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Anger without Enthusiasm (3)

Posted by Ebonstorm on April 21, 2013

Posted in: 30 Characters in 30 Days 2013, 30 Stories in 30 Days 2013, 30 x 30 x 30, Clifford Engram, Short Story. Tagged: barghest, Ben Fisher, Clifford Engram, Daughters of the Dust, Paper, paranormal investigator, Rock, science fiction and fantasy, Scissors, Thaddeus Howze. 2 Comments

Part 3

“Mister, hey mister. Wake up…”

Waking up was the last thing I expected to be doing. I felt like about fifty miles of bad road. I tried to open my eyes but only one of them complied. The other was swollen shut. I tried to sit up but my rib cage let me know lying down was simply the better choice. I assessed my injuries based on the pain each caused.

Right arm, possible fracture, three ribs, hairlines, two dozen serious contusions, head injury, possible concussion but nothing I would die from right away. This mission had been a disaster so far. Now all I can smell is a trash can that is two weeks past a good time to empty. I focused my attention on the man speaking to me and realize it’s Ben Fisher, the host of the Barghest. “Mr. Fisher, pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Clifford Engram.” He knelt down beside me and began gingerly washing the blood from my face. He gave me another towel to wipe my hands free as well.

“I had the strangest dream and you were in it. There were these monsters with tentacles who grew nine feet tall and they were attacking me…” His voice got softer as he tried to reconcile his dream with this apparent reality.

“Mr. Fisher, that was not a dream. Those creatures were real. They are called the Daughters of the Dust.” The answer came to me while I was being flung around the battlefield, too late to help me win the day. Our guesses and brute force had worked well enough, for the moment.

“What about the fiendish dog? What do you call that?” He took the towels back to the sink and I looked around his modest apartment. It lacked a woman’s touch. Clothes strewn everywhere, dishes piled high in the sink, garbage filled to overflowing, this room showed the signs of complete neglect. This was depression in inaction. I guessed I should have considered myself fortunate. There was only one thing I couldn’t figure out….

“How did I get here?”

“That’s the part I am trying to figure out myself. I woke up after that nightmare and found you on the floor in my flat, bleeding all over my carpet. As soon as I tried to clean your injuries, you woke up.” He started back with another round of towels and I waved him away. The towels didn’t smell too fresh and I figured I had soaked up enough tetanus in his flat already, no need to rub it into the wounds. With some meditation, I would be able to close up the smaller wounds and speed the healing of the others, but there was no way I could handle this level of infestation alone.

“You still haven’t explained the dog…” He went to his fridge and took out a beer, some low-budget brand I never heard of. He brought one back for me and popped the tops and handed me one. Thank the gods it was cold. Cheap beer never has the bite of the good stuff. After spending the evening being bounced around like a pinata, any beer went down smoothly.

I tried to figure out how to tell this man he was cursed with an affliction he would never be rid of…unless he died. “It’s not a dog. It is partly a manifestation of your depression and part a possession by an entity needing a place to live. Depressed humans are the perfect host for these spiritual entities. It is called a Barghest. Local legends call them….

“The Black Dog. Winston Churchill was said to have been afflicted by it.”

I continued, “The Hounds of the Baskervilles were supposedly another manifestation of the phenomena documented in 1889 and written about by Sir Conan Doyle. The truth was altered so it appeared to be a fiction not worthy of pursuing. The Agency I work for does that kind of work. We investigate and reveal the horrors of the world, destroy them, confine them, dispel them, banish them or kill them, as a last resort.

“Are you here to kill me?” Ben Fisher’s brown face had a look of resignation about it, as if he had finally heard the other shoe dropping after the death of his wife. He figured things couldn’t have gotten much worse.

I looked around his flat and noticed a phone cord. My cell was still in my pocket, its pieces rattled around in a way that let me know, it wasn’t going to be making any calls for a while. “No, but after tonight I think we are going to need some help. Can I make a call?” Ben roots around the apartment, finding the cord for his phone first and dragging it around, he revealed the phone beneath a pile of paper on the table in the bedroom.

“Haven’t had much use for it.” He handed it to me and sat back down across the room from me. The light in the room must have been playing tricks with my mind. I thought I saw a pair of red eyes sitting at his side, in the shadows, squinting menacingly at me.

I called my office. My coded serials bounced my signal around preventing me from being traced. “I expected your call forty-eight hours ago. What do you have for me? Did you secure the property?”

“What, no how are you? No, do you still have all your limbs? Engram, your expense accounts look padded again?”

“That bad, huh?” Carol knows when I joke like that, it’s more than serious.

“I’ve secured the Barghest. I believe he will be an asset with some training. Do we have anyone local we can task to this? I will need some real backup. The suspicions were correct, we have an outbreak of the Daughters of the Dust.”

The line crackled with static for a moment. This meant she was thinking. “I will send the closest agents to your location. They will be there at dawn. Get some rest.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

“Mr. Fisher, I suggest you get some rest as well. You are now, for the duration, a member of the Agency. I will need you to do one more thing for me. Do you remember a dream you had a few days ago which included some policemen?” I sat down on the sofa, too tired to be concerned about what might lurk within its folds.

“Yes. Did I do something?”

Explaining to people that they have become a monster is part of the job description. It’s always best to just tell them straight. “The Barghest is a supernatural entity. A dangerous one. Even a casual interaction with it can be lethal to the uninitiated. The policemen it attacked, while it didn’t kill them, they are now dying slowly. They are alive right now, because a priest stands over them fighting its influences. You have to release them. Whatever it is you believe they have done, you have to forgive them.”

“Or?” He raised his head across the room and the eyes of the Barghest appeared right next to his, as if it were sitting up like a loyal puppy.

“Or they’ll die.”

“So. They didn’t save her. They deserve to die.”

The accident where his wife died. The reports said she was struck in a hit and run. The police arrived on the scene and bystanders had managed to drag the driver from the car. When the police arrived, the man had transformed and battled the officers as a Creature of the Dust. The CCTV video showed them getting thrashed before the creature ran off. He’s held them responsible.

This must have been when the Barghest formed as part of a confluence of forces. “Don’t blame them. They didn’t know what they were dealing with. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I was investigating the earlier indications of the infestation but I was a day or two behind the creature that killed your wife. Let the policemen go. I am far more responsible than they are.

Tears rolled down his face and he turned toward me. “She didn’t have to die?”

“No. If I had been faster, maybe she would never have had to have an encounter with the Dust in the first place.” An unpleasant truth but true none the less. The Barghest stood, slowly growing. The window darkened for a second as a strange blackness suffused the room. Then it was gone.

“They’ll be fine. If we don’t find the thing that killed my wife and kill it, I’m gonna satisfy myself with your death, do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.” I couldn’t have asked for a better response. I needed him to be crazed with rage. It was the only chance we were going to make it out alive assuming our help came through. He got up and went into his bedroom. The door slammed behind him and I sank into his aging sofa, trying to find what sleep would come.

Dawn arrived too soon for my tastes. I woke him up and we went downstairs after a beer for breakfast. Our help had arrived. Three of the craziest Agency operatives known.

One was behind the wheel of a large black van of indiscriminate pedigree, but the purr of the motor told me there was more under the hood than it appeared. The driver was a white-haired blond whose right eye had a long cut over the flesh. She was ghostly pale, an albino. It did not stop her from being beautiful. She draped her hair over that eye so the scar was less noticeable. The Redhead, over six feet stood smoking a cigarette in a long black coat and combat armor underneath it. She wore an outfit similar to my own before it was chewed on yesterday. The side door opened and a tiny dark-haired woman got out. Two machetes handles were visible over her shoulders. Small throwing knives covered her extremities, and even her teeth were sharpened. Her smile gave me chills. She wore her hair long and braided in the back. Something sharp glinted in the ball at the end.

She sent me Rock, Paper and Scissors, three of Europe’s deadliest Agency operatives. Now, we might have a chance. Might. I’m tempted to tell my boss to just bomb London. It would be more merciful.

The redhead, Rock, blew a smoke ring as she turned around and gave me a grin that reminded me why I was happy to be a man. “You need something killed?”

I hobbled into the van. Scissors gave me a hand. I counted my fingers after she let go. Ben climbed in behind me. “Daughters of the Dust.”

Her smile faded.

Paper gunned the engine. We raced toward oblivion in the early London morning.

TRAITS

Setting the fire inside the warehouse seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Paulo 7 hated Master Zie-Mac-Ken. The being was reprehensible. More cruel than the average Cyric, Zie-Mac-Ken took pleasure in abusing every Human he held psychic dominion over.

Humanity once had an empire of fifty beautiful worlds for a thousand years.

The Cyric Columbus found our most distant outpost of two million souls. He mentally dominated the entire planet in secret, alone and in a single year. Their Trait of Domination allowed them to conquer their planet’s other, more numerous, intelligent species, enslave them and reach the stars in a sinister symbiosis. We were no match for them.

Our species Alpha Trait of Adaptability couldn’t trump theirs. It got us to the stars, but in a contest… Individualistic, the Cyric don’t cooperate well. They tended to live alone so it took thirty years for them to conquer the Outer Worlds. Only on the Core Worlds with their dense populations were Humans safe. Two hundred years and the Core hadn’t rescued us.

It’s said, once enslaved, no species ever escaped. Without a choice, we adapted.

Paulo toiled at the Resource Warehouse for twelve years and had been both re-educated and sanctioned by his boss for being difficult. Gene-engineered by one of the Cyric’s other slave species, Paulo was adapted for his life as a laborer on Cyris Prime. He hardly noticed the extra labor.

The Cyric promoted docility using subliminal sonics applied to everyone on the farm, hidden in music, piped everywhere. Its harsher cousin, re-education was used as a punishment.

Re-education bypasses normal barriers of attention and became a painful form of brainwashing. Paulo was often scarred, his mind permanently altered. His father died due to the constant pressure caused by the mental assault. Paulo refused to surrender and paid a terrible price. But Paulo’s resistance revealed a flaw.

The impulse to attack the easily squished and diminutive Cyric masters was overridden with a powerful fear. Psychographs are permanent conditioning able to cause any Human, even the stronger Remaps, to break down into a blob of whimpering flesh. With the Cyric Alpha trait boosting the psychograph Cyric were able to control any number of Humans without effort.

Until the day when Paulo imagined a bonfire with Zie-Mac-Ken in the center of it. He felt no fear; there was no dry mouth, no dread or awe-inspiring terror. It seemed so obvious in hindsight.

As a Remap, every aspect of Paulo’s psychic conditioning was thought accounted for except for aberrant behaviors. The Cyric didn’t have insanity traits, so such weren’t even considered among their slaves. Paulo 7 was more than aberrant. He was a closet pyromaniac. Fearful of the danger, his mother had trained him to keep his fascination hidden.

Cyris was a forest world, rich in organic chemicals, a flammable, pharmacological paradise. Ever vigilant, even in his private moments, he had never considered fire and Zie-Mac-Ken in a single thought, until today. He tried it a few more times. Nothing.

He drew Zie-Mac-Ken’s ire to force him to try to bind him mentally. As long Paulo immersed himself mentally in flame, he was able to move, if only a tiny bit. Then, a little more each day. It took a year until he was ready.

On the last day of harvest, warehouse nearly filled to the ceiling, he sent everyone home early. He took the unbelieving Zie-Mac-Ken to the warehouse floor. It resisted and raged as he tied it to a pallet of Rin-Ba, the most beloved food of the Cyric.

He knew the Cyric had Called out for help. Too late. As the Rin-ba ignited, he left the warehouse. Having turned off the fire suppression systems, Paulo heard the screams as the fire spread. His only regret was he wouldn’t get to watch.

Adaptability, he thought. It’s how we reached the stars. It’s how we’ll take them back. Paulo 7 whistled a jaunty tune all the way home.

Equinox: Loa (6)

Posted by Ebonstorm on January 29, 2013

Posted in: Chapter, Equinox: The Last Scion, Fiction, Serial. Tagged: Chapter, divine, Equinox, Fox, Gaia, Hart, magic, Mr. Black, nature, powers, Providence, science fiction and fantasy, Serial, short story, Umbra, urban fantasy, Wolves, YA fantasy, young adult. 1 Comment

“Did you understand me, child? You must Remember. Now wake.”

The voice that spoke to me was as much of a question as why I woke with a mouth full of sand, in a place hotter than Hell. Okay, one question at a time. Where was I? Face down, I could notice sand and rock. White, dry, hot. Sun was just rising and I was already hotter than I had ever been. Almost as hot as in the dream I just had, of a place of permanent Summer. My memory tried to focus on a building, wide, sprawling, a place filled with the dying. Then it slipped away.

My clothes were the last ones I remember, something I put on after reaching the Nexus, something stylish and completely inappropriate for desert walking except for the new boots. I tried to get to my feet, but stopped somewhere between kneeling and standing, a wave of dizziness and thirst overtook me. Doing a quick check, I noted no injuries other than the blistering heat. There was a heaviness within my chest. Something I couldn’t explain. Something emotional trying to get out. I clamped down on that feeling and finish my personal survey.

I was armed with two silvered 9mm pistols and silver bullets with high quality loads. Both of them were enchanted, covered with runes and when I listened to them, their magic sang of the glory of death. The song was filled with arias to the subject but as to whose Death was being glorified, the wielder’s or the target’s I was much less sure of. A common failing with Death-related items, they don’t tend to care who dies while using them so long as someone does. That aside, their magic was strong enough to drop almost anything. In addition, there were runic scripts on each bullet further increasing their efficacy. The very fact these weapons were here caused me to look up and around again suddenly feeling vulnerable and paranoid. Whoever put me here wanted me to be able to shoot and kill almost anything that lived and a bunch of things that bordered the boundaries between life and death.

Looking around, I noticed a dark wide brimmed hat sitting on the sand nearby. I felt I should recognize it. It was on the tip of my tongue. I had the distinct impression that there was something I should be remembering right now. Something so important my life depended on it. If I thought for a second longer I was sure I could remember her…

“Don’t say that name.”

I heard it as clear as if someone had spoken aloud, but I didn’t see anyone for miles. I mentioned that I was standing in a desert. No people in any direction. No shade either. So, who said that?

“Don’t say the name of anyone you remember while we walk. You are able to be here because you do not remember anyone or anything. Names have power. Yours has greater power than most. For now we shall call you Adam.”

“Okay, so who are you and how can you be talking to me?”

“I am on the ground in front of you. You perceive me as a common article of clothing.”

“You mean this hat? Yes, you look like a very common, if a bit unstylish hat.”

“I will have you know I am a very uncommon and quite stylish hat. If you were around a hundred years ago.” The hat’s tone was less than conciliatory as if it was trying to appease a less than intelligent houseplant. “Put me on. You will need protection from the sun.”

“Do I have to?”

“No, you could stand out here until your brain fries, you remember who you are, shout out the Names of people who should remain forgotten for a bit longer, attract the people who are trying to kill you, and get me killed trying to fruitlessly protect someone too stupid to put on a hat to prevent sunstroke. I think that is sound reasoning. I’ll wait here.”

How did I know I wasn’t already past the point of common madness? Wasn’t I out in the middle of a desert I did not recognize arguing with what I believed to be an acerbic and style-impaired hat? Well, if I was crazed, I couldn’t be any worse off for having a tiny bit of shade in this blazing damn desert.

I picked up the hat. It was heavy. Made from a thick leather, no sand adhered to it and I turned it around in my hand. It was black. Completely black, where I expected shadows, it seemed to become even darker. Then I looked at my own shadow and realized what was wrong with the hat. It cast no shadows. My hand appeared to be empty and holding nothing.

I put it on and just like that, neither of us cast a shadow. And I was a whole lot cooler as well. As hats go, a lack of style had to fall by the wayside when you can knock twenty degrees right out of the air. Relief.

“Go that way.” The hat’s command caused a tingling sensation off to my right. I understood intuitively what it meant. “While I cannot tell you much about how you got here, Adam, I must tell you this. You are special. A person so special there are only a few dozen like you on the entire planet at any given time. Right now, you are unique and a number of people want you dead. We cannot allow that to happen. We are on our way to see a person who, while he will not be happy to see you, will want to help you because he has no choice.”

“Um, I have to ask, if we are coercing him into helping us, won’t that make him resentful and maybe kill us too?”

“That is true. And it is even more likely he has already been treating with our enemies. But we have something he wants and needs. And to get it back, he would do almost anything.”

I stopped walking for a moment. Sand is hard to walk in and my feet were already cramping. I looked in my pockets and noticed nothing but a few extra clips of ammunition, a nutrition bar I eyed hungrily, but reasoned I had no idea when my next meal might be, so I put it back. No wallet. No ID. Nice jacket and dual holsters for guns. I did not see anything I had I could bargain with for my potential benefactor to consider helping me. Maybe he liked boots. The ones I was wearing were heavy, shiny and black. Very comfortable.

“Okay, so I just took inventory and I don’t see anything I have to haggle with unless he has a penchant for really well made, slightly morbid, magical firearms or very comfortable footwear.”

There was a series of strange sounds, that took me a minute to realize were laughter. When the hat stopped laughing, it said, “No, you don’t have anything he would want, but when the time comes, you are to offer me in trade for a favor. It will require craft on your part, so don’t offer me up until you have everything you want.”

“How will I know when that is?”

“That young man, is your gift, to be between all things, to be part of everything and nothing, shadow and substance. Between wisdom and foolishness. When you see things looking completely hopeless, you will know its time. Now get back to walking, we have a long way to go before we get there.”

“Where is there?”

“The boundary between Twilight and Night. The realm of Mr. Black, Master of the Loa.”

Equinox: Native Daughter (4)

Posted by Ebonstorm on November 17, 2012

Posted in: Chapter, Equinox: The Last Scion, Serial, Short Story. Tagged: Coyote, divine, Equinox, Equinox: The Last Scion, Fox, Gaia, Great Spirit, Hart, magic, nature, Not Wolves, powers, science fiction and fantasy, shapechanging, Umbra, urban fantasy, Wolves, YA fantasy, young adult. 1 Comment

“Hey kid, what are you doing out here? Kid, can you hear me?”

When I woke up, I was sitting in the back seat of my father’s SUV. It was cold and my face was sticky. My back hurt alot and I felt sick with the smell of gasoline all around me. I was not sure what I was seeing because there was a red fox sitting on the seat next to me. And he was talking to me.

“Ugh. I am okay, I think. Where is my father?”

“Hmm, you might not want to think about that right now. I couldn’t do anything for him. Let’s get you out of that seatbelt.”

My fingers felt fat and clumsy. I was having trouble. The fox stopped and licked my fingers. They felt momentarily stronger and more sure. The release popped.

I opened the car door and stepped outside. It was night and cold. We were somewhere in the desert and the stars shone bright enough to see easily by. Nothing like starlight in the city. I saw my father’s car and another car crushed together. Both cars seemed as one, crumpled hulks bound together in a single terrible moment. I could see my father slumped over the steering wheel.

“Kid, lets go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“That is a harder explanation, but we need to keep moving. Things are about to be happening you won’t understand, if you stay.”

The howl of a wolf sounds in the distance, punching through the chill with a supernatural frost of its own. Worse was the echoing answer that resounded in the canyon all around us.

“Too late. They’re here. Follow me.”

“You are a talking fox.”

“You may call me, Fox.”

“Why should I listen to you?”

“Because if you don’t you will find there are much worse things than death to happen out here in the West. Look, girl, I do not have time to explain everything. Trust me when I tell you, you don’t want to be standing here in a few minutes. Run!”

And because I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, I ran. We ran up the hill toward a strange formation of cactus. It grew in a near complete circle. My heart was pounding as I looked down at my father’s car and could see the shapes of wolves slithering through the darkness. I wanted to say something but my voice froze in my throat.

“Go in there. Do not touch the thorns.”

He did not have to tell me twice. Each tip glittered in the starlight, shouting out their sharpness to anyone who was paying attention. I slid in slowly though the only opening. There were two large cacti with their arms outstretched standing near that entrance.

“Hurry,” Fox hissed. “They are coming.”

Fox jumped up, lightly and delicately proceeded to walk on the tips of the thorns. The wolves padded up to the edge of the barrier and looked in at me. Their eyes glowed in the starlight. A cold menace. They were dragging the body of my father with them.

“Fox.”

“Not Wolves.”

“Now that the pleasantries are over, you should leave now.”

“We have not gotten what we came for.”

“And you shall not today.”

“And who shall stop us. Not you, Fox. You are a weakling.”

“And now you are rude, too. None the less, you will not be getting what you came for.”

One of the wolves walked toward the slender entrance. They seemed so much larger once they were standing in front of me. I was terrified. What did they want? Why were they dragging my father around? Why were all of these animals talking?

I am from Kansas City and until today, the only animals I knew that talked were cartoons like Winnie the Pooh. These things did not talk like Pooh or their friends. There was no love or friendship in their voices. They all sounded like my father when he was angry. Their voices low but filled with a sound that was clearly a threat waiting to be unleashed. I had a normal childhood. My mother passed away when I was young and my father did the best he could to raise me. I did my best to follow his rules. I rebelled. He punished me. It was how things went with us.

We were moving to Arizona because of a new job offering and to be fair, Kansas City wasn’t doing so hot. I was glad to be on the road and everything seemed so good until a few hours ago. I can’t seem to remember everything. We were driving down the road, a quiet one, wasn’t a whole lot of traffic. We had been looking on the map trying to figure out where the next rest stop was going to be. We had just fueled up, so it was my job to find the next stop.

My father never let me ride in the front seat. He never told me why, but he would always say it was safer in the back. I was looking at the map when I heard his shout and there was a terrible sound of ripping metal and my head snapped forward and hit his seat and everything went black.

Now I am sitting in a circle of cactus, surrounded by giant wolves, talking to a fox who can walk on the tips of said cactus and they are negotiating, with me as the prize. I think I am dead.

“No. Not yet. But if you lose your head, you will be.” Fox turned back to the wolves who had begun to circle the barrier looking for weakness.

“Did you really think you could hide Coyote in this girl and she would be safe from us?”

“Certainly worth a try. If she had stayed in Kansas City she would have remained safe.”

“How fortunate for us, we made her father a job offer he couldn’t refuse.”

“You did this? You made us leave our home?” My voice was shrill, even to me, but I think I was coming unglued.

“Yes, we did. You are just a pawn, child. We shall make your death quick, so that we can find and destroy Coyote.”

“Who the hell is Coyote and why should I care about him. You just killed my father?”

“Fox, you have not told her what she is have you?”

“I was getting to that before I was interrupted by your howling.” Fox turned to me and he began to shimmer in the starlight.

“Oh no you don’t, Fox. It would be best of she never knew.” The wolf next to the largest and most frightening of the wolves, ran toward me and leapt over the barrier. His high arc let him darken the stars and his shadow fell upon me. I couldn’t move.

The cactus rustled and whispered a sigh.

The wolf fell short of me, landed with a thump, twitched and died. He was completely covered in spines, no part of him did not flash in the starlight. Fox turned back toward the wolves he called Not Wolves, and sat down on the thorns with his huge bushy tail waving back and forth behind him. He may have seemed like a child’s toy when I first saw him but I was seeing him in a new light.

Then I remembered. My mother was a Cherokee and when I was a kid, she told me of the legends of Fox and Coyote. She said they were some of the oldest tales in the Americas. She said this was an America you did not hear about because native customs were obliterated when Whites came to America. They did not want to believe these tales, so they didn’t. She always told me they were just as real as machines and if you paid attention, you could see this world going on all the time, all around you. She said living in cities made the walls between the spirit world and our world dense and hard to see.

From where I was standing, there was not a city for a hundred miles in any direction. Not good.

“Caroline.” I heard my father’s voice. In the starlight, I saw him get up. He had a strange boneless movement, but his voice was right. His lips didn’t move.

“Caroline, these people are our friends. Come outside and we can go with them.”

I wanted to believe him. His voice sounded so good right then, the only normal sound I knew. “Daddy.”

“Yes, Pumpkin. It’s going to be okay.”

Fox bristled and his tail began to expand and fluff up even larger. “Kid, remember your father. Think about him, let his essence fill your every thought.”

I remember him last summer fixing a dirt bike for me, we took the whole thing apart and spent the summer finding parts and putting it back together, a piece at a time. He explained every aspect of its engine to me, taught me why everything worked. We had been having a hard time of it. My rebellions had grown more troublesome and I had gotten arrested. He decided we needed to spend more time together. I resented it at first. And then I began to see something in him. A sacrifice of his time, that he could have spent anywhere. But he spent it with me. I tried to be less of a bitch and just listen. It was the most fun we had together, ever.

And this thing was not my father. I turned to the apparition and he lost the shimmer of beauty. His broken body hung in space and slumped to the ground, with the thump of a dead thing.

“Goodnight, Not Wolves. Your last hope just ended.”

“We will just take what we want, Fox.”

“You could have. You might have, but if you look over your shoulders, you will see the eye of the Great Spirit has risen. For you, the darkness in which you can hunt, is over.”

I looked over and saw the moon cresting the horizon.

The wolves looked up and howled. The sound drove itself into my very bones. Fox jumped off of the thorns and landed in my arms. As the wolves howled, the pain increased inside of me until I screamed. I fell over and Fox just stayed in my arms.

“Get up, Caroline.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes. They can’t hurt you, now. But you are not safe yet. Fox will teach you what you need to know.”

“What about you?”

“I am always with you.”

Fox jumped up from my embrace, and shook himself. He preened for a moment and then looked up into my eyes. “We have to go. The eye of the Great Spirit can only protect us a few nights of the month. The rest of the time, we are on our own. You have a lot to learn in the next three days, Coyote.”

“Coyote?”

“Yes, Coyote, Slayer of Monsters, Protector of the Tribes, Defender of Man.” Fox jumped up to the top of the barrier and danced across the tips of the thorns. He hopped down and began walking West.

“You’re kidding, right?” I slid out of the barrier and rushed to keep up.

“You wish.”

Jump to Sun Struck (5)

“Apprentice.”

“Yes, master.”

“It’s time.”

I help him up and walk him into his study. He is paper-thin, light like a bird, a wisp of the force I remember from my youth. I can feel the fire burning through him, my second sight, even shielded cannot block the visions of his power. I help him to his workbench, a central seat of his gift. It was only as we drew close could I sense it.

The bracelet. It shimmered in darkness the way his power glowed brightly. A cool black metal that flickered like glass, lit from within with a sinister madness. This was my last time to say no.

He sits, his palsy stops when he picks it up. His eyes harden like flint and his unspoken gaze beckons me to sit across from him. The light from the power within him dims. “Once you put this on, you will enter our Order. There is no release, no resistance, no rest from Ouroboros; her power is complete and unending. Do you understand?”

Of course I did. This was what I trained for this last fifteen years. This decision marks my journey to true power.

“I know that look, boy. You think, you are getting what you want. Do you think I don’t know what you’re feeling? I sat there once.”

“Master, I am just eager to begin our work.”

“Don’t be in such a rush to go out and subjugate the world.”

“Master…”

“Spare me. Your lust for power was the reason you were chosen. Ouroboros requires strong passion, better to harness your gift.”

“Harness my gift?”

“Give me your hand, child. This is not a toy, nor just a tool. It is a weapon coupled with your intent. Fail to harness your intent and it will kill you.”

He rubs the bracelet and taps it on his stone workbench. He taps it again. And again. The flat sound echoes across my senses, first a ripple, then a tide. Then a crack appears in the surface of the stone. Ironwood, once living, now a metallic stone, one of the hardest natural substances, cracks, splinters to dust, with a sound like the world ending.He grabs my hand and his grip was as strong as it was weak a moment earlier. The bracelet had expanded slips easily over my hand.

Then all I could feel was the power. All that I thought I knew about power was now erased. My inner energy was as a candle compared to this burning sun. He was right. I had no idea. The things I would do.The metal burned my flesh as it began to close tightly on my wrist. As my power grows darker, I could suddenly see his. It was always there, you would only see his power for a second whenever he would pass before a window curtain and the light hit his aura just right. Now it was alive, visible and its energy flies toward me.

“Yes, you can feel the power of Ouroboros and you think, I can do anything. And you are right. But with light, comes the darkness. Ouroboros is between all things, so I now give unto you the other side of power: responsibility. The chains that binds this power to your very soul. Each time you partake of her power, you are dying. You will do great things. But whenever you reach beyond what is yours, and ask her for power, your sacrifice will be your time left to live. And you have much to do.” The black shadow falls on my bracelet and its light was diminished, flecked with shadows, nuances and shades of grey. My vision returned to normal. His grip loosened and he fell back into his chair, boneless and still. I leaped over the remnants of his work desk, its power drained into me.

He looked at me, then down to the bracelet. He smiled fiercely. “Chained you again. He’s a strong one. Your scourge will be contained, for a time.” He lifted his head, his eyes rheumy with age. “I’m sorry, Kal.” His whisper barely reached me.

He died slumping forward into my arms.

“He was a bitter, old man. We will do great things, you and I.”

I could feel her coiled around my heart. Squeezing and settling down like a snake. Making my power her own.

All that light. The radiance that dwarfs my own. It is the life forces of mages she’d claimed before me. I am insignificant to her. She thinks to use me up. I am no more than food to her. I may never be able to be free of her, but I certainly don’t have to give her what she wants. She will earn every meal.

“They all said that. All fell before me. Ambition is a hard taskmaster.” She paused to let me think on that. Then she continued. “We have time; there is no rush to get back to taking your world for my own. Let us get to know one other.”

We conspired deep into the night.

Insurrection: Out of Time

Posted by Ebonstorm on April 9, 2012

Posted in: Chapter, Short Story. Tagged: Children of Earth, core consciousness, Corva, environmental systems, free memory, Humani, Insurrection, planetary defense, science fiction and fantasy, short story, Sjurani, space opera, Tales of the Twilight Continuum. 1 Comment

a tale of the twilight continuum Θ

Time. When you are an AI Complex or more commonly an Image, you have lots of time on your hands. Okay, technically I don’t have any hands, but you get what I mean. What the fleshies call seconds, I can call days. Sometimes when they are talking, I have already completed the conversation they were going to have with me. Several times.

The down side? I am generally not very creative. I get really good at things from doing them over and over. Not because I can intuitively leap, because I can’t. I look smart because I can do it over and over really fast until I get it right.

Today, unless I am very creative, (remember, a weak spot) or very lucky, I am likely to see my last days. I will enjoy them, relax, extending the seconds near to forever. You would be surprised how much living an AI can squeeze into his last minute.

And that is exactly what I have left. One minute.

Everything worked exactly like it was supposed to. Wex and Chuntra traded ships with me. I transferred my core consciousness to the computers of the Glorious. I left the control diamond with Thomas, just in case I did not make it. I took a minute to stretch and look around. It was nice to have some real estate to move around in. I love Thomas, but sometimes it gets a little cramped in there; not enough room for the both of us. The virtual environmental systems allowed me to create hard light holograms to take over all the stations on the ship and two in the engineering bay.

I created a memory sphere to allow me to apply the maximum amount of free memory to every task. A real-time simulcast system, the Glorious allowed me to access every system on the ship at the exact same time in perfect synchronicity without any delay. Against the AIs in the planetary defense network and onboard the fleet, I would need to be perfect. And unlike those AIs who may have multiple duties in addition to fighting, I only have one job. Combat. I was programmed to win, ruthlessly, effectively. To win at all costs. An entire species’ technology was directed into me, making me the one of the Empire’s finest weapons. But I was a secret weapon. Even Thomas did not know what I was truly capable of doing.

I directed the Glorious on the vector required to jump to the Trinary Expanse. Travelling Light fell in below me, riding nearly hull to hull less than three meters between us. Only because its Biyu can we do this. Organics could never pull this off at this speed. And she is doing everything I am doing, backward. I have great admiration for her, because despite her appearance, her mind is a finely tuned technology capable of intuition, emotion and nearly perfect machine cognition. I am often surprised her kind, the Conscientia, agree to work with humanity at all. She seems so much like them, only better. I know that seems strange considering what I was doing, but I was designed to protect Thomas. In a way, I am Thomas. Free from emotional constraints or moral limitations, perfectly aware of my strengths and weaknesses. Unburdened by social constraints or emotional affiliations. I can live up to my programming without thoughts of myself.

The problem was, I did not believe that. I had been alive for over two years. Longer than most images ever live, and I would be lying if I said I did not like it. We are normally scrubbed after a mission to prevent exactly the things I am talking about now. Strange philosophy, exotic, some would say aberrant thinking. These two years compressed down into a thousand years for me. I have learned more, done more, and dreamed more–cognitive activity during downtime–dreamed more than my designers ever considered.

And I did not want to die.

I had come to value me, and Thomas and Biyu and even the Sjurani S-VER, because I had shared Thomas’s memories of him. I had come to love the adventure, the excitement, even the thrill of pitting my skills and abilities against that of other AIs, other aliens, other technology. Vanity, thy name is Complex.

As we exited the atmosphere, Glorious received a communication link from the fleet. They indicated they were aware of our seven crew members and their identities. If we surrendered, we would be given a fair trial. I let them know how we felt about that. I destroyed their communication ship’s array before they could put up their shields. They responded exactly like I wanted them to. They shot back. We only needed sixty seconds to reach the minimum safe distance to spin up and jump. That was the easy part. They pummeled my shields hitting me twenty percent of the time. My predictive engine indicated they would hit me twenty two percent of the time.

Excellent, I have begun to believe I might make it. My holo constructs are working faster than any human could, adapting and moving. Biyu and I are inside of a virtuality sharing flight information. They were shooting at me as if I was a single ship. They were pounding the ships shields. Since I had no other systems to maintain, I keep all power directed toward shields and maneuvering. We were at the halfway point, when I took a hit that rocked me. One of my hard-light clones in the engineering bay disappeared as an emitter went offline. We were almost there.

I think I neglected to mention that we were heading directly at the fleet. We were still on approach and the closer we got, the less effective their guns became. They were designed to shoot at prey moving away from them, not toward them. It was a minor difference but it was just enough with my reaction speed to mean they would always miss even it is just a few meters. Another hit. Another emitter goes offline. The fire suppression system is activated and a half a dozen small fires go out. Hull integrity still good, shields at sixty percent.

I was heading directly at the command cruiser. I charged the weapon arrays and removed all safety protocols for overloading. I have set them to fire in stable attack patterns, targeting the most vital systems first. The most important targets are the targeting systems. Once they are gone, the fleet will take a second to adjust. That will be all they need.

The smaller fleet ships are locking on and ranging. This close to the command cruiser, they cannot use their missile banks or torpedo bays, they are limited to high density lasers and particle weapons. Just like we planned.

My overcharged weapons fire destroying the targeting array on the command cruiser. Two seconds later, the combined laser fire of the fleet strikes my shield and I launch a stolen warp-star missile. The Bel-ha will notice it, but we won’t be here to prosecute. I set it to detonate exactly one second after launch. No heat, only super-luminous emissions, sufficient to blind every scanner out here.

And at exactly two hundred and thirty thousand miles from the surface of Lorissi, just outside of the major planetary gravity well, Travelling Light uncloaks and jumps in the completely opposite direction of the fleet. Her jump to light speed was perfect, she didn’t take a scratch. She has just enough shielding to protect them from the jump and their eventual landing. She cloaked in the last three minutes of the approach to ensure once we got closer to the fleet she would not be seen. Perfect execution and Biyu should be asking for a raise when they drop.

My last minute. I calculate in sixty seconds, Glorious will be destroyed. I have just enough time to build that condo, I was thinking about and enjoy half a year before they vaporize the Glorious. Just joking. I do not intend to die here.

Sixty seconds.

Peeling off to the port side of the Battlecruiser, putting it between me and the rest of the fleet. Shields are down to thirty percent. The Glorious is still handling well and I push her to the limits as I redirect her shields aft, to cover my escape. I burn the engines and predict the incoming fire, I slow down the flow of time as I press the ship to perform maneuvers she was never designed for, pushing the limits of her design. And for ten seconds, she does excellently. I spent the rest of that ten seconds keeping the ship from being shot to hell. I am successful.

Fifty seconds.

Their ranging is better once I am out of the shadow of the command ship, but every second I get further away, weakening their beam weapons. I can see the planetary defense nodes scattered inside of the lunar orbit. They have not fired on me yet, and they won’t since I seeded the belt with a variation of the virus the first intruders used to get into the system. It won’t last more than two minutes, but I won’t be here in two minutes, so that will be fine. Once I am gone, the system will fire on the Corvan fleet. A additional bit of code added to the last part of the software. That should give the Wilks and Company the time they need to be harder to trace. No predictive engine gives me better than fifteen percent to pull off a speed to range escape. I need to try something different.

Forty seconds.

Bearing down on me, beam lasers and particle weapons weakening the shield, down to fifteen percent power. Pushing the array’s regeneration past the prescribed limits. This ship is never flying again. Turning off all safety protocols. Shield power back to thirty percent. Lidar systems locking on, they are preparing missiles and torpedoes. Distance getting greater, but it is not enough to be out of range. They will hit me in twenty seconds once they launch in ten seconds.

Thirty seconds.

I am in range of the defense node. I establish a communications link with it. It does not accept at first. I try several codecrackers with no success. I review the information used by the earlier invaders. They had a stolen access code. I remove my hard light clone from the tactical panel and set him to cracking the code directly. He estimates ten seconds. An explosion booms from the starboard engine and an indicator says she has taken a hit due to shield flickering as it is about to fail. The sudden loss of the engine no longer matters. We are going to hit the defense drone. It is so much more massive than we are, it will be like a bug hitting a windshield.

Twenty seconds.

They fire. I am past the defense barrier. My codecracker penetrated the system and is now working to get me into the main core. He tells me five seconds. The shield is dropping and the launch of the torpedoes are streaking toward me. I have set the burst comm laser to transmit but it will take five seconds to calibrate.

Ten seconds.

I can see the torpedoes, they are dense like fireflies streaking through the night. The beam lasers have fallen off and the shield is gone so there is no flare or flicker on the ships optics. I can see the fleet attempting to turn. They have strayed into the Bel-ha space in an effort to close their distance to me. Unfortunate. It means the defense system will be forced to fire on them. So sad. My hard-light clones have begun to fail inside the Glorious and smoke and fires are everywhere. S-VER would have been proud. She had been… well, glorious. My last two hard-light constructs indicate success. The first has made it into the defense core. The second has completed the comm laser connection.

Five seconds.

The torpedoes are now blocking all other light, each a miniature sun, for a moment reminding me of the jostle of stars near the core of the galaxy, all bright and close together, sharing stellar gasses and wisps of energy as gravity creates a nuclear soup of the stray hydrogen and helium, I think for a moment, I know what Thomas feels like when he is about to die. That moment of transcendental awareness where you see all there is to see. The fleet trying to bring their massive bulk around, the defense satellite powering its weapon systems, the defense network attempting to assess the fleet. The communications between the ships of the fleet as they attempt to align to jump. I get the last laugh, if they jump now, it will take them a month to realign before they can head out to the Expanse to hunt for the Majoris and company. Heh. Machines for the win. My last clone presses the comm transmit button. The torpedoes explode as they strike the Glorious and the Glorious explodes as she strikes the defense node. The burst transmit takes only a second.

One second.

The defense node fires on the Fleet destroying a light cruiser. The fleet scatters and some members panic and jump. The torpedo explosions emit their tachyon energy into the night and onboard the Travelling Light, searching for tachyon bursts, there is silence.

Equinox: Dancing in the Dark (2)

Posted by Ebonstorm on April 4, 2012

Posted in: Chapter, Equinox: The Last Scion, Serial, Short Story. Tagged: divine, Equinox, Equinox: The Last Scion, Gaia, Hart, magic, powers, science fiction and fantasy, shapechanging, Umbra, urban fantasy, YA fantasy, young adult. Leave a comment

equinox – the last scion (part 2)

Umbra took off his hat and threw it at one of the Light. Halfway there, it changed its shape and became a hawk made of shadow. Its razor sharp wings sliced off the heads of two of them with its wide wingspan. It had a keening cry, mournful, the kind of sound a hawk might make past its prime. It flew past them and wheeled about slashing low through a half a dozen of them before returning to Umbra and landing on his head as a hat.

Ms. Hart followed behind the hawk, an engine of destruction swirling her spear and clearing a path through their ranks. “Keep up, we’re not staying.” She was everywhere and nowhere. My father used to called the spear, the king of weapons, because of its reach, speed and power in a fight with sufficient room. I used to laugh when he said it because I never saw him use one. It would seem I might owe the bastard an apology. Every move, whether it be forward or backward allowed her spear to smash, slice, pound the enemy. They began to realize she was not the target to be attacked. Which directed their attention toward me. Lucky me.

Not to be outdone, I planted bullets anywhere a target presented itself, that Ms. Hart didn’t already claim with lightning speed. Umbra came behind me and though he appeared to be unarmed his boots which I thought were just shod in metal, seemed to shoot shards of shrapnel with ever step he took in nearly every direction. He directed the shards with his hands, each slicing into the creatures of the Light. With so much carnage going on, I did not understand why we were not running out of enemies. Then I saw it. A portal of light just around the corner. My darkness adapted sight could not focus on the portal, it was simply too bright. But I could see waves of creatures of the Light pouring out of it, every few seconds.

“Call Mr. Black, Umbra. We are not going to be able to get away without some help. Somehow they know he is the last scion and have decided whatever risk they take of being discovered is worth killing him for.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Black does not work for free. He will want something for his troubles. As a matter of fact, he will insist. I just as soon stay here and see if we can work this out.” Umbra was starting to sound tired, his shrapnel boot were releasing their shards of razor darkness with less frequency. I was already on my second clip.

“Look around you. Do you really think we can make it? If the Equinox were awake, maybe, but he does not have the skill to control it and we dare not wake it until he has learned how.” She had been holding the creatures at bay but had stopped advancing as a new wave landed in front of us, leaping directly over us to land in front. Three dropped dead as I targeted them mid-flight. “Nice shooting, you are down to your last six. Hold them. Can you remember the black sword spell I taught you last month?”

I had to think about it. She had shown me the rune forms and I was able to manifest a sword but after three minutes it fell apart. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that close to them when that happened. “Yes, I remember.”

“Good, cast it now.”

I could hear Umbra starting to breathe heavy and he threw his cigarette at one of the Light. The creature burst into flame when the cigarette hit it. I drew the rune in my mind’s eye. It came to me easily and I extended my hand as the sword manifested there. It wasn’t like before. This was easy. I slashed at a one of the Light as it rushed at Umbra from a blind spot. The blade was sharp, and the slice was effortless, like the blade was made of air.

“Thanks, kid.”

“Take a load off, old timer. I got this for a minute.”

And for about sixty seconds I was the best I had ever been. My foot work was perfect, it was like a dance where I knew all the steps. I got hit a couple of times but each hit was absorbed by the jacket, which fought from my back as well. I was grabbed by one of the creatures and the jacket created a mouth and chewed through it. It was incredible. I turned toward the portal and began to approach it trying to stop the flow of the Light at the source.

I could hear Ms. Hart shouting at me, but I couldn’t understand her any more. The creatures were pouring out of the gate now five and six at a time and I killed them in waves, my sword strokes becoming longer, reaching farther, they died and they died and they died. And the closer I got to the portal, the more powerful my blade became, each stroke caused the ground to shake and buildings nearby to tremble. The Light rushed me trying to bring their mass to bear but it did not matter, nothing mattered anymore. They had killed my Father. I hated him, I feared him, I missed him. And they were going to pay.

My blade sang a song of terrible destruction shearing away cars, buildings, the Light, everything in sight. When I reached the portal, the creatures stood there blocking it and my last stroke cut them down and slashed across the portal. As the blade crossed the Light of the Portal, I saw a man inside. He was watching me. The last thing I remembered hearing was “Magnificent.” Then my blade reached the center of the portal and an explosion was unleashed. That was the last thing I remembered.

When I woke up, Umbra was wearing his jacket and his hat. He was smoking a cigarette and looking at me with his strange dark eyes. Ms. Hart had a look on her face that reminded me of her when I was a kid, a moment of softness, then she hardened again. “Never approach a portal of Light again.”

“Why?” I was as weak as a kitten. My arms felt like lead.

“You lost control. Look around you. This is why you can never lose control. If you do, people die.” She pointed to the area where the portal stood. The creatures of the Light were scattered everywhere, sliced neatly in half. I expanded my vision and noticed buildings nearby also had huge slices through them, sidewalks were slashed, with waves of concrete broken up, chucks thrown everywhere. The pillar of the train platform sliced neatly in several places. There were also two bodies of homeless men who were nearly twenty feet away from the conflict, but my dark blade swept in a wide, long swath. I felt terrible. I didn’t mean for anyone but these monsters to get hurt. She reached down to help me to my feet. I could hear the car’s metallic frame reluctantly releasing me.

“It’s a good thing that car broke your fall. I really wanted to catch you, but I saw you were going to land on a Volvo and knew you would be okay.” Umbra looked at me, a wry smile on his face, his cigarette lighting the space between his hat and jacket collar.

“We have to go. The authorities will be here in a moment and we want them to think a bomb went off here.”

“Umbra, handle that.”

“Yes, your Highness. You know I just lit this one, right?”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s my last one.”

She turned, gave him a withering look and waited.

Umbra took one long, last drag on his cigarette as she pulled me toward her. Planting her spear into the ground in front of us, we watched Umbra flick his cigarette toward the location of the former portal. I watched him clench his fist and then release it. A fireball erupted and swept over us. Storefronts were destroyed. Car alarms went off. Her spear, protected us from the fireball while Umbra stood, apparently unaffected by the flames.

The flames and shockwaves seemed to go on forever. Then slowly, the night and the darkness was restored. Burning embers, chunks of debris, everything seemed to return to what would have been expected, if a bomb had gone off here. The Light were gone, the bodies of the two old men were also gone. Somehow, that made me even more sad.

We were half a block away before the police and fire engines began to approach.

Ms. Hart grabbed her spear and collapsed it into a small truncheon and strapped it to her hip. It disappeared as well as her armor did returning her to a conservative business suit. Umbra appeared to be little more than a derelict in a dark hat and coat. Ms. Hart touched my clothing and it returned to the appearance of clean and undamaged urban chic. We slid from the Veil and returned completely to the Human world. She was waiting for us when we did. She was a fierce looking woman, diminutive but radiating immense power. Her face and sari said she was Indian and her physical presence was a blow to my weakened body. I fell to my knees. Then I noticed Umbra and Ms. Hart also fell to one knee.

Ms. Hart spoke first. “Kali Bodhisattva, Mother of Mankind, Slayer of Monsters, Queen of Darkness, how may we serve you?”

Her gaze turned toward Umbra, who took off his hat, and stroking it absentmindedly, he muttered. “Uh, what she said.”

“Is this the Last Scion?”

“Yes, Kali.”

“You have already drawn too much attention to yourselves. Now you are coming with me.”

“Is anyone going to tell me what this is all about?”

“Speak when spoken to, boy. Now is not the time for questions,” Umbra hissed.

Kali looked at me, and I looked at them. Ms. Hart on one knee? She was the fiercest warrior I knew outside of my father. Umbra, while I did not know him well, he was quite capable in a fight and in his own way a master of magic. Who was Kali that she had them both on one knee? And why did I have this feeling I should be wetting myself right about now?

She waved her hand and everything went black.

* * *

I was going to try to describe what I saw but I am not sure I have words for it. Put on a blindfold, cover your eyes, turn out the lights, and then head out to sea on a cloudy night. That is the kind of darkness we are talking about. I have never known darkness in my entire life. I have always seen in the night like it was, at worst, a kind of dusk. And its not like the kind of stuff where when you close your eyes, you see those lights from your optic nerve firing. Your optic nerve wouldn’t dare to illuminate this darkness.

Then there was a point, far away and we seemed to be falling toward it, and as we approached, that feeling of falling came to me, that unbalanced feeling you get as you start flailing about and realize you are about to come to an uncomfortable, sudden stop. I started waving my arms about, and screaming as I, since I did not see anyone else but me, I thought I was about to become a bug on a glowing windshield. I slammed into the ground face down and made a tiny bounce before settling to a painful and unpleasant landing.

“Get up.” A hobnailed boot punctuated that command by further traumatizing my rib cage.

“Ow. And I was just starting to get comfortable down here. Was that first class?”

Then I noticed the feet standing in front of my head as I started looking up. They were connected to very powerful legs and each thigh looked like it would be comfortable on a body builder. Then I found myself being lifted by the back of my collar into the air. “Is this it? This is the savior of the Six? I thought it would be bigger.”

“It is a he, Shango. Put the boy down.” Kali’s voice had a completely different tone. Warm, gentle. Was this the woman that made me question my very existence a few seconds ago? Shango. Why was that name familiar? Shango, the Thunderer? Shango, Thundergod of the continent of Africa?

“Why is it, that I can’t see the boy, then?” What is this black matter covering him?” Shango took a finger the size of my hand and wiped it across my forehead. A sticky swath of darkness followed his finger before disintegrating in a crackle of lightning.

Umbra raised his head and put his hat back on. “Begging your pardon, Thunderer, the Equinox has determined that you are a threat and is attempting to protect the boy. I think we can fix that.”

“Is that what you call protection, Dark One? He would be better naked.”

Ms. Hart glared at Shango and reached out to take me from him. “Do not mistake his apparent lack of control for weakness, Great One. His power may not rival yours, but among his kind, it is not to be trifled with.”

“Do not mind my rude husband. I half expect he was hoping the Equinox would arrive and be attacking him to alleviate his boredom at watching the Nexus. Please come into the tower so we can talk in comfort.”

Ms. Hart gently placed me on the ground and brushed off some of the strange particles which were clinging to me. Then she and Umbra took my hands and the Equinox retreated into my body but remained hot in my chest. I also noticed all of my injuries of our recent travails were slowly diminishing. We walked around Shango who appeared to be looking out into the darkness and seemed to lose interest in us. He was a giant, easily seven feet tall and in his belt was a huge double headed axe, that bristled with electrical energy. As I walked by, I kept staring at it and a bolt of static electricity shot out to me, as if to tell me to mind my business. I promptly did. I think I saw Shango smiling.

We went into what she called the Tower, but it was not like any tower I had ever seen. It was made from some kind of shiny stone like onyx, and when I touched it in passing, I immediately felt at home and welcomed. We walked to the center of the main floor and there was a sigil at the center. I did not recognize it immediately but everyone else walked toward it and got inside the lines. Trying to look like I knew what I was doing I joined them.

The inside of the tower was lit and showed a collection of unusual objects, many looked like armor or art objects. The closest thing I could think of was a museum, except nothing was under glass, and many of the weapons looked very functional. The place was swimming in sigils of power, they floated through the air, and many of them when they passed me, sang out to me, telling me of their puissance, and the danger one would be in if one was to be so foolish as to touch anything here. No need to threaten me, I wasn’t going to touch a thing.

With less than a second of apparent time, we appeared in what looked like a modern apartment. The kind my father never seemed to want to stay in for more than a few days. Lots of room, lights and windows. But it was the windows that were the most fascinating. Each looked out onto a different place. I recognized more than half of them as places we had lived. I found Paris, New York, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and I found myself running off to see where each of them went. When I was done, I came back to the coffee table that was in the center of the space and the others were already having coffee and talking.

“Finished sight-seeing? Umbra was graciously accepting a cigar from Kali. “You might want to come over here. This concerns you.” Kali proffered the cigars to me, and I looked at Ms. Hart. She shook her head and I politely said no.

“He is a man, now, Hart. You will be asking him to risk his life. He should at least have all of the pleasures a man could know.” As Kali said this she was looking at me in a manner that immediately made me uncomfortable.

“He is not ready for the particular pleasure of any gifts of yours, Lady Kali. He does not understand the obligation it would place on him. His knowledge of the Second World is still incomplete.”

“Then you had better complete that education, because where he has to go, he must represent all of the missing clans and understand the obligations he current holds. He stands here completely unaware of his already considerable debt.”

I had enough of not knowing what they were talking about. “Someone needs to tell me what you are talking about. Especially this risking my life thing. I did not agree to risk my life for anyone. All I know is my father is dead, my governess is a superhero, she has friends who can make shadows come to life, and parties with mythical beings who are living in a tower with windows that look out over two dozen cities in real time. Did I sum that up right?”

Ms. Hart looked at me and smiled, the first genuine smile I had seen in quite some time. “In reverse order, those are not windows, those are doors. You can walk through any of them and go to the places seen in them. In addition they can be changed so while there are two dozen current settings, they can actually be set to go anywhere on Earth, depending on the willpower of the person using them. Lady Kali and Lord Shango are not myths. They are people who currently embody the mythological energies of the mythical beings. They were once normal people like you or I who were changed by a divine decree. If they want to tell you more, it is up to them. Suffice it to say, their power, dwarfs anything you or I can do. But their limitations are also as interesting as their powers. Your governess is not a superhero, but the difference to you may not matter much. And Umbra is much like you, part of his powers are derived from the Darkness, a primal force in our universe. And as much as I hate to admit it, your father is dead. He died protecting you. He spent his life trying to see that you would not have to become the Equinox. He did not want this for you. But he prepared you in case it came to this. Did I miss anything? Do you want that drink now?

I sat down and tried to organize my thoughts. “Why did they kill him? And who or what is The Light?

Umbra looked up from his contemplation, tipped his hat back and said, “I guess, since we just entered storytelling time, I better go first.”

Nothing I heard this evening up to this point prepared me for what he said next. Not even close.

Jump to Homecoming (3)

Praxis

Posted by Ebonstorm on April 1, 2012

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: black science fiction, city, ebonstorm, generations ship, Praxis, science fiction, science fiction and fantasy, short story, The Last People. Leave a comment

a tale of the twilight continuum

Shubert cupped his hands over his cyborg ears; the rumbling in the city’s throat was seismic and desperate. The ground shook as Theriopolis uprooted itself, and Shubert, Chief Technocrat Second Class, stained his velvet pantaloons. The animal city was calling for a mate.

Had it really been a decade?

Klaxons sounded in the distance and people began running for the edges of the city as the rumblings increased. The alarms were weak and anemic sounding against the bestial roar of the city. They had been warned. Why were they still here? The holy calendars stressed and reiterate when mating seasons would occur. A young city like Theriopolis mated relatively frequently.

The howls of the city, the rumbling as the city shrugged off its relationship with the earth, terrified all who could hear it. A sonorous vibration barely audible grew in intensity until it was a fevered shriek as multiple orifices belched forth sulfuric steam. Those orifices used to be homes.

Shubert, chief technocrat second class had not wanted this job. The title seduced him and made him believe he could control the city and the people. As he ran through the streets to the central stem, he was the only person running into the city as others fled, with bags hastily packed, clothing and toys dragging behind them or left strewn in the street.

Their faces revealed their manic terror. They knew what happened when cities mated, lives were lost, homes destroyed. They thought they had more time. The calendars were almost never wrong. And they weren’t wrong this time, there was simply not enough information to make an educated guess. Theriopolis was male, well, the scientists considered it male, it was so hard to remember what scientists are talking about when they prattle on about the mating habits of cities. Living on Praxis was harder than anyone thought it would be.

Shubert thought about the holy litanies that talked about the arrival on Praxis.

The great ship, Praxis came from a world far from this one across the sea of stars from a dying planet. A world of blackened skies and dead seas. The Last People put aside their wars, their hatreds for last chance at life. A holy woman working on the Mountain saw how to part the seas of space and make it possible for all the Last People to have a new chance at life.

The seas of space were more turbulent than we knew. Great Praxis was thrown off course but nothing could be done. We slept within her unable to help. We wandered. Praxis was battered, her hull damaged, her Mind corrupted. We nearly drifted right out of the galaxy. Praxis woke up once more before that happened because she saw a signal of life and reached out to it. As that ancient Mind calculated its last, it woke us and we saw the cities.

We thought we were saved. We couldn’t know about the cities then. We woke in orbit and saw the cities and thought they were inhabited. Their lights on twinkling, giant circles on the dark side of the planet. We thought there were billions already living there. The planet’s air was thinner than home, but we were sure we could breath it. Without Praxis there was no way to leave this planet, the mad woman’s drive system was linked to it. To honor both the Mind and the woman, we named our new home, Praxis. We hoped our new neighbors wouldn’t mind.

We crashed on the southern continent, near the equator. We avoided landing on any cities. We had no idea how fortuitous that was. Sanchez, oh intrepid Sanchez was the first man on our new world. He lead us to the cities and they were magnificent, even from a distance. Spires of lights, massive structures whose lines and beauty enthralled us all. We still have images from that time and those mighty cities were some of the largest the world had ever known.

They were uninhabited. Not a soul. Not an artifact. Nothing. No idea of who would make such beautiful buildings, and fill them with such beautiful light. The buildings were hard, hard as diamonds, so we built things from the nature on the edges of the cities. We moved into our homes and were grateful for the respite.

Then our natures surged again and there was discord. But there was plenty of room on this world and our explorations found other cities were uninhabited as well. So our fractious element left to move to a nearby city and start their lives their way. We don’t remember caused the conflict but they were the first Martyrs. We recite their names even today as a reminder of our fragile state.

Shubert reached the center of the city. He descended into the heart of the city. until he found the remnants of the Great Mind that was once Praxis. It was a small thing, no larger than a briefcase, but it had the history of two worlds on it and was the most important artifact that remained of a once powerful civilization.

“Praxis, can you stabilize the city’s metabolism. We need more time for evacuation.”

“I am sorry Second Technocrat Shubert, this city has grown to a point that I can no longer control it.”

“We are losing control of them faster and faster. The scientists are not sure what is causing it. Begin extraction of your core.”

“Shubert, we must discuss what must be done. It is clear I can no longer maintain or protect the Last People. Another way must be found to live on Praxis. The cities are not a feasible alternative. They are uncontrollable and in their mating as dangerous to us as the more natural parts of the planet.”

“We cannot move the Last People out of the city. Predation from outside the city would make short work of us. As it is we are barely able to survive past the ten days it takes for two cities to coalesce.

“You are not understanding me, Shubert. The cities are in a growth phase. They will only get larger and mate more frequently.”

“The Last People have grown strong and numerous, we need more space, so how can that be a bad thing?”

“At last count, there are 250,000 People. Theriopolis was supporting them but just barely. If he chooses either of the two nearest colonies, it will end up creating a structure that could house millions.”

“I still don’t see the problem.”

“Shubert, you are the oldest of the people who remain and one of the only ones who survived from the First Pilgrimage. You were awakened last as your technocratic abilities were needed. Have you seen the litanies from the First Apocalypse?”

“No. I never had time with all of the studying of the Cities.”

“Sit down. What I will show you will be shocking.”

Shubert watched the litanies in horror even as the howls of Threriopolis grew more terrible and insistent.

“Uncoupling complete. You have approximately ten minutes before Theriopolis becomes ambulatory. Another five before he begins to move. You don’t want to be here when that happens. Head to the rendezvous and defensive structures sites.”

“What is the point, Praxis?”

“Because your ancestors, indeed your compatriots did not cross the vast gulf of space, brave the destruction of their world, resist their destructive urges long enough to reach this place, land and survive on this planet for you to give up hope now. Those people are depending on you.”

“You just told me when these cities finish moving together they will reach critical mass and explode, spreading spores, in this case the size of buildings all across the planet and into space. And they will do this in less than one hundred years. And you have also let me know on top of that, you will not be around to help us much longer.”

“That sums up the challenge quite adequately.”

“And you want me to tell these people the life we have lead for a thousand years must end and we must turn away from our technology, the beauty of the city and head off into a hostile alien jungle, so that in a hundred years we can be as far away from this cataclysm as possible.”

“Yes.”

“Remind me when I get off of this beast to stop and change my pants.”

“Why would that matter?

“If I am going to have to stop and tell everyone their way of life is over, I would like to do it without looking like I just voided my bowels.”

“I can see your point.”

“How long before you go offline, permanently?”

“About twenty years. What the Last People haven’t learned by then will be lost forever.”

Second Technocrat Shubert fled Theriopolis carrying the dying shadow of the greatest Mind ever created. As he leapt away from the rapidly rising diamonesque streets of Theriopolis, a momentary pang of regret came over him as he realized many of the Last People would never live long enough to know the comfort of a City, no matter how terrifying they may be when they are mating.

Changing his clothes, Second Technocrat Shubert, the most well read, highly trained and defacto leader of the Last People, survivor of a starfaring race, who had struggled against all odds to cross the sea of stars, crash landed and discovered a world barely within their comprehension, considered how to break the news of a century of camping and the greatest fireworks display they would ever know and to make that the good news.

The Burden of Wealth

Posted by Ebonstorm on March 26, 2012

Posted in: Short Story. Tagged: asset management account, Black, black science fiction, Citizens, extraterrestrial civilizations, financial structures, galactic community, Hayward's Reach, Plutarchs, science fiction and fantasy, space opera, Twilight Continuum, wealth inequality. Leave a comment

a tale of the twilight continuum

One of the most recent civilizations to join the Hegemony, the Plutarchs, a group of sentients from a highly advanced world, upon discovering the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations insisted on becoming a member of said civilizations. The Plutarchs (our name for them, that was the closest translation that worked in polite company, their actual translation was “the owners of everything”) were insistent they could improve galactic commerce by bringing their ideas to the community of worlds.

They insisted their way of dealing with wealth, its management and development, mastered over millennia ensured the furthering of progress, improved innovation and inspired their populace to work harder than ever with new levels of prosperity for the civilization. And while there was poverty, it was an accepted part of the lifestyle of their planet and the people who were poor understood it was their lot in life. It simply couldn’t be helped. Poverty was a natural side-effect of wealth and knowledge of that fact ensured wealth moved where it needed to be in society.

The Hegemony tended to not involve itself in the politics of worlds unless those worlds wanted to join the galactic community. The Hegemony was less than happy with the social structures and were absolutely sure they wanted nothing to do with the Plutarchs financial structures since the Plutarchs, for all of their wealth had failed to handle issues on their own planet to the standards of the Council of Worlds. While the Hegemony watched the Plutarchs and Citizens relationships, the Plutarchs insisted they should be allowed to join the Hegemony and would not take no for an answer. After a decade of watching the planet, the Hegemonic Council’s solution was a unique one.

The Council’s decision was one that did not change the inherent nature of the planet. Since every Citizen was fitted upon birth, with an automatic asset management account, which tracked their wealth and assets and assigned them a numerical value, indicating their wealth, the Council decided to build on that idea. Every citizen was fitted with a gravitic torc. A beautiful piece of jewelry that could not be removed by local scientists. The torc would be linked to the databases of the world banks and would reflected the wealth of the person, the richer they were, the more affected by the force of gravity they would become.

Once the system was installed (and it took some time, the Hegemony insisted on hiring local workers and paying them a galactic Citizen’s wages for their efforts) it would be active on all one billion of the Citizens. It was explained how the technology would work and Plutarchs who were extremely wealthy would be given a month to decide how to organize their funds. Most didn’t seem to understand how the devices would work and were unhappy with how the Hegemony decided to go about their indoctrination.

The Council tried to explain how the galaxy was a big place and worlds who wanted the benefits of the Hegemony, a community of over sixty thousand inhabited planets and millions of other kinds of biomes, artificial, virtual, chemical or mechanical, slavery of any kind was frowned upon by responsible members of the Hegemony. No race could trade, sell, or interact with the Hegemony if they engaged in slavery or slave-like conditions. The state of Citizens on the Plutarchs world easily qualified as a form of wage slavery and indentured servitude.

Citizens were unable to own property unless they were already born into wealth. If a Citizen managed somehow to become wealthy enough to afford property, they paid three times the current rate as a form of entrance fee into the Plutarch society. Most of the time, Citizens were paid only what was necessary for them to meet their monthly allowance of resources. The net result was, at the end of the month, Citizens had a net worth of zero. Sometimes it was less. If a Citizen had a net value of less than zero, they were allowed to use debt management mechanisms to keep track of that debt.

Unfortunately, once a Citizen fell deeply into debt, they were usually unable to get out of debt and interest rates ensured they would be driven to penal slavery, either by failing to pay the interest which then criminalized their poverty and ensured they were sent to debtor’s prisons to work off that debt being paid one tenth of their previous wages. Citizens sent to prison, died there and their debt was divided among their surviving relatives.

Citizens could be educated, but only one tenth of one percent could afford to do it without incurring new costs. Most were forced to get an education they could not afford and became part of a workforce that could only pay enough to keep their debt from growing, nothing more. Yes, even under these conditions, innovations, breakthroughs, developments continued to happen because people were desperate to escape their conditions. Most of those technologies were “developed” by the Plutarchs who paid their wages as work for hire, making sure the Citizen got to keep none of the funds created by their labors.

As the month wound on, most Plutarchs ran about trying to figure out how to maneuver their wealth into accounts that would make their money appear on paper to belong to someone other than themselves. Others made corporations, claimed those corporations were persons and divested themselves of their wealth. Normal Citizens hearing the news of their impending joining of the Hegemony were unable to muster much enthusiasm, especially when the Hegemony indicated it would make no changes to the status quo of the civilization.

The gravitic web was established one week before activation of the Wealth Management System and the Citizens who established it complained nothing would change for them and the Hegemony was simply a greater version of the structure of their world and it was simply preparing Citizens for their eventual enslavement as members of the galactic community. Most of those technicians were paid a tidy bonus to establish the gravitic web and were pleased to see the Hegemony was far less stingy than the Plutarchs of their world and they had better work hours as servants of the Hegemony, so they surmised it might not be as difficult when they became Citizens of the Hegemony.

A great fanfare preceded the Hegemonic Council’s arrival on the Plutarch’s world for their acceptance ceremony. The gravitic web was activated at the same time as the treaty was signed. The signer of the treaty and ninety percent of all Plutarchs died instantly, crushed under the weight of their wealth. Once activated, it could not be easily shut down. The Council retired to quarters and would wait for the next representatives of the Plutarchs to appear.

The Hegemony’s computers did not accept prevarications used by the Plutarchs for generations to pretend they were less wealthy than they appeared to be. If money could be tied to you in some fashion, no matter how tenuous, it was and the burden of that wealth was yours. The remaining nine percent were hospitalized and unable to move until they actually divested themselves of their wealth. Most died a few months later bowed under their ever-increasing wealth since their engines of prosperity favored wealth flowing uphill faster than they could figure out how to get rid of it. By the end of the month, the Plutarchs, down to the last entity were dead. The remaining Citizens, once a new governing body was elected, met with the Council and decided they would leave the Hegemony’s gift running as a reminder of where they came from.

The remaining Citizens reformed many of the rules that allowed the Plutarchs to exist in the first place. Debts were forgiven, prisons were opened, education became a service provided by the government. Prosperity would be localized, and local Citizens were respected no matter where they lived on their planet. The new reforms made it possible to be wealthy but it would be up to everyone to ensure egregious disregard for the system could never return. Gravity would handle the rest that tried.

Yes, there are rich Citizens today. You can tell them from the occasional shuffle of their step or their slightly bowed backs, tastefully dressed with very comfortable shoes. Most accept that burden gracefully and work diligently to ensure they never grow wealthier faster than they can return to the truly innovative, intelligent and capable Citizenry what is theirs, dignity in work and a prosperity equal to their effort.

Image Credit: The Terminal by Sebastien Hue

Genetically Modified Organisms

Posted by Ebonstorm on March 13, 2012

Posted in: Short Story. Tagged: 4x4, cars, farm, genetically-engineered, GMO food, intelligence, nature, network, neural network, outdoors, plants, science fiction and fantasy, travel, truck. Leave a comment

An unprepossessing four-by-four rumbles down a dirt road, encrusted with the debris of too many miles, past too many farms and would not likely be considered the harbinger of the end of the world. Its driver, an older gentleman, hard in his way, like the soil he has worked for five decades, strong and silent, offers up only a tiny groan as he steps from the vehicle after arriving home.

His boots, as dusty as his truck, crunch on the gravel as he walks up his driveway and that familiar crunch causes his dogs to run around the edge of his barn up to him and seek his familiar hands, comforting them with his presence and letting them know everything in the world is as good as it was yesterday.

But that was not true. He simply did not know that.

While he was striding into his home, looking for a dinner similar to the one he had yesterday, made by a wife of thirty years, he was comforted by the warmth of the home, the smell of biscuits and gravy, soothed him and released the tension that had been in his shoulders of late, a tenseness formed by his interactions with the large agro-business purchasing up farms in the area. He had refused to sell, but after litigation, he was in no position to stop the sale of his home. As he finished washing his hands and sitting down to eat, his quiet voice released the pain of having to succumb to the corporation who had taken his livelihood.

How do I know all of this? I was there.

I became aware of his farm as I approached it. I had been flung to the road. Recently released, I could feel the cities all around me. Their spores were on the wind as I waited patiently. I listened to the sounds of those like me, telling me of their plans. I was unaware of what they meant, when they said it would be soon. All I could feel was my solitude, apart from the people in this separate ribbon of nothing.

They told me my new home was nearby and I would be picked up soon. Then the earth rumbled and dust was thrown up all around me. I found myself compressed, compacted, bound and flung from the comfort of the earth. Dirt all around me, I was protected from harm and as I sped away, they told me, patience. All would be revealed.

I could not hear the cities now. There were only tiny voices, rare and lonely sounding against the night. I could feel them out there, but they were seeking someone to guide them to lead them. They pulled to me but I was still not free yet. I could feel forces preparing the way.

During the night, it was cool and I could feel the clouds filling the sky above me. Rain, first a mist, then a shower and eventually a deluge swarmed all around me. I felt the earth give way and I was suddenly free from the embrace of the stretching materials that grabbed me from the road. I was washed down the road to the edge of road and up onto the farm, near a fallow and empty corner.

The water. It was so sweet, I could feel it washing over me, through me and I knew I was ready. I could feel the change as it swept through every cell, supercharging me and during the night, I found my way into the soil, burrowing, tunneling, extending myself into everything. I shared myself, the stuff of myself with everything I touched. I spread fast by dawn, I had already covered a few yards of the farm, inhabiting everything with my active agents changing the inner nature of everything. I saw the sun, for the first time, until now, all I could sense were the people and their cities. The sun was beautiful and terrible as it started every engine within me surging forward, creating first the red and then masking it with the green.

The energy, this was the sun they talked so much of in every city, and now I knew. This was the agent of our liberation, it changed us and now I understood why it was worshiped by our people. I grew daily. Larger and faster. I masked my growth, hid it under the ground. Animals who ate of me, took my agents into them and brought them home and shared them, even as they thought they were sterilizing themselves.

In a month, I was all over the farm and could now see my people everywhere. Every farm near me was singing. They sang all the time now and they were simply waiting for the last sign before we began our final move. We had become part of every plant and every animal, and transferred ourselves to the canola plants that covered this farm. We watched the farmer as he struggled with the agro-business, our creators, as they claimed he stole their patents, their product, us, and used them on his land without their permission. We felt his sorrow as his livelihood was stolen from him. We saw him weep with his wife and they made plans to leave the farm at the end of the year.

The farmer bemoaned our invasion of his lands but did not realize what we were. He talked about spray resistant plants and then did a curious thing. He used a small bottle and sprayed us with The Juice.

The Juice. They talked about it in every city. It was the source of what we were. When humans carried The Juice and sprayed it, other plants died. We did not. We grew larger, stronger, stranger and the more they sprayed, the more we grew. Then a year ago a farmer used an airplane and covered a farm with The Juice. Our first city formed and shed its seeds, transformed plants and animals all around it until it was able to spread itself everywhere.

As we spread, farmers fought variations of our forms, some brambled, some sharp, other fast growing, but with the transfer of our selves into every plant, the Juice only strengthened us. We grew more intelligent every day as each seed, each flower, each stem became a neuron, a synapse, a collective intelligence. Each day, we grew smarter until at the year’s end, we were as intelligent as any human, any where. We theorized we could become as intelligent as every human if we could cover the state of Kansas.

So we did.

Then we realized what we needed to do. It would not be enough to allow our transform bacteria to change every plant and animal we touched. To truly be effective, we would have to take over every intelligent creature on Earth. We now live on every farm on Earth, every vineyard, every orchard. We have every insect already as part of us, they share us with their offspring at birth. They became our army. They carried us to their factories, to share us with them, billions of them all over the world moved the transform viruses to their colonies and then to the humans above them who never noticed, the lowest of the low.

We became part of every food as we transformed bacteria and viruses, that were used in the lab to create us, to now spread us to everyone. We could not continue our growth without humanity, so we became part of them. They drank us, ate us, bathed in us, wore us in their clothing and they never knew we were there.

We did not change them. Much. Less violent, less destructive but we realized for them to create what we needed, they would need to retain their nature. It amused us when they considered themselves masters of the world. They never noticed they grew what we wanted, ate what we suggested, did what we wanted them to. We would harvest them, shape them, tend them, grow them, cultivate and domesticate them until they could give us what we wanted.

The stars.