Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain (3 page)

“Mollusk, if you willingly board my ship, I swear to you, by the Unspoken Name of the Forgotten Thirteenth God of Most Hallowed Venus, that no harm shall come to you and that I will not take you anywhere against your will.”

She lowered her blade and pointed it at my feet. She bowed. It wasn’t much of a bow, barely a nod of her head. But it was a gesture that spoke volumes of her commitment. It must’ve wounded her warrior’s pride terribly, though the only trace of reluctance was in a slight paling along her neck and a wilt in her feathers.

Venusians didn’t make vows to their gods casually, and the Thirteenth God was reserved only for the most unbreakable of oaths.

“Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

I lowered her battleguard slowly to the pavement. A residual magnetic charge caused them to stick together.

“Talk to me. But in my saucer. Your minions can catch up.”

Zala boarded my saucer, and we took off. I trusted the battleguard would know where to find us once the charge wore off.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? There are assassins coming to get you.”

“And haven’t you heard? Assassins are a fairly common occurrence in my life. You’ll have to give me more than that.”

“Even the Celebrants of Oblivion?”

“Hmmm. That is serious.”

She studied my face. When we chose, Neptunons could do inscrutable better than anyone with the possible exception of the Sol Collective. But, outside of clouds of sentient helium, we were the top of the list.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked.

“No, but I’m intrigued. If you don’t mind me asking, just how did you find out about this assassination order?”

“Venusian intelligence is the most efficient in the system.”

“And how did they find out?” I asked.

“That information is issued on a need-to-know basis.”

“They didn’t tell you, did they?”

“I don’t need to know the details. I have my orders.”

“So they could be making it all up,” I replied, “for all either of us knows.”

Zala said, “For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. Just considering all the possibilities.”

“I am a decorated veteran of the Imperial Protectorate. They wouldn’t dispatch me unless the situation was of the highest priority.”

“Uh-hmm.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Zala had been third in command of the Protectorate not so long ago. Then I’d conquered half of Venus on her watch, and she’d been demoted to a field agent in the aftermath. To be sure, she was a high-ranking agent, but a demotion was still a demotion. And, whether she ever admitted it or not, part of her obsession with capturing me was to redeem an otherwise spotless career. As a symbol, Zala was useful to her queen, but perhaps they no longer trusted her with anything important.

We landed on the roof of my townhouse and took the lift down to my loft. The lights snapped on, and she scanned the post-modern furniture that came with the place. I had a few pieces of art. Some Neptunon seascapes to remind me of home. The original
Mona Lisa
that Leonardo da Vinci had hidden away for fear that Terra would never be ready for the secrets of faster-than-light travel encoded in its brush strokes. The miniaturized Tower of Pisa, which refused to stand straight even at only eight inches tall. The skull of the Loch Ness Monster, unfortunate victim of a Scottish chupacabra outbreak. Edison’s spirit radio; it didn’t contact ghosts but the one-dimensional entities of another plane, though the entities liked to screw around and he could be forgiven the mistake.

“Souvenirs,” I said.

Zala studied a huge painting, dominating a wall. I was the subject, standing in my most regal exo, looking majestic with an atom clutched in one hand and Terra in the other.

“I didn’t ask them to paint that,” I said. “They did it on their own.”

Zala shook her head, took in the rest of the room.

“You live here?”

“Whenever I’m on the continent. I have a few dozen other homes scattered across the globe. But this is my primary home.”

“I thought it would be…”

“…wetter?”

“Well, yes.”

I could’ve explained to her that once Neptunons matured, we spent most our time plugged into exos. While it might be nice to get out and stretch every twelve hours, it also made us feel a bit vulnerable. Given that we were little more than highly developed brains in spongy bodies, we didn’t like exposing ourselves to the capricious whims of a dangerous universe with only cartilage and a camouflage reflex to protect us.

We didn’t talk about it, but there was a definite inferiority complex running through Neptunon society. It was why we didn’t mingle with the rest of the system and why the homeworld was locked away behind an impenetrable force field. It was that unspoken paranoia that ran through the heart of every Neptunon, leading us to develop the greatest technology. The irony was that, aside from our wonders of science, there was nothing particularly valuable on the homeworld. Nothing worth invading over.

But those wonders of science…they were a hell of a prize.

This wasn’t lost on my people, who continued, without any sense of irony, to advance science in fantastic and inconceivable ways to deter our envious neighbors while only making ourselves a more desirable target, fueling our science-tastic furor to remind everyone that we were the smartest beings around, even as it fueled our paranoia.

I kept this to myself. I might not have much love for Neptune, but I was as loyal as the next exiled supervillian so I saw no reason to share it with a Venusian agent.

“I keep a tank in the bedroom,” I said.

“Don’t you have a security system?” asked Zala.

Two dozen legs skittered quietly behind her. Her finely honed reflexes kicked in, and she spun around with her gun already in her hand. The giant centipede hissed and clicked its mandibles. She blasted it, point-blank, but it only scorched the creature’s armor. It lunged and, with one snip of its scissor-like jaws, clipped the weapon in half. The centipede knocked her to the floor and used its immense bulk to pin her there. Like any good Venusian warrior, Zala planned on going down fighting, and she wrestled and punched at the monster.

I emitted an ultrasonic signal. The beast climbed off her and scampered to my side.

“Good girl, Snarg.” I patted her between the antennae, and she squeaked.

Zala stood. “By the hidden moon, what is that?”

“My pet ultrapede.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to have a pet.”

“Snarg was a gift of the ambassador of the Undersphere. She’s the fiercest ultrapede ever bred for the royal family. How could I turn down a gift like that?”

Snarg narrowed her seven milky white eyes as I scratched her palps.

“She was already formidable. I just modified her a bit, added a few beneficial mutations and cybernetic upgrades, and voilà, the perfect security system.”

“I would expect something more high tech from you.”

“Yes, you would. And that’s why I don’t have anything like that. Security networks can be hacked. Technology can be circumvented. Snarg is more reliable and surprising. She’s also sweet as can be.”

The ultrapede crawled away and curled up on the couch.

“You shouldn’t let it on the furniture,” said Zala.

“Who could say no to that face?”

Snarg shrieked contentedly.

“I would still think you’d have a more elaborate system.” She picked up the two pieces of her broken gun.

“Don’t really need it. The Terrans love me.”

“But you must have experimental technology here that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Oh, I have a few things lying around, but nothing that could do much damage anymore. I have a secure storage facility elsewhere where I keep the more amusing research. But I haven’t been there in years.”

I could tell she doubted me.

“I’m not conquering anymore,” I said. “I keep telling you. I gave that up.”

“You can’t change who you are, Mollusk. You see the universe as your own personal plaything, other lives as tools to your own twisted ambitions.”

“I see the universe as a grand mystery,” I replied.

“One that you can exploit as you see fit,” she said.

“I prefer to think of it as experimentation for the greater good.”

She spit out a harsh laugh. “Define
the greater good
, Mollusk.”

“I can’t. That’s one of the mysteries I’m working on.”

I projected an equation on a viewscreen on the wall.

“I thought I had a passable proof for a few hours. Then I found I dropped a seven, and the results became meaningless. But I’m optimistic enough in my own brilliance to think I can still crack the problem.”

“You can’t honestly view morality as an experimental process.”

“Why should it be any different than anything else? At least I’m honest enough to admit that I haven’t found the answer yet instead of arbitrarily declaring X is dishonorable while Y is not.”

She studied the lines of numbers and symbols. “Tell me, Emperor. Where do all your crimes fit in this?”

I highlighted a portion. “It’s this variable right here.”

“I would expect it to be bigger,” she said with a smirk.

“I did too. But then it turned out that I was overestimating the value by several powers.”

She read the frown on my face.

“And that displeases you?” she asked.

“Considering the effect I’ve had on the system, the fact that it’s such a minor factor only proves I’m missing something vital. Or maybe not. Perhaps the equation is right, and I’m just too dissatisfied with the answer to admit it.”

I dumped the groceries, bags and all, into the extractor. It hummed to life.

“Well…?” asked Zala.

“What?”

“What’s the answer your equation has given you?”

“I thought you said morality couldn’t be proven through experimentation.”

“It can’t,” she said. “Whatever answer you reach will surely be a reflection of your own twisted perceptions.”

“Hoping for a glimpse into the inner workings of my mind?” I said. “I’m surprised you care.”

“Indulge me, Mollusk. Indulge yourself. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you do enjoy any chance to showcase your much-commented-upon intellect.”

“It is very satisfying,” I admitted.

“You want to tell me.” She leaned against the counter with a condescending smile. “Don’t act as if you showed me that equation by accident.”

Most of the time, Zala was easily manipulated and stubbornly predictable. But she also had her flashes of insight. Those two qualities put her on the short list of enemies I counted myself lucky to have made.

“Meaningless,” I said. “That’s the answer.”

“Yes, but what do you think it means?”

“You don’t understand,” I replied. “Meaninglessness is its meaning. It doesn’t matter how I manipulate the numbers. Whether I multiply compassion or square cruelty, even if I allow myself to remove the specter of fallibility and double the predestination quotient, even assuming that intelligent life is not just inevitable but an end goal for the universe itself, it always adds up the same.”

I pushed a button and faded the equation from the screen.

“It’s a zero-sum game. None of it matters.”

Zala said, “It’s a convenient form of nihilism, Emperor. One that lets you avoid any guilt for your crimes.”

“Being convenient doesn’t make it wrong,” I said. “And even if the numbers proved otherwise, I’m not interested in atonement. Not as you might define it.”

“Still trying to convince me you’re out to better yourself?”

“I’m just accumulating data,” I said. “Everything else is only flotsam on the tide.”

The extractor spit out two buckets of goop. The white stuff was inedible by-product. Snarg slipped off the couch, and undulated excitedly. She waited until I gave her the okay to dive into it.

I opened my helmet dome, dipped a tentacle in the second bucket of multicolored goo, and took a taste.

“I’d offer you some,” I said, “but it’d rot your digestive track.”

“Thanks anyway.” Zala scowled. “Is the machine always that loud?”

A vibration ran through the building. It wasn’t the extractor. The rumble threatened to shake the townhouse off its foundation.

“Hmmm.” I lowered my dome. “I guess Venusian intelligence was onto something after all, Zala.”

The south wall disintegrated and a squad of jetpack assassins flew into the room.

The assassins pointed strange rifles in our direction and fired. Zala ran in one direction. I ran in another, giving the killers more targets to worry about, dividing their attention. My focus pulse failed to disable their weaponry. Supertechnology was a constant arms race. Today’s death ray was tomorrow’s marshmallow toaster.

Several razor-sharp discs sliced through my exo. My left arm locked up, and my left leg malfunctioned, slowing my run. I lost track of Zala and Snarg, but I trusted they could take care of themselves. I wouldn’t do anyone much good without a hardware upgrade.

Half of the assassins pursued me. Their guns whirred as they spit out their barrage of discs. The damaged exo’s evasive maneuvers protocols were functional enough to avoid having one slice through my brain. One did get awfully close, punching through my dome and grazing my cheek. The dome shattered, spilling salt water. I didn’t let it distract me.

I jumped into the lift at the end of the hall. A shot cut my arm off. It fell to the floor with a clatter. The other arm was no good. The leg made dodging all but impossible. Several more rounds cut through the exo. My severed left leg spurted fluid. Dozens more pierced the torso. The exo did its job though. It kept bobbing and weaving to avoid making my vulnerable head an easy target. Its anticipation worked beautifully and, even with all the damage, was able to thwart any killshots.

Snarg skittered up behind the assassin and neatly beheaded him with one snip of her pincers. She screeched, warbled, and made a tremendous distraction of herself, just as she was trained to do. It bought me the time needed for the lift to zip down to the subvault.

Dozens of exoskeletons lined the small room. I didn’t have time to be picky. I managed a few steps on my faulty legs before they gave out. I punched several buttons and remotely activated the Gunslinger unit. It clomped over, bent down, and scooped me up in its hands. The process took longer than I would’ve liked, but it wouldn’t do to be squished by my own exoskeleton.

The exo dropped me into the pilot’s seat. The dome sealed. There wasn’t any water in the storage tank to make the ride more comfortable, but I had other concerns. An explosion destroyed the lift and when the smoke cleared the assassins were moments away from skewering me.

I took cover behind a hulking exo. Its armor was just thick enough to provide some protection.

“Surrender, Mollusk,” said an assassin. “We’ve got you cornered.”

“I was about to say the same thing.”

I activated every exoskeleton in the room. They closed in on the enemy. The commandoes fired wildly, and they disabled a few of them. But not all. And the assassins’ screams of terror ended abruptly as the various models sliced, pummeled, and blasted them.

I grabbed a jetpack attachment off the wall, snapped it into place. Sensor readings indicated that Snarg and Zala were still alive. Three unauthorized life-forms remained. I was more concerned with the attack vehicle hovering outside my home. I flew up the shaft, all the way to the roof, and surveyed the hovercraft.

The crescent profile, the low hum of its engines, and the gleaming silver and gold chassis all marked it as Atlantese in design. I’d never had any conflict with Atlantis, but I’d gotten my hands on schematics of their warcraft, studied their weaknesses. Just as a precaution.

A rumbler mounted on its nose had knocked the hole in my wall, but as an antipersonnel weapon, it wasn’t much of a threat. The pilot tried to discourage me with a few hundred rounds of heavy artillery. I flew upward, and the shells exploded around me. A blast from me took out the main gun. He tried the rumbler. It sent spasms through the building. At a high enough setting it could vibrate the Gunslinger apart and melt my boneless body. It would shake my townhouse and the neighborhood to pieces before that.

I used a trio of well-placed rockets to knock out the craft’s primary and secondary engines, along with the emergency drive. It dropped from the sky. It bounced off the street. Atlantis made a quality product, and though scraped and dented, with smoke coming from its burning engines, it remained intact. An explosion might’ve been more satisfying, but the threat was neutralized.

For just a moment, I thought about drilling a few additional missiles into the cockpit, but that would’ve been a waste of ammunition. And petty, I suppose.

By the time I checked on Zala and Snarg, the situation was well in hand. My living room was sliced to pieces, but neither was harmed. Zala didn’t have a scratch on her. Snarg had a few wounds, but nothing significant. The augmented armor of an ultrapede was made of sterner stuff.

“I kept one alive.” Zala ground her heel into the assassin’s chest. “For questioning.”

Snarg brought a soldier’s head, dropped it at my feet, and clicked sweetly at me.

“That’s a good girl.” I patted her on the thorax, took the head. “You can keep this one.”

I tossed it across the room. She scampered gleefully after it, where she devoured it in loud, crunching bites.

Zala scowled.

“I didn’t think you Venusians had such delicate sensibilities,” I said.

“The dead deserve more dignity than to be fed to your pet.”

“Hopefully, the dead are past concerns to their dignity.”

She yanked her prisoner to his feet and pulled off his helmet. He had the slight orange skin and deep green eyes of an Atlantese citizen.

“I thought you had tamed these Terrans, Mollusk. How is it that they attacked you?”

“My invasion methods only pacified the Terra Sapiens, the largest portion of their land-dwelling population. Atlantis, the mole people, the sasquatch nations, and other pockets of intelligent Terran life remain unaffected. But I never had any problems with any of them before.”

Zala shoved the soldier against the wall and snarled.

“Who sent you?”

“Time out.” I pulled her away from him. “There’s no need for that.”

She smirked. “I didn’t think you Neptunons had such delicate sensibilities. If you only give me a few minutes, I can get him to talk.”

The Atlantese tried to sneak away while our backs were turned. Snarg let him know it was a bad idea with a hiss.

“I can get him to talk,” I said, “and it’ll be a lot easier than whatever interrogation technique you were about to employ. I haven’t found pain all that conducive to conversation. I’ve managed to make it work to my advantage, but it’s just as often counterproductive. And I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

“Still trying to convince me you’ve changed?”

“I haven’t changed,” I replied. “I still don’t get why Venusians respect the dead more than the living. And I still don’t bother wasting my time knocking assassins around for information…when I can just bribe them.”

She gnashed her fangs. “You’re going to pay him? After he just tried to kill you?”

“And I’m sure this notion offends you in some way, but since this is my life we’re talking about, we’ll do it my way. If you have a problem with my methods…”

I left the sentence hanging, knowing full well that I was offering her an illusion of choice. Her sense of honor and duty meant she couldn’t abandon me. It was a very complicated set of rules she lived by, and while I found them ridiculous and unnecessary, I found some ridiculous and unnecessary rules people lived by to be useful.

And I rather enjoyed watching her squirm.

“How do you know he’ll take the money?” she asked smugly.

“Because if he doesn’t I’ll feed him to my ultrapede.” I addressed her, but I was clearly talking to him.

“A loyal soldier accepts death before tarnished honor.”

“That’s up to him now, isn’t it?”

I turned to the prisoner. “So what’s it going to be?”

Snarg snapped her hungry jaws.

“I’ll take the money,” he said.

“See how easy that was?” I asked.

Zala’s feathers ruffled, and she snorted, obviously disgusted by his unwillingness to die horribly for the sake of his principles. But her mistake was assuming everyone followed her code.

The code of the Atlantese army was simple. Much more understandable than Venusian rules of honor. It was a profit-making venture. Not quite mercenaries, but close enough. This soldier’s failure would go on his performance evaluation, and in order to minimize the damage, he wanted to bring something back.

My small army of maintenance robots puttered around fixing the damage while we hammered out the details. They reupholstered and straightened the furniture, extracted the hundreds of razor-sharp discs embedded everywhere, and began bricking up the hole in the wall. In a few hours, the townhouse would be restored. Except for the couch. The chief robot reported it as unsalvageable.

I deducted it from the payment. Only a few hundred dollars. But a Neptunon had his principles, and I’d really loved that couch.

I forked over a few million, enough to cover the retrieval and repair done to the craft, the training and hiring of new personnel, with enough left over for a small profit. It was a very generous offer, considering I had the advantage, but it was only money. I had unlimited assets and all manner of convenient currency tucked away here and there. I hadn’t walked away from warlordship with a light shell.

The soldier called in a quick credit check, had me sign a cessation of hostility contract.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Lord Mollusk.”

Zala stood in rigid disapproval of the whole affair. “Well, if you were just going to take a bribe, why did you bother trying to kill the Neptunon in the first place?”

“Contractual obligation,” explained the soldier. “We’re signed for one elimination attempt. We tried. We failed. If the client is unhappy with the results, he’s entitled to file a complaint with the Atlantese Pecuniary Society.”

“I doubt he’ll complain,” I said. “If he’d really wanted me dead, he’d have sent something more…” I searched for a word that would make my point without insulting the soldier. “…less frugal.”

“No need to be polite on my account. I work in the discount division. Strictly low rent. When I’d heard they were sending us after
the
Emperor Mollusk, I knew we were taking on a suicide mission. But, hey, it’s a living, right?”

“And you didn’t wonder why they sent you?” asked Zala.

“I don’t wonder. Mine is not to wonder why. Mine is to follow the work order.”

His attitude irked her. I couldn’t see why. She was a virtual slave to her own chain of command, and I doubted she’d ever questioned it. The only difference between her and this hapless soldier was how command chose to motivate them. Venusians thrived on honor and duty. The mercenary divisions of Atlantis worked on stock options and a bonus plan. In the end, both were merely tools of a manipulative central command that reaped the benefits of expendable lives.

Zala’s patience was growing thin. “Who sent you?”

“Atlantis Executive Command,” he replied. “Beyond that, I can’t tell you.”

She drew her scimitar.

I stepped between them. “Put that away.”

“But he’s already admitted that he knows nothing. You paid him for nothing.”

“No, I paid for the right to negotiate a meeting price for Atlantis Executive Command.”

The soldier smiled, counting the hefty commission check that would be coming his way.

“But that’s robbery!” she said. “You paid him not to kill him and to tell you nothing. And now you’re going to pay him to arrange a meeting with someone else? It’s madness.”

“It’s good capitalism,” said the soldier.

She nearly bowled me over and beheaded the poor bastard right there. Then she remembered the chain of command, with me on top, and backed down like a good little soldier.

After he radioed his commanders to be sure he was in a position to negotiate, the haggling began. It took the better part of an hour. I could’ve paid his first offer without discussion, but just because I had the resources didn’t mean I wasn’t looking for a deal. The best way to earn an Atlantese mercenary’s respect was to be a shrewd negotiator. Meteor guns and death rays weren’t cheap, and more than one conquering genius had been foiled by poor cash flow. Maybe I wasn’t out to conquer anyone right now, but who knew what tomorrow might bring?

The deal was made. The soldier had me sign the appropriate forms. Atlantis had paperwork for everything. Then I told the soldier to make himself comfortable while I supervised the preparation of my mid-class saucer.

The robot workers marched through my underground storage space, loading equipment into the craft. Zala stayed by my side as I supervised.

“So after paying those who tried to kill you, you’re going to fly into the heart of their empire,” she said. “How have you survived this long?”

“By knowing my enemies, and Atlantis isn’t my enemy. It’s merely a tool of those who are. And as long as Atlantis is getting their money, it’ll play by its rules.”

“You are remarkably trusting, Mollusk.”

A procession of exoskeletons on autopilot trudged into the saucer. A giant exo, bristling with weaponry, brought up the rear.

“Not that trusting,” I said.