The second dark ages box.., p.65
The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 65
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
Raiden felt sure the use of the word “modern” was an insult. He immediately calmed himself and moved over to his computer terminal.
Kuro shoved his hand into his pocket and held up the dongle for the two men to behold.
Orochi displayed a rare expression that resembled victory. “This is excellent indeed!”
Kuro smiled and looked at his old adversary and new ally. “Twenty years,” he said softly.
Orochi nodded. “Twenty years trying to find someone who could retrieve that data, and finally we have it!”
The two men shared a moment of silence and appreciation as Raiden unceremoniously swooped in and took possession of the antiquated storage device. He carried it over to the old computer they had been working on for the last several months and got straight to work.
“Now that we have the map,” he muttered partly to himself, “we have a way forward.”
Orochi was the first to break the moment of celebration. “Well, if your goons hadn’t been so boneheaded about wanting that data destroyed in the first place, we could have had this long ago.”
Raiden shook his head. “Look, it was a different time. We can’t keep reliving the past. The government had it coming.”
Orochi started to say something about never getting into business with a former hacker or anarchist, but Kuro hushed him and pulled him over to the sofa on the other side of the room.
“Orochi,” he said solemnly, “there is something you need to know.”
Orochi looked up at Kuro, trying to understand the sudden change in mood at a time of such a breakthrough.
“It’s Akari,” he explained. “She didn’t make it.”
Orochi’s brow creased and lifted in an extreme expression of sorrow. Kuro saw Orochi’s body visibly crumple under the news. He helped the middle-aged man to sit.
Orochi recovered his facial expression rapidly, returning a blank polite look now. Kuro could sense the sadness in his colleague’s chest, though. “I’m so sorry,” he continued. “I just learned from her colleague, who delivered this to us.”
He paused. The yellow from the artificial lights made it impossible to see into the blackness beyond the windows, but Orochi’s glance was drawn there as if hoping for her to appear.
“She lived and died for something she believed in,” Kuro added softly. “She died a good death.”
Orochi nodded. “A good death is all we can hope for,” he agreed in the tone of one wise to the doom of all life.
The two men sat there for several minutes sharing the silence, but then Orochi got up without another word, bowed absently to his business associate, and picked up the coat he had dropped on the arm of the sofa.
He crossed the floor of the room and left via the front door.
Raiden was surprised to see him leaving when they were on the brink of a revelation. He turned to his screen and continued to fiddle with the setup. Kuro crossed the big open room to join him, looking over his shoulder.
Raiden’s thoughts were still on the project. “You know, looking at this, we couldn’t have extracted this data without that AI’s capabilities. It would have taken a dozen of me several decades to come even close with those servers,” he explained, impressed by what he saw on the screen already.
Kuro didn’t respond.
Raiden paused. “Where did Orochi go?”
Kuro sighed. “The bar downstairs, I suspect,” he told the former government whiz kid-turned-anarchist.
Raiden frowned, not taking his eyes from the code that flickered across his antique screen. “Why?”
Kuro’s voice was quiet when he answered. “I just had to tell him his girlfriend was killed acquiring this data for us.”
There was a pause between the two men.
Finally, Raiden responded as empathetically as he could. “That bites.”
Kuro agreed, placing his hand gently on the back of Raiden’s wooden chair. “It does. How long until we have the map?”
Raiden shrugged. “Not long. We should also keep tabs on which site they hit first.”
“Ok,” agreed Kuro. “Keep me posted.” Still wearing his coat, he headed over to the door and opened it.
Raiden’s eyes finally left his screen. “Where are you going?” he asked, surprised.
“To console an old friend,” Kuro responded, stepping out the door and closing it gently behind him.
Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France
“You are going to fail, William,” A new voice interrupted William’s thoughts. “The ArchAngel is not going to die in this trap.”
“Ahhh, is this Akio?” William said to the speaker. “Even if he isn’t dead, I don’t think even the vaunted Michael is going to be the same man as the one who had the energies of the universe trying to rip him apart. I will be surprised if he can still tie his shoes.”
“You might be surprised by just how much pain the Dark Messiah has been through,” Akio replied. “Even a nuclear bomb was insufficient to kill him.”
“Bah!” William snorted. “I’m sure it wasn’t a real bomb, or even he would not be here.” William looked at the pipes. “Well, not exactly here, more like there, there, and over there. Hopefully soon, I’ll have him spread apart around a …”
The lights flickered and died. William’s eyes glowed in the darkness when the temporary lights came on. His voice was calm, deadly. “You despicable dilettantes!” He gave another scream and looked down at his tablet, but it still didn’t show him the flag that would confirm he had killed Michael.
He flung the tablet across the room. “I will not forget, nor will I forgive you, Akio.” William walked over to where he had draped his jacket. He picked it up and slid his arm into the right sleeve. “I have a long memory, and I will be certain to take care of you.” He slid his other into the left sleeve and shot his cuffs.
“You will have to do it without your teams. It seems they met with a deadly case of sword infection.”
William sniffed in annoyance. “I will find more. Mercs are a dime a dozen.” He walked to his escape door and put a hand on it, then turned toward the speaker. “Look for me, Akio. When you least expect me, I’ll be there.”
William yanked on the door, and his eyes opened in shock and pain when both his kneecaps were blown off. His body collapsed to the floor, his mind screaming as he dragged himself back from the opening.
Akio walked in, his face impassive. He waved a tablet in William’s direction before placing it on a shelf. Akio smiled. “When you least expect me, William, I’ll be there.”
Akio pulled the trigger twice more, taking William’s hands off at the wrists.
“You dare to hurt me,” William spit the blood out of his mouth. “I was centuries old before you were even born.”
“And I,” another voice was heard in the room, William turned to see a man in a long coat and black leather cowboy hat, “deem you but a sniveling child I failed to punish correctly the first time.”
“ArchAngel.” Akio bowed.
“Dear friend.” Michael bowed slightly lower than Akio. “I owe all of you my life.” Michael walked over to William. His stumps had stopped bleeding. Michael took off his hat and reached down to run a finger through some of the blood on the floor. “I made a promise, William,” Michael said conversationally. “That I would baptize this hat in your blood to commemorate your death. It honors a father, and the mother and daughter whose lives you destroyed.”
“Who?” William spat. “Some cattle? Some plebeian humans who aren’t—” William stopped talking when Michael put up his hand. A solid ball of white energy had started to form in it. William brought his handless arm up to block the light from blinding him.
“The problem with using the power of the cosmos, William,” Michael looked down at him, “is that the cosmos can teach new tricks.”
William screamed when Michael dropped the ball of energy on his chest. It started melting his body, consuming it and causing it to disappear as the energy globe shrunk.
Michael stood, and the two of them watched. The body stopped disappearing when the only things left were his legs from the knees down.
Michael looked at Akio. “I owe you all an apology.” He put up a hand to forestall anything Akio might say. “I am arrogant, I know that. However, in my arrogance, I figured I was more than enough for one such as William. I was wrong, and without your support and the others’, I would have failed in my task of honor to return to Bethany Anne.”
Akio nodded his understanding.
The two of them walked toward the door that led to the surface. Michael turned and opened his palm, a red ball of energy shot out, consuming the remains of the legs in the fiery explosion.
Not that Michael or Akio knew that though, as they had closed the door quickly to protect from themselves any backsplash.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sabine’s eyes opened, and she looked up into a face she recognized. “Yuko?”
“Yes, little one.”
“I’m not dead?” she asked and looked around.
“No, unless I’m dead with you, and I do not think that I am.”
“But,” Sabine stopped and lifted her left arm. “Now, I know this was broken.”
“Yes, it was.” Yuko agreed.
Sabine’s eyes narrowed and she looked back up at Yuko, who was making sure Sabine’s head was comfortable. “Am I a Vampire?”
Yuko started laughing and shook her head. “No!”
“Then how?” Sabine asked.
“Consider it a gift from us, to you.” Yuko pursed her lips. “You have had a special dose of Bethany Anne’s nanocytes.”
“Michael’s Bethany Anne?” Yuko nodded. “Does that mean I can fly?”
“No,” Yuko told her. “It just means you will be more than you were, before.” She put a hand on Sabine’s head, “Now sleep, the nanocytes aren’t done helping you, yet.”
“But I’m not,” Sabine started, but never finished her comment.
Five minutes later, Eve joined her. Yuko had heard the android’s footsteps walking through the broken glass, then across the street and into the park area where Yuko and Sabine were.
“It’s an amazing amount of technology,” Eve commented. “Michael’s own energy was fueling it. Which is why the scientists couldn’t make it stop, even with Akio threatening to run them through with a sword.”
Yuko shook her head. “I don’t believe scientists think best with the end of a sword pointed at them.”
“Well, to his credit, I understand he wasn’t using it to point at them, and it was sheathed. But since he was bloody…” Eve let her sentence die off and changed the subject. “Mark and Jacqueline are at the hospital. Dr. Goto checked in their patient.”
“He is a good man,” Yuko looked to her left. Eve followed her glance and saw Michael and Akio coming down the street, about a half mile away. Yuko adjusted Sabine’s head. “Speaking of men.”
“Not good men?” Eve asked.
Yuko snorted, “Jacqueline was ready to come all the way here and kick Michael’s ass, or at least try she was so mad at how close he came to dying.”
“Yet, she fails to see the truth of how close she and Mark came.” Eve pointed out.
“The young do not care to have the hypocrisy of their actions pointed out to them.” She nodded down the street, “Or the prideful.”
“You would think he would learn.”
“Or the stubborn.”
“How stubborn can a human be?”
“Let’s just leave it at men.” Yuko finished. “Their heads are as hard as granite, and yet just as brittle as sandstone. Should you give them their vaulted logic, their world view can explode.”
“You act as if females are any different, except insert emotions instead of logic.”
“Eve,” Yuko turned back to look at her friend. “I love you, but you can be such a logical bitch sometimes.”
Eve chuckled, “Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the old and aged.”
Yuko sighed. “Let me change that to logical bitch frequently.”
The two friends stayed in a peaceable quiet while the two men walked down the street. Yuko enjoyed the look of one, a man from the East, his clothes those of her country, his sheathed sword the physical manifestation of an exclamation point for anything he said.
The other a man from the West, his coat one of the most technically advanced clothes on this world, his hat the product of human hands, yet the manufacturing techniques from centuries before the World's Worst Day Ever.
East and West, calm and fiery. Yet, she admitted, both a bit arrogant in the belief of their abilities.
Eve spoke first as they walked under the tree, Michael checking out Sabine. “The scientists are still below, but they cannot start up the LHC anymore.”
“Why is that?” Michael asked, half of his attention on Sabine.
“I shut down their systems, and put a crypto-lock they have to bypass to get it up and running again.”
Michael stood up, “Thank you.” He spoke a bit louder as he looked from person to person, “I need to thank you all. Without you, I would not be standing here and William would have accomplished tearing me apart.” He smiled, “Normally, my stubbornness, nurtured in the millennia plus I’ve been alive, has been enough in these trials. This time, it was enough that I trusted you four to get me out, I just had to stay together and wait.”
“Didn’t it hurt?” Eve asked.
Michael turned to the short android, “It hurt like a Gott Verdammt sonofabitch.”
Akio spoke up, “William believed you would come out of the effort mentally unhinged.”
“I never know why people presume I’m hinged in the first place,” Michael admitted. “I’m so damned old all of my give up, got up and left my body already. I move forward because of honor, of love,” he smirked when Yuko grinned like a young school girl, “and the knowledge that I had the best people working to get me out of the cocked-up place I got myself in. Whatever the pain I was feeling,” Michael grunted, “and it was a lot.” He looked over to Akio, “Didn’t hold a candle to being ripped apart and burned in a nuclear explosion where you slowly mend for a hundred and fifty years.”
He exhaled heavily, “So,” he reached up with his right hand and pulled off his hat, pulling it down to hold it with both hands as he stood there. “I am promising to do my best to let my team in on my plans. To let each of you shoulder the responsibilities and to perhaps learn how to effectively lead, not just tell you what I expect, but rather to seek your advice in the process.” He looked to Yuko, “Not that I expect to always do what you logically suggest, but that I’ll consider it and reflect rather than dismiss it out of hand.”
He ignored her blush as she realized he had heard her and Eve talking earlier.
Michael held his hat in his left hand, reaching out with his right to Akio, “Thank you Akio, I’m proud to call you my friend.”
Michael watched as Akio fought to bow in service and smiled when he held out his hand, and the two men shook. “Forever will you be my brother.”
“Hai, mine as well, Michael.”
Michael released his handshake with Akio and turned to Eve and stepped forward, then he took a knee, his head and hers almost equal height. “Eve, without you I would not be here. Your intelligence and abilities are beyond mine in ways I cannot fathom. You are my daughter, for whom I will give up my life to protect.”
Eve’s face dropped, her body losing emotions for a minute. Michael turned to Yuko, “What’s happening?”
Yuko reached up and wiped a tear, “You have overwhelmed her ability to comprehend this reality. She will be back.”
Michael turned back, waiting for Yuko’s pronouncement to come true. After about two minutes of silence, Eve came back around. The little human body stepped forward and reached around Michael’s neck to hug him. The little head turned and set its ear against his chest. “Father.”
Michael reached around and hugged the little android back. “You may call me Michael, or Father. Whatever works best for you.” Eve nodded her understanding and stepped back.
Michael stood up and walked over to Yuko, turning around and sitting next to her and Sabine. “Yuko, I personally owe you for all of your service. For protecting and saving Sabine. I cannot possibly repay you, but I would offer you whatever I can. You have but to ask.”
Yuko stared at Michael, wondering what she might ask of this man. “Michael, since I was drafted by ADAM almost two centuries ago, I’ve never had an Uncle.”
Michael chuckled, reached around and grabbed Yuko around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “I’d be honored to call you my family, Yuko. Just know that it comes with a negative or two.”
Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his coat, “Like what?”
“Like I’ll be checking out your boyfriends, to make sure they are worthy of you.”
Akio, Eve and Michael chuckled as she swore into his chest. She reached up and wiped her eyes and they all heard a muffled, “I accept.” from her.
“And Sabine?” Eve asked.
All eyes turned to the young woman sleeping on Yuko’s lap.
“She will see the stars; her name will be spread to galaxies in stories for generations to come.”
“I heard that,” Sabine said, sleepily.
“On my honor,” Michael told her and put his hand on her head. “We will get up there one day.”
“Just not today,” Sabine told him. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight little one,” Michael told her. He reached up and started to wipe his head off to put his hat back on, then stopped.
His mouth was open, his face in shock.
“What is it?” Akio asked, concerned.
Michael looked up to Akio, his voice incredulous…
“I feel hair!” he told him, rubbing his hand all over his head.
The scream could be heard for hundreds of yards in all directions.
“I FEEL HAIR!” The voice reverberated through the buildings in the night.
Epilogue
