Chrono Inquisitor (Gods Be Damned) (45 page)

I wasn’t sure where I was anymore, or what was going on.

“Lillian?” I asked, recognizing her, but having forgotten everything. The last time I’d seen her as far as I knew, had been nearly nine years ago.

‹It’s time,
›
Kali suddenly said.

I didn’t recognize her voice at first. It was different than I remembered. More feminine. More sensual.

I repeated Kali’s words aloud. “It’s time.”

“What did you say?” Lillian asked.

And then she screamed out in ear piercing, agonizing pain.

Inside Lillian’s head, Kali replaced the voice of Ares.

‹Time to die, bitch!›

These were the last words Lillian experienced as the mytes in her body began attacking her mind.

“Kali? What’s going on?” I went to push myself up, but fell when the fingers I thought I still had, failed to connect with the floor.

‹I had to actually do what Lillian wanted. I had to erase your memories. But we won. You got your revenge. Lillian is dying.›

I looked at my missing hand in horror.

“What the hell happened to my hand? What are you talking about?” I asked hysterically, because I couldn’t remember.

‹I will explain later, but right now, you need to do what I tell you.›

Lillian was writhing and
spasming on the floor next to me.

Something sparked in my head. A seething hatred for her. I knew I wanted her dead.

I saw a kama on the ground next to her.

I reached out and grabbed it.

Examined the blade.

It was bloody.

I stabbed Lillian in the heart with all my strength.

Blood began to p
ool out of the wound along with her mouth.

I pulled it out of her chest and stabbed her again, and again, and again. I kept hacking at her until Kali told me she was dead.

I was exhausted.

My eyes felt heavy and closed of their own accord.

When I opened them I saw a blurry image of someone running towards me.

They closed again.

I willed them open.

It was Sam. She was alive and coming to my rescue.

I tried to stay awake, but I was so tired.

My world went black.

“He’s in shock and suffered a lot of injuries,” a woman’s voice said. It didn’t quite sound like Sam.

“He needs a baptism stat,” said another voice.

‹They’re going to fix your body now, while I fix your mind,
›
I heard Sam say.

When I awoke, I found myself floating in a Methuselah pool. All my injuries were gone, except I was still missing my hand. Somehow, Kali had managed to restore all my memories, as well as an explanation of how she’d done it.

As she’d shared my memories with Lillian, she’d backed them up. She really did destroy my memories like Lillian wanted. She took my wanting to believe what Lillian was doing to the extreme of actually making it happen. After it was over with, she simply shared my own memories with me, having gotten the idea from Sam’s suggestion about unpalatable food.

From the moment that Kali had discovered someone was trying to hack her, she’d started her own secure backup system. She had a revolving system of backups in various places, which she updated almost constantly. To make sure that the backup wasn’t hacked as well, she’d come up with the sandbox idea.

Every new backup was sandboxed until confirmed it was a legitimate, clean save. She’d gotten the idea from the Arkhive. Essentially, she’d created her own. She’d also started one for me, and began digitizing my life into a truly personal storage area, separate from the community Arkhive.

Death informed her that the
Arkhive was actually the Celestials way of adding humanity to their collective. They were creating digital copies of our biological selves, which they then incorporated into themselves.

The altered spelling also had significance. The ‘Ark’ spelling was in reference to Noah’s Ark. The Celestials ship at the end of the solar system was the true repository. All our information was being beamed to the ship. Once they had everyone and everything stored, they intended to send it back to their
homeworld in a galaxy hundreds of light years away. The ‘Hive’ pointed to the fact that Celestials like to think of themselves as a collective. Death said that they didn’t want to enslave us, they wanted us to join them.

Kali’s real evolution had been sparked by the message I’d received at breakfast a few days ago by the Anonymous Hacker.

Run a Chaos Monkey. What’s a better way of determining your short-fallings, than by testing them yourself, non-stop, over-and-over, again-and-again.

Kali still didn’t know who the hacker was, or what the cryptic message really meant. She’d decided to share it with Death, since in a way, he’d been referenced, more than once.

He said that God alluded to a Celestial or a CerA, and that the Devil probably referred to Van Horne, who was believed to be the rogue. But he didn’t know why he’d been mentioned.

Frank arrived shortly after my awakening.

“How’s the hand?” he asked right away.

I raised the stump. “I can feel my fingers move, but they aren’t there.”

“You’re lucky you’re not dead. Do you have any idea what kind of illegal body mods Lillian had?”

“Explains how she took out the Horsemen.”

“Which is something I need to talk to you about. We’ve pieced together some of what happened from staff at the hotel. Is it true that War was a traitor?”

“How’d you learn about that?”

“Death transmitted a recording of Lillian giving her little speech to you and Sam, along with some key information.”

Frank questioned me and I told him all that had happened, leaving out the specific details of my knowledge of E3. Since Lillian was dead and publicly known to be E3, the safeguards in my head allowed me some leeway. I was able to spin things so that her and War came out looking like they were the top brass of the organization.

“You know you’re a hero, Trav.”

“I sure don’t feel like one.”

“Now, you didn’t hear this from me, but as soon as you’re cleared from that pool, there’s going to be a big memorial service for those who were killed as well as a ceremony for you.”

I remembered then seeing Sam running towards me as I passed out. I wanted to believe it was her, but in reality I realized it had been my own delusion, my desperate need for her to still be alive.

“I’m sorry about Sam,” Frank said, solidifying her death in my mind.

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said.

“After my vacation is over, I might consider whatever the hell it is.”

“Totally understandable, my boy. I think you’ll be happy to hear that I’ve not only managed to get you the vacation, but all the money we talked about as well, plus a little extra for the misunderstanding that occurred and the trouble you went through.”

“Thanks,” I said, shocked. I’d forgotten about the reward.

“At least let me present you with the proposition, that way you can mull it over while you’re recuperating.”

I hadn’t been serious about the vacation. I’d simply brought it up as a deflection.

‹It will be a working vacation. You need to return Paxton to his home and deal with Van Horne. Also, Sam kept you as her beneficiary. You are now the sole owner of Alpha Guardians, and as a result, you now own both her’s, and Lillian’s portion of the Regency Resort. There is also much to discuss about your involuntary initiation into E3 and how you wish to proceed.›

I shook my head, feeling slightly overwhelmed with all the info dumping.

“You all right? Do you need a lifeguard?” Frank asked, concerned.

I waved off the worry. “No, no. I’m fine. Just a little after effect.”

“You sure? The last thing I need is you dying on me from some minor complication.”

“I’m fine. You were saying?”

“How’d you like an augmented hand? Just think of the potential. Titanium skeleton with gorilla grip.” Frank said with an enthusiastic ‘oh yeah’ nod. “And check out these schematics the nerds came up with.” Frank projected them on a holoscreen. “Since I know how much you love your scythes, how’d you like to have them embedded? Always at your disposal.”

I found myself nodding. I indeed liked what I saw.

“And that’s not all. With Death’s, well, death, how would you like to take his place as part of the new team of Horsemen I’m putting together? Speaking of, guess who also got a promotion. Thanks in large part to you, I’m now head of Internal Affairs. We really could use someone like you. That was some really good work. I’ve already talked to the others, and they’re all on board. They really want you on the team. All you have to do is say, ‘yes.”

‹You should say yes. It will give you an advantage. I also have some ideas for further augmentation as well, if you’re willing to consider, which despite your façade, I know you are.›

‹“You think you know me that well, do ya?”›

‹I do. While you were undergoing treatment, I did a complete psychological profile on you, and enhanced my personality prediction algorithms to compensate.›

‹“Is that so?”›

‹It is. I have determined it a necessity to know how you will react to any given circumstance, so that I may attempt to compensate for any further psychological breaks that could result in our demise.›

“Me? Take Death’s place?” I asked.

“He actually recommended you as his successor before he died. To be honest, even if he hadn’t I was going to suggest you take the title since you were known as the Grim Reaper, and the two are often synonymous with each other.”

“Say I do take the position, that doesn’t mean I have to wear that awful shade of green he used to wear, does it?”

Frank laughed. “There’s nothing in the books about it. I take it, that’s a yes?”

I raised my stump. “You had me at embedded scythes.”

“Alright then, it’s settled.” Frank clapped his hands and rubbed them together in excitement. “You’ll have your new hand within the hour.”

“That quick?”

Frank waved the question off. “I knew you were going to say yes, so, I already had it manufactured.”

I shook my head. “Everyone seems to know what I’m going to do.”

Kali spoke up
.
‹Then I will attempt to make you more unpredictable.›

‹“Won’t that mess with your personality profiling of me?”›

‹Yes, but it is the only way for us to both stay alive and to keep evolving.›

Frank laughed. “Hey, before I forget, that Ranger you were working with wants to see you.”

“Stevenson is dead. War killed him.”

“Not that traitor. Ranger Alvarez, or should I say the new, War,” he said with a smile.

“What?” I said, but he was already walking away.

Alvarez entered.

“Good to see you’re still alive,” she said.

“Funny, I was about to say the same to you. I thought you’d been killed along with Death. What happened?”

“After we found out you were really you, he sent me to follow up on a lead. I was in Eden when everything went down.”

“Eden?”

“It’s a long story. So, you taking Death’s spot?”

“I guess I am. Frank says you’re going to be the new War. Why the hell would you want that title after your predecessor turned out to be a traitor?”

“It’s a lot better than being Famine, or the pompous title, Victory. Besides, I think it’ll be an interesting challenge to unsully the name.”

“You have fun with that.”

“I hear you’re getting a new hand.”

“Yeah, I was tired of the old one, figured I could use an upgrade. I don’t recommend going about it in the fashion that I did though. Hurts like a bitch.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. Listen, we need to talk about Pueblo, Van Horne, and your deputy.”

“He isn’t my partner anymore, and as far as I’m concerned, he can rot in prison.”

“Of course he isn’t your partner anymore, I am. I know about the meeting you had with Van Horne and what you did. You’re a decent guy, Travis. I wanted to let you know we’ve made some headway. The tracker you embedded in the credits has given all sorts of tasty tidbits. As soon as you’re ready, the Horsemen are tasked with bringing down his empire. The lead in Eden confirmed that Van Horne is the rogue CerA we’ve been looking for. We need Mr. Thrass to help bring him down.”

I needed to consult Kali and Death. I told Alvarez that we’d talk about it when I actually took the job, but for the moment I was on bereavement.

She apologized and left.

I submersed myself in the rejuvenating waters, while Kali shared what she had in mind for my further augmentation, and Death told me more about the Celestials.