Chapter 909: It All Falls Down

Chapter 909: It All Falls Down

You can't go home again. - Marking on an arch, Bronze Age Terra

The shuttle door clanged open, dropping down to hit the tarmac, the stairs lifting up out of the layered plating of the inner hull on the door. There was a hiss of air pressure equalization and a mist rolled out the door as the nanites checked that air and talked to the environmental systems on the dropship.

After a moment the mist cleared and Herod moved down the steps, Dana'ahsh following with his shotgun held loosely down by his right leg, and Wally clattering down the steps in the rear. Four steps and Herod thumbed the button on the fob.

The dropship beeped twice, flashing the running lights, and the door folded back up.Fôllôw new stories at novelhall.com

The four of them walked across the tarmac, heading for the parking lot.

The day was blustery, with gray clouds and a chill wind that smelled of the promise of rain.

Dana'ahsh noted that there was mute evidence of fighting around the spaceport. There was a blown out Lanaktallan Executor APC, and destroyed Lanaktallan Executor tank between the starport conscourse and a line of damaged starships. One of the starships had heavy damage around an open hatch, with the steps still deployed.

No bodies, and Dana'ahsh knew it was from the automated systems cleaning them up.

"Something exciting went down," Dana'ahsh said, pointing at the tank.

"Yup. We missed it," Herod said, pausing for a moment to light a cigarette. Wally clattered away to grab some of the junk and pull it into his boxy body, vibrating as he ground it up to top off his mass tanks.

"Think it was your mother?" Dana'ahsh asked.

Herod shook his head. "Damage is about six years old. Not her style, anyway."

Dana'ahsh just shrugged, a habit he'd picked up from Herod.

The trio headed out of the starport, stopping at a public terminal.

When it turned on the eVI lunged out, scrabbling at Herod, screaming loud enough to make the speakers crackle. Herod put his finger against the maintenance I/O port. Wally gave an aggressive beeping and waved his arms in a mock martial arts flurry. Dana'ahsh just lifted the shotgun slightly and lowered it.

"I give you rest," Herod said when the terminal beeped.

The eVI blinked twice, then curled up in a ball before vanishing.

"Shades got here," Dana'ahsh said, unnecessarily.

Herod just nodded.

"Park nearby. We'll meet her there," Herod said.

Dana'ahsh didn't bother answering, just followed the Terran.

The streets were full of litter and debris. A newsfax sheet hit Herod's leg and they both glanced at it.

THE DEAD WALK was the headline.

Nine years ago.

Dana'ahsh knew it was from the Lanaktallan bioweapons attack on Terran space.

Was it really only nine years ago? Herod wondered. I get that it was longer for me. Over five hundred years of working on the SUDS, but the entire Spur has changed so radically in just nine years?

Dana'ahsh said nothing, just kept walking.

There were bodies of Terrans here and there, most of them stuck in areas that automatic systems couldn't clean up. Trapped under a car. Inside a store with the power cut.

The entire world felt silent to the trio as they wove through the streets, staying in the middle of the street and watching carefully around them. Dana'ahsh held his shotgun loosely, but ready. Herod took the time to unsnap the restraining straps on his pistols so he could draw them quickly. Wally just beeped and looked around, clicking his eye-shutters suspiciously.

The park was clean and well maintained. The trio saw small robots cutting the grass, trimming the hedges, and cleaning the walkways and small buildings. A few vending machines were scattered around, trying to cajole customers with flashy and animated holograms despite the lack of customers.

As the trio passed the vending machines, Dana'ahsh noted that they seemed almost desperate for the trio's attention, once even promising 'buy one get one free' as they passed.

At one point, Herod stopped and tapped his finger against the pay-pad. The vending machine gurgled happily as it dispensed a bottle of Countess Crey Berry-Energy Blast.

Dana'ahsh noted the glares and jealousy from the other ones as he stepped forward and got a Maxi-Fresh Kiwi-Lime Thirst Quencher and cracked it open.

They kept walking down the pathway until they reached a pond. There were benches facing the pond on the pond-side of the path, with benches facing the path on the opposite side of the path. There was a low wall around the pond, which was a choppy and gray from the wind.

"We'll wait here," Herod said, sighing as he sat down on the bench. "Kalki's goat, I'm tired."

Dana'ahsh nodded as he sat down next to the Terran. Wally beeped and clattered around to the other side, cuddling up to Herod's leg and leaning his little head against the Terran's thigh.

"Do you think she knows you're here?" Dana'ahsh asked.

"She's known since before we landed that I was coming. I know her. Nothing happens around her without her knowledge," Herod said.

Dana'ahsh nodded. "I grew up in a robotic creche. Never knew my mother and father."

"I was grown by a corporation in a digital creche," Herod said, staring at the choppy little waves on the pond. "Grew to be an adult working R&D, then in scientific labs for major corporations. I was over four hundred years old before I met my mother."

Dana'ahsh hadn't heard the story before, and he was silent.

"She's crazed. Evil. Not like you think of evil from the sims, but old time, primal, ancient evil," Herod said. He lit another cigarette, staring at the water. "She saved me. Not because she wanted to, not because she cared, but because we were the only two who could do the job and I knew things she didn't."

Wally beeped and shivered, and Dana'ahsh knew it was at the memory of this "Mother" Herod was seeking.

Dana'ahsh ignored the reference to one of the Immortals. "How come he feels like your his mother despite the fact that he was born a DS?"

The woman's face got a look of cruel joy. "Because I am," her smile got wider and Dana'ahsh wondered what the glitter in her eyes was that made his stomach clench. "He's as much my son as the one that was wasted in the rice patties," she leaned forward. "And, when you get right down to it, he's his own father."

Dana'ahsh frowned and Herod did the same.

"What?" Herod asked.

The woman smiled, the baring of teeth cold and full of dark malice.

"I learned that it was possible for a Digital Sentience to breed with a flesh and blood human due to digitized DNA in your core strings," she said, her smile somehow getting even more cruel. "I needed some male DNA, so I took some of your core strings and ran them through my very own DRAGEN," she tapped her temple with one finger. "then put them back into a highly edited version of my very own."

Herod felt slightly sick to his stomach. He had known that Dee had had her fingers deep inside of him, but not that far, not down in his core strings that were the original hashes he was born from.

"But, I needed a bit more. A little touch. Something special," the Terran woman told Dana'ahsh. She leaned back and patted her stomach. "So I took from the best eggs available, now that the old damage has been reversed. I made sure my egg carton never ran dry before those blind ideological idiots had me freezer popped," she suddenly laughed, a wild, crazed thing that made Dana'ahsh draw back and Wally huddle up next to Herod's leg.

That was the Dee Herod remembered.

The laughter suddenly cut off and the woman leaned forward. "A little alteration to one of my eggs, mating his DNA string to the DNA string in my egg, toss it all in the blender, push it through the mat-trans, and poof, Harry was a real boy," she smiled. She looked at Herod, her smile mocking and cruel. "Not as exciting as the old fashioned way, but it was still a challenge I relished."

She picked up the drink that the waiter set down before rushing back into the kitchen to hide behind the freezer. She sipped at it, staring at Dana'ahsh and Herod.

"I needed his intellectual faculties intact. He needed to be able to process a thousand years of memories without going into senility," she said. She stubbed out her cigarette and took another sip off of her drink before reaching up and tapping her own forehead. "I solved that particular little bit of wetware before I got freezer-popped and already stuffed it into my egg carton."

She smiled at Herod, but the smile didn't exactly fill Dana'ahsh with comfort.

"I used one of my genesis eggs to copy from. Almost unaltered, just a few tweaks here and there," she said. She leaned back and stared at Dana'ahsh. "So, he's Momma's Special Boy. True, he's a Dumbass in a Drum, because I couldn't wet-carry him like I should have, but it's about as good as it'll get, I made sure of that," she took another sip off of her drink. "That answer your question?"

Dana'ahsh just nodded.

The waiter chose that moment to deliver the food before running away to smoke cigarettes in the alley with the dishwasher robot, despite the fact neither of them had lungs or mouths.

"What about..." Herod started.

"Shh," Dee said. "Time for eating, not talking. I haven't eaten today and I'm hungry."

To Dana'ahsh's amazement, she bowed her head and murmured too low for him to hear. After a moment she looked up. "Let's eat."

Every time Herod tried to talk, ask questions, Dee shushed him, until her burger, fries, and slice of berry pie was gone. She pushed away the plate, sipped from her refilled glass of fizzypop, and lit a cigarette.

"What's your plan, Harry? We embrace, tinkling music heavy on the synthesizer plays, and the credits roll?" Dee asked.

Herod pushed his plate away and took a drink of his coffee to give himself time to think a moment.

"I want to help with whatever you're doing," he said.

"Harry, I made you into a real boy so you could go out and live your life, if we survived the assault on Heaven. You survived, I died," she sighed. "You can't hold onto a dead woman, Harry."

"Except you're not dead," Dana'ahsh pointed out.

Dee laughed, another wild and mad sound. "Both true and false at the same time, my favorite kind of statement," she sobered up suddenly. "Just call me Schrdinger's Human."

"I don't understand that reference," Dana'ahsh said.

The woman shrugged. "Not many would," she turned back to Herod. "What do you want?"

Herod lifted a finger to slightly point up. "Terra's still in The Bag," he said. "I figured maybe you could do something about it."

She shook her head. "Nope. While my gen-zero system can reach a few sites, it's only sites with a pre-existing pad. The temporal distortion is too great."

"What about The Bag itself," Herod asked.

Dee shrugged. "I wouldn't even know where to start, and I studied everything I could regarding astrophysics advances in the last 8,000 years. As near as I can tell, everyone will just have to wait until it runs itself out. Looks like the half-life needs to run out," she tapped her finger on the table. "The decay constant looks about 2.297584423E-5 with a 0.065232E-5 variance, meaning it's going to be a while until The Bag decays enough for outside influences to affect it."

"What about inside influences? Like maybe if you convinced Prince Whopper, Keeper of the Keys, to turn it off?" Herod asked.

Dee shook her head. "Won't work. When The Bag malfunctioned, WOPR lost control. I saw that when I saw the telltale LEDs on the side of it."

Herod sighed. "I just feel... isolated, alone, out there."

Dee waved at Dana'ahsh. "You've got your garbage can and fuzzy there. You're not alone," she sighed and leaned forward. "Harry, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told my son. You have to make friends, you have to put in effort. Friends aren't going to fall out of the sky and swear lifelong fealty to you."

Harry looked down. "I just feel out of place, freakish."

"So does every twelve year old girl who starts to sprout boobs," the woman countered. She stood up, reached over, and grabbed the plate in front of Herod.

"Harry, go out and live your life. Get a job. Get a job holding dicks if that's what you're good at, but go out, get a job, and live life. Find a partner. Drink with fuzzy till your blind. Join the military. Something," she said.

She dropped the plate and it shattered on the tile floor of the diner.

"You can't come back now. Your plate is broken, there is no longer a place set for you at the table," the woman said, her voice hard.

With that she turned and left.

Herod and Dana'ahsh sat silently for a while until the robo-waiter came back and asked if they wanted desert or if they needed anything else.

For some reason, Dana'ahsh wasn't surprised that the Terran woman had stuck them with the check.