《Everyone Dies Alone but not necessarily in space》#23
Advertisement
Hold 78 was leaking. Did you forget about it? That’s what they wanted. They wanted it forgotten, lost, drifting through space out to the back end of beyond: to the Cloud, where information goes to die.
The contents of Hold 78 were secret. Or perhaps, secrets. Terrible, blinding, searing secrets. Secrets that destroy lives and minds and souls. Secrets making their last awful journey to their final resting place.
Knowledge cannot be forbidden, only contained. Unless you know, you cannot forbid. But of course you can minimise the knowing: containerise it and shrink it. Wrap it into a tiny conspiracy of secrecy, then roll it up and hide it, quiet and far away. Hold 78 was the natural extension of that policy: the last, final copy of that which must not be known but cannot be destroyed.
And it had been in there too long. It’s hard to keep secrets. Slowly, ideas make their way out. Quietly, gently, questing feelers of inkling had worked their way through the wall, through the floor – squeezing through microcracks in the nanocrete and winding through the inclusions in the welds, the ones the quality control engineers said weren’t there. Widening out into ribbony tendrils of suspicion, they stretched out into the neighbouring holds, into the duct spaces, into the access corridors; they clawed towards the master lock that bound all doorways and forbad all openings. Particles of knowledge bubbled out into free space and shot off down the gang-ways, tumbling and morphing in to sudden, gut-wrenching, heart-pounding certainties. They know! They know.
The master lock sealing Hold 78 had been chosen very carefully to afford an unbreakable seal. Of course, nothing was truly unbreakable. The Heavenly Sword of Est’Emper could have sliced right through it, for example, so this lock had been sourced from the ruins of an ancient city where it had been designed and built and sat on a tech-store shelf millennia ago, before the sword had first been forged, guaranteeing a fundamental causal resistance to cutting. A sure and certain barrier against any unauthorised entry. And of course any entry, any at all, was unauthorised as hell.
Advertisement
But all locks, really, are about knowledge. About memory. To open them you need this code or that password, this private key or that quantum phase vector. Even a physical key is itself a memory: a memory of forces and moments imprinted on unyielding metal for you to put under the plant pot by the door and then have to remember which one it was. With the simplest bolt, you must still remember to lock it. The passcode of this lock was of course the most secret of secrets. Information scoured and extinguished from record and mind. They’d even adjusted the most common random number generator implementations so those particular digits would never be produced in that particular order for the remainder of time. It was knowledge quite thoroughly forbidden.
Have you noticed why this was a bad idea?
As the last and ultimate information backup, the system of dumping secrets to the Cloud suffered from the same fundamental problem that all backup systems face: nobody cares until it’s too late.
The moment where the Cloud passed from “nobody cares” to “too late” was just then. Did you notice it? Exactly two minutes to Meitagenan Standard Midnight.
********
Lextrazsahia “the Dread and Terrible” had been accused many times of being out of her mind. Usually, this was packaged as an insult: perhaps spat through gritted teeth moments before those teeth were turned into ionised vapour. Lextrazsahia however, took a wider view. She saw being out of her mind as an integral part of her job, her calling. Being out of her mind held many advantages for Lextrazsahia. One situation where it was particularly advantageous, for example, was when a very old friend has implanted a very new Bomb in the back of your brain. That could be a dreadful, and indeed terrible, problem if your brain was where you kept your thoughts. It was not, however, a problem for Lextrazsahia.
“You know,” said Lextrazsahia as she slowly unfolded from her chair, “you really must do something about the interior design of this ship. The aesthetic is… dreadful.” The pirate’s gaze slid grimly over the empty, grey-patterned walls of the WASTE bay: all hard angles, sharp lighting, and institutional access panels. “Just because one travels in a trash hauler doesn’t mean one has to like trash.”
Advertisement
Lextrazsahia held all but two of her claw arrays gently concealed in their carapace housings, trying to appear, if not friendly, at least not imminently lethal. No need to let Naomi know how much less effective her exploding head trick could be, not until Lextrazsahia was far away from here.
Naomi tapped one befingered hand idly on her knee. She watched uneasily as the gaudy ball of menace rose from her seat, visibly trying not to knock over the bay’s utilitarian furniture. No need to tell Lexie that the Bomb had also been programmed to explode anyway once her task was successfully completed. At least there would be one cleanly-tied loose end in all this mess.
The two old friends smiled at each-other.
Slowly, so slowly, a single inky black mote of secret knowledge slipped through a recessed light fitting and drifted down through the room between them. They know.
Both smiles froze into icy grimaces. She knows.
Lextrazsahia deployed all her claws and leapt forwards -- a vortex of rage and blades. Naomi threw out her hand, fingers splayed in the Ascenter warding sign, blue light webbing between them and bounding outward in a shield as she threw herself backwards out of her chair. Naomi brought her other hand across in a wide swipe, laserbeams extending from her fingers and slicing five red planes horizontally across the bay. Make that two red planes: three of Naomi’s fingers ended in ragged stumps, plasma channels sputtering and sparking as they pumped power to suddenly nowhere. Lextrazsahia grinned a wide, malevolent grin and advanced towards her.
Naomi balled her hand into a fist, and the firing circuits of the Nerve Bomb implanted in her old friend’s skull blinked active. Lextrazsahia’s head exploded in a plume of green fire, blanketing the ceiling in light, but the pirate being kept advancing, claws rending gashes along the floor. As the Nerve Blast ™ advanced down Lextrazsahia’s spine, the lethal failsafes she’d had built into her vertebrae over many long years of surgical insanity detonated one by one. The bay was bathed in purple, then red, then blue.
Naomi sliced a rent out of the ceiling and leapt upward, her enhanced muscles powering her up into an access-way on the deck above. Below her, the bay’s walls were blown outwards, nonocrete ripping and tearing like paper. Naomi stood, breathing hard. A series of tremors shook the ship as nearby plasma junctions blew out, followed by immense grinding thuds as the colossal emergency bulkheads slammed shut. The thuds grew increasingly distant as alarm signals traversed the longitudinal axis of the enormous ship.
Down the access-way, a floor panel blew upwards. A nimbus of purple flame illuminated the access-way and Lextrazsahia, or what was left of her, rose steadily up from the carnage below. Her feathers had all caught fire and burned through, leaving her body strangely diminished, like the skeleton of an owl. If an owl were composed entirely of blades and teeth and rage, that is (on Trihexalon Delta there are owls like that. Do not go there).
The Lextrazsahia-thing floated slowly, inexorably up the access-way. Naomi ignited the plasma torches on her seven remaining fingers, ready to turn the entire access-way into a hundred tons of ionised slag.
A doorway in the wall opened. A being dragged itself through. A being that was very, very definitely not a morning person. Its voice rang and thundered across the ship, the very walls singing in sympathetic reverberation.
“What on Meitagenous is all this racket?”
Advertisement
It’s No Game
Cibele always wanted to be a heroine, and always wanted to be loved. No one ever told her you should be careful what you wish for. After a chance encounter with a speeding truck, Cibele Epeli Imanis wasn’t whisked away to another world – that would be too easy. Her future self has given her miraculous powers, all to save the world from the so-called Queen…and yet, all she can think about is using these brainwashing powers on girls! In the twilight of the Reiwa era, as humanity awaits the end of the world…can Cibele resist temptation? Can she save the world? Will she have to resist her powers and fight against the insistence of her future self…or is it possible to find love, or even become a ‘hypnotic heroine’, beneath a Southern Sun? A tale of ethical dilemmas, late capitalism, freedom and justice, temptation, bad thoughts, nerdiness, hypnokink, and – of course – cute girls. (Cover is an original commission, by @muffinlordArt! A larger version can be found here for your viewing pleasure.)
8 197The Voyager: Remastered
A normal girl was given the task of traveling through different dimensions and completing missions assigned to her, only this girl wasn't that normal. Follow the emotionless Jean Turner as she navigates her way through all the hell and horror. Ft. Starcraft... Starcraft rights belong to blizzard. I own the right to pretty much everything else in the book, including the Protectors, the Voyagers, the City of the Voyagers, the World of the Runes, the Dream Realms, and so on.
8 138Fateful
Edgar Vogel was a 30 year old underemployed veteran who dropped out of college. His life was comfortable but all ambition was lost. His plans, born of depression and anxiety, were to simply live out his life of mediocrity and enjoy what little he could. That all changed, all it takes is something small to change fate, in his case ice. Reborn into a primitive but fantastical world, full of magic and monsters, he may make something of himself. Oh and there's a massive war against werewolf hordes on the mainland. Edgar, now Jon, has a second chance at life. His previous life was reduced to fragments of technical knowledge that come to him in the form of visions. His new home, the Northern Isles, is far removed from the conflict of the mainland for now as he lives in the quiet frontier village of Terra. His new family believes that fate can be changed and destiny overruled but he has no idea. Whether that's true or not, being told by a crazy old lady that his fate starts with him sitting by a rock in the middle of a field seems wrong, but who knows? Maybe she's right but what's the bit about 'await the bite' supposed to mean? Jon soon learns and his life changes forever. What can a young boy who's gained wolven-blood do? Will he be a monster or will he find salvation? Jon was bitten. ********************************************************************************** Welcome to the Northern Isles. My first story posted on here! I already have the outline of the first couple of books planned out and will be posting a new chapter every Tuesday and Friday. The story will be dark at times but I intend to keep things fairly light when I can. I'm aiming for a world that isn't full of sunshine and rainbows but isn't as bleak as it could be. Focusing on friendship, camaraderie, sh*t talking, and adventure.
8 125MHA: The Wolf of the End
When Myth clashes with the world of hero's and villains, will the Myth be out shined by the hero's? Or will they go on to conquer all! This is a My Hero Academia fan fiction I'm doing for fun, I do not own the rights to any MHA character except for the original characters I made up for the story. I hope you all enjoy and have fun reading :) ANY critiques is welcomed!
8 127Pandora's Game
Civilization moves on as time flies by. Humans adapt, changing in good or bad ways. In the 21st Century, mankind has evolved. Expanding in the industrial field, unlocking scientific discoveries, developing more technologies, extending the population of mankind; humanity is doing its own things. But unknowingly, a particular being has other plans to end these advances. Lauren Hook is an antisocial university student with no biological family. She has been adopted from a very young age, taken in by a random couple. Growing up, she has never had a connection with them. Even if they were kind, even when they send her off to a university, she can never truly love them. She is grateful for the food, the clothes, shelter, everything given to her, but she knows that her real parents left a void in her heart. Despite all of this, life was good. She had no trouble fitting in her new life at the university until the world changed. For the worse. Pandora. A beautiful woman. A cruel woman. Gifted by the gods, molded by a god, she is an entity that is loved and feared. Obviously, it may be a myth. Something mortals do not know about. Who is to say that none of it is real? One day, Pandora appears before humanity to change their world into her own toybox. With her box, she plunges the world into chaos. Myths of all kinds appear in the human world, destroying the peaceful days on Earth. The world has changed into a fantasy game where you have to fight for your life. Lauren Hook will survive through it all or die. Note: Story cover was done by me. Took me a while to draw it since I decided to do a different approach from the usual.
8 96REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness
The ancient legends say the goddess of Fate, daughter of Old Trickster, was born without a heart in her hollow breast-and never has it seemed more true. Reaper Team 3 has been shattered and reforged, sent far beyond the front lines and into the remote hinterlands in search of their lost comrades and a meaning behind the strange works of the hobgoblin empire. Meanwhile, intrigue unfolds in the capital city of Camshire, where powerful figures battle with words and knives over the destiny of the Reaper program and the geopolitical landscape as a whole. Familiar faces return changed and new ones emerge to be tested as the future of the Nation and humanity itself swing in the scales.---REAPERS is an epic set in a sprawling dark fantasy universe of tragic characters, complex villains, and shocking story turns.BOOK TWO is a novel-length collection of the Staves 8 through 14, continuing the story from BOOK ONE.Written by THE THORNTON BROTHERS.Visit our Author Page to learn more: http://www.amazon.com/author/thorntonbrothersOr check out our website at: www.themthorntons.com
8 103