I couldn't get bacon and eggs right. In the original days, I could have willed it quite easily from the First Atom, imagined it out of raw stuff of creation... but now, there wasn't enough creativity left to create a new pea. Now, everything had to be created. From scratch.
I tried not to let it bother me, but it did. I made a note to shift a planet, Boston System, a Bravo Level population, Boston-7, off bio-metallics research, and allocate it towards taste-perfect bacon and egg production. I looked forward to their results.
Lack of raw creation bothered me too, though. I had two of my smaller fleets searching Dark-Space for any remains. The last we knew about it, the hollowed out shell of the Atom was destroyed in the Endwar Conflict, or at least, blasted away into regions unknown, The Drifter's act of angered defiance when he failed win the match in one master stroke. It had seemed so easy then, each dream up a galaxy, then throw our amassed weapons of war at each other. Millennia upon millennia had, with crushing certainty, taught us both there would be no easy solution.
------------------------------
All white. All around us. This was where our world came from. The man- the bug-eyed thing that planned all this, said this was where our world came from. Last remnants of the thing's laughter echoed out. Leaving us in the white.
I wasn't buyin' it. No, actually, I was. That scared me 'bout myself. I was buyin' it. None of what this fella said could be the real deal. But then, nothing that has happened so far could be either. Surely it..
"Larger..." I hissed. We were in some kind of white room, I didn't really have a frame of reference, except for the other competitor, but that was enough. He was taller than me, but and now I was shooting up above him. "Sto-!" but before I even finish gettin the words out, its like I suddenly stabilise. I'm his height and a half-again, now, but it doesn't really feel that different. Back. I think the word hard, and shrink back down.
He turns to look at me, holding up a pig-sticker like he's checking the air for bad spirits. He chuckles. The knife, with silky smoothness flows into a long chinaman's sword, and with ease that looks brought on by repetition, he slides into a scabbard at his side.
"Interesting. Charles, by the way. I see no reason for us to be anything but Frank with each other now. I did go by the name of The Drifter, but Charles will do." He extends a hand. He's old. And he's got killers eyes. The way he moves that sword showed practice, but he looks like he's not as fast as he used to be.
"Shanks, Detective, Vice." Yeah, I was a Detective. And if this white room was the way back to my city, I wanted to use it quick like. I hadn't re-holstered my iron, instead, it was snug in my pocket. I gave him my right side, pretending to look around, while I slipped my left hand in.
"Still clinging to what you used to be?" He laughed again, at some funny I just wasn't gettin'. "Let's make it interesting. We have, creation, unbridled, at our fingertips. We could kill each other now, here, and end this tournament. But then, we could have done that anyway. Let's say.. one year of creation, invention, innovation. Then, we meet back here, to battle, for the war's end." His hand was still extended.
One year too long for me, chump. Left handed shooting wasn't my favourite, but I had the Colt over the lip of my trouser pocket, just had to bring it up sneak-like.
"Sounds more like an end war, to me." Try and keep him talking, his close enough to swing that sword.
"Aha, yes, what a phrase. End War. Agreed then?"
"I'll stick with just the first part, if you don't mind." Recoil kicks like a mule. No worse than-
I scream. I can barely hear the meaty splash of flesh and blood impacting against what passed for a floor here. I decide to scream some more, and drop to my knees. I wish this was helping. Oh god, I wished screaming helped. Pain courses through me, like snakes running up my arm.
"No, no, no." His sword. It didn't even move. He didn't move. I'm clutching the stump of my left hand. And through the pain, I can see my Colt is gone. My hand.. is gone. "You see, Detective, Shanks, Vice Squad? We. Could. End. This. Now. I could end this now." He grabs my chin, and draws it up to his face. Blood trickles through my clenched fingers, and I stop screaming to suck in some ragged breaths. I can feel his breath against my cheeks.
"No. I won't have it this way." There's a terrible glint in his eyes.
"Scr.. screw you pal.. do it.." I manage, then spit in his eye for punctuation. He grabs at my belt, then drops me harshly.
"One years time." He's all business now, no snide laughter. "Then we meet, here, for the Endwar. I'll even start you off." He closes his eyes, and seems to focus. Whiteness is sucked down into a spinning, marble-like sphere. And space explodes around us. Planets. Stars. Moons. All zoom out from the sphere in all directions. A glass box forms around us, keeping us protected as we float in the blackness. Planets and stars shoot off so far, they become tiny specks in the distance. Some disappear completely. "You take that side. I take this." Then he smirks and holds something up. "If you win, you can have this back." The outline of a city. Skyscrapers stamped in brass. My badge. He has my badge. With a flash, he disappears. My badge.
-----------------------------
The two fleets combing Dark-Space came back to before five years were up. No traces of the Atom could be found. Deep-scan resonance had only picked up junk and scrap from the Endwar. I had it all brought aboard my World Ship anyway. Something useful could yet be found. Brooklyn was my only system in the galaxy of New York that was still locked in a stalemate. Bronx was roughly half in the hands of The Drifter's forces, but he'd lost interest in that entire Sector, it would likely take another hundred years but we'd rout them eventually. No, Brooklyn was where it mattered. I opened up communications with the system's Governor, an old soldier whose great-grandfather had been on the colony-ships heading into Brooklyn.
"Detective, it's, uh, been awhile since I spoke to you in person." I don't remember ever speaking to him in person. No, wait. A small child, hiding behind a mother in the background. Briefing his grandfather's assault on B-Charlie-5. Age lines his face now. Nervous. He's not the cunning General I read so many reports about not thirty years ago. He cares about his people now. He's grown attached.
"I understand you've been petitioning for more forces for some time." I explain to him that he's fortunate these fleets finished patrol early, that we can't just will this much hardware into existence, and that he should make more use of the resources already on hand.
"How.. how many, Lord Detective?" I scan my memory banks. What comprised those fleets again? He takes the moment to straighten his epaulets. Data readouts flash across my vision sensors. Ah, yes.
"Two Patrol Fleets, Governor," I display the readout for him.
//////////----------Patrol Fleet Composition----------//////////
/
/
/
-2 'Acclamator' Class Battle Spheres
- attached (each)
-10,000 Unmanned Drone Fighters
-6,000 Gunboats
-attached 20,000 Marines and Boarding Specialists
-5,000 Long Range Recon Bombers
-5,000 Interceptors
-1,000 Missile Defence Platforms
-500 Heavy Planetary Transports
-12 Escort Frigates
-2,000,000 Marine Planetary Assault Force
-4 'Hot-Iron' Class Mobile Weapons Platforms
-2 Planetary Incinerators
-1 'Bull-harness' Class Supernova Device
/
/
/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I'm sure you can find use for it, Governor."
"Yes, this is what I needed and more, thank yo-!" I cut him off. And made a note never to speak or reinforce his system again. He had more than enough now.
And adjutant program informed me the time frame required for refuelling, and re-equpping the fleets. I would have sighed. In that first year, I could have just willed in ten new fleets, each twenty times the size of those on their way.
We were grinding to a halt. Neither of us had been in any direct danger for over ten millennia, and I hadn't even seen the Drifter for three. Fleets pounded against fleets, escorts against escorts, interceptors against interceptors, giant city sized assault vehicles traversed the faces of planets, tanks blew apart other thanks, and men shot men. Yet a single planet didn't matter. Thirty planets barely matter. I could, and had, sent entire sectors supernova, more than ten systems at a time, trillions of lives extinguished in moments of searing agony, and the best it could do was give him a bloody nose.
I'd spent too long on New York. I decided to check the progress of other galaxies. Perhaps Chicago. Maybe Baltimore. No, Dakota. Yes, Dakota was still expanding.
Then something reminded me to check on the Bacon and Eggs synthesis. Four years and no results, apparently. I assigned two more Bravo Level Planets in the Queens system, and an Alpha level, just to be sure. They were all production worlds, they were used to spending seven generations making only gun-barrels, to then be told they would now make only tank treads. Bacon and eggs would be a slightly odder novelty. But I knew I could get it done. I could make it. I would have my bacon and eggs.
--------------------------------------------------------
Endwar could wait. I moved through the murky night, pulling my overcoat tight against the chill. Three days ago a light slurry of snow had had smeared the streets, but it hadn't lasted more than a day before turning brown and washing away. I'd place money on seeing heavier fall before Winter was out.
Bell jingles as I push through the diner door. It's late. Young waitress is wiping down the counter. She looks worried for a second, I lift my coat and let her see the badge on my belt. She smiles, and relaxes, turns and proffers the pot of coffee. I nod, then take a seat in a booth.
"Olivia? Someone out there?" Voice rings out from a doorway behind the counter.
"Just a gumshoe," She sings back over her shoulder as she pours out the coffee. She brings it over in a mug. "That's Reg, he owns the place." She takes my indifference as interest. "He's counting the takings out back, he gets nervous when customers come in while he does it." I decide to pay her information with a brief smile, as I unscrew the cap on my flask and top up the coffee.
I drink in silence. I drink in the silence. It's been six months since the round started. I don't know what Charles is doing, and I don't care. I've got my city back. I'm a detective again. He'll roll over me in when I don't turn up at the meeting place, but he can take that. He wants a fight, he won't get one.
It's on one of the planets he created. It took a few days to get a hang of it. But eventually I managed to blink myself there. Effort left me absolutely joed. Once I recovered, I built. And built. Eventually, I built the city. Then the people. The weather. All of it.
I finish the coffee without noticing. My haze is interrupted when the waitress picks up the mug, and sets down a tray for payment. I lean back and flash my badge again in response. She gives a little giggle, and takes the tray away. I look down at the badge. Its a blank. A rectangle of mirror-polished brass. A sigh escapes my lips, like steam rising from the gutters outside, they both make tracks into the cold night sky.
"I could shoot you right now, couldn't I, Olivia?" She smiles, and gives a little nod. "Or we could get dizzy on this counter, right here, right now?" Same smile. Same nod.
I throw the condiments tray to the floor. Grains of salt and pepper mix together. With a thought, I tear down the diner walls. Reg keeps counting. Olivia keeps wiping the bench. I roar, and a wave ripples across the city, buildings buckle, teeter, and collapse. No one screams though. Because none of them are real.
Charles will get his fight. And I'll get my badge.
--------------------------------------
It took a further hundred years than I expected, but the New York galaxy was firmly under our control. I tweaked assignments for it, the systems and planets were no longer frontline worlds. Queens was put onto cybernetic implant upgrades, Manhattan was split half/half between bio-chemistry production and clone production, they weren't as good as simply creating new bodies to throw into the meatgrinder, but it was close.
People, became attached. I had a military industrial complex larger than had ever existed. Larger than even those used by Original Sin. But size crippled us. It became a hinderance. I could build star system killing fleets in a matter of years, but every system we killed, we conquered, there were more. And the people settled down, on the frontiers, and behind, galaxies behind, they could forget we were at war. Those in the massive foundry planets and forge worlds hadn't been threatened for thousands of years.
I was becoming slow. It was becoming more and more difficult to replace my parts with organic re-growth. Connecting new tissue to old tissue without it being rejected was apparently a complex process. A wing of my World Ship was dedicated to finding different ways to prolong my life, but I never gave them much time. There was always so much to attend to. My eyes and ears were entirely cybernetic now, as well as my heart and a number of other organs, I wasn't sure which. They all seemed to function roughly the same.
They told me, though, that my brain was breaking down. I still had roughly a thousand years, but even at a minimum that was nowhere near enough. When the atom was still functioning, I'd wished to live for ten thousand years. My finest scientists had added what they could to that, but it was getting difficult.
-------------------------------------
He'd lied. Not that I didn't expect him too. A large fleet of space rockets were clustered around a planet very clearly on my side of the Atom. Probably as some early warning to tell if I wasn't coming to the Endwar.
I'd summoned libraries. Vast libraries. All the accumulated knowledge of the dead champions, as much information from Original Sin as possible. The information was about half as big as the colossal city I'd made. I absorbed it in a day. Knowledge begat more knowledge. The smarter I became. The more I could learn.
We smashed through his initial defences. Bright laser weapons glittered in the darkness, punching holes through the rocket ships. My craft were sleek silver ovals, designs I'd taken from serials about space men as a child. Missiles lanced out of attached pods, destroying space platforms. We arrived at the Atom a day before Endwar. I'd recovered enough strength after rebuilding the fleet to summon up more forces. It took effort, so much effort to imagine them into being. I was trying a new shortcut.
I dreamt that, something I'd read, that one of the other champions had heard, had heard about someone reading a story. Where there were many worlds, layered on top of each other. Alternate realities. I dreamt it, I believed it was real. I pulled the my fleets from the closest three realities. The popped into existence around us, quadrupling the size of our army. I nearly collapsed, my executive officer carried me off the bridge, to rest.
I had 16 capital ships under my command. Each had an escort of 2 frigates and 100 fighters. Charles arrived with a paltry 3 large ships.
A projection of him appeared on deck, as our forces engaged.
"See, Detective, Shanks, Vice Squad. Isn't this more fun?"
"You should have killed me when you had the chance."
"Lost the accent I see? No more mannerisms from your past?"
"Go to hell Charles,"
I willed his image away, directing all firepower to the largest of his ships. We left ourselves open, but we could afford the losses. Besides, I was still imagining up more crews, more ships, more fighters at a steady rate. It took a constant tax on me, but we were winning. We would win. I would win.
The central enemy ship blossomed into a giant fireball. I smiled. As I did, all my frigates winked out of existence. Then half the Capital Ships. Then another. Then another, though this time more slowly. It faded.
I had six left.
His projection appeared again. "You see, Detective, we could end this right now. I could end this right now. Because you don't have a very good imagination. I'm dreaming that you don't have a very good imagination. I'm dreaming that you couldn't muster anything to fight me here, and you know what, its working."
Klaxons were going off. The crew on the bridge were in a panic. The last of my fleet was vanishing. We were the last ship left. Our shields were at full, but somehow, we were losing structural integrity.
Even through their panic, against unbelievable odds, though, they were working. They were working hard, they were still fighting. I smiled with pride. They were my crew. They were real. They were strong, smart, and powerful. They were mine.
"No, Charles. This ship is too real for you to disappear." I could see he was straining from the exertion.
"Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He screamed with rage.
"No! I will not be denied my right to create an entire universe by some overly proud dullard!" The ship stopped shaking. But he was still focused.
"You. Won't. Create. Any. More!!" The white ball of the Atom exploded violently, shockwave dispersing out. It was as if our ship was picked up and hurled bodily through space. It was beyond our control, for almost a day we kept momentum. The wreckage of the battle far behind us. The Atom died that day. Dark-Space, where nothing existed, was created that day.
And that day, I let Charles know. I broadcast on every frequency available.
"I will rebuild. You can throw your tantrum. I will rebuild, the long, slow way. I don't care if it takes a thousand years. You will be the Drifter, but I will find you. And bring you down. I will win."
---------------------------------------------
I guided the World Ship carefully. I was essentially part of it now. I held over ninety billion crew, attendants and their families within my bulk. I'd started ripping the factories off worlds, wholesale. I could construct as we travelled, giant foundries produced everything a fledgling set of colonies would need.
My consciousness had been successfully wired into the databanks years ago, the ageing brain was no longer a problem. The fighting was ever present, but also at its lowest ebb. The Drifter had carved massive chunks of space in his name, but all his armies were defending, and none were being re-supplied. It was a slow process to pick it apart world by world. We were winning. If I could find him, though, we would win faster. I had more concerns though. Over half of my production facilities, across all my galaxies, had been switched to bacon and egg science. And it still didn't seem like were any closer. Thirty thousand delta class planets, fifty thousand charlie and bravo's, eighty thousand alpha class planets were working on getting the crispiness right, alone.
I had, of course, realised another problem. I no longer had taste-buds, or, in fact, the need to eat. One of my older galaxies, New York, had turned into quite an innovation hub. It was there that construction began, on cloning me a new body. Not one enhanced for age. Or with cybernetic reflexes, or a super-hardened exo-skeleton. One that was identical to my original. I would have my bacon and eggs.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rebellions began in the Boston system. Those for Bacon. Those against Eggs. Those in favour of sanity. Those who believed there was no Drifter, that it was a conspiracy, a phantom enemy of the central administration to justify labour. Others said there was no Detective Shanks, that there was no empirical evidence to suggest I existed, and that if I did, why would I care about being as small as them. They were right about that. I didn't. The last pockets of the Drifters forces were beginning to fail, and I was going to have to turn back to appease the resources? To quash their rebellions. Not happening. I had the best and brightest of both the clone project and the bacon project on my world ship. The rest was baggage, holding me down.
We reached his palace. Almost deserted. Constructed from rows upon rows of solid rainbows. The pattern always shifting. The defenders numbered under ten million, but they put up a desperate fight. Our losses were heavy.
And for nothing. The throne room was empty. I sent my best technicians down. We gather he hadn't been overseeing his war machine for years. At some point in the past ten millennia he'd gotten bored, adopted a disguise and had truly begun drifting. The only inhabited worlds left were under my control. We turned back.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scouring a universe, even one that you ostensibly rule, takes a long time. By the time we picked up his trail again, there was no one in my fleet who remembered who the Drifter was. Boston was gone, foundries, factories and spaceports all lying empty. Skeletons littered the streets. Smoke hung over the atmosphere, some facilities still on fire with incandescent colours. Massachusetts at large, was defunct. Small groups of people lived in squalor and filth, in the shadows of their former splendorous cities.
The entire universe was dying, grinding to a slowly, terrible halt.
Baltimore was deserted. Completely. Everything appeared to be in working order, but there was no one around. They'd just up and left.
New York, the entire galaxy, had been glassed during the infighting. All the suns were dying, and the planets were wastelands.
My own fleet was falling apart. Every time we made planetfall, more and more resources wouldn't return. Those who were even slight contact with me believed I'd gone crazy, chasing this Drifter. Those who weren't, believed I had died years ago. The clone was finished though. I didn't want to inhabit it yet, but the body was done. I would have my bacon and eggs.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was a sad death for the World Ship. Critical systems began to fail. There were no longer the proper staff to repair them. Entire sections were sealed off and de-pressurized. Those who stayed were like rats inhabiting a skyscraper.
I'd found him though. The drifter's trail went cold on a large, uninhabited world catalogued only as 319-DS-V-S. There was a craft in geo-synchornus orbit, the kind that could have launched an escape pod. It was still systems-active. It was likely his.
A hundred crew still ministered to me, doing what automated systems couldn't, or hadn't been built to do. They were all quite crazy though. Not as crazy as the ones who left, of course, but insane, none the less. They had done well, but their time was up.
I sealed the bridge. Then brought the World Ship down through the atmosphere. At full size, we probably would have destroyed the planet on impact, but more and more bits had fallen, or been cut off us. We'd shake things up, but we'd end up worse off than the planet, for sure.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Adjudant?"
"Yes, uh sir, why are we breaching atmosphere at this speed? We still have transports that could take us to-"
"Never mind. Divert all remaining power to the bacon and egg facilities. Oh, and, its been an honour serving with you."
"Uh.. thank you, sir?"
I hit my emergency switch.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was the oddest sensation, to awake in the body of my clone. To have a body again. To think of myself of having a body. The pod jettisoned from the doomed World Ship. It was seriously out of repair, but I could probably just affect a safe landing with it. I would make a safe landing. I had bacon and eggs to eat.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I found him, kneeling down, locked in a staring contest with one of the native animals. He seemed to be looking deep into its mind. He seemed so incredibly frail. And it seemed, as if here, alone, he'd found some contentment. I reached into my coat and, yes, they'd even replicated the Colt.
"Interesting enough for you?" I pressed the barrel against his temple. No reaction. I leant down, removed my badge from his pockets. It was tarnished, rusted beyond belief. I sneered, and tossed it away.
"Well?"
"Yes." He espoused, in a dream like state. "Quite so."
I squeezed the trigger.
Then I threw down the Colt as well.
Nine million years after the round began, it ended.
I'd won.
But I didn't care. Because I had to find the World Ship wreckage. I would have my bacon and eggs.
