The Alchemist Chapter 19

Chapter 19

As we came closer to the Demon King’s palace, the darkness grew. There was a tension in the air that prevented much more than whispers between the troops. The clouds were speared with flares of orange and yellow, presenting an ominous presence.

We encountered plenty of resistance, even though all the towns in this direction had been looted long ago. The fields were barren, and the atmosphere was filled with soot.

We arrived at a valley, spreading as far as the eye could see to the left or right. Directly across, on the other mountain ridge, was a massive orc army.

The smell wafted across the gap and filled my nostrils with a putrid stench.

These were obviously bad guys. If they were such a threat, why did no one seem to care besides the Guardians?

Our cannons opened fire in a deafening barrage. The orcs returned with a wave of arrows thousands strong.

Claude gave the order to march. Our musketeers were placed behind a phalanx of shields. We marched down the hill towards the wall of orcs.

Once the muskets were in range, we opened fire, decimating the first layer of orcs.

The orcs broke formation and charged our musket phalanx. As they approached, our musketeers reloaded, and shot off another volley.

Hundreds of orcs dropped dead, only to be trampled by their brethren.

They smashed into the wall of shields. Our musketeers fixed their bayonets and the melee began.

At several points, the orcs broke through out phalanx, and brutal hand to hand combat began.

I was standing at the back of the army. As I was a valuable asset, without much offensive power, I was relegated to the position of observer.

Claude and the rest of the Guardians, though, joined the fray as soon as it began. Claude’s sword of angelic fire swung in wide, burning arcs, slashing through dozens of orcs at a time.

Itrim fired a longbow into the orc army, grabbing flaming arrows from his bag of holding.

Blasé tore through the orc’s front line, a twirling mess of daggers and kicks.

Drex rode Hypo around the flanks of the orcs, firing arrows into their midst.

Tanna worked with the artillery corps on coordinating cannon shots for maximum effect. Each shoot exploded over the orcs’ heads, causing massive damage.

And yet still, the battle came to a standstill. We were getting nowhere. The orcs kept coming, and coming, and coming. With our force of barely two thousand I didn’t think we could manage this.

Should we retreat? I thought. Surely Claude must be thinking the same thing.

All at once, the orcs stopped. They parted down the middle of their formation like a tide.

A monster rose from the earth and walked through the gap in the orcs’ army. Towering over everything, it was a goliath of proportions and boasted armor plating that covered it almost in its entirety. A gigantic axe hung from his hand, dragging a trench in the ground as he walked. The monster held up his axe and bellowed, loud enough to cause ringing in my ears.

“Demon angel!” yelled the brute. “Face me in single combat! We shall see who is superior!”

Claude stepped out from between our ranks, holding her sword pointed at the brute. “We meet again, Demisis.”

“I have suffered the humiliation you caused me for decades. I shall finally have my revenge,” said Demisis. He swept his axe through the air, the metal glinting in the sun, and then he stamped the shaft into the ground. A tremor ran through the soil.

Claude walked towards Demisis, her sword dragging behind her. She faced him, about five meters apart. The silence of both armies was unbearable.

Claude pointed her sword. “I’ll kill you this time,” she said.

Demisis’s lips curled up. “The same to you,” he said.

Claude’s form flickered and then disappeared. Her afterimage flitted around Demisis, the sword moving like a bullet.

Demisis blocked each strike with precision unfitted to his bulky form. His axe moved with impossible speed, singing as it sliced through the air.

Claude scored a minor hit on Demisis’s shoulder, spraying blood across the grass. Demisis retaliated by knocking Claude out of the sky, sending her crashing through the ranks of our army. She got up, stumbled, and the regained her balance. Again, her figure shimmered and the wind surrounding her exploded. The flurry of blows escalated in intensity.

Demisis slammed his axe head into the ground, sending a fissure rushing towards the army of the incursion. Men in heavy armor flew into the air and landed in heaps.

Claude swept her blade, missing Demisis, instead sending a sharp wind towards the army of orcs, decapitating two dozen in an instant. Blood rode the aftereffect.

Demisis leaped ten meters into the air and roared. Wings sprouted from his back, and flapped with the power of helicopter blades.

Claude took to the air as well. The two figures blurred out of sight, appearing to my eyes like two beams of color chasing each other through the sky. A sonic boom surrounded Claude, and the shockwave washed over me.

The clash of metal against metal reverberated through the air. Explosions of energy sent searing winds across both armies.

A firework of blood burst from Demisis, and his right arm came hurtling downwards, landing in the middle of the orc army. Droplets of red pattered down across both sides.

Demisis halted in mid-air. Claude hovered just ten meters away from him. She pointed her sword.

“It looks like you don’t have much longer left,” said Claude, her voice echoing across the landscape.

Demisis began to chuckle. His chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh, the sounds matching Claude’s voice as it rumbled above us. He held out the stump of his broken arm. A squirt of black fluid sprayed from the open wound, and a bulbs of flesh began to squirm. A new arm grew out of the hole, reaching out and forming hands and fingers. Demisis held up the new arm and flexed it.

“I’m not the only one who has changed,” he said, and then the battle continued.

The sonorous sound of clashing blades continued to wash across both armies. The mood among them began to break. Before, they were silent. Now, members of both sides began to cheer.

“Claude! Claude!” yelled the incursion soldiers.

“Lord Demisis! Lord Demisis!” yelled the orcs. They pounded their spears against the dirt.

The incursion soldiers followed suit.

Demisis lost another arm, the severed limp flying in an arc and landing on top of a cannon.

The fight continued. Blood was everywhere.

Claude struck Demisis with a huge blow that sent him careening into the dirt, sending up a puff of dust twenty meters high.

Claude held her sword above Demisis’s neck. “Your days of terrorizing are over,” she said.

She cut off Demisis’s head in a single, powerful stroke. The wake of the victory was silent. No one spoke a word.

The orcs, as one, charged into the army of the incursion. The battle began anew.

After just five minutes of all-out conflict, it was clear that our superior technology was actually going to win us the battle. Each shot from the cannons behind our lines tore through the enemy ranks. Our muskets both destroyed the front lines and sowed chaos throughout the enemy ranks. Claude’s fiery sword swept orcs up with the power of a bulldozer.

The orcs broke ranks and fled, their ranks thinning out.

“Pursue them!” yelled Claude, hovering at the front of our forces.

The incursion army chased down the running orcs, slaying them as they ran.

I had heard in a book somewhere that most casualties in medieval battles happened at this point, when the losing army routed. It certainly seemed like this was a true statement. Our army hunted down the orcs with generous ferocity.

The last of the orcs filtered into the close by forest, and that’s where our pursuit stopped.

Claude held up her hand. “Let them run,” she said, her voice echoing. “We have done our job.”

The army cheered, rhythmically slamming their weapons against their shields. Claude yelled in triumph, and was joined by our men.

Drex landed next to me, riding on Hypo. He offered his hand.

“You look tired,” he said, as I climbed on.

“I didn’t fight,” I said. “I don’t deserve to be tired.”

“With all the work you did to prepare for this,” said Drex, as we lifted off, “You have every right to be tired.” He circled around our army, so I could get a good look at it. “You’re a hero,” said Drex. “You saved lives, and your weapons were the turning point.”

I looked at the horizon, which was far off. “I just hope my inventions don’t cause hell on Earth like what happened in my world.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to prevent that,” said Drex.

“No one could have prevented both of the World Wars,” I said.

Drex shook his head. “You can do it. You have the backing of the pentaty, and us, the members of the Guardians.”

“I don’t think that’s enough,” I said. “I want my legacy here to be in good things, not death and destruction.”

Drex seemed to think for a moment. “I’m with you on that one,” he said. “I appreciate how you feel about that.”

We flew in silence over the army, which was beginning the process of burying our dead and burning the dead orcs. This battle was about as guiltless as possible, considering our enemies were monsters serving the demon lord. But, the people on the other end of the crusades—they were probably just like me, who happened to be on the wrong side of a religious schism.

And even then, the orcs appeared to be sentient. While they did smell bad and probably did not have good manners, they had about as much reason to be left alive as a normal human being. They only happened to have a bent towards serving an evil master.

And who knew if the demon king really was evil? Maybe his intentions were beyond our understanding and weren’t actually evil in the way we thought they were.

Whatever the case, I needed to keep better watch on how my technology was used.

Drex landed at the back of the army and we loaded up the rest of the Guardians. Itrim, Blasé, and Tanna climbed aboard Hypo, leaving the rest of the cleanup effort to Claude.

“Is the incursion over?” I asked, as we flew towards Brownfield.

“Mostly,” said Drex. “At least our part in it. Claude still has to clean up the remainder of the demon king’s army, and we still have to establish a perimeter so that the lands can be settled again.”

Tanna rubbed the sweat from her forehead. “Claude can handle it,” she said. “We’ve done enough already.”

“Are the soldiers getting paid?” I asked.

“As much as we can afford,” said Tanna. “Though, even with the starsilver lode, it isn’t much. They’re mostly volunteer anyways.” She paused. “But we can’t treat them poorly or they won’t come back next year.”

“Next year, eh?” I said. I looked at the approaching silhouette of Brownfield. “It’s funny how time passes so fast.”

Binary Seven Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

The sun shone bright over the plains where Aldon Jax worked his field. He was the only person living in his small hut, with his small field beside it, and he had to work every day in order to produce enough food to survive. Because of this, his hands were strong, his arms and legs were thick. He was a smart man, and knew what he had to do to maintain his lifestyle.

He finished harvesting a row of carrots, and looked up at the sky shielding his vision for a moment, taking a break underneath the hot sun. He wiped his forehead with his arm and bent back down to continue to harvest his field.

A sudden dust storm obscured his vision and forced him to pause his work. Aldon put his shirt over his mouth to avoid breathing in the dust, which stung his lungs. The dust settled, and Aldon took a deep breath. He looked down below himself, at his carrots, and took a step back in surprise. There, in front of him, was a strange metal cube, sitting on top of a mound of carrots. Aldon bent down to pick it up, and was surprised to find how light it was. Did the dust storm deposit it here? What was it doing? Aldon held it up to his eyes and examined it all around. It was solid grey, with beveled edges, and a soft tracing of circuits on its surface. The sun beat down on Aldon's back, and he was reminded that he still had work to do. He put the cube back on top of his carrots, and forgot about it while he went to work.  The cube sat still, watching him.

When the day was over, Aldon filled his wheelbarrow with the day's harvest, and headed back into his hut, which sat at the outskirts of a small town in the middle of the Anasari region. He took the cube with him, and that night at dinner, he sat at the table with the cube on the other side of him. He reached out to touch it, and stroked its surface, feeling the coldness of the metal beneath his fingers. The cube sparkled. Aldon leaned back to examine it. The cube shimmered, and then melted into a puddle on top of Aldon's table. Aldon reached out his arm to catch the strange liquid before it fell onto the floor, but the liquid sucked itself back up and formed into another shape. It took a while for Aldon to figure out what it was.

A baby? Aldon reached out his arm tentatively, afraid to touch the new figure in front of him. What was it? Was it really the cube? Was someone playing a trick on him?

Aldon touched the baby, and found that it had the same soft skin that a baby should have. Only, it wasn't moving. Only when Aldon retraced his arm did the baby begin to wail at the top if its lungs, like a fresh newborn. Aldon didn't know what to think, so he picked up the baby and rocked it gently in between his arms. The baby looked at Aldon, cooed, and then smiled. Aldon paused. Were babies supposed to smile when they were just born? Had this baby just been born? What was it?

A big problem became apparent. How was Aldon supposed to feed the baby? He didn't have any milk, and he definitely didn't have anything to nurse it with. He decided to go into town and search for an answer. He finished up his dinner in one quick gulp, and exited his hut with the baby in his arms. He headed for the main road, the one that would lead him into town, where he would most likely find help. He didn't know what else to do. The sun set in the background. Aldon was grateful that the baby didn't seem hungry now. It simply lay in his arms, cooing softly. Aldon stared at the baby for a long while, his mind whirling with questions. Whose was it? Was it is? What would happen to it now? Did he have the ability to keep it? All these questions and more occupied Aldon until he reached the outskirts of the town of Gulvier. The river Talmar ran beside the town, which surrounded the bridge that linked the two sides of the main road. It was a tiny place, unseen by the Empire that controlled the land, except for when tax day came. There were about sixty buildings scattered throughout the village, some of them work buildings, some of them houses. The inn stood taller than all the rest of the buildings, though not by much. Aldon could hear ringing coming from the blacksmith's shop. He walked up the main road with the baby in hand, thinking about where to get help for it. Why not try the inn first? Mother Gresha was sure to know a thing or two about babies. Aldon took a turn off the main road when he was in sight of the inn and walked up to its front entrance. A villager pushed his way past and into the building. Lights came out of the inn's windows, and music wafted on the air. Aldon steeled himself, and then stepped through the entrance and into the building.

Inside, a low smoke lay over everything, from the candles, and from the patrons who smoked tobacco. The fireplace blazed merrily, with a pig roasting over it. The smell of cooking meat filled the room, a good smell that made Aldon salivate. At the end of the room, a long bar stretched from wall to wall, manned by a large woman with an apron on, her black hair tied back in a bun. Gresha Caldwal, though most people called her Mother Gresha. She sighed Aldon and waved him over to the front of the bar. Aldon obliged, and walked through the center of the room with the baby. He sat down on a stool, leaned his elbows on the counter, and showed the baby to Mother Gresha. Gresha eyed the baby for a moment, without saying a word, and then clucked her tongue in a reproaching manner.

"Who'd you get mixed up with? Don't tell me you accepted someone's unwanted child?"

Aldon almost told Gresha the real course of events, then decided not to. Who knew what other people might think of his story. He nodded his head politely. "It looks like that's what I did."

Mother Gresha crossed her arms and put a stern expression on her face. "And you want to know how to keep it alive?"

"Yes."

"There's no chance."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, you don't have a way to nurse the child. It has to have mother's milk. Cow's milk and goat's milk just won't do. Why did you accept the child anyways? It's dead as it is. It’s a wonder that it's so calm, in the situation."

It was true, the baby was calm. Its eyes looked out at the world intelligently. Mother Gresha peered close at the baby, and her eyes narrowed a bit. She pulled up the baby's lip, to reveal a nice shining row of white teeth. She hummed. "This baby's already teethed," she said. "As a matter of fact, you might have a chance. I take back what I said before. Though, it is strange for someone to give away their baby at this stage. How did you meet this person?"

Aldon scratched at the back of his head. "Uh, they just came into town, and called at my door because I was the closest to the outskirts."

"Are you sure you don't want to give the baby to someone else? Someone that can take better care of it?"

Aldon shook his head. "I'd like to try," he said.

Mother Gresha nodded serenely. "Good, then. At this stage, babies can eat mushed food, and can drink some water, though not too much."

"Mushed food? Would carrots be fine?"

"As long as she has variety in her diet, it will be fine."

"I think I can handle that."

"Good. Take care of her for me. What's her name?"

"Oh," Aldon said. He hadn't thought about it yet. "Her name is . . ." He paused. "Botone. I like the name Botone."

"Botone? That's a strange choice."

"I like it. That's her name."

"So be it."

By then, a group of people had gathered around Aldon to take a look at the new baby. Most of them were working women, probably mother's themselves. Aldon got up from the counter, excusing himself from the commotion. He picked up the baby and brought her out of the inn, and into the street. Mushed carrots, he thought to himself. That can be arranged. He looked down at baby Botone and smiled. She smiled back at him, and laughed. Aldon got a warm feeling in his chest. He returned home with her in his arms, and sat down at his table with a plate of carrots in front of him. He mushed a section of carrot with a knife, and handed it to Botone. Botone grabbed it, and scarfed it down. Aldon watched, impressed. He took another piece of carrot and gave it to her, and she ate it just as fast. Throughout the night, he continued to repeat the process, his eyes opening further with wonder each time. How much did babies eat? This one seemed to have no end to its appetite.

Around midnight, Aldon noticed something strange. Botone seemed to be larger than when he had first found her. He picked her up from her chair, and confirmed the fact. All those carrots had gone straight into her body size. Was this normal for babies? Of course, Botone wasn't a normal baby. She was part of the strange cube that had come to Aldon during a dust storm. There was no way that she was normal. Aldon put her down, and noticed that he was sleepy. Botone did not seem in the least bit tired, but Aldon put her in a soft pile of hay beside his bed anyways.

One week later, and Botone was walking about the house, eating everything in sight. She moved quick, and loved to play with Aldon when he would let her. She was getting big, and was now about the size of a two-year old. Aldon kept in touch with Mother Gresha, though he didn't take Botone with him for fear of exposing her fast growth. Mother Gresha gave him tips about the keeping of children, and he returned the favor by purchasing drinks from her. Botone did not require very much maintenance, for a child, and sometimes Aldon felt comfortable enough leaving her at home.

Another month passed, and in this time Botone grew up to the size of a seven-year old girl. Her hair was a deep copper color, and her eyes were sea green. She liked to sit on Aldon's porch step and stare out at the world beyond. She also liked to help Aldon with his work, though Aldon didn't let her that often. He stopped contacting Mother Gresha for help, because of how much trouble Botone's fast growth gave him. She talked very little, sometimes about the weather, sometimes about food.

One day, she got hold of a piece of onion paper and charcoal, and began to draw. When she was finished, she had a perfect representation of Aldon's face. Aldon took it and hung it up on his wall. He looked at it at night and wondered who Botone really was.

One night Botone leaned in to the bedroom and looked at Aldon while he was whittling a broom with his knife.

"Aldon," she said, "I'm scared of the night."

Aldon put down his knife and his broom. "Why would you say that?" he asked. "What reason do you have to be scared?"

Botone sat down on the corner of Aldon's bed, and clasped her hands in front of her waist. "Something happened to me a while ago, at night. And ever since, I've been afraid of it."

"What happened?" Aldon asked.

Botone shook her head. "It's better that I don't tell you."

Aldon reached over and placed his hand on top of Botone's head. "I'll be here to protect you," he said.

Botone held out her hand, her eyes locked on Aldon's. "I have something to show you," she said.

Her body shimmered around the edges, and her skin lost its color, becoming a thick metallic grey. Her substance turned into a goop, and formed around Aldon's arm, crawling up his shoulder and covering half of his torso. It was warm, and soft like human skin. Aldon kept his cool, thinking to himself that this was only expected. The baby wasn't really a baby, after all.

"I'm growing," Botone said, her voice echoing through the room without any discernable source. Her body flowed off of Aldon's arm and then took the form of a sword, and half of a circle. An unfinished shield. "But I'm not done yet. I'd like to ask you to keep me until I finish my development."

Aldon could only watch in awe. "I . . . I think I can do that," he said. "You came to me, after all. It's been long enough that I care about you."

Botone formed back into her human body and looked at Aldon. "Thank you. I care about you too."

Aldon nodded, then put his hand back on Botone's head. "You're a real strange kid, you know that?"

"I won't be a kid for long," Botone replied.

She was right, it took her only two more months to come to full development, as an attractive young woman with long copper hair and sea green eyes. During those two months, she helped Aldon harvest in his fields, and ate half of everything that he harvested. Sometimes they would get to talking about the world, and Aldon found that Botone was in fact very wise. Aldon enjoyed having a partner in his house, because it meant a sharing of the load. It also meant someone to keep him company, and he realized then how much he had been wanting for company during his long years as a solitary farmer. Botone meant a lot to him. He began to dread the day that she would come to full development.

When she finally broached the subject, it wasn't like Aldon had expected. She talked to him over dinner one night, underneath the light of a single candle.

"There is a great troubling in the land," she said, catching Aldon off guard. "I'm at the center of it."

Aldon paused in his meal, to let Botone's words sink in. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I don't know any more than that," Botone said, putting her hands down on the table. "All I know is that there's something wrong with the world, and that I need to find out what, because I'm somehow important to it."

"I can believe that," said Aldon. "Stranger things have happened here. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to go on a journey," she said, "Though I don't know where. All I know is that I have to go."

"It would be best if you were to find out where you want to go first before adventuring out into a dangerous land."

"Is the world really that dangerous?"

"I can't tell you for certain, but I think it is." Aldon shifted in his seat uncomfortably. The thought of Botone, alone out in the wilderness, made him shiver. But he wasn't sure yet if he wanted to accept her decision to go on a quest. "Why do you want to go on a journey?" he asked.

Botone sat up straight in her chair. "I believe that there's something inside of me that needs to be found, and I have to find someone that can tell me what's inside of me. Who I am. What I am."

"You're my friend, that's what you are," said Aldon. "Don't get all broken up on me."

"It's just that I don't know. Anything. What I'm doing here. All I have is this vague sense that something's wrong."

"How about this. We'll go into town tomorrow and ask around for someone that knows something about you, drop hints at the inn, talk to Mother Gresha about your problem."

Botone folded her hands in her lap and looked down at the table. "I'd appreciate that," she said. "Thank you."

Aldon wasn't quite ready to go on a journey, but he knew that he had to face Botone's problem, had known it for a long time. He had let himself get comfortable with her in his house, and now he felt the pangs of sadness that came when he realized that he might have to separate from someone that he had grown to care about. He pushed back his chair and finished his meal in a few quick gulps.

"I'm going to go outside," he said, picking up his overcoat from a hanger on the wall.

Botone scarfed down the rest of her food and stood up next to Aldon. "I'm coming with you."

The two of them left the inside of the house and sat down in a pair of chairs on the porch step, overlooking Aldon's fields, his neatly planted rows of corn, about ready for harvest. Aldon took a deep breath and looked up at the stars.

"Journeys take a lot of money, you know," he said. "For food, horses, all that kind of stuff."

Botone leaned forwards in her chair and held out her hand. The skin on her palm shimmered, and coalesced into a spherical form. It splayed out a little bit, and gained a few facets around the edges. Then the grey matter switched colors, and became a shimmering crystal that reflected the starlight into a hundred different colors. Botone smiled. "See, money won't be a problem."

Aldon picked up the diamond and rolled it between his fingers, cherishing the feeling of the stone on his skin. It was cool, just the right amount of sharpness to arouse his sense of light-heartedness. He looked at the diamond for a long time, admiring its faceting, the purity of its crystalline structure.

"Is it real?" he asked.

"Diamonds are just a certain form of carbon," Botone said. "It's easy for me to create things like this. Don't ask me why, I don't know."

"What else can you make?" asked Aldon.

Botone put her hand on her chin and stared up at the stars. "All kinds of things. Here, look." She placed her hands together in front of her chest and moved them around as if she were playing an instrument. A form appeared in the air, and dropped down quietly into Botone's lap, turning a brilliant shade of yellow. Botone picked it up by its green stem and handed it to Aldon. It was a flower.

Aldon examined the flower and the diamond next to each other, and marveled at their complexity. "Where does the stuff to make these come from?"

Botone chuckled. "Carrots. Lots of them."

Aldon smiled. "I see you put all the food I give you to good use."

Botone leaned back in her chair. "You can keep those, and more. It's the least I can do to repay you for being so kind."

Aldon put the flower to his nose and smelled it. He caught the scent of fresh wind, and the smell of hair after a wash. He rolled the diamond between his fingers. "How about other living things?" he asked. "Can you make a frog?"

Botone put her finger to her lip. "I never thought about it, as a matter of fact. I don't know if I can, or what will happen when I do. Although, I don't like frogs. How about I try a bird?"

"A hummingbird," said Aldon.

"Right," said Botone. She put her hands together in front of her chest and moved her fingers as if she were playing an instrument. A form began to appear between her palms, taking on the shape of a tiny little bird. Botone swept her arms apart, released the bird, and it flew up into the air, taking in a deep red color in its fluffy feathers. A small string of matter connected the bird to Botone's chest. Botone smiled. "There. Hey, I can see what the bird sees." The bird fluttered around Aldon's face, and then moved in to the flower, poking its long thin beak in between the petals. Its wings beat with a heavy frequency.

Botone chuckled, and the bird fluttered up into the air again. It jerked to the side for a moment. Botone sucked in air through her teeth. She held on to her chest with one hand, and with the other, supported herself on her chair. She breathed in gasping breaths.

Aldon snapped the hummingbird up in his hands and placed it in Botone's open palm. The bird was reabsorbed into her skin, and she leaned back in her chair, taking a deep breath. "That was painful," she said. "I don't think I can keep so many creatures alive at once."

Aldon looked at Botone, glad that nothing worse had happened. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Botone put her hand to her forehead. "Yes, I'm just tired. I don't think I was made for this kind of stuff."

"You say you were made. Who made you?" Aldon asked.

Botone shrugged. "If I knew, I would tell you. But I don't."

Aldon looked up at the stars, and took a deep breath of the fresh outside air. He stood up from his chair and faced the door to his hut. "I'm going inside. Tomorrow we go search for answers."

Botone stood up as well and followed Aldon inside. "Tomorrow," she said.

 

 

 

 

Old works serialized: Binary Seven Prologue

Prologue

 

Night fell over a research facility deep in the mountains, untouched by any other signs of civilization. In the brush outside of the wooden fence that surrounded the brick and mortar structure, the brood mother waited for her chance to strike. Her children surrounded her, hidden beneath leaves and behind the trunks of trees. She was a tall, lanky figure, identifiable as female only by her long hair that stretched down to the sides of her body. Her children were not so cursed with the form of human bodies, and had to steal them from others in order to survive. They were a parasitic life form, each one taking over the body of a human and growing within it, changing it to suit its new function. They were welcome changes, the brood mother thought. Especially the smell, the warm, meaty aroma of decay that wafted off of her children's stolen forms.

Her name was Letherka, and she had a mission to perform. She sniffed the wind, to make sure that they people inside of the facility wouldn't be able to smell her and her children, and released a scent into the air that fired them up and prepared them for battle. They fought with the hands and teeth of their hosts, and with tentacle appendages that grew out of their fleshy bodies. She fought with a human weapon, a crystal sword, forged by the Elkith smiths deep in the forest of Andervard, from whose dead hands she had pried it from, while her children took the bodies for their own. She waved it in the air and approached the wooden gate that surrounded the compound. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of chemicals to Letherka's nose. She spat on the ground, and raised her sword to cut through the fence. The crystal blade bit into the wood with contemptuous ease, and the smell of charring plant matter filled the air, mixing with the smell of the chemicals.

Her children moved closer to where she was, intrigued by the new development. Letherka hissed at them warning them to stay back, or face her wrath. They obeyed without question. Letherka twisted her sword around, finishing the cut through the fence. She climbed through, searching both ways for signs of the enemy. She saw none, and motioned for her children to follow her through the hole. There were nine hosts, who came through the hole one after another. Some held simple metal blades, and others held nothing except for their teeth and their tentacles. One of them held a bow, for the host had been an archer before her child had taken him. Letherka turned to the building, and walked up the side of the compound, her children following close behind her. She held up one hand, long claws pointed up at the night sky. Her children stopped behind her. She looked around the corner of the building, at the main courtyard. There were three people there now, all of them cartesian, with the distinctive colored lines of light that their race possessed etched into their skin.

There were two men, and one woman in the group. The woman in the center was tall and proud, with long flowing black hair that reached to the bottoms of her shoulders. She had a haughty expression on her face, one that was undoubtedly attractive. She wore a lab coat, and held the badge of chief officer on her shoulder. She wore brown canvas pants over her long legs, surely things of beauty.

The man to the woman's left was shorter than her, and had a mustache that filled the space between his nose and his lips. A curl of color marked his cheek distinctively, and the rest of his body circuits were arrayed in a pleasing pattern. The man to the right of the woman was a portly fellow, and looked to be the head scientist of the facility. The three of them approached the door to the main building, and Letherka raised up her arm to command her children. She brought it down with a flash. The one archer in her group fired off an arrow, and it struck the portly man in the chest. The man with the mustache reacted first, twisting his body around to reach for his dagger. He took a defensive stance in front of the woman, and faced against the wave of Letherka's brood children that came down upon him. He was a brave man, and Letherka almost wanted to give him respect. The woman grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him away from the advancing brood, despite his protests. She ran with him to the door to the facility, which she opened fast, and closed behind herself, not fast enough to escape the prying tentacles of one of the Brood. The Brood's host flung its head and arms about and began to attack the opening in the door, and the rest of the Brood followed. Letherka walked up to the door, pushing them aside with her long arms. She reached into a pouch at the side of her body and pulled out a metal card about the size of her palm, and inserted it into a slot at the edge of her crystal sword. The sword beeped once, and Letherka's body surged with power. She reached out her hand and pushed it against the door. The door imploded with enough force to throw it off of its hinges. Letherka entered the room in front of her Brood, and walked into a long hallway filled with doors to either side. The woman and her friend backed up along the other side of the corridor, still visible from where Letherka stood. She reached into her pouch for another metal card, and kicked the one in her sword out of its slot. She exchanged the two, and then pointed her hand at the other side of the hallway, her other hand on her sword. Power coursed through her, and every door in the hallway burst open, crunching into a flat surface and then falling to the floor. The cartesian woman paused. Letherka swept her hand up, and the doors all ripped out of their sockets and flew into the center of the hallway, accompanied by the splash of broken glass.

The cartesian looked both ways, at her friend, and then at the broken doors, and dived into a room to her side. Letherka barked out an order to her children, and the Brood chased after her. She walked up the hallway, past the cowering man with the mustache, and lopped his head off with a single blow. The body collapsed to the floor. She turned into the room that the cartesian woman had gone into, and stopped in the doorframe. At the other end of the room, the woman held a cube about the size of her palm in the air, between her palm and her fist. She tilted her head and addressed Letherka.

"I know this is what you want. Isn't it?"

Letherka hissed at the woman. The woman didn't flinch, and brought the cube up higher in the air. Letherka took one step towards her. The woman dropped the cube to the floor and ground it under her heel. Letherka cried out in dismay. Much planning had gone into the discovery of that cube. Her master wanted it, badly. How could she fail now? In a surge of rage, she slashed with her sword, and every counter and glass in the room exploded. She spared the woman, however, who stood solidly in front of her. She hissed, and turned to one of her Brood. "Kill everyone in this station," she said. "Leave the woman alive. I want her." She turned away from the woman and walked out into the hallway.

Outside the facility, with the captured cartesian on the ground in front of her, Letherka slipped two more metal cards out of the pouch at her side and clicked them into slots in the edge of her sword. She lifted up her arm, and brought it down hard. The research facility rumbled, then exploded into a whorl of debris and dust. Letherka cackled to herself, watching the entire facility being reduced to rubble. She gave orders to her Brood to pick up the cartesian, and walked away from the site, her long hair waving in the wind stirred up by the dust storm.

Behind her, a single strand of lighter-than-usual dust separated from the raging storm, flew up high into the atmosphere, and then disappeared into the night.

 

 

 

 

My experience with AI text generation based on my work

I found an implementation of GPT-2, a text generating AI, that was on the web and would allow me to enter my own work as training data. So, I checked it out. The cost was less than ten dollars to build the machine and then eight cents per thousand characters after the first ten thousand. I was curious about what it would create. I fed it all fourteen of my books in a gigantic text file and left it to train. 

This is what I got out of the machine. 

The input paragraph: General Emeralda Stysh held tight to the rappelling line while arrows whizzed past her head, firebolts, thunderbolts flashed in the sky that was tinted orange with burning flame and the fire of dragons. Gigantic gorillas smashed their way through the city streets, and bats the size of adult humans—much bigger than her—flew in the sky diving down to pick up and tear apart any soldier unwitting enough to step outside. (This is the beginning of a scrapped alternate version of one of my stories.)

(This is where the AI generated portion begins.) Rainse stopped her fall, falling to the ground. She looked around for another way to fall, and found a way that left no trace. She shimmied, skirting the main street until she reached the edge of the river and plunged over the edge. Her black pant leg clicked against her black leather bag, and she sprinted past the guard rails, landing hard on the ground and rolling to a stop at the edge of the riverbank. The guard rails retracted, and Rainse got up on her hands and knees and pressed her nose into the grass. She looked around, found a slight trail of dots in the distance, and then took a deep breath, gripped her rope to steady herself, and then she began to climb. She had nearly reached the top when a guard, a woman with a red-rimmed helmet, came over the top of the railing and stood next to her. "Hello, officer," she said, walking down the lines like a hot knife through butter. "How can I help you?" 

Rainse frowned, but didn't tell her. She climbed, even though it felt like an eternity. Soon she was free of the flow and going up, leaving behind no marks. Soon she reached a mountaintop, atop of a high cliff, an enchanted ruin in a split-log town, and then she arrived at the edge of the forest. The road disappeared beneath the canopy of tall grass, and Rainse stood up and looked at the peak. 

It looked straight, more like a stone than a hill. Its top had not broken? No, it must have, because the stream I run was only two minutes away and it was perfect. She had been sent here, she had been sent there, but the stream must have turned and then gone no further. It must have been the barrier that had been there? It must have. The barrier must have made me think I couldn't go any further, only to make me jump. The barrier must have been behind me all along. I must have been in a very special place, something magical, to reach the peak of the stream and know that I would meet with something that could only have happened because of this life that I am living. But she wasn’t here? She couldn’t be, so it was a fact. I shouldn’t have been saying that, I know. It was a childish thought. 

There was something new on the ground where I stood. The roots. So, that must be it. There was something new in this forest. It was a magical place. A magical tree. 

Rainse covered her mouth, her eyes hurt to watch it happen. She couldn’t help it. She said it out loud, loudly enough that it was out in the world. “Whoa, hold on!” she cried. “Wait! What did you say about me being in the presence of a magical tree?” “You did it, Rainse. Did you say that it was a tree of power?” Rainse took a step back. 

She was having a very hard time. She stood there for a long time, but then she made it to the center of the tree, she reached out her hand to the top, and placed her feet in. Then, she looked down at the ground. “This is my house,” she said, all knowingness. 

She stared at the hole, and she looked at the patch of sky that was still covered in clouds. She looked down at the ground, and she said nothing more. She watched the grass grow back, and saw its green streaks disappear as her feet got higher in the canopy. She watched as her little home grew into the biggest house she had ever seen. 

She wanted to be proud. She wanted to live here. She wanted to grow up here. She wanted to have a family of her own, and that house was where she wanted to be. She wanted it to be a big house, and it was, in many ways, her home. She wanted it to be beautiful. She wanted it to be her house. She wanted it to be big and big and big, and her voice made the jungle at the bottom of the tree creak a little bit under the burden of her words. She was proud of the strength it held, the way that it looked, the way it smelled, and the way that it felt. She wanted to leave and be happy and, for the first time in a long time, she felt a little bit at peace with herself. 

She could tell her kids were happy, she was happy that she was with them, she felt good inside, happy to be loved by them. She couldn’t wait for the day when she would leave this village, with everything that was happening to her, this land, this life. She couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t leave them, the children who were in their homes, with the feelings she could feel. She couldn’t. She needed them in this world, and she had to be prepared for them to leave, with all of her new memories, and all of her love and all of her family memories. She had to do something for them. She had to stay alive, but she had to help them. She had to help them grow and be something more than this world they were in, but she couldn’t do it if she let them go away. 

And so she was forced to continue living, at the same time, holding on to the vision she had of the world. It was just the two of them, even though, it seemed like there was something else inside of each of their heads. A curious world just opened up in front of her. Every living thing breathed, breathed, breathed, breathed, for the first time, watching her, and now they were all coming together. 

She held her hand up, and watched, as she watched them all, at once. She expected that they would be angry. That they would die. She expected it. She had the power now, to end all of their lives, with her mind. But they weren’t. She had been watching too long. 

They weren’t mad anymore. She had seen too much for them to be anything else. They were happy now. She noticed that one of them, one of the magical girls, had stopped smiling. She had stopped smiling, too, but she looked surprised, at first, and then the smile came back, because it had been there before, it had just been hidden away for some reason. She broke it away from her face. It was the other girl who seemed surprised. She smiled, for the first time in an instant, and she looked at herself, for the first time, looking at the girl beside her, and at herself, and …

(Me again) The funny thing is that, though it's almost incoherent, it sounds like me. Like, I'm getting creepy vibes that I wrote it even when I didn't. Though this implementation is not good enough for commercial fiction, it certainly captured my writing style and voice. 

Anyways, I was hoping for something better and more coherent, but, you know, ten years down the line this may actually happen. As it is, I'm impressed and perfectly happy with the results as "research." Maybe in five years these AI mechanisms will actually be able to write a good book. 

The Cryptic Command Chapter 2

Chapter 2

B-408 (Scoob)’s Memory

//A note to the reader: the change of tense is intentional. 

The day I was born I was preparing for battle. Raised from an embryo in a tube, my entire purpose for being was to fight.

After half a year of training and forced growth, I was shipped off to the front lines.

I stepped out of the transport walker, steam hissing around me, three dozen of my identical brethren carrying their equipment.

“Those clunkers are going to get what’s coming to them!” said Sergeant A-12, known as “Bucky.”

That’s what we were there for. To fight the golems of the Malthuxians and defeat the Dark Ones.

The staging ground was filled with soldiers milling about. All of them were kithkin, my brethren from the same seed. We carried charge rifles and wore blue armor and helmets that covered our faces.

We all looked identical anyways, so that wasn’t a problem.

Bucky blew his whistle. “Squad seventeen,” he said.

The five of us in squad seventeen collected in front of Bucky.

“We have an important mission today,” he said. Me motioned to a feline standing with her arms crossed beside a box of supplies.

“That’s General Maki,” said Bucky. “She’s a Yedai. She’ll be with us to observe the coming battle.”

Maki scoffed, turning her head away. Her eyes showed an obvious disdain for us.

I stayed professional, like my training had taught me. However, something in me felt that General Maki was making light of us.

Bucky waved his arm. “Our mission is to protect her,” he said. “It’s either us or them. With her on our side, it’s going to be them.”

I turned to C-1020, known as “Serge.”

“Do you think she hates us?” I asked.

Serge shrugged. “Not my job, Scoob.”

My name, among my squad, was Scoob. Along with Serge and I, there was F-289, “Bord,” V-287, “Hammer,” and L-10, “Rye.”

Rye was the heavy weapons specialist. His arms were crossed, the rocket launcher on his back. “Our job is to do what we’re told,” he said.

Hammer put his hand on his sword. He, being the squad’s swordsman, had been grown with the most intelligence out of anyone in the squad. He needed it, as he was the only one among us to be able to use magic. He was our insurance against the enemy magicians.

Bullets did nothing against magic shields, but swords were effective. Thus, hammer doubled as our anti-magic suite.

Bord carried the squad’s explosives and other supplies. He was a big, heavyset kithkin whose only resemblance to us normal grunts was his face. His muscles bulged compared to us, and his armor was about fifty percent bigger than ours.

Serge frowned. “I don’t feel right working with Yedai,” he whispered to me. “They’re too powerful. They scare me.”

I thought so too, but I was unable to respond, as Bucky saluted and brought Maki over to us.

Maki crossed her furry arms and grimaced at us. “You lot are going to be my shield,” she said. “Don’t screw this up. I have ways to punish those who don’t work their hardest.

We stayed silent. There was nothing to say to someone who was so clearly above our rank.

Bucky slapped his rifle. “We’re going to bring Maki to a special shrine hidden in the Black Mountains that swarming with clunkers. The Malthuxians control most of the territory in that area. However, the contents of the shrine are especially valuable.”

Maki tapped her foot on the staging area. “Just do your job and no one will get hurt.”

I rubbed my temples. Something seemed to be causing a headache in between my eyes. The world went dizzy for a bit, and then snapped back into focus.

I turned to Serge. “Did you feel that?” I said.

“Eh,” said Serge. “Something’s off.”

I felt a quick flicker into blackness, and then my senses returned.

“… And if any of you slow me down, you’re going to suffer the consequences,” said Maki. She turned away from us. “Where’s the gunship?”

A Federation gunship appeared from behind a cloud and hovered in position over us. Its long, swept wings held rocket boosters that sent air swirling around underneath it. Painted with white and black, it appeared like a swan of death, armed with guns at every angle and missiles hanging underneath its hard points.

I had been trained on how to board one of these.

Maki was the last one on. When the whole squad was ready, we lifted off.

We flew over open fields towards the mountain range that slept on the horizon.

Over the city of Rochester, owned by the Malthuxians, we began taking flak. Explosions popped into existence around our ship.

“We’ve been outed,” said Bucky, donning his helmet.

A flak shell burst dangerously close to our gunship.

“You better not crash this ship!” said Maki, her hair blowing in the wind.

Bucky turned on his jump jets. “There’s nothing we can do if we do crash,” he said. “We’re far behind enemy lines.”

“They shouldn’t have known we were coming!” said Maki. “I’ll kill whoever ratted us out.”

“It wasn’t one of us,” said Bucky. “There’s no way we would go against our training.”

Maki drew her sword. “You better not be lying to me.”

She’s paranoid too? I thought. This wasn’t going to be an easy mission.

Another flak shell burst dangerously close. We went through the smoke cloud, and came out the other side with a flaming fuel tank.

“Prepare for crash landing,” said the pilot. He reached up and pulled a couple of levers.

Maki withdrew her sword. “If one person gets out of this alive, it’s going to be me.”

Bucky held up his hand. “Are you jump jets tuned?”

“Jump jets?” said Maki. “I can’t wear something stupid like that!”

The gunship shook with a dangerous rumble. We began to lose altitude.

“Get your jets on!” yelled Bucky.

I tuned my own jump jets.

“Bail!” yelled Bucky.

Serge was the first off. His jets engaged and he flew out of sight.

Next was Bord. His jets fired and he was off.

Maki seemed to be thinking. Her eyes flickered, and she grabbed Bucky aside.

“What the hell?” she said. “I wasn’t given one of those!”

“If you remember, sir,” said Bucky, “You were given one in training!”

Maki scoffed. “Well I don’t have one now. What are we going to do?”

“We have a spare,” said Bucky. He opened a compartment and grabbed a spare jump jet. “Wear this.”

Maki grabbed it and tried putting it on.

In the meantime, Rye jumped. Another ball of flak exploded close to the ship.

Maki went to the ship’s open doorway. Just as she was about to jump, her jets malfunctioned, spitting streams of charged particles.

Bucky grabbed her, but in the chaos they both tumbled off the ship. Bucky and Maki disappeared behind the ship.

I turned to Hammer. He shook his head, and then jumped.

It was just the pilot and me. I turned to the cockpit and was about to say something when I saw the blood splatters on the window.

He was gone.

I gave silent prayer, and then jumped. My jump jets activated and I landed softly on the ground in the middle of a field.

I could see where my comrades had landed on my tracking device. I struck off in the direction of Bucky and Maki.

After ten minutes, I arrived at their landing site. Maki was kneeling beside a prone Bucky. Blood covered Bucky’s armor.

“He’s gone,” said Hammer, stepping out from behind a stone wall. He went up to Bucky, kneeling beside him.

Maki stood up and brushed off her hands. “You guys are disposable,” she said. “Just be lucky I wasn’t the one who died. If I were, you wouldn’t have a future to look forward to.”

I kept my opinions to myself. A huge headache began, and my ears rang with a distant siren. After a bout of nausea, I returned to normal.

Nothing seemed out of place. Maki turned away from us.

“Can you guys figure out how we’re getting to our destination?” she said.

Serge came running from between the trees. “They know where we are,” he said. “We need to move.”

“We haven’t accounted for Bord or Rye,” I said.

Bord’s voice came from close by. “I’m here,” he said. He limped into the clearing, blood trailing from his leg.

“If you hold us back we’re leaving you behind,” said Maki.

Bord grunted. “I’m strong enough to work through a simple flesh wound.”

“Did you see Rye?” I asked.

Bord shook his head. “I don’t know. He could have been captured.”

“We should wait for him,” said Hammer.

“I’ll overrule that,” said Maki. “We’re leaving now. If I get captured, there’s no saying what will happen to our war effort.”

I turned away. “Yes, sir,” I said. It was ingrained in me to follow my superiors, without asking questions.

Maki flicked her fingers and Bucky’s body disintegrated into dust. I felt a little bit of a headache returning, but I chalked it up to the shock from the landing.

We headed towards the mountains. Since we were in the middle of enemy territory, we had to move carefully. We hacked our way through the underbrush until night fell.

As we sat around the campfire, Maki said nothing, staring off into the distance. Her face appeared a bit fuzzy, but I could tell that she was deep in thought.

Bord offered Maki some food. She slapped him away. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

Bord retracted his hand and went to sit on a log. The atmosphere was subdued. There was no talking.

Hammer made a motion and Bord put out the fire. We knelt down as some lights came from the east.

“That’s a search party,” said Bord. “They must be searching around our crash site.”

“We’re far from it,” said Maki.

“They probably used magic to follow our trail,” said Hammer.

Maki snorted. “Those primitives probably can’t even use magic to boil water.”

“Are you sure you’re not underestimating them?” said Hammer.

Maki shrugged. “They’re a bunch of idiots. The lot of them.”

“Underestimating an enemy will get us killed,” said Serge.

“I’m your superior officer,” said Maki, “And I order you to shut up about that.”

Serge looked at Hammer, and the two of them knelt down.

“We should take the fight to them,” said Bord. “Ambush them when they don’t know we’re here.”

Maki shook her head. “No, that won’t work.” She paused. “I know! We can set a trap for them and use the darkness to sneak up on them.”

“That’s exactly what I was suggesting—” Bord was cut off.

“You’re talking back?” said Maki. “It was my idea. You’re just a grunt. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

I felt a bit of that headache coming back, but the feeling passed.

Looking towards where the lights of the search party were, I gave Bord a nod.

Maki flicked her fingers and her body became shadow. “You guys go ahead of me,” she said. “While you’re distracting them, I’ll cast magic arrow and kill them all.”

Bord nodded. We approached the search party in the darkness, using the starlight as our guide.

“Are you sure they went this way?” said a man’s voice.

“I’m sure,” said voice that was filled with deep, velvety dread. “My magic does not fail.”

Uh oh, I thought. We’re up against a big guy.

Bord held up his hand. “Fire on my mark.”

Maki, surprisingly, didn’t argue. We took surrounding positions and zeroed in our sights. The silence was unbearable.

“Wait,” said the evil voice. “I sense something.”

“Hya!” yelled Maki, as she burst out of the shrubs and into the middle of the group. She sent a wave of force out in all directions around her, spreading the enemy squad out. The normal soldiers all collapsed to the ground.

I joined my squad in combat, opening fire on the stunned enemies.

The Dark One, the man with the evil voice, stood up in the midst of the chaos. His aura filled my entire body with dread. I could not see his face, but the scent of apples and roast beef radiated from his countenance—a smell that, contradicting its components, awakened in me a fear that I did not know I could experience.

I staggered backwards. This was not a man I wanted to mess with.

“Have at it!” yelled Maki, as she grabbed Bord with a force grip and tossed him at the Dark One. Bord’s body was ripped in two by the Dark One’s blade, but he was distracted.

Maki used that distraction and closed in, blades twirling.

The last thing I saw before the battle was her grinning face, so blurred that I could not make out her eyes.