Raine VS The End of the World (33 page)

Lieutenant General Beech, interim head of national security, greeted Her Majesty at the private lobby between the three domes, flanked by the Joint Chiefs. Upon realizing that she wasn’t going to slow or stop her stride for them, the officers fell in step behind the Queen.

“General, how goes it?”

“Very well, Your Grace. We have nearly a million making camps by the Eastern and Southern shores. Campobasso, Palermo, Sicily, and Bologna are being staffed as we speak. The Overseer is inspecting the units, and further assets from the seven lords are en route.”

“Good. I need you here. Have Macleod scout ahead and meet the insurgents before they cross the Adriatic. See that the metal behemoth and EM spheres are readied.”

“Ma’am, I know we’ve discussed this before, but there are other options--”

“No nukes, and no chemical-or bio-weapons. They may be bringing the fight to us, but neither Lily nor I will sacrifice this ancient place, or the lives of innocents, to that kind of power. As Chief Science Officer, I order you to make use of your existing toys. Other than that, you’re granted
carte blanche
with regards to the EDC Armada.”

Macleod looked ready to interject; Beech pushed him away. “Thank you, ma’am. We won’t disappoint.”

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the Joint Chiefs and walked forth to her seat to listen to her overworked code monkeys sound off about their own ineptitude. Oddly enough, Holdfast was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s a doozy today, Highness,” Marco greeted her.

“How the hell did Lily get into my mainframe?” she shouted at the top of her lungs upon seeing the minutes on her tablet.

Her virtual double manifested in hologram form.

“Ma’am,” uttered Miss Guggell. “Raine completed an old, recently re-activated side-quest that dialed into the mainframe for its reward data. Because the quest was only re-activated this morning
,
its encryption has not been updated in over a decade. It also appears that a rogue signal piggybacked on the connection and splintered off. Given faint traces of its broadcast patterns, it appears to have constructed a map of the mainframe entrance and exit nodes.”

“Wait,” the Queen responded, holding her palm up in disbelief. “You’re telling me Lily now has a treasure map of our Network?”

“Officially, Highness, the quest was disabled. The data storms-” Dr. Karuishi offered, before the Queen held up a palm to silence her.

Lorelei rubbed her temples, barely holding her rage in check. She was seconds away from executing someone.

But this is me reacting. Not acting. First: examine.

Miss Guggell should have nipped this in the bud. The AI’s compromised, failing somehow, as Lacie predicted.

Is it the Raine virus? Undoubtedly.

In any scenario, the same principle that allows me to directly interface with the AI might allow an outsider access into my thoughts: given that this is an avenue Lillian would certainly exploit, I can no longer trust Guggell. If I had just a little more time, I could shut it down temporarily and repair the damage myself.

But I can’t show my weakness, or waste my time. I’ll have to rely on these pawns for now.

“And on top of this, Mister Senior has released Enemy Number Two?! What sort of madness is this? Where is he?”

“Forever at your service, Your Grace,” Jon Wrathman motioned, striding from the men’s restroom and making a dramatic display of bending his knee to the Queen. “Please, allow me to explain.”

She tossed the tablet at his head.

“Yes, explain away! Quickly! What in the hell was all that about? You finally found her, and then nada. Zilch. You have completely failed me on every level!”

Wrathman rubbed his skull. “M-m-ma’am, we could not damage or extract Raine, nor could we squeeze any information out of her. But I may have found a solution that can reveal her to us at last.”

“Let’s not delay, then. Brief me.”

“Surely Your Eminence remembers our trance serum? It’s been testing very well in aerial trials. Assets become compliant, leading to much better assimilation of the protocols.”

“Go on,” she commanded.

“I’ll defer to Hoshua here on the sciencey stuff,” replied Jon.

Alphonse Hoshua cleared his throat. “Howdy, Majesty. The serum has been most effective in large social gatherings; perhaps it’s something to do with the collective unconscious. It may be an undefined property, but it brings results. Complete immersion in the digital world, less input from the frontal lobe and Neo-cortex, and a state of mind test subjects describe as ‘expanded consciousness’ and ‘bliss’. On our end, it means total physical and mental control. The ability to emulate the Super-Soldier program. The only caveat is that side effects may trigger reflex rejections among the more prudent. I thought it was time we see what it’s capable of on a large scale.”

“So, the experiment tonight in Helium-Corneria,” the Queen replied.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jon excitedly. “She’s en route as we speak, and remains without a clue. Ma’am, we could make her the figurehead of our military force. The anarchists will be crushed.”

Queen Lorelei gazed at a hologram showing Raine in the horrendous line to enter the Coliseum.

“Not bad, Jon. You have my permission to execute this operation. But for
Eden’s
sake, start the main event early,” she declared. “We’re not waiting for any gate-crashers.”

Jon signaled to Dr. Hoshua, who immediately walked over to a sparse office with a window to the main control room. After donning the
M-Gear
helmet, he leaned back into his recliner as his brain slipped into the Network, letting the sea of ones and zeroes flood his senses. In the center of the room, an operative gave the thumbs-up. Hoshua had safely entered the
Metaverse
.

Alphonse Hoshua took form as a centaur in the Developers’ Lounge overlooking the enormous bowl. A multi-limbed tortoise sat before a custom console, awaiting his commands.

“Shall we reconfigure Output Theta? I doubt anyone here remembers it, anyway,” the tortoise recommended.

Hoshua shook his head. “Come on, Meme-Bot… Theta’s been done to death. Let’s bring back something from version 1.0. We’ll put on a show the likes of which have been seen a million times. I don’t want any hiccups.”

“But no cross-dressing? No human sacrifices? No flying monkeys?”

“No.”

“Then why not let’s start with ‘All Your Base’.”

“Last I checked we weren’t running a museum. Give us something with punch. Bring out the Kaiju band, and the dueling DJs.”

“I guess if that’s all you want… it’ll be simple enough. A copypasta of a copypasta.”

Disappointed, the tortoise cracked its neck and began the regularly scheduled programming.

The Queen plopped down on her throne.

“It appears I’ve saved the bad news for last. Update me on the troublemakers,” she ordered of Dr. Christopher Marco.

“Ah, uh, one second, Your Grace.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Marco had been working here for over ten years, but until just a few weeks ago, Queen Lorelei didn’t usually request in-depth reports regarding server activity, and almost never stepped foot in the
Nexus
. Given his wife Adeline’s lofty ambitions, all this recent business put the man on edge. He glanced over from his work to check her temperament. She stifled a yawn.

“Speak, nerd!”

“M-ma’am, it appears that Yossa’s bloc has been mobilizing. Those pictures we let through appear to have inspired, rather than quelled, attempts to transcend the
‘Verse
. The storms have made them harder to keep out. One seeker made it to Customer Service before being neutralized. I believe Miss Guggell’s estimations have been spot-on: now is the time. We await your order to strike.”

“What of the rebels in the streets?”

“Most seem to be operating autonomously from Yossa. There are other factions in the south continent, rallied by Hector Travers, that barbarian. Our Analytics lab thinks they’re of little consequence.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Lillian does nothing without reason. If we act now, how many can we nab? Don’t you have, like, a big board with all their names and lists of connections?”

Marco gave her a dumb look. “I’m sorry… what? A board?”

“Never you mind. We’re co-opting the anarchists. Disperse fifteen million Gold over smaller clusters. Get our moles to turn the rebels against Yossa and Lily. We want infighting, chaos. Continue tracking and monitoring known terrorists, but don’t go overboard on memory wipes. Sway public opinion. Blow up a few daycare centers, yank some brats from the servers and blame them for it. That sort of business. We can’t afford to just go playing mass freeze-tag. The more violent, uninhibited, and uncontrollable the insurgents appear, the sooner the flock will serve them up to us on a silver platter. Crassus had these tactics down over two thousand years ago, Marco. This is child’s play.”

“Of course, ma’am,” said Christopher Marco, who didn’t think it qualified as child’s play at all.

“Please tell me there’s some good news.”

“Indeed, Highness.” The voice belonged to Dr. Zarifian. “Macleod reports that General Lacie has successfully extracted Gerrit. They are en route as we speak.”

“Excellent. Patch me into her connection.”

“I’m… afraid her signal has cut out,” Guggell said.

The news chilled Lorelei to the bone, but she tried not to show any concern. Order needed to be kept.

“She must be tracking the enemy’s armada on radio silence,” the Queen bluffed. “I’ll have to reprimand her on her tardiness. When can we expect the convoy?”

“They are currently supersonic. Three hours, ma’am.”

“In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you love? How deeply did you let go?” - Gautama Buddha

The boy didn’t want his balloon back.

Raine tried uncertainly to return the thing, but the kid seemed happy enough to see a cool-looking girl descend from the heavens to rescue it that to seize the lucky mass of rubber and string would be to deny fate its little pleasures.

She thanked the child wordlessly, as he seemed unable to hear or speak, and turned towards the rather gigantic arena that loomed over this new city, advertised as Helium-Corneria, against which the Roman Coliseum would appear a miniature. The setting sun cast the bowl’s long shadow over the surrounding neighborhood.

“FREE CONCERT TONIGHT!” the banners advertised.

“I wonder what’s in there,” she asked aloud as a faint, hypnotizing voice beckoned through one of a few hundred arches.

Come one, come all, embrace the illusion…

With great relief, Raine confirmed on the bounty boards that she was no longer on any wanted list. After changing into a white magician’s jacket over a casual shirt and jeans, the girl reasoned that a live show might just help her plan her next move.

Raine joined the massive crowd. A curious pixie and her head-banging vampire boyfriend struck up a dull conversation in line. Supposedly the show she was about to see was going to be ‘mind-blowing’, ‘sick’, ‘twisted’, and ‘gnarly’.

Half an hour later Raine, Chance, and the blue balloon were at the edge of one of the further rings of the arena. She clung to her tiny ledge on the rim like a soggy piece of cereal.

The center stage stood out like a platform in the midst of a bottomless hole, sucking in the collective energy of the crowd of several hundred thousand like a vacuum. Her stomach quivered with anxiety – how many other people were experiencing the same thing?

That she could no longer trust the denizens of this world left her feeling rather tiny and alone.

Raine tried to calculate the probability of finding a friend to confide in here, now that Gerrit was gone, given that true friends are one in a million. She attempted multiplying rows with columns, but as the other end of the stadium seemed miles away, she abandoned the conceit.

A spotlight, and then a deafening guitar solo, interrupted her thoughts, slicing through the smoky darkness like a gleaming sword. The din of murmurs faded to an expectant hush.

She jumped up on her tiptoes to peer over the gang of well-dressed Sasquatch, who’d craned their necks up from the ring in front of her, obstructing the view with their top hats.

“Oh, sorry,” one of them graciously muttered, turning around at the sound of her boots shifting against the floor. Just as he lifted off his hat, Raine spotted a leather-clad giant floating down the shaft of light, flaming guitar wailing in both hands. The resulting wave of audience screams shocked her, but not as much as the
Godzilla
-like drummer’s explosive percussion intro.

Shortly after inhaling a few strange, glowing particles, a terrifyingly familiar dissonant noise attacked Raine’s ears. Covering them did nothing. She needed to get out of here.

Barreling down her aisle to the stairway, Raine turned to the others and wondered why they weren’t all losing their minds. She collapsed mid-run, rolled down the stairs, and curled up into a ball, her stomach jumping into her throat. She glanced up at the other folk; they were smiling, transfixed, bobbing up and down. Dilated pupils reckoned her as if she were a freak. Painted grins begged her to become one with the machine. She wished she were dead.

And then, it stopped.

The lead singer of the oversized band segued into a singsong chorus. Lightning shot from his fingertips. A group of scantily clad women manifested onstage. They began a lovely dance around the singer, and in turn were all thoroughly electrocuted; lightning swam through their bodies and dispersed throughout the ecstatic crowd as the song wound down to its close.

Before Raine could recover, thumping percussion and electronic music from two dueling DJs drove a persistently repetitive dance number as the go-go dancers, now winged, shook their bodies wildly in mid-flight and brought the stadium to a standstill.

Some were on their knees, completely at the mercy of the sirens. Others shook with reckless abandon, eyes closed and sweaty bodies rubbing up against one another.

Raine felt a hypnotizing pull, even though she knew that for Gerrit’s sake, and for hers, she should have kept low and diverted all attention from her visage. She hungered to feel as free as the others in the crowd.

The song ended. The lead singer’s voice boomed out.

“Thank yer, thank yer! We be so happy to exist! We play on to stop the war! I have sought unto the beyond, and there is naught but fog! No big man in the sky
musting
us to be unhappy! Bros and sissy-beans, wothing in this norld could possibly be more tangible than our desire for it! Through desire we become with ourselves one as!”

But Raine didn’t hear his bizarre words, losing herself within the building rhythm. Though her avatar was planted at the bottom of a stairwell by the banister, her mind was onstage with the ravishing women as a guitar solo kicked in and additional spotlights lit her section. In her peripheral vision, Raine sensed eyes trained on her. She was almost relieved when the music died down and the fifty-foot leviathan spoke once again in his odd manner.

“To-morning, I take it upon myself to express mine diveeeeeeine happiness for all the missus and misters and mississirs here who hath recognized the universal desire to unite and thank the Developers what have created this very existence for us. We be but humble beings and they know-see in their infinite wisdoms that we exist to service those most burning of needs, our own!”

Virtual flames erupted from unseen pipes above, and a laser light show strobed as the band kicked into a very heavy electronic number with a catchy tune. Aerial acrobats flew ribbons above the bowl, their neon trails pulsing in tune with the music.

The glowing particles sprinkled down from the ether once more, transfiguring into fireflies fluttering around the stadium. Raine inhaled. The air had become deliciously intoxicating and she wanted more of it.

Raine felt unbearably groovy. Tears stained her cheeks before she knew they existed. All around, her happiness was shared. The crowd-organism boogied and gyrated, its individuals enjoying great times with company. A man came up to Raine, looked right into her eyes, and pulled her close. They danced together, closer than she ever would have dared otherwise. She tried to hold herself back. It was very difficult.

And then there was a beautiful, older girl, who cut in and stole her away. Raine, much to her own surprise, loved it. She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair and stared blankly into her eyes as they bounced up and down. Unfazed, the man doubled his energy. More came to watch all three of them. The audience mobbed Raine. Some longed to be near her, while others just wanted to ogle her with their eyes. The voice in the girl’s head was screaming at her to be present, to process what she was doing. Her body ignored it. Soon the voice was silent.

“Through desire become we ourselves one with!”

Even Chance meowed and clawed for her attention, to no avail. Her addiction to the weightless feeling shut out even his strongest spells.

Floating on cloud nine, Raine shook her body aggressively to the music, longing to take off her dress. Her mind re-entered the equation only to strap the balloon string to her wrist.

She’d never known such bliss. She didn’t want it to end.

But then there was a gunshot.

And an explosion.

And then the floating particles disappeared.

Raine staggered to her feet and pushed towards the balcony, sudden feelings of shame and dizziness eclipsed by ones of mortal fear as deafening screams filled the air. The release she’d felt revealed itself to be completely false.

The entire bowl was erupting into unchecked chaos. Some audience members raised weapons against the revolutionaries and were quickly stunned in place or petrified by others hiding in the crowd. The jumbo band members bolted away.

The woman she’d nearly kissed had collapsed on the floor. Raine picked her up and pulled her away from the dangerous horde.

“I owe you one, Raine,” the woman muttered. “What’s going on?”

“Beats me. But I know one thing: it’s not safe here.”

Wait!

“How the heck did you know my name?” demanded Raine.

“No need for modesty. Everyone knows who
you
are, Raine the Unkillable,” the woman said, deliriously cozying up to her. “You’re, like, that… girl, you know… a tragic heroine. The bringer of truths. A figure of rebellion. The
Metaverse’s
Most Wanted.”

“T-thanks, but you really should get out of here. Seems that wherever I’m at, trouble’s never far behind.”

A rather sizeable group of people fortified with all manner of armaments had hijacked the stage. One of the brigade members was busy setting up a small electric device where the lead singer was standing mere seconds ago.

“People of our common world! Please! Do not leave! We mean you absolutely no harm! We are the anarchist revolution, and we are here to help! I ask for nothing more than a few minutes of your time!”

Just then, someone rushing by shoved both women into the banister, knocking the breath from Raine’s lungs. Chance puffed up his body, hissing and growling at the crowd to back off. She tried helplessly to push herself away from the wall, but the stream of panicked bodies gunning for the exits made it impossible. They were pinned into place. She untied the balloon string, stuck out her arm, held it aloft, and miraculously, it didn’t burst.

“Don’t listen to their centralized media! You have all been tricked! Those responsible for this event were experimenting with a drug that robs you of your own free will! They hope that it will help them achieve their ultimate goal of silencing our minds forever!”

Concealed anarchists blasted away every last Templar in the Bowl. Ghostly images of the knights struggling to hang on to their physical bodies terrified Raine; many respawned elsewhere, only to be mobbed to death again. She’d thought the Templars undefeatable, but then remembered that members of the resistance were hackers with in-depth knowledge of the
Verse
’s code.

Don’t panic!
Raine thought to herself.
Keep your wits about you!

Before long she managed to pull herself up to the railing, and just in time, too. She saw the source of the booming voice: at center stage, a half-elephant, half-man pulled off his hood, clutching the mic valiantly.

“THIS GAME IS JUST AN ILLUSION! Gold pieces, loot, points, quests, upgrades, titles, room décor, patches, achievements… are these really important to you?”

The answer came in the form of a disorganized rabble and loud boos and jeers. There were scattered pockets of agreement here and there. Many were still stunned from the effects of the strange particles, and most others were fleeing or otherwise teleporting out of the arena.

“Are they really important?” he repeated.

The din of yells and jeers continued.

“My name is Yossa, and I’m here to tell you the truth about this place! This world is a lie! All these career goals, all this character building, it’s what’s keeping you from your actual, physical selves! What do we know about the
Metaverse
? We know it isn’t the real world! We know our true bodies are somewhere out there! But we don’t know whether those who are forcibly removed from here are taken back to reality, or to another server. All we can do is trust to the Developers. Trust to the ever-changing laws of the land, the laws we do not vote for, the laws that are not even made publicly visible! We don’t know who is running this world! We don’t know what their intentions are! Our rights as sovereign humans stand! Do you hear me up there, you Templars, Archons, Developers, whatever the hell you call yourselves! I’m as human as you are. Give us the
truth
, stop regulating our minds, and let those who so desire be freed of this place!”

“Ugh, another rebel bust. These guys are such killjoys,” the woman muttered. “Name’s Angela. Wanna blow this joint? I can get us into some top clubs.”

“I’ll pass,” replied Raine, her eyes glued to the stage. “Thanks, though.”

“Too cool to hang out with us normal people, huh? Suit yourself.”

“Huh? No, not at all, it’s just--”

But Angela was already among the exiting mob.

Alone again, Raine leaned on a pillar and looked as far around as she could. It was still pure chaos. Yet it seemed that a small number of people had stopped pushing. They were standing motionless. Listening. A select few among the few were agreeing. But it seemed enormously important that they were at least paying attention.

↔

After making sure
Neo Eden’s
forces had lost her scent, Lily ditched the speeder for the
Phoenix,
hit her head and then fist-pumped at Raine’s successful acquiring of the skeleton key, reunited with her traveling airship caravan, and docked her ship at the
Valkyrie
.