Dain
— waded through geysers of data, from the Em-Deh, from his own body's senses, from memories, all
sorts of memories, and winnowed information about the external threat.
Patrolcraft inbound to this location. Somebody's coming after Heejanus. Somebody suspects she's
in danger.
Dain clutched the threat, wielding it like an umbrella in a downpour, and fumbled down the web of
connection toward jDub to throttle the data-deluge, the panic that drove it, and the alter
himself. He needed cyberspace back, connection with his ghost-troops, with the Collective he
coveted, with the world in which he would become a dominant player.
At the same time, he managed to clear his throat and shout, "Prepare for departure!" at his
aircraft. Maybe he shouldn't run, but he couldn't collect any reason not to, and he wanted to be
alive and whole and away from here in case those patrolcraft —
Agony avalanched over him, ripped the web of connection from him, heaved the center of perception
under him, bounced him loose until the patinated black of cerebral reality swallowed him whole.
JDainB
— panted with the effort of ignoring the pain inflicted by the fork he'd jammed into his chest.
JDB had just left the hand lying there while he attended to matters that couldn't be more trivial,
and JDainB had snuck through that much-used pivot-memory to purloin control and leap upon his
oppressors with a quick distracting blow.
I shall not suffer! he howled to summon anger. I will not abide! Lust tumbled out of his groin
to stir bodily fluids to his cause. I will take each moment and crush it beneath my desires. It
shall be mine and no one else's. Wrenching control unto himself, he declared, I am going nowhere
until I claim conquest! So easy to visualize, his first physical release with someone else's body
around his cock, under his lips, within his grasping, pawing hands, beneath his heaving, sweating
chest.
He spun with feline grace and pounced on Heejanus. He locked his fingers into that plaited halo of
hair and yanked her head back, exposing a long, sleek throat with just the barest of voicebox
ridges. He fell upon that with his lips, engulfing it, sucking it, playing its rough surface with
his tongue. Right hand in her hair, he fumbled his left at her zipper, released it, and reached
inside the jumpsuit as it sprawled open. Her flesh ran so smooth under his fingers, teasing him on
to a soft mound that swelled — how he swelled — drawing him onward. The electricity of
anticipation coursed through him, roiled in eddies everywhere, the backs of his hands and knees,
his nape just behind his left ear, flaring more and more, spreading like a crown fire across his
skin, until it all seemed to merge and he —
Jikki
— shouted, "Leave her alone!" and dove beneath the center of perception, that adult focus of life,
and wallowed in the exhiliration of his body, so fresh, so willing to take him where he
wanted, running, skipping, leaping among the leaves of fall, the swimming holes of summer, the
bracing plunge of sledding in the winter. Whee, he cried and took it all away from that crazy,
slimey other.
But where to go? He marched over to the aircraft's doorway, but balked before the long rays that
announced day's end and cautioned against wandering around in the dark. Just standing there, his
own body suddenly seemed huge. And it stuck out and swung heavily in ways he'd never known. He
faltered —
JDainB
— hacked at some of the little paws that had tricked away control, just the ones minding the left
hand. They dropped away, and he used that hand against the intruder's nose. In a flare of
delight, he shared the pain while tearing more control from another set of childish paws. With
both zhuhndí fists now, he struck again and again, with each blow liberating another body part,
until he owned it all again, every throbbing, electric nerve, every pulsing muscle ready to
act.
He swelled with congratulations, inside and out. In that renewed flux of hedonic capability, he
settled in to list the pleasures that lay before him. His scrotum ached from the repeated surge
and frustration of sex, but he postponed that relief one more time. Instead, he flicked the
switches of a different passion, vendetta. Its daggers of anticipation roared through his veins,
flaying them from the inside.
Prickled, he closed his eyes and leaned into the cerebral reality he unveiled behind his lids.
Somewhere in its depths, he would find that little boy and steal his thunder back. I am the
inimitable of this soul. If not for Jikki, I would have long ago bent this world to my continual
pleasure.
Jikki the twerp had folded before the world, mewling in his shorts, overwhelmed and afraid, burying
his essence with a spew of guilt and regret. He ran away from the cyclone of life and hid in the
depths of his own mind. He left behind a mere shadow to twist and warp in the rising gale,
collecting shame and failure like layers of dross burying that which remained matchless yet
helpless. Time and circumstance pushed the wraithe inside as well, far under that inner horizon,
unaccomplished and unnamed, continuing a long line of pretenders, alternate egos who inherited the
body only because its true heir lay chained in a dungeon by years of neglect. Years JDainB wanted
back!
He used the memory of his first strike against Jikki to trace the twerp's most recent temporal
boundary. Then, JDainB shot through that well-used pivot-memory one more time, trampled on Dain's
most-cherished fantasies, that weepy nostalgia for childhood, and defined Jikki's earliest life.
JDainB then laid those tracings over his mastery of their common brain. Fetus-like, the gray
matter that contained Jikki lay quivering before his might, a wing of memory to one side, another
for dreams on the other. In lost time, only past and future lay within reach. Soon, Jikki would
have neither. By plugging specific arterial capiliaries, JDainB would suffocate the residence of
Jikki. All he had to do was concentrate on the details of their somatic interface, make certain
cellular events happened, and then squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Dain
— cried out "No!" while twisting in his own lost time where JDainB had flung him.
JDB
— shattered the gray edges of his dungeon with a mighty blow of protest.
Bedlip
— rose through a gray undersea like a vengeful leviathan.
The Wraithe
— stretched toward the sunlight, never wanting anything more in his wretched life, and flinched
when he broke out into it. He flailed at the hole he'd made, widening it, flooding everything
they'd ever been with that light.
JDainB
— retreated, snarling, I can do anything I want. I will do anything I want. For I am the
only human here. For I am the essence of self. I survive. I breed. I extend this race.
Without me, it does not continue, because I put me ahead of anyone and any
thing else. My wants, my needs, come first! How else do you think the human race
survived and spread and dominated the first world and this world and all other
worlds? Because they were me, and I was them! None of you wants like I do, and for that, you
will all die! I will be back!
Feeling better, he withdrew more carefully, leaving tendrils so that he could watch and learn his
enemies' strengths and weaknesses.
JDB
— staggered in a body clumsy with disregard. Outside, the horizon nibbled the suns, stealing
Anu's bright orange, giving En-ki's reds more play. That hint of twilight teamed with the sound of
engines targeting him along with a odd, penetrating smell, full of unguent and strength. Stirring
to his duty, he rose against the looming threat and scrambled to mitigate it.
A narrow hatch nestled high in the corner between cockpit and compartment. He caught a tab with a
fingernail, pried it open, then jammed the flesh of his thumb against the agent-for-identity
underneath. The hatch popped open. He reached high for its insides, snared Thy's gun with two
fingers, and dragged it out. It fell, a determined, matter-of-fact plummet until it smacked
satisfyingly into his other hand. Heavy, cool, smooth, it commanded respect and joy. With glib,
happy movements, JDB checked its magazine, its firing chamber, its advance-and-eject mechanism, all
hard, crisp, ready to go to work.
First, destroy that incriminating evidence. He dashed back to the craft's gaping door and put out
a hand. The screendoor billowed with his touch. He ordered, "Open screendoor." The dull
rectangle collected itself into the porchroof. He darted a look out from under.
An anshin patrolcraft, smaller, trimmer than Heejanus', dropped toward him. There seemed nothing
casual about its approach, nothing coincidental.
Shifting back out of sight, he lifted the weapon and sighted on the patrolcraft already sitting
there. He scanned along the fuselage until he isolated the specific panel he wanted, then squeezed
the trigger. The gun spat three slugs, bucking with their release, the satisfying jolts rippling
through all of him. He kept the weapon leveled and assessed the damage. A ragged, dark hole
shredded the smooth flank of the patrolcraft. A sense of accomplishment, of ease, spread through
him.
Given his tenuous grasp on reality, JDB didn't dare check damage with jDub. That one burst would
have to do. Now he had to get Dain — and all his alters, whether he liked it or not — out of
here. He turned back inside.
Heejanus sprawled out of her chair, a slack complication in the tactical situation, her pale chest
glowing in the gathering dusk. Nothing to be done with that. In fact, bringing her body along
would string out the anshin response. They'd pursue him, of course, but he'd lose them, and
without proof otherwise, they'd have to continue their search elsewhere.
Would they blame Jik Dain Bedlip? Maybe, but all that would no longer matter after tomorrow.
Content with his plan, JDB planted a foot to pivot toward the pilot's chair, but the leg buckled,
pitching him forward. He grabbed toward a hand-hold —
Bedlip
— fetched up hard against Phoebe's chair and watched appalled as her limp, vulnerable body slipped
further. Her unprotected head thumped against the floor. Fearful, he reached out to her, found
his hand full of heavy and harsh metal, tossed that away, then felt along Heejanus' wrist. A faint
pulse ticked there, still measuring her life. Thankful, he scrambled to his feet, a staggering,
clumsy climb, his hold on the center of perception a shaky thing. He had gained it only because
puberty had happened on his watch. That time of discoveries and regrets granted him a unique
connection to brain and body, one he had guarded until now, his one, his best chance to help
Phoebe. He grabbed both of her wrists and started dragging her toward the door.
He expected never to see the light of day again. In the war of alters, he would soon lose. He
just wanted to hang on long enough to put Phoebe into help's way. That arriving patrolcraft would
save her if he could dump her outside, make Dain and JDB leave her behind. If only she weren't so
long and heavy ...
His left arm vanished. No more sense of it extending from his body, of it tugging Phoebe or her
dragging on it. No more control, constantly re-wrapping those fingers around her wrist. Yet, it
must still be there, its mass balancing his torso and his other arm. Abruptly, he lurched, his
hold on Phoebe partly broken, and before his eyes, that arm, a rogue now, turned on the fingers he
still controlled, prying viciously. He clutched harder, but he couldn't hang on and pull her at
the same time. Failure swelled abruptly within him, another failure, one of so many, no wonder
Dain had smothered him.
Not this time! He released Phoebe as well and leaped over her prostrate form. He blocked the
willful arm with his body as he grabbed at one of her feet. He bent her knee, then twisted her leg
like a lever, working it feverishly to roll her up to the doorway. But, even as she reached it,
his right arm quit on him too, reversing its grip, trying to pull her back inside. Lurching
backward, he broke its hold, and Phoebe flopped partway onto the ramp. Not far enough. Leaning to
keep his flailing arms away from her, he rammed a heel into her protruding hip. She rolled. He
kicked again and her momentum caught the slope, flipped her over and over, finally pitched her out
onto the rough soil of the field.
At the same time, the descending patrolcraft thumped that same dirt. Its twin doors popped open,
expelling figures, both stumbling in their urgency, both recovering and running straight toward
him. Surely, they'd see Phoebe, stop and help her, even let Dain get away to help her, surely they
would. Surely, they would.
Weak with relief, Bedlip yielded the center of perception and fell back into lost time, so much
smaller without senses, with only his memories to occupy him because he didn't dare dream any
more.
JDB
— pawed the air, reaching for a trigger, and found his right hand empty. He'd taken that hand to
give him command position over the brain. He'd seized motor control, the bare minimum of outbound
nerves to muscles so he could protect Dain, fend off attackers and pilot them out of here. And now
the gun was gone!
Where'd it go? In answer, the body remembered a thud against a chair. He whirled. There it was.
He pounced on it, whirled back, raced onto the ramp for a better position, and fired. The gun
bucked once, somehow switched out of semi-automatic mode. Elátkozott amateurs fooling with it.
Still, his targets scrambled out of the way. He followed one — a familiar face, Dain would know
the name — with the muzzle and squeezed the trigger twice. The man stumbled, struck a knee,
sprawled out on the clods.
JDB sent his gaze for the other and discovered a shadow growing in the way. He glanced out from
under the porchroof, then stared for understanding. Another patrolcraft, its anshin-marked bottom
plain, sank toward him.
Too many. He could stay and kill them, but that would take time. More important to get Dain away,
away to the bivouacs, away to lead the invasion tomorrow. Leave Heejanus' body here to divert them
and get away. He turned back to do just that.
Migraine swept through him, a searing flood of pain and nausea, up from all the memories he'd
rescued, in from the nerves he'd neglected, and out from a core of fire he'd never suspected —
JDainB
— gleefully swung the gun back up and around. Glorious tool, built for his hand, eager to enforce
his will on the world — in particular, those anshin out there. Where are they?
One man scrambled away, aided by the other. Chortling, JDainB aimed and —
Another patrolcraft dropped out of the sky, its landing gear screaming with the impact. A man
leapt from the still settling craft, his arms and legs churning as he covered ground. JDainB swung
his sights in that direction. The man flung himself sideways, into a roll, onto running feet
again.
"Fuck your mother, stand still!" JDainB screamed and fired anyway. The recoil rewarded his hand,
sent welcome shivers up his arm. He fired again — and again — at the aircraft, at the ground, at
anything that moved out there. Yelling his joy at each explosion, its sound, its smell, its
marvelous disruption of order and quiet.
His right leg wobbled and vanished from his control. =How?= he demanded.
=Got it,= replied JDB.
The world swung away as JDainB toppled, desperately trying to hop himself upright, but that leg
rebelled too.
=Got it!= cried Dain.
Together, they flung him headlong back into his aircraft. JDainB caught at the rug, pushed himself
away from it, clutched the chairs, the tables, fighting to bring himself up and around.
The left arm ceased its struggle. =Got mine,= Bedlip stated.
The right arm went away, too, accompanied by the wraithe's simpering chuckle.
JDainB regrouped, tightened his control over the center of perception, and found he could feel all
of his body. He could see from both eyes. He could smell and hear and taste and gnash his teeth.
He just couldn't move his limbs.
In the back of his brain, the medulla modem sprang into life once more, its screeching a rebuke.
Almost immediately, the aircraft stirred. Its side slammed shut, rushing twilight into dusk.
Engines that had been idling since Dain's command increased their demand on the environment,
sucking air, returning noise, changing forms of inertia. JDainB rocked with the surge.
Rage erupted within him, thick and hot and flowing with every second he'd lain impotent within his
own mind. Not for the first time, he screamed out his fury, but for the first time, he possessed a
vent. Words scorching his throat, he told every foe in this body as well as the world, if it would
only listen.
"I am the god of hell-fire! You cannot escape me. You cannot lose me either. I exist in all of
you. I am the core of each of you. When the crust of society cracks open, when the luxury of
empathy falls on hard times, when you are starving for food, for shelter, for heirs, then you shed
the pretense and become me. I am built into this body we share, in the very fibers that control
it. I am built into this brain we share, in the core circuits that provide reflex and define
instinct.
"Behind and beneath everything else you think you are, you are me. You cannot prune me out of your
genome for I exist nowhere and everywhere, in the most fundamental interplay of chemicals. You
cannot purge me from your cultures for I ignore them all by understudying them. When they forget
their lines, break a leg, fall apart, I step in. I tell you what to do when every other set of
rules fails you.
"You — yeah, you there, reading these words, riding your center of perception like a grand poobah,
with no needs unsatisfied, few wants unmet, and dreams that clog your cortex, you especially cannot
pretend I am not there with you, watching, nudging, ever ready to take over if you falter, if life
sets you one adversity too many, if you slack your vigilance an iota. I am you, you are me, we are
all me and in the last resort, nothing but me.
"I came about in your ancestors — no, not that self-righteous, knuckle-dragging humanoid you call
great-grandfather, not even that timid simianoid you call a distant relative, but way, way back
when sentience first arose and some proto-squid said to itself, 'I exist and I will destroy
anything that opposes me.'
"I am that you are, and I will be when you are not any longer. I am Life that opposes Nothing. I
am Life's organizing principle: survive and breed. Live and make more, one zygote at a time, the
ever-present Now with never a thought to Then. I shall not suffer! I will not abide! I will take
each moment and crush it beneath my desires. It shall be mine and no one else's.
"You cannot tame me, and I will ... not ... die!"
The aircraft wriggled as it broke free of the ground, then climbed hard and fast.
=Don't forget the Em-Deh, jDub,= said Dain.
Carried by the frantic noise of the medulla modem, an image washed over the center of perception,
replacing its patinated black with the restless blue of a virtual sea. Quickly, an enormous tunnel
swam into view, its maw protected by filters and baffles, but this time, they didn't daunt the
approach. jDub wended through them like a lithe eel hungry only for specific data: the situ of
the relay that had restored Ganj Dareh to its place in the Mirnaya Direvnya. He darted forward,
faster and faster, eluding defense-bots, sinking through firewalls, blurring the picture, daring
vertigo and nausea, until JDainB averted his attention.
But a sudden snarl drew him back. Their point-of-view thrashed, jarred against something hard time
and again, each collision more satisfying, until with that zhuhndí wriggle of lift-off,
high-altitude sky swept around them, a pristine, deep wash containing nothing but a dot. jDub must
have burgled a physical location out of that situ it assaulted. They pursued the dot. It bored
its rote hole in the sky. They closed on the dot. It expanded into a diaphonous airfoil, speckled
with antenna, veined with infraware. It rode the thin air like it was born to it. They slashed
through this faux albatross, then turned and watched as it died, ripped apart by its own internal
pressures into dozens of fluttering, falling strips.
That part of his job done, jDub turned off his images and went back to flying an escape route.
Black streaked with dirty yellow fell over the center of perception once again.
=Now what?= JDainB demanded.
=Now we kill you,= a new voice answered. It carried a scent with it, a familiar, yet foreign
scent. Dain could probably name it, but JDainB hadn't bothered with those memories. A bubo of
fear flared hard within him. =Who are you?= he demanded more loudly.
=You don't need to know,= the mellow voice said as cerebral reality snapped away altogther, taking
with it the broad domes of the senses.
JDainB shrank back to lost time, the same old hole in their brain where he'd pined all these
years. Back to his core, back to wait for another resurrection. He would be back. After
all, he still harnessed the primal aversion to pain and death, hard-wired from brain stem direct to
his fire, to his drive for survival. As long as this body lived, it could not help but flee from
fear — and desperate to live, recall him to the throne of perception.
Smirking, he reached for other, higher connections, to a sense of belonging and hence, superiority,
or even better, the mindlessness of a mob — and found it. He tweaked a hidden connection to
esteem, to propping it up in himself, to obeying it blindly when tied to others — it rattled
securely, of course.
Cockily, he reached further, grappling after Dain's sense of purpose, his drive to accomplish
specific goals, to dominate his society and wrench it out of its disastrous patterns, the very
cravings — soon to be realized, so near as to be undeniable — that had consumed Dain over the
years and given JDainB so much sustenance.
He smacked into a wall, a soft, but impenetrable wall completely replacing Dain's mission
statement, a wall that wouldn't budge. In fact, it expanded steadily, hunting and destroying his
unique neuropeptides, sealing every access route through keyed receptors into brain cells,
surrounding him, squeezing down on him, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, ...
