Chapter 535: Resurgence - Legends (1/2)
Dee turned from the console, staring at the two men sitting across from her. The glittering form of the limited AI watched them from further in the room, standing between two chairs in the middle row of the concentric half-circles of chairs and work stations. The screens behind it were lit up with astrogation maps, a partial map of a space station, and other data.
She could feel the disapproval radiating from the AI and ignored it, picking up her pack of cigarettes from the desk and opening them.
”You're welcome,” Dhruv said, referring to the fact that he and Daxin had found the pack hidden under the edge of a work station a few offices away.
”Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dee snarled, setting the pack down. She lit the cigarette then set the lighter down.
Dhruv wasn't sure when she'd gone from slim and clothed to naked and thick bodied and, to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
”All right. I can get you there,” she said, pointing at Dhruv. ”Well, I can get Legion there.”
Dhruv just shrugged. ”Just a different mindset, that's all.”
Daxin looked up from where he was scratching FIDO's neck. ”You should probably go as Luke.”
Dhruv closed his eyes. ”I haven't been Luke in a long time.”
”I was wrong,” Daxin said. ”I've admitted as much.”
”And did for Matty,” Dhruv said softly. He opened his eyes. ”All right. I'll go as Luke. How are you going to get me there?”
Dee exhaled smoke and leaned back, crossing her legs by putting her left ankle on her right knee. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment. ”I'm going to do a signal clone of your beacon and place it near Marco/Pete. That should let you jump right there.”
Dhruv nodded slowly. ”It should.”
”With the Case Omaha lockdown removed and the Imperium garbage removed, you should be able to still summon a ship as part of your Fleet of One,” Dee said. She tapped her ashes into an empty beer bottle. ”I didn't remove the coding for a lot of your abilities. I wasn't sure what was Imperium and what was the Digital Omnimessiah.”
”Thanks,” Daxin said. He looked at Dhruv. ”Don't forget the greenies.”
”Daxin the Destroyer, Enraged Phillip, worrying about a handful of green mantids?” Dhruv smirked. ”Times have changed.”
”Don't make me put you in a headlock, drag you to the bathroom, and give you a swirlie,” Daxin growled.
”I'm bald, you idiot,” Dhruv smiled.
”Mom, Dhruv's calling me names,” Daxin mock-whined, looking at Dee.
Dee rolled her eyes and exhaled smoke. ”Be serious, you two.”
She picked up a half-empty beer, took a swig off of it, and made a face. ”Blech. Warm,” she looked at Dhruv. ”Time dilation effects are pretty bad still. It looks like Earth is going through a chronotron storm, so I can't be sure when you're going to show up because I am unsure of the exact amount of temporal dissonance between the station and here.”
Dhruv nodded. ”Got it.”
Dee took another drink, then made a face and dropped the bottle into a trash can half full of empties. ”I needed to bring him back, bring him forward, so...”
Daxin stared at her, opening and closing his right hand. ”You did something to our brother.”
Dee nodded, taking a long drag and exhaling a cloud of smoke around her. ”Let's just say, he's had to work to stay alive. The faster you get there, the bigger chance he'll be able to walk away.”
Daxin snarled silently for a moment.
”Problem?” Dee asked, smiling.
”You're a bitch,” Daxin said. He shook his head and looked at Dhruv. ”You should go soon.”
Dhruv looked at Dee. ”I'm ready whenever you put the beacon in place.”
Dee shrugged. ”I already did,” she grinned at Daxin. ”Activate your plan before your monologue.”
Daxin snarled again.
Dhruv closed his eyes for a long moment. ”Found it. Not too far, a little under fifteen hundred light years coreward and down. I can reach it easily but I'm going to have go single-form.”
”Better get going. I imagine his feet are looking mighty tasty,” Dee giggled.
Dhruv vanished in a puff of black twisting smoke that sucked into itself and vanished.
Daxin got up as Dee turned back to her console, opening several different windows and watching the datastreams. He moved behind her, standing behind her, looking at the screens.
There was silence for a long time.
”You just going to stand behind me breathing heavily or are you going to do something about it?” Dee's voice was soft, gentle, and only mildly curious. ”My neck's not going to snap itself, you big knuckle dragging crayon eating thug.”
”Huh?” Daxin looked at her. ”Sorry, was watching the screens,” he moved back over and sat down.
”Unlike everyone else, I'm not going to drop fifty IQ points from you because of your appearance. What was so fascinating about the data?” Dee asked, turning away to look at Daxin. She reached out and grabbed the cigarettes again.
”You can read the mat-trans data in real time and understand it without additional programs,” Daxin said.
”Yes,” Dee said.
”Ever given a thought to what you're going to do when we get out of here?” Daxin asked.
Dee shrugged. ”Not really. Try to keep one step ahead of Pinocchio and Howdy-Doody, try to keep from ending up in one of the Black Boxes with some Alphabet Agency hardcase staring at the back of my neck and furiously masturbating at the thought of putting a bullet in my brainstem,” she said.
Her voice was light and carefree but Daxin noted the way her pupils contracted and her nostrils flared slightly.
”You made the Mat-Trans System, right?” Daxin asked. He dug in a pocket for a moment and pulled out another pack of cigarettes that he tossed to her. ”Found that hidden in the women's bathroom.”
”Thanks,” Dee said, snatching it out of midair.
Daxin noted that her reflexes and grab speed were way outside of human normal.
”So what?” Dee asked.
”Mat-Trans technology is a largely abandoned field. After it was discovered it caused insanity and other issues in living beings, it was largely abandoned. About the only people that use it are the old Imperium Era troops and a few others use it for ammunition reloading,” Daxin said. ”The Star Trek LARPers use it to beam down to planets, using the old Gen-Two system.”
”I made that too,” Dee said. She closed her eyes for a moment then opened them. ”So nobody uses it any more?”
”It's abandoned tech. Every century or so someone gets a group together or does garage lab investigation, but they run into problems,” Daxin said. He waved his hand. ”You could do mat-trans research and every omnicorp and government agency in the galactic arm will run slobbering to you offering you whatever you want.”
”Right up until someone brings some big freaky looking bug to wipe my brain,” Dee snapped. ”I know how that shit works.”
Daxin shrugged. ”Not if you're public.”
”The creation engines and nanoforges make the mat-trans inefficient for moving goods and materials,” Dee said.
Daxin shrugged. ”Maybe. Maybe not. If nothing else, having the person who originally designed the system working on it again would have everyone paying attention. It's old tech, so you don't have to worry about everyone freaking out about it. Who knows, maybe you can find out something new.”
Dee nodded. She ran a finger along the edge of the desk as she took another drag of her cigarette. ”When I made the Type-II breakthrough, there was a lot more I could see down the line. Interdimensional travel, deep space exploration, even terraforming.”
”Terraforming?” Daxin asked.
Dee laughed. ”Set down one gate on a planet with enough gravity to have an atmosphere, the other side in a gas giant. Keep both sides in quantum flux and open. The gas from the gas giant will flood the other planet.”
”It wasn't terraforming you were picturing, was it?” Daxin asked. He smiled, a cruel cold thing. ”You were picturing planets inhabited by people threatening Earth.”
Dee shrugged. ”Yeah,” she admitted. ”So what?”
”Doesn't bother me,” Daxin said. ”See, it's that kind of thinking right there that I have a feeling that we're going to need a lot of.”
”What?” Dee asked.
”How to keep Earth and humans safe. How to protect us and strike at our enemies,” Daxin said. He gave a vague motion to encompass the world outside of Crying Anne Mountain. ”You think different, you and I. We're from a forgotten age, an age where there were people who could threaten us. Now, people don't think we can be threatened.”
Dee snorted. ”That's half the problem. When Earth got bagged people fell into despair,” she shook her head. ”You're all weak.”
Daxin raised an eyebrow. ”Explain.”
Dee waved one hand. ”When we firebombed Tokyo to the fucking ground and killed over a hundred thousand Nips in March of Forty-Five, did the Nips give up? Fuck no. The Nipponese Emperor told Nippon to grab their nuts, they were still in it to win it. When Tibbots named his plane after his mother then pancaked Hiroshima like a fat girl farting on a cake, did they give up? Hell no. Hirohito told the Nips to dig in, that we couldn't do it again,” Dee laughed, long and hard, the sound echoing and twisting in the room.
The AI dimmed, going nearly transparent.
He didn't like it when she laughed.