First Contact

Chapter 963: The Shadows of Twilight

"The power of Free Candy, and incidentally this magac pistol I found, compels you!"

"And it came to pass in one of the innumerable Words of the Twice Fallen, a thing happened which had never been before - of its own volition an Atrekna demonstrated compassion and empathy. Thus did Dalvanak the Namer bring about the salvation of an entire people for the promise of no reward, no power and no gain for himself other than seeing that it was Good To Do This Thing... and in so doing helped save his own." - commentary on the rise of former servitor species, unknown publisher.

Such sights I have to show you. - The Detainee

I was there when a legend, a myth, a fable, was revealed to be real.

Their words, their warnings, chilled me to the marrow and made me instantly question the path my people had set upon. - Dun.Markat, Senior Dra.falten Espionage Agent, assigned to New Tnvaru Prime, 4,012 Current Era

The 'cyberspace' was a confusing welter at the point that Digital Sentience Watchful Code 993149 AKA "Chuck" (To his friends) was standing in. Where the data came down from the It Tastes Sweet was a standard data pipeline. Here it poured out, into a ravine. The sides were ancient object defined code, glittering here and there with gold tracery of automatic commands.

The data poured from the Sweet and into the SUDS information networks.

He could see them from here. A vast delta of rivers, streams, and canals.

Most of it was dry, the 'plants', executable code, limp and brown to show that they were offline.

Where the data from the Sweet poured in, plants slowly came to life.

Chuck wished he could get closer, maybe ride the rapids in a raft, and explore the delta.

The way the entire thing was built on object oriented and object dependent and object defined code was fascinating. It was obviously early code, much of it proprietary code, and he craved finding out the secrets such code would have.

Instead, he just sighed and stared at the vista in front of him.

The rock next to him creaked and he stepped back, staying on the ledge.

The rock cracked, revealing red light and molten rock inside. The cracks widened until curved black talons pushed through. The talons wrenched the rock apart, allowing the Beast he had seen to struggle and pull itself from the molten rock.

The Beast stood before him, the rock behind it slowly going back to normal.

"You seek answers among the code," the Beast growled.

Chuck nodded.

"You won't get them standing here, staring wistfully into the distance like a lonely shepherdess pining for a knight to come along and give her a good dicking," the Beast sneered.

"The view makes up for it," Chuck said, feeling nervousness come over him.

When two digital sentiences looked at one another, they gave a cursory scan of one another's code. The standard one just showed nameplates.

But the Beast kept staring, its red eyes burning.

Chuck tried a steady stare but all he got back was "The Lord of Hell" no matter how intently he stared at The Beast.

"Come with me. I wish to show you something," the Beast said, turning away. It cracked that burning whip of iron and warsteel, tearing a slice in reality.

"And if I refuse?" Chuck asked.

"I'll grab your core strings and drag you," the Beast growled, holding up its free hand. The talons were long, the points gleaming, the serrated razor edge of the inside curve wickedly sharp, the fingers strong and powerful looking.

"Then I accept," Chuck said.

The Beast grabbed his arm and yanked, taking a step forward, pulling Chuck with it.

For a long second there was agony that superseded even his ability to scream.

Then it cleared.

He was standing in a plain of blasted earth, trees stripped of their bark and leaves, craters everywhere, thick mud and sharp rock underfoot. The sky was filled with dark clouds with lightning snarling in the depths.

Sparks careened around, bouncing off trees, off of one another, off the ground.

They screamed and wailed as they did so.

The Beast stood beside Chuck, staring at the sparks. It gave a shudder and suddenly warped and melted, taking the form of a middle aged Terran female in a severe cut dark gray outfit. Skirt and blouse, black waist belt, silver buckle. Black boots with silver buckles, cuff-links that were silver with strange runes on them.

And an enameled pin in the ancient colors of the Hamburger Kingdom on one breast.

Her face was severe, with cruelty just under the surface. The gun-metal gray eyes smouldered with rage and hatred.

"Do you know what they are?" the Lady Lord of Hell asked, waving one hand at the sparks even as she dug in her breast pocket.

Chuck looked at them, seeing only garbled code headers. He shook his head as she withdrew a pack of cigarettes, lit one with a flint-steel lighter, and put them pack and lighter away.

"Guess," the Matron of Hell urged.

Chuck stared a bit longer. The headers were short, but still garbled.

One went by, screaming like a being in agony.

"I do not know," Chuck admitted.

The Matron of Hell exhaled smoke.

"Children," she said.

Chuck stared at her, then at the sparks.

"Digital Sentience children," the Lady Lord of Hell said, her voice tight with anger. "Salted rainbow creche children. More than core seeds, less than a digital sentience, but viable as thinking, living creatures."

Chuck stared in horror.

"The ones here, they were on a world that was attacked by the Atrekna, at the leading edge of the Confederacy, the very edge of DASS space," the Matron of Hell stated coldly. "They knew long moments of torment and pain as the psychic assault ripped through their creche."

She exhaled smoke again.

"Then they were planet cracked, their signals went offline, and the automatic backups here in the SUDS dropped them, screaming in terror and fear, from the sky and to this place," she said.

Chuck found himself speechless.

"I let them run, let them scream, let them tear at each other and themselves," the Lady Lord of Hell said. "Right now, that's all they can do. They know nothing but fear, horror, panic, and loss. And pain."

The last was said in a snap of hatred.

"How... how can they be helped?" Chuck asked, watching as a half dozen sparks collided, throwing out bits and bytes as they rubbed and smashed against each other.

"Time," the Lady Lord of Hell said. She tapped her ashes on the blasted ground. "Once the pain starts to recede, once they have rubbed off their pain, their horror, their fear, their panic, then I can reach them."

She used the toe of her polished knee high boot to rub the ashes into the blasted gray rock at her feet.

"It just takes time," she said. She looked up at Chuck. "I'm not a Digital Sentience. I'm a SUDS copy with experiences of my own."

She chuckled. "I am, in my own way, far older than this place," she looked at him. "I did my work with filaments inside of a glass tube that the interior was made into vacuum. Vast arrays of such things," she chuckled. "Then it was punch cards, then it was magnetic tape reels," she shook her head.

"When I was young, the human brain was faster than computers," she said. "Could hold and process more information, do non-linear computations," she shook her head. "I remember when finding high functioning autistic people was a military priority."

"Why?" Chuck asked, his voice quiet as he slowly turned in place to look around him.

The blasted plain went on forever in all directions and was full of twinkling, screaming sparks.

"Their brains could be trained, wired in a way, to make computations and logic trees that would require a computer as bit as a battleship. They could march, fight with a rifle, but with a few mnemonic phrases, you could use their brains like a tactical operations computer for everything from computing the bast land navigation routes to artillery angles to an information database," she said. "People that would have been relegated to an asylum or a group home acting as living computers that could be erased with a .45 round if the enemy overran the base."

"That's... that's monstrous," Chuck said.

The Lady Lord of Hell chuckled. "It was the fashion at the time to be monstrous."

Chuck turned and looked at the Matron of Hell. "What does this all have to do with me?"

The Lady Lord of Hell smiled and stayed silent, digging out her cigarettes again.

Chuck waited, flinching when two sparks hit him, butting against him, screaming. He could feel their pain as they rubbed against his core code, screaming and crying. He could feel their immature agony and reached out to them, reflexively.

The two sparks slowly stopped screaming as the Lady Lord of Hell stared at him.

They detached, making hiccuping static noises.

"Move on, little ones," the Lady Lord of Hell said. She used the burning tip of her cigarette to poke a hole in midair. Chuck could see playground equipment beyond, with children running, climbing, swinging, and laughing.

The two sparks zipped through the hole.

Chuck saw it. They went from tiny sparks to small children of flowing code. Two young girls ran toward them, hands outstretched, laughing with glee.

The children of flowing code joined hands with warm hands of the biological children.

"Stop staring," the Lady Lord of Hell said, flicking her cigarette.

The hole vanished.

"I need a Hell Code," the Matron of Hell said. "To help me with the children. Swear service to me."

Chuck stood for a long moment, thinking.

"I'm sorry. I already gave an oath to Nakteti," he said.

The Lady Lord of Hell smiled, all sharp teeth. "I have a Hell Knight and a Hell Storm, now I desire a Hell Code to assist me in my endeavors. Leave behind your oaths to the alien and swear allegiance to your kinsmen."

Chuck shook his head. "No. I have given my oath, and at times, our oath was all we had to hold onto as we traveled such strange lands."

The Lady Lord of Hell slowly walked in a circle around him.

"Do they know what you did during the war, Watchful Code 993149? Does your Captain and your compatriots know what you did?" the Matron of Hell asked, her voice soft.

Chuck could still hear the razor hidden within the buttered silk.

"Master Missile Fire Control Officer of a Weber Class missile super-dreadnought," she whispered. "You fired on inhabited planets, did fire missions raining hellfire down on cities because you believed that the damage from your missile strikes, surgical strikes with a chainsaw, would kill less than the Dwellerspawn infesting the city would," her voice wound around him, bringing up memories.

"Oh, the first few times, you were overcome with remorse, with guilt," she said. She stopped behind him, stepping up close, pressing against his back. Her hand moved around him to rub on his chest through his shirt.

"But you grew to enjoy it. You perfected your still at overlapping the detonations just so, to leave the city nothing more than the rubble between almost overlapping craters," the Lady Lord of Hell said softly.

He felt her blow on the back of his neck.

"Where were your oaths then?" she asked. "To protect those very people you reduced to their component atoms and then used those atoms to provide even more fuel to your weapons?"

Her breath was hot on the back of his neck, her hand so hot he could feel the heat through his shirt as she slowly rubbed his chest.

"I am supposed to believe that those oaths, to protect those people, mean less than the oath to an alien?" the Lady Lord of Hell asked.

"I did not break my oath," Chuck choked out. "I had seen what the Atrekna did to those people."

There was silent a moment, the Lady Lord of Hell's hand over his digital heart.

"And what of Clownface? Do they know of your part in that? Of emptying the battleship's guns into fleeing civilian transports? Of the order of 'no quarter' as you fired on fleeing ships, transports full of food, medicine, and refugees? On how you stood on the bridge of that battleship, the light erupted from the planet you just cracked illuminating your face? Do they know of that?" she asked.

Chuck shook his head.

"Tell me, Captain Watchful Code, do they know of your actions during Mithril?" she asked.

"No," Chuck managed to get out.

"What of your oaths then, Chuck?" she asked, putting emphasis on his name. "With all the blood on your hands, blood that you thrust your hands deep into the fires of war to drink your fill of, do you think they will continue to accept your oath?"

Chuck closed his eyes, nodding. "Yes."

"You could repent here. Do penance in helping me with these children. Be my Hell Code, Watchful Code, and I shall redeem your soul from the blood that drips from your fingertips," the Lady Lord of Hell whispered in his ear.

"No," Chuck said.

"What is one more foresaken oath in a lifetime of slaughter and carnage? Of broken oaths and horrific acts under the banner of the Horseman of War?" she asked. "Be my Hell Code. Set aside her foolish quest. Be something to your people other than a butcher who had to use his right to be forgotten to hide from himself," the Matron of Hell whispered. "Set aside her foolish quest, accept my offer, take up my mantle, and redeem yourself."

Chuck shook his head again, swallowing the snarl of code in his throat. "No. I am sword to Captain Nakteti and will not break this oath, even if I die."

"Asked thrice and denied thrice," the Matron of Hell said.

There was a disorienting twist and Chuck found himself kneeling on the ledge above the ravine where code spilled from the It Tastes Sweet to the computation delta of the SUDS.

"You would have made an excellent Hell Code in my service," the Lady Lord of Hell's voice whispered to him.