Raine VS The End of the World (48 page)

All eight hundred ships whipped across channels at the next intersection and continued their stealth flight around the grid.

“The power of God is with you at all times; through the activities of mind, senses, breathing, and emotions; and is constantly doing all the work, using you as a mere instrument.” – Anonymous, The Bhagavad-Gita

Lorelei awoke to a distinct low-frequency hum. For a while, everything was white, amorphous. Her body, weightless. For a long while she tried to force her consciousness out of the suffocating
M-Gear
, but upon closing her eyes, nothing registered in her emergency plug-in menu. Escape seemed impossible.

No! I’m asleep, trapped in ancient memory. Wake up, dammit! Time is running out!

Her body was there. That much she was quite certain of. And she was young once more.

True to her infallible recollection, her past self sluggishly held a hand up to her face. A rubber mask. Recycled air. Slender fingers blotted out the light somewhat, but the act spent the girl’s energy, lulling her back into a deep slumber.

Damn you, Lily! What are you doing in my head?

Lorelei’s vision was clearer when she next awoke. Bubbles rose all around; she was floating in one of the
Belladonna’s
genetic pods. The girl traced the tubes of her mask to the ceiling, and felt the borders of the glass shell. Restraints held her into place.

The situation seemed incredibly hopeless at the time – she recalled the feeling of being stuck in a fish tank, alone in the dark of some terrible laboratory.

The Queen focused her hearing; it might be possible to discern what was happening to her real body. Marco’s grim laughter echoed from somewhere far away.

These data storms are killing me. I’ve tried so hard to forget all this. Wake up, Lorelei! Please!

Young Lorelei grasped the tubes above her head, and yanked hard.

That’s when everything happened all at once. Alarms flashed, the liquid began to drain, and the tethering shackles snapped off her body, one by one. With a heavy grunt, she ripped off her breathing apparatus and kicked out hard at the walls of her cage.

Then a figure dashed into the spotlight: Lillian Hermes, eleven years old. Clad in a lab coat, she stood on the opposite side of the glass, a towel, robe, and slippers draped over one arm.

“Lorelei! H-hey, it’s all right,” said the girl, placing her free hand up against the cracked tube. “I understand. You must be horribly confused, and I apologize for that. You awoke a few hours early.”

“What’s going on?” she bellowed. “Where am I?”

“If everything in the universe is happening at once,” Lily began, “then what is the sky?”

It took a few seconds, but Lorelei brought to mind the rest of the quote. “A-a clock, making it seem like they are happening one at a time. Stan Brakhage.”

“Very good. That was the recall trigger. You’ll soon remember that my name is Lillian Hermes, and that you are my dear sister, Lorelei Hermes.”

Lorelei searched her memory banks; it was the truth.

“Yes… that’s right. You were… my teacher. And you created me.”

“Indeed, my darling. As you’ve just exited a state of induced learning, this is the first time we’re meeting face to face. And you’re absolutely beautiful. My greatest achievement.”

I recall the warmth I felt from this exchange. Within my first few gasps of breath, she’s already got her hooks in me. Ugh. Lorelei, you were so damn naïve. Couldn’t you see you were being used?

Lorelei inspected her body.

“I appear to be slightly older than you, Creator.”

“It was safer to adjust your hormone levels this way. And please, call me Captain, or Lily.”

“Understood, Captain Lily.”

I can’t watch this! Marco, Guggell, anyone, please… Get me out!

Behind Lily, two identical girls could be seen in opposite tubes, hidden like ghosts.

“Now, Lorelei, would you like to meet the rest of our family?”

“It would please me greatly.”

As Lillian opened the pod doors and wrapped the warm robe around her, Lorelei was hit by an unrelenting flood of emotions.

The Queen recalled a feeling both alien and welcome.

Ah. The memories of my heart tell no lie. So it
was
love.

Motherly love.
Lily, you were always overly protective of us.

But there was also the warmth shared between two sisters, an unbreakable bond.
Even then, I never wanted to ‘complete’ you.

And on another level, it was a deeper, spiritual love that had been seeking its beloved.
You began your work too early. What were we to you but creations of pride, ambassadors for your ego, and ultimately, obstacles in your spiritual progress?

Perhaps it was inevitable that I strayed from the path.

No, that’s inaccurate. Afraid of being powerless, I turned away from the road less traveled by, but it was my decision. And I never, not once, lost sight of it, or how far away I was.

Now in tears, the monarch recited every mental exit code she could recall. She willed her consciousness to her memory, to run back to her ivory tower, to end all the pain.

₪

Hushed whisperings woke Raine from her invigorating meditation. After a deep breath, she realized something seemed very off about the scene before her. Three small pairs of footprints led from another elevator to a large crate just around the corner. Someone was tracking her. They could attack at any second. But she had the element of surprise…

Raine cautiously snuck around to the other side of the box.

The girl was astonished, having caught the eyes of two familiar faces, and a brand new one. It was the scholar with the patchwork coats, the squareish legislator she’d met at the Wall of Secrets, and the tortoise he was standing atop, although now it was upright on four of its dozen feet, and Raine could finally see its old, calm face. Like its counterpart, the reptile was dressed in formal attire.

All three hunched over a small microchip, arguing in hushed voices.

“What are you all doing here?” Raine commanded, prompting them to jump in surprise.

“We came to support you,” the squareish man answered. “You’ve really inspired us programs, you know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Please, allow me to introduce myself. Tuft the Legislator, at your service, and my friend here is Jack Rockington, alias Meme-Bot, recycler of entertainments.”

Jack the Great Tortoise bowed most graciously, extending his long neck as far as it could go.

“Why so serious, O Raine of such hype? Is our dear
Lilli-sama
in need?” he piped in with its soft, weathered voice.

“Ah, she might be,” Raine said, unsure of how to respond. “Hold up for a ‘sec!”

Keeping her eyes on the newcomers, she ran across the bridge and into the diamond room.

“Lily!” she cried. “We’ve got some visitors.”

The time traveler turned from her work and squinted to see the three programs chatting like old friends on the bridge.

“Hell, it’s about time,” laughed Lily. “Let ‘em in.”

Tuft quickly began work on Lily’s wrist computer. Within seconds it was back to normal.

Stephen took over operation of the beacon’s control console, picking up where Lily left off. His fingers ran across the keyboard furiously. He pulled toggles and hit buttons like the mad scientist he portrayed.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” Raine questioned Jack.

“Simply put,” Meme-Bot began, “we know the game, and we’re gonna play it. We cannot, through inaction, allow human beings to come into harm. If said swagalicious support functions do not help you now, many will die. Also, it’s Caturday, and I owed the Don a favor.”

Chance purred with approval as Jack kissed his paw in reverence.

“I’m originally a data collator. I’ve done my analyses,” Stephen yelled grimly from the other side of the beacon. He had the energy of a different man, as if he’d been ‘repaired’. “While you can be blamed for setting these events into motion in the first place, to prevent you now from finishing the job would be a heinous crime against humanity.”

“But w-we’re programs, right?” Tuft said, confused. “Not robots. The Laws of Robotics shouldn’t apply to us, correct? They don’t apply to the opposition, in any case. Inb4 lurkmoar.”

“Technically, we are robots,” Stephen continued, leafing through a small book that he fashioned out of his breast pocket. He showed them a chart with a list of advanced artificial intelligences. “Picked out this old girl from the latest data storms. Like ol’ Tony and the Colossi, we’ve been here from the beginning. Our current instances are patched with limiting firmware. The androids terminating those humans are acting on fallacious suppositions they’ve been trained to accept as lawful fact. Call it Lorelei Logic. The difference is, unlike their centralized command chain, we independent functions have the means, and the choice, to not feed the trolls. Now, for one last thing.”

Tuft realized this was his cue.

“Ah, Lady Raine, may I have your crown, please? It’s the final piece we need.”

Raine graciously handed over her crown. Her head felt a tad lighter.

All three programs ritualistically placed it on an elevated ring emerging from the console. Lightning spurted from electric struts along the inside of the arch, forming into a spinning sphere.

Jack remotely summoned a sleek black spacecraft from the hangar below and coded in a helipad extending from the elevated walkway, onto which the vessel landed. Its moniker read:
The Omega Queen.
Lily inspected the microchip the trio had brought her.

“So this baby will do the trick?” Lily asked.

“Yes, it will boost your speed and defense by OVER NINE THOU— er, by at least three hundred percent,” Jack responded. “Now, GTFO. Dem goons be hot on your trail.”

Chance unfurled from Raine’s neck. He removed his collar and handed it to his Master.

Raine was dumbfounded.

“Chance… you’re not coming with us?”

The Rainbow Cat shook its head.

“He can’t,” Lily replied. “His programming is specific to
EM.
He’ll cease to exist.”

Raine gave Chance a farewell hug and placed the collar back around his neck. She was happy that she could at least say goodbye to her most steadfast companion.

“I never got to thank you for all your help,” she said. “So thank you.”

Chance mewed his understanding.

“The same goes for all of you,” she echoed to Jack, Tuft, and Stephen, all bowing to her on bended knee.

“Princess Raine of Pagoda, your truths freed us. We should be thanking you,” Stephen responded. “But please, you mustn’t delay. Once you power through that Gate, we’ll destroy it.”

A rumbling in the mountains signified the arrival of a new batch of Templars.

“Climb in,” Lily called to Raine. “It’s go time.”

She nodded and headed towards the ship. “Oh! Almost forgot.”

Raine pulled the Mana Tree’s seed from her messenger bag and tossed it over to Chance, who caught it with his tail.

“If this place ever comes back online, I want you to give that tree a good home, all right?” Raine said as she hopped into the cockpit, taking up the seat behind Lily.

“Fare thee well, anon,” whispered Jack. “We are legion.”

The foursome gave a solemn nod.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but buckle up,” Lily said, activating the engines and boosting through the exit node’s whirlpool of sand. “You’re in charge of weapons, of course.”

∩

Lily was not your ordinary intra-dimensional tour guide. She knew things, understood systems and methods, confident with her drive and ability to alter the future. The girl could turn an ostrich into a cactus, if she really wanted to.

A part of Raine wished that she could borrow an ounce of that resolve, and perhaps some Pepto-Bismol to ease her churning stomach as they navigated the Network’s virtual labyrinth of security protocols.

“’Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.’”

“Come again?” Raine asked.

“Just a quote by Martin Luther. What you did back there, that was pretty cool.”

“Not a part of your plan, I’m guessing.”

“The best things in life are spontaneous. Except for these randomly alternating codex functions. Aha, finally! Keep your eyes on the targeting computer if you’re getting airsick.”

“Will do, Captain.”

Vertigo was a real possibility as the exit portal’s kaleidoscope of color twisted into a corkscrew of binary. Through the veil: a cavernous vortex of spiraling red zeroes and ones that spun them right round like a record, fast as a guppy in a whirlpool.

And beyond that, a gaping spherical chamber, crossed with webs of tendrils linked by floating fortresses, possibly centuries of tech development beyond anything Raine had ever seen.

In the web’s center: an asteroid-sized supercomputer in the shape of a diamond. Each of the billions of bends in its shape shone a different color, flickering on and off at speeds undetectable by the naked eye as packets of data rushed to and from the Network.