Monday, October 22, 2012

halfway+1

2011 NANO Part 11

    As the cop drives away Jared starts to busily stick cotton balls into his head wound.  Alexander and Stephen may not know very much about first aid but they are pretty sure the cotton balls are a bad idea.  None the less Jared seems to know what he’s doing so they decide its better to just ignore it.  Jared looks around him quickly as if to reorient himself with where he is, “You guys couldn’t keep the heat off of me for ten minutes while I did something?”
    Alexander looks curiously over at the computer screen.  He knew about computers but didn’t find them to be to terribly interesting.  They just did things he could himself faster and what’s the good of that, “Well a little bit of warning would be nice”
    “I assumed that when I put a drill to my head that would be warning enough”
    “Well it isn’t.  So what did you do exactly?  Other than ruin your shirt and cause us to ruin the day of some poor shmoe who thinks he’s a cop.”
    “It is kinda difficult to explain mostly because we don’t quite have all the words to explain it properly.  Essentially I took a snap shot of my consiousness”
    “Why”
    “I don’t remember.”  The look of near exasperation that crosses Alexander’s face makes Jared realize that a few more details might be necessary but he is light headed and needs to sit down.  Opening the car door he does just that as the other two move around him he appologises, “Sorry there are better ways of doing this other than drills and wires.  What I did is the least best way of getting the information that I needed but it was an emergency because something happened here.  Something we didn’t cause and it is something that I felt, and then it is something that I immediately started to forget.  Everything I thought on the subject faded away like dreams sometimes do.  The whole thing didn’t feel right and I don’t even know why anymore.  That information is gone.  Only the fact that I knew something was up.  Fortunatly I was able to back up my brain before everything went down so hopefully I’ll be able to find the glitch, spin the rags, and see what the data sockets will shake out.  It is gonna take some time though.  Whatever did this is shadow to the max and it doesn’t want to be sniffed out here or there.  I am not even sure slamming the backup worked as whatever was decreasing the data did an ever so through job in my own meat box it might followed the digital trail”
    Alexander nods, “So you think it is one of us?”
    “But who” Stephen asks, “I mean we discussed it in group, everyone was involved, it isn’t like any of us have anything to hide from any of this.  It was just a silly exparament that got out of hand.  For all we know this whole thing is John’s doing as part of his way of putting back the virgin.  We might be messing with his stuff.
    Alexander looks dark, “Or maybe it is the light bringers.  Perhaps they caught wind of what’s been going on and decided that they wanted to get in on the action.  Most of them haven’t let go and most of them are worse off than we are in terms of  sanity, especially your survivors Stephen.”
    Jared puts up his hands, “Woah before we go crashing the light bringers data jack lets see what data I had then that I don’t got now.  Even with the AI script dogs it is going to take a couple of turns of the earth.  And since all of us were in the party all of our light bringers are suspect which means that is a lot of ground to pound, a lot of rocks to kick, and punches to throw”
    The others nod, Stephen looks around, “Well at the very least we can’t stay here.  Someone might call the cops again do you think we are going to need any of the others for this?”
    Alexander gets in the car hoping the others will do the same.  They do and as a result they promptly leave the scene of the crime, once they are a little bit aways Alexander says, “If we are going to go talk to the Lightbringers we got to talk to John first.  We have deals with them and stuff I don’t even know about.  Sure they go off the reservation just like we do but for the most part they have a leader that keeps them all in line just like John does to us.  If we go kicking in their doors it could be bad news”
    Stephen nods, “Yeah we left them in some pretty delicate positions in their lives and showing up with a case of Sunkist and some questions doesn’t seem like it is going to work out”
    “Sunkist?” Jared inquires.
    Stephen nods, “For what ever reason the star things hate it.  I doesn’t stop them or even depower them in any way.  Still they hesitate when they have to deal with it.  Strange isn’t it?”
    Alexander laughs, “The wonders of the modern world”
* * *

    Meanwhile.
    Wilson and Jerimia cross the threshold to one of Jerimia’s many interconnected underground bases that he has scattered all throughout America.  No one is certain to the extent of Jerimia’s holdings but Wilson suspects that at one point Jerimia might as well of ruled the world anyway with all of the stuff he has, has built, and the resources he seems to be able to amass at will.
    Rebecca follows after them sniffing the air with more than a little distain, “It smells like chemicals in here and it most certainly could use a woman’s touch”
    Jerimia looks around terrified for a moment, “Oh no.  No more women.  The last time I built some women to try to keep the place clean and spruce it up a bit, it turned into a disaster.  It was okay at first but then I grew some more, then they grew some more and then they got into a fight about something or other.  Cleaned out one of my armories they did.  Long story short I had to flood most of my tunnels with cyanide and most of my clones died as a result.  I’d switch back to robots but they have a habit of turning sentient and trying to kill me>“
    Wilson sets Jerimia down in a chair with a grunt, “You know it wouldn’t kill you to use some genetic material other than your own.  I mean an army of girls based around you, I could see why it ended bady”
    Jerimia laughs, “Well hindsight being what it is, is always nice.  Oh yeah and they hated me.  Jesus god it was like every little thing I did was the end of the world then they would try to kill me.  What is with my clones and trying to kill me?”
    “Didn’t you believe that if any of your clones killed you, then they could become the new alpha you?  Wasn’t that’s how you justified making them in the first place?”
    Jerimia nods, “God yes!  I remember that.  What a stupid idea.  Also lucky for me I figured out how to bake them so they didn’t have all of my AMAZING mental faculties.  Now that they are semi retarded things have been much better.  There were some dicey moments in there.  Sometimes I’m not even sure if I was the original”
    Rebecca looks around in wonderment.  She’d never seen the inside of any of Jerimia’s labratories before.  It is more than a wreck.  It is a bedlam of different ideas crashing together in ways she could never even imagine.  There were Tesla coils next to tanks of chemicals, robots all over the place in various stages of construction, tables full of stuff that could only be described as science paraphernalia, along with cabinates and papers everywhere.  It is kind of what she always thought a mad scientist laboratory would look like.  It is complete with arcs of electricity happening every once in awhile and beakers bubbling away merrily.  It looks as if he has anywhere from 5 to 50 exparaments going on at the same time.  Pages of computations and notes scatter the floor.  Idley she picks one up and sees that it is a recipie for cupcapkes.  In the margin there are notes about how to make it explode when they come into contact with cheese.  Smiling happily she picks up some more notes, “Man this place is fantastic all you need now is an Igor”
    Wilson freezes, then he tenses up and prepares to jump out of the area of effect no matter where the area of effect might be.  However, much to Wilson’s relief Jerimia just looks sad, “I had one.  He was my faithful lab assistant for many years.  I had some before him and they were alright.  None were like this little guy though, just the right mix of servitude, intelligence, and durability.  He was a great little guy, and brave too!  During the great death matchine rebellion he was there with me side by side fighting off the robots we’d built together.  He matched me blow for blow.  He’d personally foiled not one but two plots against my life that some of my clones were cooking up.  Plots that I wasn’t even slightly aware of.  And of course there was that one time he took a bullet for me and saved my life.  To this day I will never understand why he did that.  I’m not a good man.  You know it she knows it and my lab assistant damn well sure knew it.  I made him do terrible things from time to time.  The clones and the death robots, sure, he helped me there but only because his ass would have been on the chopping block next.  He could have been free.  He would have been able to go anywhere in the world, he would of inherited all my labs and technology.  Instead of that though he saved my life.  It was on the evening of 2001 the night of the great event when I was going to take over the world.  Sometimes I think my failure to do so means that he died in vain.  Sometimes I think that even if I’d taken over the world he’s still of died in vain.  He was a good little guy though.  When I was picking up the ashes of my labs and rebuilding my secret science empire I decided that I would do it alone this time with no assistant at my side.  Sometimes I miss him still but you know.  Casualties of war.  God damned light bringers.  The saddest part is that I never got him.  The bastard that killed my assistant is still out there running free, living the good life, maybe going to his own stupid little group, I don’t know.  What I know is that John made that god damn deal so I can’t go after him even though he deserves it.  Some day I fantasize about sneaking off and ending him but what would it serve.  I wouldn’t be ruling the world and my little lab assistant would still be dead.  Oh well how did we get on this topic again?”
    Jerimia looks both heavy and sad.  Wilson knew he loved his old lab assistant the way normal people love dogs or bunnies, but he never knew that it went that deep.  The look in his eyes showed an honest to god regret that he let his assistant die.  Wilson never took Jerimia as the mournful type.  Still Jerimia has been alive for a long time, not Alexander long, but long enough to see the world spin around and do its thing.  For the mighty to fall and the weak to rise.  He saw world war one and two even though he doesn’t like to talk about them.  For someone who likes to talk as much as Jerimia that is a pretty big deal.  Wilson isn’t entirely sure about his immortality.  He is pretty sure that he will live a normal lifespan, get old just like everyone else and die.  Some of the world shakers are like that.  Deven for example and more than likely Stephen.  He could ask Jerimia to whip something up like he did for himself whenever it was he decided to spend the afternoon curing old age.   Looking at him now though Wilson wonders if it isn’t better that he just kicks off from the planet.  There is something about trying so hard to ending the earth, and then failing to make you realize that things would have been so much better off if he’d succeeded.  Just before he had him sacrificed one of Wilson’s stateside cultists joked that maybe they had already succeeded, that the snake had eaten everything and they were all in its belly.   He’d found over his time as a leader that American’s make particularly bad end of the world cultists.  Sure he could get them to join but they would join because they didn’t know what to believe not because they actually thought that some sort of Platonic snake that moves through the void of voids and devour the universe whole.  Hr never understood why though.  The snake, this snake is the original snake.  The snake from the garden of eden.  It is the original beast that had to be driven off by a host of angels at the cost of eden itself as it attacked from both the ourside and the inside.  Christians are only given half the story.  The boring bit about how an aspect of the snake broke into our reality and convinced them to defy god.  Now that is a solid basis for a cult.  Much better than worshipping god himself the bastard. 

      Rebecca looks bad that she brought it up.  She has had followers, many followers.  What she does is based around her getting, gathering, and using followers.  She’s never quite had something like Jerimia though.  Looking around his lab at all his science equipment she wonders what it would be like to have Jerimia as a world leader.  She supposes she would give up her own designs for world conquest and maybe open up a black market privateer service that would sell to the underground while simultaneously working for the secret police.  That would be fun.  Being in the command structure would also be nice but not the same.  She still isn’t much of a joiner.
    Jerimia looks at Wilson curiously for a second, “Why did you come back here?  Also while you are answering could you get me the light saber from the table over there and the bottle of pills.  I need to get this thing off of me and regrow my own flesh and blood”
    Wilson grabs the saber, “I got some vibrations.  Big ones.  Something major is up”
    Jerimia shrugs and inicates to Wilson where he is to make the cut, “Well something is always up.  These are some hard times after all.”
    Wilson fiddles with the saber for a moment before finding its on button as he hands Jerimia the pills he says, “Yes well I don’t get vibrations unless it is something important.  Also they stopped”
    “Stopped”
    “Yes” he brings the light saber down severing Jerimia’s leg, again, “Stopped.  They stopped suddenly as if they were cut off.  I myself am not cut off from the great snake but something has happened”
    Jerimia nods, “hmmm I wish we established this before we cut off the old leg.  It was useful.  Still no substute for flesh and blood.  Doesn’t look like any of us are in on it.  We are all accounted for thanks to the most recent disaster.  Think the light bringers are on the move?”
    “If they are it is something pretty major if they can stop the snake’s vibrations.”
    “Well let me regrow my leg, I’ll do some reading up on the subject and talk to Jared and crew to see if they are connected with any of this.  We might have to call in John”
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