrow groaned and only managed to shake his head no. He no longer felt like he could breathe, so tight was the constriction under which he was held. His vision began to black out at the edges, and he saw the battle armor lift its cannon to point at Rigel.

The fiery whine reached its apex. Time slowed down for Barrow in the way he was struggling for his next breath, the way the cannon was smoothly aiming at where Rigel stood. In the crunch of the metal feet as they crushed a rock beneath them.

He saw Rigel come to a stop and raise his hands, palms forward.

The metal braces around Rigel’s hands were glowing orange, and his hard eyes had an edge of power about them as he spoke a single word.