Chapter 433

The blasted plain was full of screaming. The rock was twisted, tortured, black for the most part, with dark red rock that had dried in swirls. In places rents in the rocks glowed a deep crimson with molten rock where blackened and burnt people tried to claw their way out only to have others pull them in before they could get free. Vents let loose with flaming gas that shrieked loud enough to be heard for miles. Stars in the sky fell screaming to the ground, slamming into the ground, converting the 'star' into thick gel that slowly consolidated into figures that writhed and cried on the ground.

Demons flapped through the sky, swooping down where stars had fell to lift up the crying figure to carry them away for further torment.

Great engines, black and ancient and twisted, thumped and groaned, screams of terror, agony, and pain playing counterpoint to the noises of the arcane devices.

A massive black iron throne, on a pile of blackened skulls, sat upon a promontory of rock in the middle of the blasted plain. A human woman sat in the throne. Short, thick bodied, ample bosom, of pale milky white skin, long black hair, clad in a tailored blouse and skirt that gave off equal parts of sexuality and professionalism. Her eyes were gun-metal gray and stared at the plain of torture with no remorse or pity for those being tormented.

At her feet sat a huge three headed dog, all three heads gnawing on figures that stretched and screamed as it worried upon the souls.

Beside her sat a human, pale skin, golden hair cropped short, clad in ancient armor with a burning black sword in his hands. He was sharpening it on a blackened skull, staring out at the plain.

Two twisted demons drug forward a tormented soul. A woman, her features full of fear but well defined, her body scraped and bruised. The two demons threw her to her knees in front of the throne.

The woman looked up at the figure on the throne.

"Mercy," she gasped.

"You ask me for mercy? Me?" the woman laughed. She looked back down. "Mercy as you showed others? Mercy as you pleaded for those lesser than you?"

"Yes, please," the woman gasped. She started to get up but one of the demons kicked the back of her thigh, forcing her back down.

The short woman leaned forward, exhaling smoke that smelled of brimstone and blood. "Please? Please? Give me a..."

A circle of light appeared next to the kneeling woman, the light from above forming a cone.

"Oh, great," the woman said. She leaned back and folded her arms.

"Who?" The man asked.

"Someone Mommy knows," the woman said. She looked at the woman on her knees. "Don't speak," she twisted her hand and a plate suddenly appeared over the kneeling woman's mouth.

A figure of pure light floated down, great wings beating slowly. The figure had three faces, all facing a different direction, and it held a burning blade in its hand.

"I told you, no torturing," the figure said.

"Look, HAL, you told me to process these people," she said. She pointed at the figure on her knees. "Go ahead, try to process her."

"Let me succor you," the golden figure told the kneeling woman. He reached down and touched her head.

The plain vanished.

The kneeling woman now stood, dressed in the latest fashion, checking the implanted biowatch in her wrist, impatiently tapping her foot. She was watching androgynous clones scrubbing an ornate and fancy grav-limo. Next her stood two other brown skinned clones, females, but even though they were built matronly, they were still strangely sexless.

"Will you hurry up? I do not have time to waste. Hurry and finish or I'll return you to the vats," she snapped.

Two of the ones working on the limo flinched slightly, but then went back to polishing the wax, the threat forgotten as their short term memory flushed.

There was a low rumble and her comlink began beeping. She looked at it and frowned, the tilt of her head making the jewelry in her ears and on her forehead sparkle and dance.

SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY appeared on her comlink.

She sighed, rolling her eyes, as she shoved the comlink back into a pocket.

The clones turned and looked at her.

"Mistress, the government has published a warning to seek..." one started.

"Did I tell you that you could speak?" the woman shrieked, stepping forward and slapping the clone. She had deliberately angled her fingertips to slice the cheek of the clone with all four fingers. The glimmer of blood in the hair thin slices brought a slick satisfaction.

There was a sudden rumble that made the cars, all of them expensive sports cars, shake and tremble. Two of them flashed their lights and made the 'boop-bip' sounds of alarm warnings. Dust floated down and a thin curtain of sand ran down from where large sections of ferrocrete were joined.

"Mistress, the children are in..." one of the nanny clones said, turning toward the woman.

"Shut. Up," the woman snapped, turning and slapping the woman on one cheek then the other, bringing up thin lines of beaded blood.

Another low booming noise rumbled the garage and the woman turned to look at the far side. She saw the wall rip apart in front of her, rubble slamming into the classic cars, shattering windows and caving in bodywork.

"MY CLASSIC CARS!" she shrieked.

Beyond the city could be seen. A massive ship, still smoking from entering the atmosphere, fired at the city again.

The woman screamed, turning and running.

"MISTRESS! THE BABIES!" one of the clones yelled.

"FUCK 'EM!" she screamed, running for the far end, where the elevator would take her to the bunker that she had ordered built in case of another riot.

The shockwave from the plasma blast hit the garage again, entering the open space, tearing apart the vehicles, killing the clones and the two infant children who were held tight by the only maternal figures they'd ever known.

The woman was slammed against the far wall, bones shattering, organs rupturing. Blood splattered around her as her brain shattered.

Everything went dark.

The woman screamed.

IT'S NOT FAIR! I'M TOO RICH TO DIE! she screamed.

you are dead appeared.

NO! I'M TOO RICH! RECYCLE ME RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!

cannot comply. please calm down so you can be processed

PUT ME BACK RIGHT NOW! the woman started screaming and struggling. I'M RICH! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME WAIT! PUT ME BACK RIGHT NOW! NOW! NOW NOW NOW!

Everything suddenly rewound to the point that the alien ship fired again, and then froze. The woman struggled, trying to break free, turn and run, save herself, but was unable.

A massive brown skinned demon with black wings stepped from nothingness next to the woman. A being made of pure golden light stepped out on her other side.

"But... but what about your children?" the golden figure asked.

"I can have more cloned," the woman said. She looked at the golden figure. "What kind of bullshit is this? There's no such thing as the afterlife and I don't appreciate some smartass putting Judeo-Christian imagery in the SUDS. I want your supervisor's name."

"There is only me," the golden figure.

"And me," the brown demon growled, puffing smoke from between her tusks.

"Get out of here, both of you, and get me a supervisor. I demand to be reborn right this second," the woman snapped. "I'll have both of you arrested and sent to one of the vegetation camps."

"Her sin," the big demon rumbled, pausing for a moment. "Is pride."

"She is supposed to be processed," the golden figure said.

"Get. Me. A. Supervisor. NOW!" the woman shrieked.

The demon smacked her across the face, throwing her to the ground. She put her hand to her suddenly bruised cheek, her eyes wide and filled with tears, her mouth open in an O of shock.

"You, you hit me! Me!" she wailed.

"SILENCE!" the demon roared.

The woman flinched back.

"Process her, then. Take all of her sins upon yourself, process her into the master system," the demon told the golden figure.

"I cannot. She will not let go," the golden figure stated.

"If you're too weak, then let me do my job, HAL," the demon snarled.

The woman opened her mouth and the demon dropped the loops of a burning chain festooned with barbs out of its hand, holding onto the handle of the whip. The chain writhed, getting near the woman's feet, and she scrambled back, closing her mouth.

"Show me," the golden figure said.

"Yama, faithful son," the demon suddenly bellowed out.

From out of the shadows a noose made of fiber-optic, thorn branches, chain, and woven hair snaked out, wrapping around the woman's torso, pinning her arms close.

The woman screamed as she was pulled backwards.

From the shadows emerged a large figure. A water buffalo's head appeared first, a golden ring in its nose. On its back rode a large figure wrathed in a garland of flames. It wore blue pants, a yellow shirt with a red vest. It had four arms, skin the color of storm clouds, its face full of wrath. It snarled with protruding fangs as it wound the lariat toward it with two hands, the third hand holding a cruel mace of warsteel and the other holding a flaming sword of battlesteel.

It lifted the woman up before it, peering at her.

"Has this woman, in her entire life, shown mercy to others?" the demon asked, slowly moving forward.

"No, mother," the figure rumbled.

"Has she even shown charity beyond performative?" the demon asked.

"Again, no, mother," the figure intoned.

"Did she see her children as anything more than an extension of herself and her vanity?" the demon asked.

"Alas, no, mother," the figure said.

The woman twisted, crying out in pain as the barbs dug into her skin.

The demon turned to the golden avatar. "So, HAL, what should I do, in your all seeing, all knowing opinion?"

The golden man shook his head. "I... I don't know. I've never encountered someone who thought so little of everyone else, who took such joy in other's suffering, who puts herself before even her children."

"Then why don't you go back to Heaven, fix things there, and leave Hell to me and my children?" the demon asked.

The golden man bowed his head, then looked at the woman. "Can you give me a single reason that I should not leave you hear in the clutches and to the mercy of The Detainee?"

"I don't consent to this! You can't do this to me!" the woman shouted.

"A pity," the golden man said. He vanished.

The demon stepped forward, taller even than Yama on his water buffalo. It reached forward, putting one massive taloned hand on Yama's head.

"You're Momma's good boy," it said gently, the looked at the woman. "Take her to the Pits of Despair. Make her live the lives of all of those who appealed to her for the mercy she sought in me."

"I don't consent to this Judeo-Christian symbology! I want to speak to SUDS manager!" the woman cried out.

The demon leaned forward, putting its massive brutish face into the woman's.

"You just did. He found you... lacking," the demon growled. "As far as you and your misbegotten kind are concerned, he who just left is God himself."

"It's just technology! I've been through the system before! I paid to have my other rebirths wiped away! I still have six rebirths coming to me!" the woman protested.

"You have nothing coming to you but pain," the demon chuckled. She stood up. "End simulation."

The car park vanished, wiped away, revealing the blasted plain full of suffering. The demon sat on the throne, next to the man who was still sharpening his blade, and suddenly warped, flowed, and twisted back into the pale woman, who rested her feet on the great hound.

"You won't let go. Won't let yourself be processed," the woman said, her gun-metal eyes cold. "Your neural engrams are damaged, splintered, fragmented. You are caught in your last moment, denying that you have died."

"I want a lawyer. You can't detain me," the woman tried, looking up from where she was kneeling, the barbed noose still around her torso.

"In Hell, you want a lawyer?" the demon laughed. "You will tell me, the Detainee, that I cannot detain you?" The demon leaned forward. "God himself, a mewling whining weakling oh so concerned with feelings and you poor put upon mortals, came here and could not find a single redeeming thing about you, and you want a supervisor?"

The demon laughed, and the skulls the throne sat upon joined her. The soldier next to her looked up, his eyes a dull red, then looked back at his blade. He went back to sharpening it against the blackened skull, a line of blood glimmering along the razored edge.

At that moment another appeared, coming around from behind the throne. He was brown, slim, androgynous, bald, with slightly servile features, clothed in elegant clothing that vaguely looked like servant's clothing.

The woman saw the newcomer and straightened up, her face going haughty. "Dalit! Summon a SUDS supervisor immediately!" she cried out.

The figure reacted immediately, whirling to look at the woman.

"YOU DARE!" he roared out.

Wings made of hammered burning bronze tore free from the back of his suit, which tore away to reveal archiac romanic armor made of hammered steel. A chainsword appeared in his hand, the blade rattling and shaking as the glowing red chain was pulled across it.

The newcomer took two steps forward, raising the chainsword, the face now consumed with fury.

"Hold," the woman said softly. "Hold thy blade, Legion."

The newcomer froze, lowering the chainsword and turning to face the woman. He gave a stiff bow.

"Yama, allow her to view her own death, from an outside perspective, show her the deaths of all she could have helped with simple kindness, then run her through the system again, see if she will let go," the woman said.

"Give her to me," Legion rasped. "Give her soul to me and I will give you anything you wish."

The woman on the throne shook her head. "No. She must be processed. There is more at stake then satisfying you."

"You have no idea who she is," Legion growled.

The woman on the throne laughed for a long moment as Yama looked at Legion and then at the Detainee, waiting. "Oh, Legion," she leaned forward. "I know everything about you. You've been SUDSd up since the Digital Omnimessiah touched you. I know everything about you now."

"Shall I take her away, mother?" Yama asked.

The Detainee nodded. "Do as I have commanded, my son. Do Mommy's bidding."

Yama vanished in a puff of flame, taking the woman with him.

Legion turned and faced the woman on the throne. "You did that on purpose. You knew I was coming."

"Perhaps," Dee stated. "I like you better like that."

Legion looked down at himself, then at the chainsword. The five eyes along the blade blinked at him and he shook his head.

"Nicely done," he said, smiling. "You have a flair for this."

"I studied most religions. They were a tool, a weapon, and I needed to understand them."

Legion clipped the chainsword to the heavy leather strap around his chest, placing it on his back, and moved over to sit on a pile of skulls. "So you aren't a believer?"

Dee was silent a moment. "I was the first living human through the mat-trans. What I saw, for a moment, I remembered perfectly, still remember vividly," she looked up. "For a moment, I saw everything, all of creation."

She shook her head, pulling out her pack of cigarettes and stalling while she lit one.

Legion waited patiently.

"It filled me with an awe. That there was something more than me that had ensured that everything in the universe met up at just the right the time and place to ensure I was created," Dee said, exhaling smoke.

The soldier ground the blade against the skull.

"So you took away from that experience the fact that you're the most important person in creation?" Legion chuckled.

"No, you brainless twit. I'm the most important person in my own existence, but the fact that everything had lined up, so precisely, to create me, filled me with awe. A slight difference in radioactive decay, a slight wobble in gravitational force, a minute change in electron co-valence strength, and I would have never existed," Dee snarled. "It was awe inspiring."

"Fair enough," Legion said. He pointed at the soldier, who was still sharpening his blade. "Who's that? It's not an eVI, it's a Soul-File. A weird one, too."

"Mommy's special boy. My eldest son," Dee said.

"He was in the system?" Legion frowned.

Dee smiled. "Of course he was. Do you think Mommy would just let him drift forever in nothingness? Momma went and got him and his siblings."

Legion nodded slowly then made a motion at his armor. "Change me back?"

"Why? You're in Hell. You should reflect that," Dee snorted.

There was a flicker and another avatar appeared, this one made of blue code. It looked at Dee. "What did you do to Sam, Dee?" it asked.

"Well, hello, Pinocchio," Dee smiled. "Did HAL have another crying fit? Break down weeping over the poor soul he thinks I'm torturing for no reason?"

The bluish figure nodded. "He said she was unrepentant, that she felt no guilt for those that died, and was overcome with the knowledge that she deserved to be reborn right away, ahead of everyone else. That she wouldn't let go, wouldn't let herself be processed, due to her anger and entitlement that she should have been immediately reborn at her estate's custom regrowth system."

"Maybe HAL ought to stick to Heaven and leave Hell to me, Harry," Dee said. She held out the pack of cigaretes. "Smoke?"

"I think I'll pass," Herod said stuffily. He looked around. "Sam said no torturing, no suffering."

"That's because he doesn't understand humans," Dee snorted. She waved over to where men and women were being nailed to trees by cloaked figures with inhumanly long fingers and palms. "Those people need what is being done to them. If I was to put them in the Afterlife Coding Section, they'd crash the system."

Herod frowned. "Why?"

"Because they feel guilty, or are in pain from their deaths and can't accept it, or feel a pathological need for penance," Dee stated. She suddenly laughed. "Did you two think I was doing this just to amuse myself?"

Legion watched carefully, narrowing his eyes. The blue figure, "Harry", reminded him a lot of being in the presence of the Digital Omnimessiah. Not completely, a pale shadow, but a reminder nonetheless.

"Well," Herod said.

Dee shook her head. "You two are unbelievable. How in the name of Einstein's monster cock did Humanity make it this far if you two morons are prime examples of it?"

Herod flushed. "Then what should we do?"

"Personally? They're all eight thousand years dead. Nobody has missed them, nobody's going to miss them. I'd just hit 'delete-all' and move on, like God delivering the Flood." Dee said. "But you asked me to clear the queue, and that's what I'm doing."

Herod sighed.

"You know, why don't look more normal?" Dee said, waving her hand.

Herod found himself looking like he did normally. Tall, close cut curly black hair, chrome eyes.

"Herod? What are you doing..." Legion started. "Sam brought you here?"

"Who?" Herod said, looking at Legion, frowning at the armored covered figure with wings.

Dee laughed and blew smoke from her cigarette over Legion. When it cleared, the heavily built Dhruv sat on the pile of skulls.

"Legion?" Herod asked.

Dee giggled. "Curse your..."

"Sudden and inevitable betrayal," Legion finished with her. He sighed. "Hello, Herod. I take it Sam-UL figured out how to hack the SUDS system."

-----------------------

Eegleet stood nervously next to Da'armo'o's avatar, knowing that the Executor avatar approaching the massive crate he stood next to couldn't match him with his former avatars or Gal-Net presence.

Still, the sight of so many Executor security avatars in the VR space made him nervous.

"That's a large program, Most High," the Executor said respectively.

"New game," Da'armo'o said, polishing the nails of two hands on the edge of his cape. He looked at his nails a moment. "Complex enhanced AI system, procedural generation systems."

"What is it?" The Executor avatar asked, brightening slightly. "Another racing sim?"

Da'armo'o shook his head. "No. It's a complex colony establishment simulator where you take the position of a Colony Most High. Each colonist is procedurally generated with their own AI, that's why the AI section is so dense."

"Hmm, it might take a few days to transmit, Most High," the Executor said, his avatar moving up to Da'armo'o.

Eegleet wondered why Da'armo'o smiled.

"Of course," Da'armo'o said. He moved up and shook hands with the Executor, then each of his three guards.

Eegleet noticed that all of the Executors seemed to suddenly get happier.

"What do you know, there's a data gap right now, Most High," the Executor said. He turned and saw Eegleet waiting.

"Who is that?" the Executor asked.

"My man. One of my neo-sapient servants, trained in digital cyber-security. He'll be riding sidecar, he possesses half of the decryption code," Da'armo'o said easily. He shook hands with the Executors again, all of whom smiled wider.

"Of course. There's hypercom channel space available for him, Most High," the Executor said. He waved and a train suddenly materialized, waiting to be loaded.

Eegleet watched as the massive program lifted up and floated to one of the cargo cars. Eegleet followed along with it, surprised at how smoothly it had gone. He got on the train, finding a comfortable seat where he could watch the data-package. After a moment everything stuttered and he found himself in another system, feeling the slightly odd feeling of hypercom lag.

A Telkan waited, dressed in a black suit.

Eegleet moved up to him. "Delivery from Da'armo'o the Magician for Director Software Industries."

The Telkan flashed the code and Eegleet nodded. He handed off a glowing spinning orb the size of an apple. "That's my half of the code. The Director has the other half."

The Telkan nodded and Eegleet pressed the button on his belt. He felt everything stutter and found himself standing back next to Da'armo'o.

"Delivery successful, Most High," Eegleet said.

"Excellent," Da'armo'o said. He nodded to the Lanaktallan, which Eegleet noticed seemed to want to finish up and leave rather than throw their weight around. "Gentlemen. Enjoy your time."

The room rezzed out and Eegleet found himself laying in a comfortable ergo-morphable chair. He looked at Da'armo'o, who was sitting up, expressing pleasure.

"What did you hand them?" Eegleet asked.

"Early Access codes to the latest DLC for Four Legged Gangstas," Da'armo'o said. "It has nearly a thousand achievements."

Eegleet shook his head.

"Casuals," was all he said.