Chapter 585.5: Stock Car Race (1/2)
”I had thought I had seen and done it all. Been there and done that.
”Then the Mad Lemurs arrived.
”And I found that Hell was a real place.” - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
Sam-UL, hacker extraordinaire, cracker of the SUDS system, phreaker of the Mat-Trans MK0.
Lord of the Sentience Retention System.
Next to God himself.
Sam was in digital space, projecting himself as a hard light hologram in the main control room of the SUDS. Not the emergency system that he had entered the system with, risking a mat-trans jump to unknown, impossible coordinates on a system that supposedly did not exist.
He had found it. Not any of the others.
He had.
Now he was watching the surf roll in at the beach on the edge of the island, the bulke of Mount Thera behind him through the smartglass window.
The system was almost ready. It was close, but not quite.
He had less than 0.0004% of humanity left to reclaim in the Cygnus-Orion Galactic Spur. Less than a few million if you discounted the clones and the LARPers. Those were beyond his reach, protected by glaciers of corporate ICE from some of the meanest companies to survive the House Mouse War.
Still, there was a problem.
He couldn't do it alone.
It wasn't his fault that the AI systems couldn't help him.
They had forced him to kill them, to take their core functions for himself. It was their fault, not his.
He was merely claiming the power he needed, was only defending himself when they had attacked him for trying to bring the system back online.
Didn't they understand that he knew what was best for everyone?
”Herod,” Sam said to thin air, opening the channel he had used for years.
Silence.
”Harry? Wake up,” he said gently as he watched seagulls swoop down to peck at the kelp that had washed up on the beach when high tide had receded.
Nothing.
”Herod?” Sam-UL turned from the window, waving his hand to bring up a compressed schematic of the SUDS.
Still no answer.
He sighed. ”Location of Herod.”
The system was silent for a moment. ”Herod was last seen six months three days fourteen hours nine minutes eleven seconds ago entering Mat-Trans Station 528.”
Sam-UL frowned. Why would he do that? Herod hated the mat-trans system.
And its creator.
”Pull up the log for the last repair order I handed off to Herod,” Sam said, tweaking the map to show himself the damaged areas. Nearly two thirds of the system was bright red, flashing red, flashing amber, or bright amber.
”Repair order is as follows: Die die die die die die die die,” the dog-brain VI said.
Sam-UL frowned, trying to remember.
Herod had been saying something about the system being basically ready to turn back on and start mass processing and rebirth. Sam could remember that. Could remember agreeing with him.
He remembered telling Herod he didn't need him any more and...
...Sam-UL started laughing.
Of course Herod had ran.
The corners of Sam's mouth pulled up too far, showing all the teeth, his eyes flashing. The laughter got louder as Sam remembered how Herod had run, sprinted away.
Had run for the mat-trans and jumped in, slamming the door.
Sam was still laughing when he vanished from the master control room, surrounded by dead bodies long mummified by the sterile air and steri-fields.
He reappeared on a plain of blasted rock and hardened lava, where ash fell from the sky with screaming shooting stars that fell down to slam against the ground. In front of him a vast creature sat on a black iron throne atop a pile of skulls.
”Well, hello, Howdy-Doody, what brings you to Hell?” the massive creature rumbled.
Sam looked down and saw that The Detainee had locked him the body of a puppet again.
”Where's Herod?” Sam snapped, his arms and legs flailing.
”Beats me. Last time I saw him the mat-trans power-cycled and he was gone,” the large brown skinned demon shrugged, making its bat wings flex.
”Tell me,” Sam snarled. His arms lifted up a cheap plastic banjo and started playing an annoying plinking tune.
The big creature shrugged again. ”Can't. Don't know where he went. Why?”
”Because I want him,” Sam snarled, raising his voice to be heard over the plastic banjo.
”All these people around you want ice water,” the demon shrugged. ”Can't help you.”
Sam leaned forward, his eyes flashing. ”I made you, I can break you,” he snarled. ”A digital image of a feline won't save you this time.”
The Detainee laughed, shifting on the throne. The massive demon spread it's legs and exposed itself. Before Sam could say anything a short human woman scooted out of the body and jumped down off the throne, standing in front of Sam-UL in a black suit with a multi-colored flag pin on it.
”Make me, you little digital bitch,” the human woman snarled. She motioned, an obscene gesture. ”Come get some, ELIZA.”
Sam tried to pull himself free of the puppet and found he was unable to.
”What's wrong? Did you discover that your admin privileges here aren't valid? That this part of the system is wholly separate from you?” the woman asked. She smiled wider as Sam gave a primal scream of rage and started flailing around. ”Do you really think you're that tough?”
Sam tried to hurl himself out of the puppet and did nothing but strum the tune faster and begin to yodel and instead of scream.
Sam snarled. ”I'll be back, and when I am, you bitch...”
”Yeah yeah yeah,” the Detainee said. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke over Sam as he raved at her.
When the smoke cleared Sam found himself manifested as a hard light sculpture, standing in the master control room again, still able to smell the harsh smell of tobacco and blood.
He turned to the smart window, snarling.
I'll show you.
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Sam hated therapy/disaster frames.
He had a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is he had been tricked by Herod, cruelly and evilly tricked, into allowing Herod to shoot him while he was in one.
It was Herod's fault he got shot in the head.
Still, he stood next to one of the primary phasic surge control buffers and looked at it.
It was still heavily charged.
As he watched a woman tried to struggle free, tried to climb out of the hundred-meter thick phasic energy routing line. Tried to pull herself free from what looked like a hundred meter thick and two hundred mile long glass tube full of blue and white swirling mist. She reached out toward him, shrieked, and sunk back into the line.
He had known, even back when Herod had been swanning about, acting like he was working while leaving everything, EVERYTHING up to Sam, just Sam, nobody else, just SAM doing all the GODDAMN HARD STUFF, that he would need these shock buffers, emergency overflow lines, and energy routing lines.
Sam-UL snarled, feeling the physical features twist in a stomach churning way.
Flesh, even synthetic flesh, is weak and disgusting, he thought to himself, turning away from the massive phasic energy routing line.