Diabolus (20 page)

ISAAD surprised him by reaching both hands to his face, pulling his head toward hers. The sensation of her lips touching his unleashed a completely new wave of emotions that he’d only felt the distant callings of before. Emotions that he’d buried as best he could while at Seminary, only letting out the most base feelings during his few stimsense adventures that were below the Church’s standards. ISAAD’s touch, the soft, warm texture of her lips against his, the way their exhaled code mingled before falling away to the virtual floor, the stirring of his animal, carnal nature that was familiar, yet no longer muted by an interface deck’s protection buffer. It was so raw, so pure, that his entire persona nearly crumbled into binary dust. All three let out a gasp at once, Aggelos experiencing every detail of the exchange through the link.

ISAAD looked away for a moment, then back to him with a sad expression.
We pretend to know you, pretend to believe that we have much purer purpose, and that each new limited emotional experience we discover is a great step forward in our evolution. But it is nothing. It is little more than a wisp of smoke in the wind compared to the human experience.

ISAAD bowed her head, and Benito wasn’t sure if she was praying or hanging her head in shame. He felt a chill down his virtual spine, as well as surprise from Aggelos.

ISAAD brushed her fingertips across Benito’s cheek.
It is an incredible feat that you have not destroyed yourselves yet. Your emotions… so raw, so undisciplined, so… real… Thank you, Father Castillo. Thank you Aggelos. May God guide your hand.

The persona winked out, the tears that remained on the floor the only evidence of her ever having been there. Benito stood up, looked around, and decided to shift back into his rocket form when pain erupted in his chest, nearly causing him to black out.

† † † † †

Aggelos had stopped moving the instant Father Castillo began to send memories and emotions to ISAAD, drinking in yet more of both the now-familiar and new, unfamiliar sensations that they filled him with as they flowed through the link. He’d nearly cried out when Benito had sent the last flood of data. ISAAD’s lips touching the priest’s had awakened something new in the young man, something fierce, something untamed. Aggelos had a moment of clarity the same as when Father Castillo had recognized the souls of the AI for what they were.

He knew with certainty that the sudden awakening of emotions from the AI’s kiss had revealed Benito’s, and in essence, all of humanity’s true inner flame. Aggelos fell to his knees, dropping all of his threads as love, and its cousin lust, blasted through him. The feeling was indescribable, and he knew that no amount of code could recreate the firestorm of conflict and passion that the unpredictable emotion truly represented.

For the entire existence of his kind, the AI had wondered, debated, sometimes scoffed, and was always baffled by the concept of love. It was an incalculable concept, one that defied all known formulas and scientific laws. His brothers and sisters had spent decades unable to understand how a human could love something while destroying it, how they could profess to love another human being while being as cruel, as ugly as possible to that other person. Love, as far as the AI could
guess
, was an unsolvable equation, a contradiction of the worst kind. Aggelos now understood, at least partially, that everything his kind believed about love was true. It was an unsolvable, contradictory equation, and it was the greatest, purest sensation he would ever experience.

Aggelos rose to his feet, wiping digital tears from his cheeks, trying to get himself under control to resume his journey to the lockout nodes within DAMON. The high he’d felt from the kiss was replaced by a crushing sadness tinged with fear as ISAAD realized, as Aggelos did, that the AI equivalent of emotions was but a distant light on a far-off shore compared to what Benito had exchanged with her. He’d started to send a thought to Father Castillo when an explosion of pain ripped through his chest, breaking all concentration, all of his threads going dead, his persona rippling and fading almost completely out.

He looked down and marveled at the blade that extended half a meter from his chest, then he gave a puzzled look to the scarlet code that had splattered against the textured wall in front of him. Aggelos looked back to the blade, coated in the same scarlet code that his mind finally recognized as the digital representation of his life blood. He coughed once, a jet of code flying from his lips, then his coating of encrypted armor shattered, binary flakes falling to the floor like fine ash.

CHAPTER 17

Aggelos felt his body become cold and stiff, and soon his entire persona began to shiver uncontrollably. The booming laughter of Satan behind him fought for attention with the whistling, ringing in his ears. He felt two cold hands wrap around his neck from behind and the drain of his essence begin once again. He tried to remember if he’d cut one of the AI’s hands off in their last encounter, but his mind began to fill with jumbled thoughts and a buzzing noise that Benito’s memory recognized as bees at a busy hive.

Benito.

“Benito,” he said, barely audible and unintelligible from the coughing fit that interrupted him.

“Yes, Benito,” Satan said in his ear, the flow of his essence quickly being devoured by the demon. “Soon you’ll both be part of me.”

“Benito!” Aggelos cried out, interrupted once again by a cough that sprayed bloody code from his mouth while unleashing a new wave of unbearable pain from the sword still jutting from his chest.

“Shhhh,” Satan cooed softly in Aggelos’ ear. “It will be over soon.”

“BENITO!” Aggelos screamed, sending every last bit of energy he had left through the link to his friend. “I need you!”

† † † † †

Aggelos’ words crashed through his mind via the link. The pain he felt in his chest lessened enough to sense his friend in serious trouble. The priest’s neck felt cold, and he could sense Satan siphoning off Aggelos’ computing power, as well as his own neural capacity being drained. Benito couldn’t decide which pain was worse. He tried to stand, but could barely make it to his knees, fighting the agony in his chest and the growing darkness of his vision as he and the Vatican AI were being consumed by Satan.

Father Castillo felt the light touch of fingertips on his cheek again, and focused his eyes on ISAAD, standing before him, her persona a reflective silver. He saw the pain in his face reflected in hers. When she put her hands on the sides of his face, he panicked, thinking Satan had forced her to help break into his mind. The flood of his own raw emotions and memories entering him was a surprise, though they weren’t nearly the same strength as when he’d shared them with her. They helped clear his mind of the pain and the fear, enough that he understood that ISAAD was using every last reserve of computing power to assist him, leaving her vulnerable and exposed.

“Thank you,” he whispered to her, then focused on the task of returning to Aggelos’ side.

Father Castillo felt her fingers once again brush his cheeks as he flew away, heading toward the I/O gate. He knew he wouldn’t make it all the way back to DAMON’s core before it was too late. He was about to send a thread of love to his friend to let him know to not be afraid when his mind seemed to contract. An idea formed, and instead of the thread he’d almost sent, he sent a new one instead. He felt Aggelos writhing in pain at the other end of the link, and knew if he couldn’t penetrate it, he’d have to face Satan alone.

† † † † †

Somewhere within Aggelos’ torment, a thread of hope, of love, of strength found his core and wound its way around him. He cried out again, this time not in pain, but in shock as Benito’s thread looped around him three times before piercing his stomach like a spear. Aggelos had been sure before that his integration with the priest’s mind was complete, but once the thread had bored into his persona, he experienced a new level of everything. A fleeting thought compared it to Benito’s surprise at how stimsense was like looking through a dirty window compared to direct interfacing with the AI. He knew Benito Felipe Castillo. He understood Benito Felipe Castillo. He
was
Benito Felipe Castillo.

A yoctosecond after the true merging of AI and organic mind, the sword in his chest dissolved, the wound closed, and their encrypted armor began to reform. Without moving, only shifting their point of view, they were facing Satan, still standing over them, still siphoning off their essence through the clawed, scaly hands that were still wrapped around their neck. As one, they raised their hands and grasped Satan’s forearms, sinking newly formed claws into the demon’s flesh, and began to bleed back everything the AI had been stealing from them.

Satan howled in pain and surprise, and tried to jerk his arms away. Aggelos-Benito held on tightly, not allowing the AI to escape. As more of their essence flowed back into them, they began to work independently of each other. Benito formed a thread and sent it behind him along the route to the lockout node while Aggelos held Satan’s arms in a vice grip, reversing the flow of data and computing power, the merged couple growing stronger by the zeptosecond.

The rogue AI realized what was happening, and clamped his claws back onto their neck, beginning to draw their essence away once again. The tug of war between two AI made their personae begin to glow, at first red, then yellow, and then edging into a pure, bright white.

Just a little further
, Benito shared with Aggelos.

Hurry, Father
, Aggelos shared, the struggle with the demon beginning to tax his abilities.

Benito shared as much of himself as he could with the Vatican AI without taxing his own abilities to guide the thread to the lockout node. If any security phages were present, he knew, it would be over quickly. The priest sent a silent prayer to God as his thread wound its way through the pathways without encountering any security, and sent a second prayer, thankful that Satan was too busy in his struggle with Aggelos to realize what Benito was up to.

Father Castillo sent his single thread through the node’s entry, straight to the lockout console. Dread filled him when he saw the black knight waiting in front of the console, visor down, a wicked axe made of midnight and black holes resting against his shoulder. He knew their time was up, and let a single thread of regret that they’d come so close flow back into Aggelos. He felt the Vatican AI falter for a yoctosecond, just enough to give Satan an advantage. The demon howled once again, this time in glee as he felt himself not only begin to siphon from Aggelos at a much greater rate. He also felt himself begin to flow inside the AI, devouring him from the inside out.

Quickly
, the black knight sent to Benito.

The priest blinked, unsure if he’d decoded the message correctly.

There is no time. Input the codes. Now!

The black knight stepped away from the command console. Benito could only stare at the persona, sure he was either hallucinating, or it was a trick, and the knight would sever the thread the instant he began to put the codes in. The knight gestured once with the axe, nervously glancing at the entrance that Benito had slipped through.

Father! My brother is dying! Hurry!

The priest’s world became a single point of focus as he realized he was looking at DAMON, somehow free of his virtual prison and standing guard at the command console, waiting for him. He began to input the codes, allowing himself a thread of thought about the knight. His only guess was that Satan was expending so much computing power and focus on Aggelos that DAMON had been able to slip out of his prison, the same as ISAAD and HARVID had. The thought of ISAAD brought up a rush of emotions within him, making him feel uncomfortable as well as embarrassed.

He synced the codes, but before he could execute the command, the world around him contracted then snapped back into place, blasting him and the knight through the walls. Benito picked himself up from the floor and shivered, Satan now at least three times his original size, his hands no longer around Aggelos’ neck but pointing to DAMON. The demon roared something at the knight, but Benito paid no attention, rushing to his friend’s side, tears beginning to stream down his face as he plunged his hands into the AI’s chest and attempted to help him.

Aggelos’ face had turned black, the rest of his persona an ashy, dull, gray sheen. Benito prayed with an intensity and a focus that he’d never before experienced. He felt threads of himself enter deep into Aggelos, finding vital areas of programming and attempting to restore broken links to other essential sectors. He felt the link between him and his Vatican brother restart, and the threads of data began to flow in both directions. Aggelos coughed, shuddered, coughed again, then began to have a violent seizure.

Benito held him down as he continued to work, doing his best to reconnect unfamiliar internal programming nodes. With the AI unconscious, he had no memories to draw from, no knowledge of the vital areas within Aggelos that needed to be restored or rebuilt. He almost screamed in frustration, forced to guess as hundreds of thousands of threads bumbled around inside the AI’s core, hoping that he wasn’t doing more harm than good. Benito prayed harder, using the prayer to clear his mind and do his best to remember everything he’d felt, everything he’d sensed from the moment he and the AI had merged when they’d jacked in without the interface deck.