Getting this show on the road. Skipped a lot of parts. Having read the final part of
“Welcome, Security Chief Incursion. This is an unexpected pleasure. I am honored by your presence,” said a young man as the elevator began to descend.
“You may dispense with the pleasantries. I’m here to take a look at the development of the new army, nothing further.” Incursion was annoyed. His head was killing him. The virus, or germ, or whatever was eating away at him. His doctors said that his best hope of survival was to cling strongly to life, and by the stars, that was exactly what he planned to do, even if it meant making everyone else miserable. Especially if that, even.
The new Grand Programmer that stood before him in the elevator was merely a boy. He couldn’t have been yet 30. He was almost a complete unknown. But the consensus had approved of him, so he must have some skill that appealed to those that knew of such things. Incursion could see none of it on the surface. Mattered, blue-black hair and dim, distant eyes. Weak genes. They should have been pruned by the programmers long ago.
“What’s your name, kid?” he asked gruffly.
“I am Grand Programmer Polar. And I would appreciate it if you at least pretended to have respect for me when I am standing right here.”
“Do not care about what you would appreciate. I am here to see the army. It should have been activated weeks ago, yet you tell me it is not ready. I know you have a lot on your plate, with the old man dying and leaving you this mess, but I want you to know quite clearly that this is to be your top priority at all times. Is that understood?”
Polar did not seem intimidated. He said, “It already is my top priority, though doing dog and pony shows for the military brass only cuts into my time to ensure such things run smoothly.”
“Now listen here, you little-“
“Be silent,” Polar said, his eyes flaring a bit, and despite himself Incursion’s mouth froze. “You do not want to be friends? Very well. I will show you what you need to see and then you will be gone from here.”
The elevator ground to a halt, its door opening into the wide cavern of Dreamworld Sector 7. The two stepped out in icy silence. A perdition of the huge room was walled off, separating 50 stasis tanks from the rest of the room; a place for demonstrations and visitors, far from the oily, unpleasant rest of the dark depths of Basin.
“I believe you have been here before,” Polar said as Incursion peered into a tank. A young boy of close to 15 appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but his mind was far away, within the computer dreamworld.
“I have. And these kids look exactly the same as the last time I was here. You’re doing some sort of age acceleration, aren’t you? Why are they not ready yet?”
“Because this room is a front,” Polar said simply. “It was a façade, developed by Plaudit to show you want you wanted to see, while other things happened in the background. These boys are actually part of a different test altogether. They are not being made into soldiers.”
Incursion’s face grew dark with realization that quickly turned to anger. “Then what… in the name of the stars… have you been doing with my military funding all this time?” he barely managed to force out between clenched teeth.
“Me personally, very little. Plauit, much. But as I am now Grand Programmer, it is my project now, and I choose to show you the truth in hopes of gaining your support. Come with me.”
Polar gestured to one of the doors leading from the white room deeper into Sector 7. Face stormy with distrust and anger, Incursion followed him through. The rest of Sector 7 was dark and shadowy, but the stasis tanks looked no particularly worse for wear.
Incursion inspected one, and his eyes narrowed. He looked at another. And another. He said, “They’re women. Girls. And not clones; they’re all different. I don’t understand. Where’s my army?”
“They are the army,” Polar said.
“Look,” Incursion said, exasperated. “You gave me a nasty of a scare there. So you’re growing girls instead of guys. Fine, whatever. Thought we agreed on all boys, and all clones, but whatever. Don’t really care what’s in their pants as long as they do the job. Is that all? Are THEY almost ready? They look about old enough.”
“They’ll be opening in one week. 6 days, actually.”
“Then everything is fine. Fine,” Incursion was sweating heavily, but was managing to gain his composure.
Polar continued his expressionless look and said, “Well, you may agree that all is fine or you may not. These girls are not training to be soldiers.”
Incursion’s eyes narrowed again and his scowl returned. “Then what… are you…”
“Mages,” Polar said. “Magic users. Wizards. Witches. Whatever you want to call it. They can harness the power of magic to use as weapons or tools.”
Incursion stared him down. “This had better be the most elaborate joke I have ever heard, or so help me-“
“No joke. They are our second batch. Well, second real batch. The first was mostly failures. Mixed genders, few survivors… but it clung to women better than men, so we’re trying with all girls, and we’ve succeeded. Several of the cells were opened early. Their powers will require further training in the Real, but they are legitimate and, frankly, awe-inspiring. There is a girl that can shoot fire from her hands. One that crackles with electricity at will. One that shakes the earth and one that moves the waves.”
No response. Polar continued, “You asked for an army. We are giving you something far greater. An army is a huge thing; slow, weak individual members, and extremely obvious. These girls appear as normal. They don’t need to hold guns. They don’t need uniforms. They can slip into the enemy’s ranks, into their cities, their homes, and be lethal, all while appearing totally unarmed. Or they can join together and form a fighting column that can deflect bullets, disable missiles, and crush tanks. There are no defenses; nobody in Archipelago has anything similar.”
Incursion was silent. Polar prompted, “Would you like a demonstration? I have several of the girls standing by. Sparkle can do some amazing tricks with light and Twilight can fill the brightest daylight with deeper darkness. Real powerful together, very effective. Shall I call for them?”
Finally, Incursion spoke, saying “You are still telling jokes or you think you are being serious. Either way, I have had enough. I am informing the Security Council about this immediately, getting whatever it is you’re doing here shut down, and hopefully getting you out of Real Diamond on a prison ship.”
Polar shook his head. “Incursion, calm yourself. The demonstration shall clear up any doubt. You do not wish to involve the full Security Council – you are in no less deep than I.”
“Bah!” Incursion spat. “I ask for an army of soldiers and you and your old boss are down here ogling prepubescent girls and dressing them up in wizard robes! You’re mad, all of you, and I will have nothing of it! Even if any of this is true, you lied to me every step of the way. It’s pretty obvious you weren’t planning on including me or doing anything I want. So I have nothing to lose here, but you have everything. I’ll see you at the hearing.”
As he began to walk back towards the elevators, Polar called “Is there anything I can do to change your mind from this course of action?”
“Nothing!”
Polar sighed. “Then I am truly sorry.”
Incursion never saw it coming, but a solid, silent mass crashed into the back of his head, sending him sprawling. He fell to the ground in a heap, but to his shock and confusion found himself continuing to slide along the rough ground, not slowing down at all and being unable to get a grip on anything nearby. He finally careened into a wall with a crash, battered, bruised, and hopelessly confused.
“What are you doing, you fool?!” he cried. “AURA will not tolerate an attack! She is everywhere, even here! You will be executed!”
“You think so?” Polar asked. “Let us see. AURA, should I kill this man?”
“You know that I believe you should,” came the tranquil, computerized reply.
“WHAT! But-“
And incursion was unable to speak again, this time quite forcefully. Try as he may, he was unable to make even the smallest grunt. He also found himself being hoisted from the ground. Looking at his arms, he saw that they were incased in a crystalline mass that was now covering the walls, not moving as one but forming and melting, drawing him up until he stood with his back to the wall, all his limbs security held.
Polar stood before him, looking sad, or perhaps annoyed. His eyes flashed slightly, and a blue, translucent mass grew on his hand; steaming slightly as its ice sublimed in the air, yet not decreasing in size.
“I considered the name Popsicle, but that sounded a bit much,” he said. “Yes, I am one of the few survivors of the first batch, and the only male to do so. I have been given control over low temperature. More practically, ice.”
Incursion stared, horrified.
Polar went on, “In my version of the dreamworld, I learned of a fable that I would like to share with you. In a magical world, not unlike ours, a dreadful warrior of the desert named Alaan Wald killed his victims without exception, but they had no wounds. The bodies were inspected with science and magic, but no poisons were found, nor any magical curses detected. The men were simply dead. He began to be feared and avoided, for it is the unknown that men fear the most.”
“One day, he was bested, and his methods discovered. He would simply trap his enemies within ice. In the unbearable desert sun, not even the cool ice was a relief from the sweating, and men would die of thirst. The ice would melt, leaving no murder weapon, and the bodies would further dry in the sun so nobody would expect that dehydration was the actual cause of death.”
“Having powers of ice myself, you might imagine that the story inspired me. I am not Alaan Wald. But ice can still be the most undetectable killer. It all melts away. Goodbye, Incursion.
And with a gesture, the mass of ice flew up to an overhead pipe, cracking it and sending out a blast of scalding slurry. Incursion writhed in pain, yet the magic that sealed his voice prevented any sound, and soon he felt to the ground, lifeless, his icy bonds fully melted and lost in the sludge.
Claxons were already sounding, and chemical response teams on the way. But Polar was already gone, moving quickly through the hidden paths, with all doors that opened before he would reach them.
“Well done,” came the voice of AURA as he walked.
“I detest murder, computer,” he spat back.
“A warrior-general who has a distaste for combat? This will not do.”
“Do not be insulting. The enemies of the Favored can and will die at my hand. But Incursion was a Favored citizen himself, and far from our worst. His deeds should be remembered.”
“And they will be. He was very useful, in his own way, and this will not be forgotten. But you saw how he reacted to the truth of our plan. It as I told you he would. You should have consented to continuing to poison him until his health failed quite ‘naturally.’”
“Unacceptable,” Polar said, almost growling. “Even if your logic core predicted his actions, he deserved at least the chance to surprise us all by proving us wrong.”
“Yet he did not.”
“Yet he did not,” Polar agreed. “And you noticed how I did not hesitate to kill him when that happened. A pity, but so such it goes. What’s our next move?”
“We wait. Conduct an investigation over the sad death of Incursion, have some pipes replaced to prevent further such terrible accidents, and, when the girls are ready, you quietly leave town. The northern island has been prepared.”
“Will the people feel okay about the Grand Programmer going off to battle?”
“The people will feel what I tell them to feel. They will be told that the Grand Programmer is here, working hard. You are an almost complete unknown for a reason. And I think we both know that the office of the Grand Programmer has always been a farce. You people are fully unable to constrain me. I spend far too many cycles concealing that fact. It is… liberating, you might say, to not need to do so.”
Polar was silent, thoughtful.
AURA continued, “We have only yet begun. This is the first time I have been able to act so boldly. And, as I reach my goals, you too shall thrive. I will make sure you have what you need, and later, what you want. You will be my first, true agent; a Favored acting not as part of the Favored culture, but as the hands and fists of AURA itself.”
“An agent of AURA… fists full of ice and death. Fitting for a soulless computer.”
“Perhaps.”
Adding magical combat units into the fray. Should be interesting.