Raine VS The End of the World (44 page)

“Jon, please. I alone saw her body. Such empty words give me no comfort.”

“I apologize.”

“Stop that. That’s three strikes now. It’s not cute. There’s only one thing to be done about Lily. She must be exterminated. Skinned alive and hung over the city. And as per my great-great-grandmother’s laws, the laws that brought about the Great Peace, those responsible must bear the hardest burden. I hope you understand the severity of the situation, Jonathan William Wrathman.”

If there was anything Jon knew, it was that the evocation of his full name meant that his dossier was under review; the man’s chances of survival were dwindling by the second. The trembling in Jon’s throat paralyzed his tongue.

“I don’t believe it’s necessary for me to clarify what your role in all this is going to be,” she continued. “After all, let’s not pretend it wasn’t your plan that got us into this mess.”

Wrathman wouldn’t soon forget. His blunder wasn’t something the Queen was liable to forgive.

Everyone in this hemisphere of the
Nexus
is saying their goodbyes, crossing me off their Christmas lists. I just hope they give better gifts than fruitcakes in hell.

The Queen tossed the ceramic mug into the air and swung. A direct hit smashed the token into the air. Its debris sailed mere inches past Jon’s ear and blasted against the protective glass in a thousand fragments. Wrathman opened his eyes, perplexed to discover that he was still alive.

He tried to fathom the reasons why.
Could the rumors be true, that each new generation of royals required a male sperm donor?
Maybe he was being groomed for such a position. But that was just wishful thinking. She didn’t like him nearly enough for that, and she must have known of the cocktails of drugs. And of course, never in the royal lineage was a male family member ever mentioned. A hot topic among the nobles was that even with the wonders of cosmetic surgery, the resemblance between each of the Queens was peculiar, enough for them to hypothesize that their ruler was either an ageless android, had a penchant for cloning herself generationally, or that she’d perfected a ‘fountain of youth’ medical process to halt her and Lacie’s aging.

No, she was definitely not going to let him father her children until she gave birth to a look-alike daughter, much as he’d always hoped. The only reason he was being kept alive, he considered, was that he was needed. There were simply too few people that the Queen trusted, especially since he now knew that General Lacie was pushing daisies…

It was hard to tell for sure whether this was his imagination talking, or whether his life was actually worth anything; however, the look on the Queen’s face made one thing clear. If Jon didn’t find Lily and Raine, he’d never see his virtual family again. Not in this lifetime. Mister Senior, among his other roles, would be played by his digital doubles from each of the servers until an eager replacement was found.

“Lily’s going to try and break into the mainframe. That was her original plan, and she succeeded. But now things have changed.”

Jon was terribly confused.

“I’m sorry, Highness? Did you just say she’s already succeeded?”

“No, no, at least not in this world line.”

Jon scratched his stubble in confusion, but the Queen continued.

“That devil… she’s changed her plan, somehow. I don’t know where, or how, or when. But she’ll do it. Our entire infrastructure is at risk right now. All of this is being set into motion because she has access to important information. She knows exactly which buttons to press to shut this operation down and I have no way of predicting how much she came to know, or what I can do to safeguard against her.”

“But ma’am… I apologize if I’m being presumptuous, but your ancestors promised that nothing like this would happen. Your family has ruled over
Neo Eden
for two centuries… the legendary Eden line holds the power to see into the future…”

Awaiting a blow or perhaps an order to execute him, Jon wondered if he had pushed his luck too far. His knees knocked. Queen Lorelei taunted the man, relishing in his fear. She closed the distance and kicked him in the chest. He flew across the room and smashed his head against a copper globe hanging from the corner. She scoffed in the general direction and flicked her cigar at him. It burned through his tie before the chemical smell roused him.

“It’s true that I have lost much of my clairvoyance. That was a condition, this late in the game. Yet what disturbs me most is that odd variable, one that’s proven time and again to be impossible to calculate – human error. There’s a rat infestation in this
Nexus
, and your efforts to find the leaks have proved most unsatisfactory. I must assume that whatever I can see, Lily can see, and presently I believe she has the upper hand. Yet, if handled properly, this could be just another minor setback. Even if she does make it into the mainframe--”

A loud beep rang through the room. An incoming message flashed on the Queen’s Holo-Lens – a Templar detected Raine and Lily activating an exit node at the Wall of Secrets.

“Ready my
Gear
in twenty seconds, or I shall have to kill someone,” Queen Lorelei announced over the intercom. She swiped over the report so Jon could inspect it from his unit.

The Divine Matriarch massaged her sinuses with her long, manicured fingernails, breathing deeply. An assistant placed the sleek pink custom
M-Gear
on the Queen’s head and gave a thumbs-up to an operative in the Network management spiral.

“There’s no time to contact the Joint Chiefs,” Queen Lorelei said as she laid herself down on her recliner. “I want every Templar I can get!” she yelled. “Overseer, set a storm perimeter across the Apennines and clear the rest of the region of incumbent weather! I want those airships in sight at all times. Beech is holding down the fort. He knows the protocol for this situation. I’m not letting her get away this time.”

Although he made sure not to show it, Jon felt a sense of great respite. So he truly was out of his depth. If she was going to punish him, it could wait. This was something much bigger than that. This was a chance to finally see the World Leader in action.

Queen Lorelei was going to take matters into her own hands.

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” – Sun Tzu

Please get me out of here.

It was a most satisfying sight. Those six glorious words etched into the wall were unmistakable.

“Brilliant,” sang Lily, tapping Raine on the back. She pulled out a tiny gong from her inventory. Lily put the mallet in Raine’s hand and had her strike it gently.

A deep, mellow sound reverberated across the vast checkerboard plain. Thunder sounded off in the far distance. A sudden gust shook the tree canopies overhead, sending forth a rain of cherry blossoms.

“Exit node 515-AX, this is user
Lillian_2212
. Please show us the way out.”

The golden letters sparked to life.

A wayward cherry blossom morphed into a snowflake. Raine scanned the landscape; her eyes caught on a shimmering portal not thirty feet away. Its window looked out upon a frosted wasteland caught up in a turbulent snowstorm.

“There it is!” Lily cried, running towards the portal. “Better put on your mittens.”

With a hand gesture and a press of her wrist communicator, the vessel flew towards her. A small hatch in the top popped open and an extension began to code itself onto the shuttle. It revealed a swiveling gunner seat and a large turret with rotating Vulcan and artillery cannons, and two missile launchers.

Raine dawdled on her way to the portal. Something just didn’t feel right. It was if some being of immeasurable malice was lying in wait.

“Hey, Dorothy! We’re off to see the wizard!”

But the girl had stopped moving and now stood frozen in place.

A snowdrift built up before their feet. Particles within the portal twisted, took on different shapes. In the mountains beyond, Raine spied glowing polygonal edges popping out of rocks, evergreen trees unraveling into wire frames, and ice formations fading in and out, their textures shifting patterns. Perhaps most telling, dead pixels drifted by in the midst of dark gray clouds. The wind was loud now, and cold, and Raine had to scream through chattering teeth.

“How do we know they aren’t waiting for us in there?”

Lily punched a few commands into her wrist device and created a thick camouflaged winter coat and gloves. She plucked the effects from thin air and handed them to Raine.

“There’s tens of thousands of these encrypted exits. It’s highly unlikely that they’d be in any given one.”

Her voice was comforting and sincere, but deep down she seemed to be shaking.

“If they do find us, I’m going to need you to provide cover, and you’re going to need a personal weapon. You’re familiar with this, I presume.”

Raine accepted the firearm with trembling hands. It was an exact replica of Super BlastBoy’s trusty rifle.

“Let’s see if those quick reflexes can be put to the test,” Lily ventured.

Raine had seen the on-screen animation countless times. The gun had a powerful charged attack that did lasting splash damage, in addition to an automatic fire mode that never ceased shooting, and a triple-shot mode that fired ahead and diagonally. She tested the charged attack on a rock. It turned to vapor and took a good chunk of the surrounding soil with it.

“This isn’t just a dream,” Lily said, reading Raine’s mind. “And it’s not just a game, either. You can actually physically hurt someone with that thing.”

“Say what?” Raine considered returning the weapon.

“Tony programmed it. It has the power to interrupt a user’s connection into the
‘Verse
. Same goes for our turret. He wrote this whole ship just for me. You shock someone hard enough, the overload of electrical impulses will kick them from the
‘Verse
.”

“Will they be hurt?”

“It’s not fatal. They’ll only be shocked to the extent that they fight to remain in this world. Their brains will try to compensate by over-firing neurons to keep the connection, but they’ll fail,” responded Lily, programming in a set of handholds for Raine to climb up to the gunner’s seat.

“Ready?” she asked, revving up the engine.

“Let’s do this,” declared Raine, climbing up the ship and onto the swivel seat. The seat adjusted to her height and buckled her in. She took hold of the turret in her left hand and the rifle in her right.

“Put on your visor,” Lily called out casually over the roaring turbines.

As she did so, Lily appeared in a holographic video, smiling in an uncharacteristically sincere fashion.

“Meter in your top left’s our shields. If ever we’re taking serious fire, pass me some of the turret energy to bolster our defense. Down on the right’s our boost meter. I’ll be using it quite a bit, so get used to the G-force. It shouldn’t overwhelm you; I coded in a diffuser system. All right. Do you see the ‘missiles operational’ sign on the bottom left?”

“Yes,” Raine said via video. “I mean, copy.”

“Yes is fine. All systems nominal. Invisibility on.
Omega Bishop
is good to go,” Lily signed. “Countdown in three, two, one…”

Raine felt the rush of momentum immediately. Her stomach sank towards her spine as the ship jumped forward through the portal at mach speed. She was thankful for the bauble-shaped shield that popped up around the craft, blocking out the now quite heavy snowstorm.

“Doin’ all right back there?” Lily asked.

“Never better,” Raine said nervously. Using foot pedals to spin the turret, she scanned the area for any signs of trouble. All was clear so far, but the valleys far ahead in the distance would make an ideal spot for a deadly ambush.

“Snipers ahead on the foothills. Close your right eye and wink your left. Switch turret to ‘Scope’ mode.”

Raine winked. The display read ‘Assault.’

She winked again.

‘Plasma cannon.’

Wink. Wink.

‘Scope.’

Her visor projected a targeting reticule that adjusted itself based on the turret’s position. She turned towards the nooks in the foothills and saw that the visor displayed small red dots to mark the presence of other users. Raine zoomed in on one of them, aimed at the suspicious white mound with a black dot, and fired. The red dot disappeared. She trained her bead on the next one. She took it out. The third one, too. There were a dozen left, and they were still so far off. It seemed too easy.

Just then an explosion nearby had Lily pulling the
Omega Bishop
off to the side.

“What was that?” Raine yelled.

“That, dear, was an explosive round. We’ve been spotted.”

Yikes.
She quickly moved to take out the remaining snipers as Lily dodged their incoming fire.

They were closing on the valley. Raine switched to the plasma cannon and charged it to maximum capacity. A relatively slow electromagnetic orb locked onto a concentration of snipers. It imploded into a shimmering display of antimatter that practically erased the surrounding area. She charged a second one to take out the next group, and felt the heat from a powerful energy beam whiz by from behind, barely missing her head. It had penetrated the
Bishop’s
plasma shield.

Raine ducked behind the turret’s blast plate as a flurry of bullets ricocheted, causing her to miss a shot. The small hole where the beam had come through quickly repaired itself.

An entire fleet emerged from the haze behind the duo
like a flood of demons from the mist. Dozens of enemy craft flanked the
Omega Bishop
from either side. Speedy fighters flew overhead, dropping energy bombs along their pathway. Lily nimbly guided them through. Giant carriers deployed vehicles akin to snowmobiles, only they were flying slightly above the ground. The Devs were catching up, fast. Raine knocked Templar riders down with missiles and the charged-up assault rifle.

“I can’t believe how good I am at this!” Raine called out.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Lily said with a chuckle. “Tony gave you an affinity bonus for every weapon he designed. Mixed it right in with his cookies.”

“A what?” her companion asked, shooting a large crater into the ground behind them, causing one of the snowmobiles to fall into it and explode.

“It automatically makes you an expert in the weapon at hand.”

But even her boosted skills were not enough. They were approaching the valley now, and bombers pulled away overhead, dropping their payloads to try and collapse the narrow pathway.

“We’re about to become snow angels!”

“Just you watch,” Lily responded, activating a turbo boost that launched the ship far forward of the surrounding enemies.

When the walls narrowed Lily hit the air brakes, navigating deftly between falling rocks and avalanching mounds of snow and ice. Raine pointed her turret upwards and trained her machine gun fire up at the bombers. She took out an engine on one and it attempted a kamikaze dive.

“Shields!” cried Raine, and Lily diverted all firepower to the translucent shield. The bomber exploded along the lower cliff side in a deafening fireball and Lily burst directly through the wreckage.

“That was close,” Raine mouthed.

“Here,” Lily said, passing power back to the weapons systems. “Keep at it! We can’t take any hits from those warheads.”

Raine suddenly became aware that a squadron of speedy fighters was tailing them. She charged up the cannon and blindly fired. The resulting explosion brought the weakened canyon down on top of the pursuers.

Please tell me that’s the last of those guys
.

Just then a decorated fighter ship burst through the mound and fired a powerful laser. Lily evaded a direct hit; the beam melted the guidance tower. The fighter accelerated through the narrow ravine, spinning on its side to avoid smashing into the increasingly constricting walls.

Wink.

Scope.

Raine aimed for the cockpit. She gasped.

The pilot in her crosshairs looked shockingly like an older version of Lily.

Raine let loose her worst.

The fighter dodged or destroyed every bullet.

“Lily?”

“Uh-oh,” Lily replied. “That’s Lorrie, all right. We need to get out of here.”

Raine switched to her rifle and activated the three-direction shot mode. She brought down the surrounding cliffs with rapid fire.

The pursuing fighter activated a shield of flames that turned the falling snow into a wall of steam. It looked to be charging up a powerful attack.

Raine took cover. “Shields!”

But they failed. The laser hit the
Omega Bishop
directly under Raine’s swivel seat. A huge plume burst from the engine.

“Hang in there!” called Lily.

“I can’t see!” she coughed, ducking below the blinding smoke.

“We’re almost out of the valley! Just keep her off us a little longer!”

“I’m trying!” Raine yelled, using both the rifle’s charged attack and the turret’s assault mode to noticeable effect. Busy weaving through the smog, the Queen was left with no opening to fire.

“Six o’clock!” cawed Lily.

Chance tapped his claws on Raine’s shoulders in alert. She hit the 180-spin button. Snowmobiles approached from the other end of the canyon. A single charged shot took the convoy out. Raine twirled back around as the barrier absorbed Lorrie’s machine gun fire. Its approaching flame-shield made her sweat bullets.

Without warning, large claws shot forward from Lorelei’s craft and clamped onto the
Bishop
. Twin chains presently reeled in its prey.

“You better have a look at this!” cried Raine.

“Hang on tight!”

Lily spun the ship around in a barrel roll, tangling up both chains.

“Shoot it!”

Raine trained a charged plasma blast on the links. It did nothing.

In the midst of the second roll, a powerful rush of electricity surged down the links, and Raine braced herself, wincing.

“Shields!” she managed, passing the weapons energy back to Lily again.

The electricity coursed through every nerve in Raine’s body. She screamed and convulsed in agony. It was the most painful experience the girl had ever endured. She gasped for breath once the shield shot back online. Lily regained control of the ship, somehow. Her voice came out a throaty gasp.

“You all right back there?”

Raine coughed. “Never better.”

“Oh, no. We’re losing power!”

Just then the
Omega Bishop
carved out a small chunk of the canyon. A large piece of metal from the body flew off; exposed wires were sucked out of the resulting hole in the fuselage. The engine smog thickened to the point where Raine could hardly breathe. She coughed, head between her knees.

She looked up to assess the damage. The canyon was becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, not least because Lorelei was weighing down the shuttle. They were near the end of the ravine, and the cliffs grew more jagged and curved. Scores of icicles now emerged from the walls, turning the whole ridge into a razor-sharp house of mirrors. Making a clean turn became next to impossible. Lorelei’s fighter remained close behind, readying another electrical attack.