First Contact

Chapter 419: From Hell's Heart

His name was Dhruv. His DNA and chromosones had not been created naturally but rather by supercomputers tasked with building servants. He was a part, a legacy, of mankind's darker past that had been wiped away by the Mantid attack upon humanity.

Slim, androgynous, hairless with the exception of narrow eyebrows, his features were vaguely sycophantic and submissive. His brown eyes were the only thing that were different, calculating and holding a burning intelligence that never stopped considering all the angles.

He was sitting in a cafe on Terra itself, drinking tea and watching a river go by.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time for mankind to go on without us, Daxin said in his memories as he mused over the meeting a few weeks ago.

Dhruv snorted, looking at everyone busily moving around.

He sipped at the tea and stared at the blue water of the river that his own memories showed him as brown and polluted. Gone were the feral flora and fauna, gone was the pollution.

Gone too was the 1.1 billion humans that had once lived near the river. Wiped out before Dhruv had been capable of independent thought.

Now less than a million humans lived where he had been decanted to serve a wealthy and powerful family as a living servitor.

Terra used to be the home of over 15 billion humans, now it barely tops a single billion. There's almost as many Lanaktallan EPOWs as there are humans, he thought to himself, still staring at the sunlight dancing on the water. There are less humans on Terra now than there were in this single nation-state when I was born.

He sighed and looked up at the clouds. Puffy, white, scattered, they formed a nearly picture perfect sky.

He finished his tea and set the cup down, debating on whether or not to have the automatic systems provide him with a new cup, refill the old one, or call a robotic or even a living waiter over to bring him another cup.

There was a clinking sound in his hearing and he felt an odd tingling from both his datalink and the implants inside of him that would return him to life almost instantly.

Dhruv frowned, wondering who would be stupid enough to attempt to attack his systems. Part of him debated on whether or not to allow them, maybe to see what was so interesting that they would target him of all people.

In the chair across from him a flicker interrupted his musing. He watched with interest as reality itself torn apart and two large hands, thick brown hide covering the fingers that were tipped with thick claws, pushed through the gap and started forcing it open further.

It took a few moments, the whole time Dhruv was aware he was the only one who could see it, but eventually a massive figure of corded muscle, brown skin, and wrath managed to pull free of the tear. It extended out bat wings and flexed them a few times as it shook out its arms.

Satisfied, it sat down in the chair.

"Hello," Dhruv said. He had seen the creature before, in a place that Dhruv considered holy, not long before.

"You're Dhruv, known as Legion," the massive figure growled, steam or smoke, one or the other, leaked from the creature's nostrils and mouth.

"I am," Dhruv said. He tapped the table, bringing up another cup of tea, and lifted it up, sipping at it. "I must confess, I am at a loss on how to greet you. We did not exchange pleasantries before."

The creature chuckled. "Call me Dee."

Dhruv nodded. "As you wish."

"Can you understand me?" the figure asked, suddenly changing languages.

Dhruv kept his face still, showing no surprise, at the ancient language. "Yes."

"Good. You're one of maybe a handful who speak this language," the figure said. It made a grunting noise and scratched at the side of its face. "I need to speak to you. Privately."

Dhruv looked around at the passerby. "I am the only one who can see you. Is this not private enough?"

"This is just to get your attention," the figure said. "As I understand it, when it comes to the human genome, you're the foremost expert."

"I am," Legion admitted, letting a small bit of himself show through his eyes. Dhruv shrugged. "I don't know how I can help you."

"I need information," the demonic figure said.

"About what?" Dhruv asked.

"The Sentience Uninterrupted Disaster Storage System," the figure growled.

That got Dhruv/Legion's attention. "You're inside the system?"

"Yes. Inside, part of it now," the figure said. It gave a low growl. "I'm part of the massive casualty response system, but there are a few things it would be best to speak to someone with your knowledge about."

Dhruv sipped his tea and set it down. "Like what? If you can explain a bit, it would help me."

"How about the fact that not one of these people," the figure motioned around itself, "Are actually human."

Dhruv frowned slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"Not as you might think," the figure said. "They are, but they aren't, and that's what is causing the massive disruption of the system. Herod and Sam think that clearing the queue will clear up the problem, but the problem is much deeper and neither one of them are intellectually prepared to deal with the information I've discovered."

"What sort of information?" Dhruv asked.

The demon reached out and ran a fingertip across the tabletop. Purely for show, as Dhruv could tell that the figure was only existing in his own brain.

"How the system operates, what happened, and what current mode it is running at this time," the figure gave a massive shrug. "Personally, I shouldn't care. I normally wouldn't. Except I don't serve in Heaven."

"You rule in Hell," Dhruv guessed.

"Exactly," the demon said. "I process ones who are stuck in their last moments, unable to clear the system. I deal with their pain and suffering and agony and help them move from Hell to the standard queue."

"So what is the problem?" Dhruv asked. "Except for the fact that everyone is genetically modified through multiple generations and through their own choice to the point you don't see them as humans."

"I can't tell you here. The system won't let me," the demon said.

"So how would I be able to help you?" Dhruv picked up his tea and sipped it.

"I need to bring you partially into the system. Far enough for me to reach you, but not too far to get out or to trigger your battle-field regeneration system," the demon said. "It's a careful balance."

"So how would I do this?" Dhruv asked. He sipped at his tea and set it down again.

"You need to almost die," the demon said.

Dhruv sighed again. "It's never easy."

The demon shook its head. "It never is."

----------------

James Idleson smiled at his wife as the embrace broke, holding her upper arms in his hands, feeling the warmth of her skin through her shirt where her pregnant belly stuck out far enough to press against his stomach. Behind him the sun was just rising, painting the Texarkana Arcology in pinks and reds.

"Today is the day of..." he started.

His wife's eyes opened wide, her mouth opening in shock.

James turned and looked in time to see a wave of white heading toward the arcology, fed by a thick pulsing beam of light from the sky.

He had time to pull her close before the shockwave hit, turning the smartglass into millions of pieces of razor sharp shrapnel that shredded him.

And her.

There was darkness for a moment.

LIFE SIGNS TERMINATED - QUEUING FOR REBIRTH flashed in his vision.

James screamed, knowing what it meant. That he had died, was killed, which meant his pregnant wife and two children were dead too. He struggled, bodiless, in the darkness, screaming and banging his head against nothing.

PLEASE CALM DOWN appeared in his vision.

He screamed his wife's name, his children's names.

I CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU DON'T CALM DOWN the words appeared.

James howled as fear and sorrow twisted into rage and fury.

The Mantid. The Mantid did it. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

James felt a wrench inside his brain.

He was standing in front of the window, one hand against the smartglass, looking out at the manicured lawns of the massive Texarkana Arcology.

"What are you thinking, honey?" His wife asked from behind him.

"How lucky we are," James said, turning from the view. His wife was standing only a few paces away, next to the couch, dressed in a loose flowing maternity blouse and slacks, her hair done up in tightly woven braids. James took two steps and hugged his wife. "How lucky we all are."

James saw his wife and son smile from where they were eating breakfast. He closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the embrace.

James Idleson smiled at his wife as the embrace broke, holding her upper arms in his hands, feeling the warmth of her skin through her shirt where her pregnant belly stuck out far enough to press against his stomach. Behind him the sun was just rising, painting the Texarkana Arcology in pinks and reds.

"Today is the day of..." he started.

His wife went still, as if she had been frozen. The children stopped eating, frozen in the middle of their action. The holoclock stopped ticking.

"You done?" a rough voice asked.

James slowly turned, the memory that his wife and children were dead filling his mind.

That they were as dead as he was.

A short woman, thick bodied, sat on the back of his couch, dressed in an archaic business suit. She was lighting a cigarette, something James disapproved of, as she stared at James through the smoke.

"Who... who are you?" James asked. "What are you doing here? Where am I?"

"Well, to answer those questions in reverse order," the woman said, tucking the lighter into a breast pocket. "You're dead and because you can't let go of that last moment, because you keep desperately trying to change the outcome, you're in Hell."

"But I'm a good..." James started.

"I'm here to break you out of the loop, remind you that it already happened, that you can't change it, and that all you are doing is keeping your wife and children from moving on," the woman said.

"But I..." James started again, feeling flustered.

"As for me, I'm the Detainee," the woman said. Her eyes suddenly glowed red and she slowly exhaled smoke that stunk of hot blood and brimstone. Her shadow changed to show a massive winged figure. "I'm from the government, I'm not here to help."

James just stared as the shadow went back to that of a small human woman.

"You died. Eight thousand years ago. For the entire time you have been trying to redo it all over, change the outcome, save her, save them, as if you were God rather than one of the countless scurrying insects on the face of the Earth," the woman said. She stood up, dropping down off the back of the couch with a thump that vibrated the floor. "That means your record is stuck, and you're causing them to get stuck."

She waved her hand and the smoke swirled, forming letters and words. PLEASE CALM DOWN SO I CAN HELP YOU.

"The Arch-Angels can't help you because you won't stop screaming," the woman said, stepping through the smoke, dispersing the words. She held out her hand. "Come here. Watch it with me, see if there is anything you could have done, any change you could have made."

James took her hand and felt her yank him toward her. He stumbled, managing to get his balance.

"Turn around," the woman said.

When James turned around he could see himself, see the entire scene.

The woman exhaled smoke again and the memory kept going.

The light lancing down from the sky. The explosion. The onrushing wave of energy. How he turned, saw it, and tried to shield his wife with his body even as he tried to figure out how to shield his children.

The view suddenly pulled back, letting him see the vast arcology city.

The blastwave hit and the windows on the arcologies shattered. Pieces flew into the air. White fire covered it for a long moment.

When it was done the arcologies stood, twisted and damaged.

Another pulse of white energy, this time closer. Another wave of energy.

"One point eight million people died within five minutes of your death," the woman said. "Orbital fire that blew a crater twenty miles wide and a half mile deep that was coated in plasma glass."

The scene reset to James standing at the window. James watched himself hug his pregnant wife.

Everything went still again.

The woman let go of his hand, moving around in front of him, between James and the version of himself still holding onto his wife.

"Do you really think you can change the past, James?" she asked.

James felt despair fill him as he shook his head. "No."

"That's right. Nothing you could have done, nothing you can do. It was eight thousand years ago. You've been dead, they've been dead, eight thousand years. Even the Mantid who did this are dead," the woman said, her words hitting James's soul like hammers. "Yet you keep them here. Force them to relive it over and over with you through the centuries."

She took a deep drag off her cigarette and blew it out.

"How do I stop?" James asked, feeling sick to his stomach.

"Stay calm for the next part. Let the Arch-Angels help you. Move on, James," the woman said. For a moment her eyes glowed red. "Or, stay here, with me, in Hell, reliving the moment over and over."

She gave a cruel laugh. "You've been calm long enough for me to pry your wife and children away from you, so it will only be you here. They will take the hands of the Arch-Angels and ascent to Heaven."

She blew smoke again.

"You, of course, are free to stay here, with me, in Hell."

James shook his head.

"Step back into yourself, see if you're ready to let go," the woman said.

James half stumbled to his own body, seeing that he was slightly transparent. He pushed his way in.

"Today is the day of..." he started.

His wife's eyes opened wide, her mouth opening in shock.

James turned and looked in time to see a wave of white heading toward the arcology, fed by a thick pulsing beam of light from the sky.

He had time to pull her close before the shockwave hit, turning the smartglass into millions of pieces of razor sharp shrapnel that shredded him.

And her.

The woman watched, as James died, again, as he had for eight thousand years, dying over and over.

RECORD CLEARED appeared in mid-air. DELETE WORKSPACE?

"No," the woman said. She waved her hand, the apartment suddenly fixing itself.

She stood alone in the middle of the room for a moment before she walked over to the window and stared out the window.

"Earth. What a shit hole," she said.

----------------

Legion felt himself try to rebirth at the parking garage, try to merge with the version of himself on the bridge of the Fleet of One, try to respawn in a dozen different areas.

Instead, he stuck his hand out, reaching blindly for the being who had visited him at the cafe on the shores of the ancient river.

A small hand grabbed his with amazing strength, squeezing, and pulled.

Legion felt himself surface the black water, gasp for air, then the world whirled and he stumbled out of the blackness, hitting the arm of a couch and folding over it. He gasped for air, feeling his body burn.

"When you're done with the melodrama," a woman's voice said.

Legion slowly stood up, wiping his mouth. He turned and saw a short woman standing by smartglass. Outside was an arcology complex, blasted and ruined, still smoking and burning. The apartment was immaculate but the building it was part of was destroyed.

"Welcome to Hell," the woman said. She took out a pack of cigarettes and slowly pulled one out. "Good to see you."

"You look quite different," Legion said. He looked down, seeing that he was the well muscled bearded version of himself that he preferred at times.

"As do you," the woman said. She used a mechanical lighter to light her cigarette, snapping the lid shut and putting in the pocket of her trousers.

"You said that you needed my expertise. Why?" Legion asked. He moved over and looked out the window.

"You are the foremost expert in the human genome now and any other time," the woman said. She moved over and sat down on the couch, picking up an ashtray before leaning back, primly crossing her legs, and balancing the ashtray on one knee.

"You mentioned that," Legion said. He felt irritation rise up and squashed it. "Where exactly is this?"

"Traumatic Life Cessation Processing System, Node six alpha four echo niner niner three bravo seven, to be exact," the woman said. "I processed the guy, who seemed to think he was God and could change the past, his family, who he had stuck in the system with him, and held the workspace till you got here."

Legion nodded. "Why?"

"Because if I expose you to Hell, then you'll either rebirth or start getting processed," the woman said. She sighed. "Enough about me," she said. She gave a grin. "What did you think of my other body?"

Legion opened his mouth, recognized the reference, and laughed. "OK. Point. So why do you need my assistance? You're inside the system, surely you can change things from in here."

The woman shook her head. "Do you even know what the system is?"

Legion thought for a long moment. "If I say it's a rebirth system you're going to rip my guts out, or at least try, aren't you?"

The woman sighed. "Finally," she said, looking up.

Legion frowned. "Finally?"

"Finally someone who's neurons are firing," the woman said. "Sit down," she waved her hand and a bottle of whiskey appeared on the coffee table. When Legion sat down she waved her hand again and a trashcan appeared between his feet, tall enough to reach his knees. "You'll need that."

"Why?" Legion asked. He uncapped the whiskey and took a long drink.

"Because I'm about to tell you what all this is and I you're the first non-digital sentience aside from me to learn about it," she said. Her grin suddenly turned cruel and her eyes glittered with madness. "Are you a virgin, Dhruv?"

Legion frowned and opened his mouth to ask why it even mattered.

The room's walls and ceiling fell away, the floor crumbled, and Legion could see the entirety of the reality of the SUDS system. His mind shuddered from the complexity and simplicity, from the solid evidence of what humanity had been capable of and the creations it had left lying around. His mind gibbered and raved as he stared, unprotected, at a pulsing Big Bang that would erupt in only hours but ultimately fail to do anything more than add another layer to the onion that was the SUDS.

His wide staring eyes, full of fear and horror, locked onto the small woman, who was laughing, a cigarette in her hand, pointing at him with the other.

"BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKED NOW!" the woman howled with laughter.

Legion heard her voice as he stared at eternity.

---------------------

The whiskey was harsh, little better than raw alcohol, and burned his mouth as he swished it and spit into the trash can that had his last two meals and more than a couple cups of tea in the bottom.

Legion looked up at the small woman, who was lighting another cigarette.

"So were you crazy before or after you saw all that?" Legion asked.

"Before," the woman admitted, shrugging. "So they say."

"When did you become such a bitch?" Legion asked, glaring at her as he took another swig.

"July seventh, nineteen thirty-two, pretty much solidified me as a bitch," the woman said. She looked at Legion's frowned. "We don't know each other well enough for me to explain any further."

Legion lowered the bottle, wiping his mouth, as he nodded. "Fair enough."

"So now you understand the where and have touched on the what," the woman said, setting the lighter on the top of the pack of cigarettes on the table. She took a long drag and looked out the window, which had returned. "The when doesn't matter. Not here."

"No, it wouldn't," Legion agreed. "I would have argued that before you showed it to me."

"How irrelevant to our discussion," the woman said. "As is who."

Legion nodded. The memories of those terrible sights was fading.

"The when matters outside, and that was prior to the Mantid Attack," the woman said.

Again, Legion just nodded.

"Feel free to make more of yourselves if it will help you keep up," the woman, The Detainee, said magnanimously, waving her hand.

"You're very kind," Legion said dryly. "You stated that none of the people walking around on Terra were humans. Care to elaborate?"

Dee nodded. "You have eight thousand years of natural, forced, guided, and manipulated evolution walking around. The bodies have been cleansed of birth defects, junk DNA, disease, and aging massively slowed. They've been tweaked to be more robust, smarter, faster, tougher," she said. She shook her head. "Someone, sometime, even went so far as to ensure that flatulence no longer had a foul odor," she laughed at that, as if it was some kind of private joke. "When you get down to engineering petty shit like that, maybe it's time to take a step back."

Legion thought about it. "True."

"You, Dhruv, Legion, Victor, whatever, have watched it. In some ways, you assisted with it," Dee said through an exhalation of smoke. "Well, you fucked up and now the entire system is jammed with data mismatch errors."

"Fucked up?" Legion asked.

"You have your modern version of humans, the bodies at least, but neural wiring and synaptic chains more in tune with my era, which is causing mismatch errors because the system is having trouble recognizing who goes where and when," Dee said. She stood up slowly, reminding Dhruv of a spider slowly awakening to patrol its web. "To top it off, all of humanity has been using this system when, in fact, it was severely damaged and operating in a flawed mode."

Legion watched her walk around the couch so she could put one fist against the back and lean forward.

"The whole system was damaged in the attack, most of it crashed, but the parts with the highest redundancy and highest protection, kept operating," she said. She straightened up. "Which meant that the system was trying to process billions of damaged records that had undergone severe trauma, with only automated systems. This caused a cascade where the system was in emergency mode."

Legion nodded. "All right, I follow."

"The problem is, you are all so heavily modified the system keeps trying to classify modern humanity as a distinct subspecies, but it can't because of damage to the system," she said. She pointed outside. "Meanwhile Larry and Moe are out there trying to fix the whole thing and are about to cause the entire thing to start throwing major errors."

Legion stood up, walking past her and into the kitchen. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised to find food in the fridge but he was all the same. He slowly made himself a drink as he thought about what she had just said.

"How bad is it?" Legion asked.

"From their point of view? Everything is working better and better," Dee said. She moved over and sat at the table where a small girl had sat earlier. "Realistically? I'm not sure the problem even should be fixed, or even if it can be fixed."

"Do you mind?" Legion asked, reaching forward with one finger and holding it over the back of Dee's hand.

Dee smiled, seeing the glint of the needle just under the nail.

"Have at it. Following the rules of the simulation, good," she said.

Legion poked her skin, bringing up a drop of blood that was pulled into the needle.

The system brought up all the genetic and DNA scans for "The Detainee" and granted Legion access to them. Dee watched as dozens split off from him. With a wave she granted him access to the room and watched as they brought up smartglass chalkboards, dataslates, and more.

"You're modified. Interesting work, not quite the way I would have done it but effective. Anti-aging therapies. Hmm, I'm not sure why you would try to modify your sleep cycles," Legion said.

"I stopped sleeping when I was thirteen years old," Dee said. "I was trying to fix it but I didn't know how."

"Not seeing the normal methods of DNA modification for the time," Legion said. He opened his eyes and looked at her. "How did you do it?"

"The mat-trans. I developed the system and realized its full potential. Everything from time travel to cloning to genetic modification to matter and energy transportation," Dee said, shrugging.

Legion shuddered theatrically. "An all-or-nothing method."

"It killed me eventually," Dee admitted. She shrugged. "No use crying about it."

Legion slowly finished his drink, ignoring the predatory way that Dee stared at him. Ignored her sudden outbursts of laughter and giggles. The rest of him were hard at work, comparing Dee's baseline to current human DNA.

"You didn't modify your ovum," Legion said.

"I wanted clean copies of my DNA, so there's some non-detachable ovum in each ovary that contains clean copies of my DNA," Dee said.

"Clever," Legion said. He made another drink, this time making one for Dee and handing it to her.

After a few eternal moments he looked at Dee.

"I see part of what you mean. There have been put safeguards on the human genome. Comparing them, I can see part of what you mean," he said.

"Those genetic tweaks make the emotions muted, except positive emotions, and even they are somewhat muted," Dee said. "That started an internal feedback that peaked at the Mantid Attack. The patch overlaying that is bizarre."

"The touch of the Digital Omnimessiah," Legion mused. "The Second Miracle, he cured an Enraged One."

"It needs fixed, but I can't convince those two bleeding hearts to do what has to be done," Dee snarled. She made her voice high pitched and mocking. "But we'll be sentencing people to deal with emotions they haven't learned to deal with."

Legion snorted. "So you came to find me."

"I figure an Immortal is capable of looking beyond the poor mewling useless masses and coddling them like royal infants and see what needs to be done," Dee said.

Legion thought, for a second, about lying. He saw her eyes narrow, grow more intent, and the madness be replaced by something else.

"I am," Legion said truthfully. "It's monstrous even to suggest."

"Then spank my muffin till it's green and call me Franky," she sneered. "Will you help, or not?"

Legion nodded. "I'll help."

--------------------

The river was blue, sunlight dancing upon it. It moved slowly in its banks, heading south to the sea, as it had for millions of years.

Dhruv/Legion/Victor accepted the cup of tea from the waiter with a smile.

A deal with the Devil indeed, he mused, blowing in the tea to cool it. Why not? First the Digital Omnimessiah, then the loss of Eden, now a deal with the Devil herself.