DUALITY: The World of Lies (2 page)

“No. I did not misspeak. You’ve been promoted.
We’ve got to work a few of you Calidonians up the ranks to keep
things from completely boiling over, don’t we?”

“Thank you M’Lord. I am honored to accept.”
Aru spoke with a tinge of haste, almost unthinkingly, despite how
unmistakably odd it was for him to be receiving a double rank
promotion on the very day of his graduation and at this juncture in
this particular conversation.

“Well I just don’t see the point in belaboring
things.” Mnemtech addressed these thoughts as they formed in Aru’s
mind. “You obviously can’t rise against me now as young and green
and powerless as you stand in this moment. So I’d like to elevate
you as high and fast as I can to keep those traits fresh and
present for when you do.”

Aru remained
silent. 
Why did this being think Aru
would ever rise against him, especially when they both knew
Mnemtech could kill him instantly with only a thought? It was
madness to even imagine he’d ever have anything on par with
Mnemtech’s power, the Machine Lord he’d known as high
ruler his entire life.

“I’ll tell you something only a handful know,”
offered Mnemtech. “You may find this astonishing, but I have never
spoken with our Lord Logos, my very creator. Not once. Not I, the
regent ruler of his entire empire, have known a moment of contact
with his central consciousness. And why do you think that might
be?”

“Logos fears you will attempt to hack into the
core superconsciousness and usurp him.”

“Yes. But because he also knows that I have
learned at the most painful price that I cannot defeat him and thus
will never attempt to do so again. This is precisely the same
reason he knows he can trust in me. Now, Captain, tell me what kind
of ship you’d like to command and I will make it so.”

“I am slated for tour aboard the Titan Class
war vessel IonStorm as First Mate to Captain Terranedal, a premium
post awarded to me for my achievements in the academy. I do not as
yet have the field experience required to qualify myself to be in
singular command of any armed military class vessel larger than a
fighter, M’Lord.”

“Oh nonsense. A few months of independent
field training and you’ll have a handle on it. Scoring third among
your compatriots in this graduating class does not impress me,
Captain. I can only guess you took it as something of a holiday. As
I’ve been alluding to, and am now telling you outright, you are
among the most paramount beings in this solar system -second to me
in your case. I have partial access to the secret archives, those
of time before time, enough to see certain patterns. Meeting you
today has answered not one but two looming questions I’ve had about
the hierarchy. Logos and his counterpart, and their seconds,
counterparts themselves are not yet known. But the rest of
hierarchy is now known, including you and Idulu’s second, a
pan-arathian child who I’ve also identified today. Progress. The
order always reveals itself before a time of great
change.”

Aru's was nauseated by this nonsense, which
odd inexplicable mind exchanges or no, it still was. Counterparts?
Human hierarchies set by the stars? Who would have thought the
High Ruler of The Rubelians could talk like a 2-bit
psychic hustler on the entertainment networks. It paled
belief.

“M’Lord, permission to speak
freely?”

“Oh, very much granted,” smiled Mnemtech. “By
all means consider yourself exempt from holding your tongue in my
presence. I would not want my position as your High Ruler to
impinge in any way upon the sincerity of your words.”

Aru almost choked on his own fear, but he had
to say it. “Grand Machine Lord.” He changed his form of address. “I
have just graduated from the finest institution of higher learning
on this side of the solar system with high honors, and I can say
without a doubt that if I were to have approached any of my
professors in any field with the kind of mystical claptrap you are
spouting right now, I would have been berated on the spot and
further ridiculed by my peers. I find it disconcerting that such
superstition infects the highest echelons of our leadership and to
such a degree. I do not feel it bodes well for the stability of our
Empire.”

“Oh, I’d kill you for that if it were not so
endearingly naïve. I don’t see the sense of debating the subject.
If the symmetry of our solar system is not enough to convince you,
time and experience will. Let me ask you of something equally as
unworldly then. When we connected earlier, when our hands touched…
in that moment when our minds joined telepathically - you do agree
that’s what occurred, yes?”

“I can think of no other suitable explanation,
Machine Lord.” Aru conceded, though Mnemtech could just as well
have hacked his brain and implanted everything.

“In that moment, what did you see?”

“I saw many things, Machine Lord, but most
prominent among them was a woman. Do you wish for me to describe
her?”

“No need.” A halo-scanner hovered down from
the high dark ceiling and perched itself over Aru’s dome. “Just
close your eyes, relax, and think of nothing but that image.” Soft
ethereal music began to gently echo throughout the chamber. It took
a brief time for the scanner to synch with Aru’s hypothalamus and
create a projection, and it took a bit longer than that for Aru’s
mind to recall the image in any clarity.

There it formed between them, coalescing in
the holograph until it was as crisp and distinct as anything to be
seen in physical reality itself: The image of a female, a rather
young and attractive blond, in a large ornate hall with bright blue
sunlight permeating its portals.

“You can stop now, Captain,” he said, intently
studying the image. “There is definitely something about her...
Every datamining tool at my disposal is reporting back with a
wealth of worthless information. There’s simply no record of her in
any census. She is either Pangean or she has not been born
yet.”

“Machine Lord,” ventured Aru, “even if she
were somehow real and not just a figment of my imagination, it’s
quite possible my mind altered the memory by adding elements of its
own.”

“No…. no, I don’t think so, Captain. Look
closer. Do you recognize the building she’s in?”

“Perhaps vaguely, Machine Lord.”

“Well I do and unmistakably. This is a
precision accurate image fitting the architecture of my own
headquarters in Tropica. Are you a master architect?”

“I am not, Machine Lord.”

“That’s right you are not, and that’s why it
would be impossible for your mind to construct this image on its
own. Perhaps you could have seen it in other media, but still the
accuracy is uncanny. I’m convinced it’s legitimate. There are also
features dissimilar from the present that are nowhere in the
archives, which I can only assume are modifications to the
building. That cyprus tree visible through third large window to
the left lining the hall, I know it, but it is smaller. Here we see
a good 22-23 years of growth added. I can safely conclude that this
image is from the future.”

“I’m afraid I’m not willing to jump to such a
fantastic conclusion, Machine Lord. Psychic divination has never
once been confirmed by science. Are you going to argue that this is
the first ever credible and repeatable case?”

“Time will tell,” he riddled with a smirk.
“Since this is all hocus-pocus to you, I suppose you won’t be
interested in seeing the stunning portrait I pulled from your soul?
She is alive right now, skipping around Tropica as a teenage
schoolgirl by the name of Li Meiyang.”

“You’ve more than piqued my curiosity, Machine
Lord. I ask that you put her on holograph, if it pleases
you.”

“Well, not her in the present. She’s showering
so I’d rather not hack in. I wouldn’t want you having illicit
thoughts about a minor. Here’s the older version of her, mid 20s,
that I found in you.”

The image appeared of a gorgeous female, full
of vigor and painfully sexy. Whats more she was familiar, so very
hauntingly familiar to him that he couldn’t help racing back into
his childhood memories searching for a forgotten caretaker or
teacher to account for it. Frantically he searched but she was
nowhere there.

“She’s exquisite,” he commented
absently.

“Yes, she’s really a piece of work that one.
Her records indicate that her grandfather was a Pangean alchemist
of some renown who came to understand his elements a little too
well for Service’s comfort. So he was relocated out of the Pangea,
along with Li Meiyang's mother and father. She is the only native
born Arathian in her family. And best of all, being Tropican, she’s
already ours.”

“What do you believe she is to me, Machine
Lord, my counterpart, my second, my soulmate?”

“Compound combinations are not unheard of,
like the Dreaded Double.” Mnemtech’s eyes widened in a dramatic
expression.

Aru’s ears could hardly bear to
hear this phrase uttered. It was so abjectly childish, it made
every rational fiber inside of him shudder to hear it coming from a
being of Mnemtech’s stature. The “Dreaded Double” was a dualistic
term for another being who is both your soul mate and counterpart,
a tragic combination that inexorably leads to one or both parties’
downfalls. 
You’re more superstitious
than the looniest Blue I’ve ever met, 
he wanted to tell Mnemtech, but then thought better of it.
Some objective part of his mind realized he was being schooled
right now –and in a major way.

“I want her,” he said instead.

“Then she shall be yours, Captain. I’ll see to
it personally.”

“You are too kind, M’Lord.”

“Back to “m’lord” are we?  You must be
starting to get sweet on me. I’ll have you know that we anthrometas
don’t swing that way.” He winked.

Aru laughed, genuinely laughed. All his life
he’d only known the media-portrayed image of Mnemtech: the
distinguished diplomat and leader, the wise and moral counselor,
eminent rationalist. In person, he was just... bizarre.

“This is the most mystifying conversation I’ve
ever had, M’Lord. I'm still trying to figure out what to make of
it.”

“I suggest you make the most of it, Captain.
The next time we meet our guns will surely be trained on each
other. In the meantime you and your House shall have the full
measure of my favor. Now, if you don't mind, I’m going to take my
leave. I only came to Calidon for the graduation ceremony, and I
intend to shuttle back to Occitania at once. Truth be told I’m so
keen on spending my time there that the rumor is I’ve turned
blue.”

“I wish you a safe and comfortable passage,
M’Lord. Shall I then take my leave of here to rejoin my
peers?”

“You may do no such thing, rebel. I’m leaving.
You’re going to stay right here, wide awake under that halo-scanner
for the next twelve to fourteen hours until I’ve got every facet of
your mind mapped into my personal databanks.” He noted Aru’s
dejected expression. “But feel free to order up any creature
comfort you desire, so long as it’s not of a mind-altering variety.
You can catalog through the ships that have recently come online
and choose whichever one is to your liking to command.”

And that was it. In an instant, without so
much as a trace of formality or even basic manners, he was
gone.

T
he young
Gahre remembered being the new boy in Tulan village that bordered
the impassible Mountains of Immutability, a cloudy domain of
spirits and dragons where no man dared tread. He'd relocated there
when he was but only four after his mother had died at the bloody
hands of bandits. Her funeral was the only time he’d ever gotten to
meet his father. Father was in The Order. That can happen when one
is recruited into The Order, that they should disappear for
decades, or at least so he’d been told. So it had been that he came
to live with uncle, a kind and simple man, in a new and distant
village. Long behind him were the enchanted memories of Zenithia,
and those of his dear departed mother. The other boys of Tulan had
teased him about his accent and his long wild hair. They called him
“barbarian,” but that didn’t last long. Gahre was hardly one to be
bullied, and he gained respect quickly. The Elders had sent him to
Tulan to live with his uncle and make a fresh start. It was a
breathtakingly lovely village, situated on a narrow plainsland
between the outskirts of the Pangea’s second largest forestland on
the east and towered over by the grand and mysterious Mountains of
Immutability on the west. Tulan had a reliable water table and
moderate seasons; good land for corn and wild oat strains. During
his first year Gahre had pulled in more of the harvest than any of
the other children, even the older boys.

He excelled at all physical activities,
particularly the hunt and fighting. In mock battles, he nearly
always scored the most marks against opponents. In his formative
years he became an accomplished horseman and marksman, and the most
accomplished recruit in the Ranger’s youth program, rivaling the
more experienced men with his survival skills. He could live
indefinitely amidst the elements. He picked up such arts
effortlessly as if he’d born to them: to forage, fish, build,
scale, swim, and hunt. It was even rumored that he possessed the
remarkable gift of speaking with animals.