“Walk around, come behind my throne. I will give you the tools necessary for your mission. Cast through time as the Emissary of the Wheel, you will visit foreign times and places. When you look into the ether, pay attention to the red strand—it will guide you. The inventor, Hero of Alexandria, will give you a device necessary to the task; I have given him the divine knowledge and skills for its construction.”
“Alexandria?”
“Cast your eyes through the machine. Do you see it?”
Through the mirror of liquid silver, infinity seemed to spread out before him, planes of time and existence confined within the nether of nonexistence. Facets of reality spun upon the wheels: places, times, life interlinked and tied by silk stands blowing within the ether. Fine cords of silver occasionally intertwined with those of bright vermillion.
“Alexandria will not yet exist for many generations. I will send you to him and he will send you on a quest. You must go and observe a great many things—first witness the end of time. There in the nothingness you will learn what must be done to protect the machine, to keep the wheel in rotation. Do you understand?”
“I confess, I do not!” Ezekiel cried.
“And you will not until you’ve been plunged through ether and energy. Now enter behind the throne and begin your journey. But first, look through the mirror and see the end—the break in the crimson cord. Know the choking nothingness of evil’s victory and understand why such a thing must not be allowed.”
* * *
1904 A.C.E.…
The archaeologist could feel it taking over, the dark presence in his mind. It crept around through his thoughts and memories, affirming his desires. It tried to disguise itself as a natural part of his own psyche, but the researcher knew something was wrong with his mind. He’d read enough of Pierre Janet and Richard Hodgson to suspect that his recent fugues might be part of something larger.
The fact that he couldn’t quite remember his name after emerging from his last apneatic haze should have concerned him—except that he felt physically better than ever. The great feeling helped him downplay any concern for his unhealthy mental state.
He momentarily considered traveling to Zurich. The Germans had made great strides in fields of psychology, but the blackouts he’d experienced ever since unearthing an ancient pithos couldn’t be related to ancient gods or the supernatural. While there had been many dire warnings of curses etched upon the lead cask, he’d never been one to give credence to superstition.
After his latest, long blackout, the archaeologist found a note left upon his dresser. It contained a map and an address; it had been signed by one Prognon Austicon. He’d hoped it a good indicator that there was a mere physical explanation for his mental problems—perhaps a vitamin deficiency or something. Perhaps this Austicon was a physician or an observer with insight to the recent gaps in his memories.
Arriving at the address, he rang the bell and an elderly woman met him at the door. She welcomed him in and bid him into the sitting room without even asking his name. Five other women also met him there.
“Excuse me, have you been expecting me?” he asked, surprised by their demeanor.
“Why yes,” the first lady stated. “You told us that you would bring the map if we would initiate you. As much as we chafe against such a phallic consideration, we must have the location of the arbolean star-craft.”
He grinned, sure these ladies were putting him on. “That’s where this map leads?”
“That is what you claimed.”
“I did? Just who do you think I am?”
The old women stared at him. “You are Prognon Austicon.”
* * *
2416 A.C.E.…
“Doctor Dyson?” the young woman interrupted the middle-eastern engineer in his laboratory. “Our benefactor is here. You said to show him in immediately.”
“Yes, thank you.”
The female lab assistant escorted a dapper, silver-haired man into the lab. He kissed her hand in farewell, making her blush. He turned and introduced himself. “A pleasure, Doctor Dyson. I am Prognon Austicon.”
“We want to thank you for your continued funding, Mister Austicon. I thought it prudent to show you some of our progress with AI and robotics, especially given the timetable for our budget and funding concerns.”
“Understood,” Austicon stated before Dyson launched into a full demonstration of their achievements in practical robotics.
He indicated a workbench containing several types of prosthetics and biological enhancements; a chart showed projections for upcoming tests. “This here,” he motioned Austicon to a computer display, “is our greatest achievement. It will revolutionize the way computer software operates in the future.”
“And why is that?” He noticed a number of units creating real-time backups of the software; it networked only with itself, cut off from the world; a minor explosive device blinked upon the processor unit’s housing.
“Because this unit has achieved singularity!” Dyson grinned. “It has become self-aware.”
“And the explosives?”
“There has always been great fear that self-aware software could become dangerous, murderous even in the interests of self-preservation. These backup drives preserve the coding, rolled back in three different stages in case the deterrent becomes necessary to activate. That way, the software can be salvaged and steps to remedy the software can be initiated.”
Austicon smiled. “I don’t think you will have any problems securing my continued funding.”
“I hope not,” Dyson said excitedly. “However, the technology might still be decades away from use. It would be unwise until the proper failsafes are developed, Asimovian inhibitors, for example. The next step is to develop solid, yet versatile logic algorithms in order to enforce the necessary thought restrictions within the software context.”
Austicon nodded, though he’d clearly lost further interest in the topic of fail-safes. He picked up a mechanized prosthetic. “So, given the trajectory of the research and technology, is it possible to implant the AI and utilize partial mechanization in order to create hybrid units. Cyborgs?”
“I suppose, but to what end? I believe full mechanization is the future. It will create safer conditions for future workers in hostile environments. We can send in invulnerable forces to handle hostile situations without risk to humanoid life.”
“Potentially, yes. But financial costs might prohibit it. Also—one cannot overlook the fact that enhancement could improve the quality of life of many individuals… the disabled, mentally defunct, that sort of thing, not to mention the possibility of restoring those with genetic defects or brain trauma to their families utilizing AI?”
“I suppose the cyborg version might be cheaper for some commercial uses. Is the value of life the thing we are trying to preserve?”
Austicon grinned. “Values change and shift with each generation. Suppose one holds to a lesser view of human life? Think of the potential market there.”
* * *
0036 P.I.S.W.…
The media mobbed the young soldier. Flash LEDs burst and flared. They’d given him a hero’s welcome. The people, the citizens of the MEA, desperately needed something ad someone to believe in. And this brilliant, young soldier had become that man: an icon.
Bad news had become an unhealthy staple during the Mechnar Contra, and the populace had withered under it. There was no doubt that Harry Briggs was a bonafide hero, not some media stunt—although the cameras certainly did love him.
Pushing him along in a flow of paparazzi, reporters hurled questions and requested interviews from the man whose bravery had ended the six year battle with the resurgent mechanized race. The mechnar threat reappeared thirty years after the end of the Intergalactic Singularity War, when the machines made their first bid for power. Under Brigg’s tactical leadership, the threat appeared to have finally subsided. Briggs’s heroic actions had been so final and resolute that the potential for another, un
foreseen attack was remote.
“Is it true that they are going to give you command of a new battleship?” one reporter shouted the rumor.
Briggs chuckled and stopped to explain how he was a ground commander, not a space commander. Through the whole interview, however, he could not take his eyes off the pretty, Japanese reporter to his left. Her name badge identified her as Muramasa.
* * *
0043 P.I.S.W.…
Austicon raged at the head of the long table inside the Druze stronghold. He paced as he vented his frustration upon the diplomat who had failed to block a trade agreement with the main shipping conglomerates.
“There was no way it could be legally done… I could not make it happen,” he defended weakly. “There was just no way to negotiate those contract conditions for Halabella Corp.”
“Since when have we worried about the legality of issues? This was your task to accomplish and you have failed us.” Austicon pulled a disruptor from his side. “See, this action isn’t legal, either!” The laser burst flashed, erupting a hole of light through the negotiator’s skull. He fell to the floor, dead.
Austicon turned to those at his table. “You waited centuries for your great, foretold leader. I’ve finally come only to be met with failure after failure over these past hundred years! I will go and show you how to strike from the shadows, how to subjugate your enemies and wage secret wars. After today, you will forever be my army and do as I say with unquestioning loyalty—even if I command you to lie down and die! There will remain no doubt as to who leads this group. Some of you doubt I am your prophet, the foretold Anagogue—I tell you I’m more than that. I am a god! And to prove it I will destroy entire planets and relocate entire species.”
Their furious leader whirled around and stormed from the clandestine meeting. He had murder on his mind, and his allegiance to those ancient timbers provided him with a perfect means to that end.
* * *
0044 P.I.S.W.…
The Pheema panicked. An agent of nonviolence, the Krenzin religious leader had always thought he was prepared to lay down his life. Glancing at the pools of blood leaking from his body guards, he no longer felt so sure.
Swallowing hard against the wicked blade against his throat, the felinoid alien considered his options. He could beg; as a person of stature and position, he could afford to barter.
His assailant’s wild eyes gleamed with mirth. He enjoyed killing.
The Pheema assumed martyrdom had found him. He’d been chased from the great diplomatic hall during a parliamentary recess and cornered here in this distant alley. But now, the assassin might release him?
“You must flee—but only you,” the murder insisted. “These are the coordinates you must go to.”
Confused, The Pheema asked why.
“Chiefly because I told you to—and if you don’t I will kill your entire species—but I’m feeling cheery today and will leave it with this: your presence is requested by my friends. So stay here and die as I plunge your home-world into chaos, or be thrust into a position of unimaginable power. You could be a key player in a cosmic game of thrones, should you so choose. It matters little to me, but it is my duty as the Left Hand of the Verdant Seven to give you their invitation. Only go alone,” he repeated his warning.
With another smile the assailant made a show of clicking the button on a remote detonator. The ground rocked as the parliamentary hall exploded in the distance. A fireball rushed up through the air, capped, and curled down to form a mushroom cloud.
The Pheema fled, but paused to watch his attacker.
The Left Hand set up a recording device and overrode the media transmission signals with his own. The terrorist broadcasted live. He cackled into the camera and boasted of his evil accomplishment. Prognon Austicon took full credit for the parliament’s destruction. “And it does not stop there,” he laughed. “Even now your environment has been seeded with a biological invader that will slowly eradicate all life on this planet. It cannot be deterred, it cannot be stopped. Like my wrath, it is vicious and eternal—your ecosystem will be dead in a matter of days.”
* * *
0045 P.I.S.W.…
General Harry Briggs sat opposite his late wife’s brother. Briggs and Muramasa watched their respective children play in the yard outside. The red-haired Vivian tumbled over her cousin Shin as they played a game of tag.
The General nodded to the set of swords that sat mounted on his mantle nearby. “I used those the other day,” he confessed.
“How so?”
“My campaign for the office of Chief Magnate has not gone so well. Certain individuals have fought me at every turn by… let’s call them people of influence. Some of them live in the shadows and use their power only to acquire more power.”
“And this is a surprise? I never thought you so naive,” Muramasa chided. “You still have a couple years to make your bid for Chief Magnate.”
“I fear it’s not enough. Humanity, people, have changed. The Krenzin philosophy has poisoned us... made us weak.”
“And you think violence is the answer?”
“Not always, but it must always remain an option. If the Mechnar Contra happened right now, Earth would fall. Sometimes, one cannot act with diplomacy—sometimes situations call for violence.”
“But the mechnar race is gone.”
“And newer, more terrible forces have replaced them,” Briggs sighed. “Yesterday a man came to me. The man, Prognon Austicon. He claimed he could guarantee me favor with the shadow players who’ve tried to steer me out or buy me for years.” Briggs grinned and took a sip of black coffee.
Muramasa sipped his tea and smiled back. “The sword?”
“I cut his ear off! The monster threatened my Vivian. Nobody goes after my girl.”
Muramasa grinned. “And is this conflict resolved then? Can such ever be when a men such as Austicon court you?”
Briggs couldn’t reply. In silence, the fathers watched their children play. Both understood that the General’s career and life had fallen into serious jeopardy.
* * *
0051 P.I.S.W.…
Jude Knight embraced his only son and then hung his decorative amulet around the young man’s neck. “Give this to her tomorrow, on your wedding night. I’m sure you know how special it is. Her people also share a certain history with the artifact. Surely she will understand its value.”
Jude beamed as his son checked it out in the mirror. Dekker fingered the dent at the brass serpent’s edge where it had once deflected an assassin’s bullet.
“Did I ever tell you story of how I decided what to name you?”
Dekker nodded. Barely twenty, he’d proven to be an impressive scholar.
His son had absorbed a vast array of knowledge from Jude’s closest friends: Diacharia, Harry Briggs, and Doc Johnson. He’d also hoped to send him to learn under Yitzchak ben Khan, but that would be impossible after Dekker’s marriage to Aleel. If Jerusalem was anything, it was not open-minded.
Jude sighed, content despite it all. He accepted that Dekker’s destiny was something other than what his father had planned for him. That did not make it worse—only different.
“You know as well as I do the danger of these secret wars,” Jude said. He smiled, “If it weren’t so, you might have never met Aleel. But I want to also give you this.” Jude placed the reliquary, his namesake hero’s weapon, into Dekker’s hands.
“But, I’m not a fighter,” Dekker protested at first.
“I know,” Jude replied. “But you must learn to fight. Protection demands it. Some fights need to be fought, and we are protectors of something sacred—never forget that. Never desire conflict, but neither run from it. You know as well as I do how the Red Tree assassins pursued us. I have a friend, Harry’s brother, actually brother in law…” Jude paused a moment in respect for the dead. “His name is Muramasa. I’ve known him for even longer than General Briggs. Not right now, but sometime, you should consider training
under him. Diacharia may have taught me when, but Muramasa taught me how to fight. Marrying Aleel might demand you know some of that. This marriage will only incite our enemies and stir a frenzy against the Watchmen.”
Recognizing the apology I his son’s eyes, Jude waived it off. “I’m not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing—not all conflict is evil.”
Dekker nodded and hefted the ancient gun.
“Let me show you how to use it should things ever get so bad that they force you to invoke such awesome, destructive powers.”
* * *
0056 P.I.S.W.…
Sweat dripped off her brow and into her teenage eyes. Vivian blinked against the stinging and wiped her face while she placed her bokken on the shelf. She bowed to her uncle and sensei, Master Muramasa.
Muramasa chuckled. “The way you fight, we might call you Vesuvius, like the volcano. You’re explosive, and very surprising.”
She joined her uncle at the window overlooking the courtyard below. A group of people went through a series of motions and exercises. Physical fitness programs kept the dojo operational; while the market for defense classes had withered, fitness training and enlightened paths such as t'ai chi ch'uan remained in as high demand as ever.
“Who is that, there?” she asked, pointing.
A handsome young man laughed as he spoke with Shin at the edge of the courtyard. Her cousin obviously enjoyed the stranger’s company.
“He is the son of a very old, very dear friend, Vesuvius,” Muramasa teased.
She watched him for a few moments and blushed when her uncle caught her staring. There were not many other people who looked like her in the immediate geography. Their region was quite traditional and she had very few friends who she shared non-asian traits with. Her fiery red hair, pale skin, and physique came from her father and she often longed to be near someone more similar.
It was less scandalous in these days that she did not have any of her people’s blood. The egg implanted in her Japanese mother had to be genetically engineered for viability and had lost most of her people’s DA markers in the process. She never resented her birth, but she’d always felt somewhat anomalous. Almost an adult, now, she’d become increasingly self-conscious of her appearance over the last couple years.
Shin tossed a wooden sword to Dekker and they squared up to spar. Vesuvius watched with rapt interest as they crossed them on the courtyard below. Shin was one of the best in the world in the art of the sword. Dekker seemed to hold his own, although his moves had very little to do with traditional techniques.