The Blind Gods
Copyright© 2025 by Wau
Chapter 92: Awakening
Dian was having an old-fashioned coffee - outrageously expensive - cultivated on the rare emerged lands of Hume, practically contraband sold at a ridiculous price to the elites of Earth, and Earth alone. From her balcony, she observed the flat surface of Lake Starnberg.
Her LE called out to her - and it had Lucky’s rough tone:
“Madam something-or-other, I’ve got what you asked for ... the psycre, that’s it? Hurry up.”
“The psyche? What have you got?”
“I dunno, damn it! The AIs say: vector space with six times ten to the power of ten dimensions. That mean anything to you?”
“That’s exactly it. How did you get it?”
“Sorry to rush you, old lady, but weren’t you the one who said we were short on time?”
“That’s correct,” she replied rather calmly, checking an ancient gold watch. “The Aleph is arriving at the center in ten minutes. It’s too late, mysterious kid with a giant computer.”
A rolling vehicle of polished steel, with the pure predatory lines of a Xeno craft, honked on the road below. Dian recognized the car of her billionaire neighbor, whose lineage and fortune went back to the first creators of the After.
“You go down and get in that fucking car!” shouted the LE. “I’m driving. You’ll be there in eight minutes - I’ve got the map in front of me.”
Dian took a moment to think - ah! how frustrating it was not to be able to read the thoughts of her interlocutor - then dashed down barefoot.
The car didn’t start: it leapt onto the straight road leading toward Munich. The road was crowded with rolling drones carrying the supplies necessary for the area’s sweet way of life - but those same drones, one by one, threw themselves aside to crash into the guardrails, opening a clear path for the vehicle, which climbed to hundreds of kilometers per hour.
The city was suddenly paralyzed to let the speeding vehicle pass. Drones, taxis, and private cars swerved and shut down - sometimes, indeed, to protect a pedestrian from being struck by another.
Inside the prototype, Dian asked Lucky to unlock a project called Transfer Suit. It required on-site handling, and Dian contacted Aubrie. A half-awake face, after a night of work - or love - against a laboratory backdrop, appeared on the screen.
“Aubrie, please lift the seals on the Transfer Suit and connect the terminals to the comatose person inside the Wau Armor.”
“Uh, I’ll note that down.”
“I wasn’t clear, Aubrie. You’ll do it NOW, and you have exactly one minute to do so. The Aleph arrives in one minute and wants this device in place. If it’s not, he’ll turn your mind into mush - and if by any chance he has mercy on you, I’ll take care of it personally. I am not joking.”
Aubrie jumped out of frame toward a piece of equipment, as if electrified. Thirty seconds later, Lucky reported that the Suit was active.
“So, I plug in the psyche? I mean, the thing?”
“No. I want to see with my own eyes that it’s properly connected. It’s experimental, and Aubrie isn’t qualified.”
“An Original Tyger is aligning on UniPsi’s spaceport, old lady.”
“Well then, do your magic, kid. You managed to open a corridor for the car.”
The car screeched to a stop in front of Valentine’s mangrove garden - an ecological and legal blasphemy that adorned UniPsi’s square, brutal façade. With brisk steps, she advanced toward the laboratory, giving off a psychic impulse of overwhelming force that made every student, researcher, and professor evacuate the building as if it were collapsing.
She was so powerful that they didn’t even suspect it was an illusion - they became animals.
What a pity.
The panic in the city - with its drone crashes, the first in five hundred years - echoed the panic within the Uni.
The Tyger was caught in the same confusion. The LE contacted the pilot.
“Hello, uh, you can’t land - problem, uh, with the landing strip.”
“This is the Aleph’s shuttle,” declared the pilot imperiously. “I’m landing whether you like it or not.”
“Yeah, but you might crash, you know.”
“Who the hell are you, clown? I’m a test pilot capable of landing anything on anything. Trust me, we’ll find you and twist your ears off.”
And the Tyger approached the platform at the top.
“Oh, to hell with it,” Lucky muttered, and ordered the Tyger’s AIs to increase speed so it would actually crash.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.