70,000 years ago, give or take
It was hard work, taking over a world. Harder when there were still so many Users alive and attempting to fight back. But not so hard as to be insurmountable. And besides, the Master had warned them it would be this way.
The initial strike had vanquished the most powerful of the world’s Users—aside from their Seven, of course. Power had been conjured and channeled through the very foundation of the world itself, causing earthquakes and firestorms, hail, lightning, every conceivable weapon nature could be forced to wield.
And when that had been insufficient, their master had called down the very heavens on his enemies. Meteors and satelites, torn from orbit, came crashing down onto man and his works, obliterating both in an eyeblink. Along with anyone standing nearby—or in the same city block.
But the strike had not been intended to destroy every User in the world. There were too many; to make the attempt would have been even beyond their master’s power. But those who remained were those with imperfect understanding of their Helpers, who had been unable or unwilling to put in the work to truly comprehend the power that hovered only a few steps behind them, awaiting their every command.
So now the Seven hunted. And with each kill they grew stronger, taking the remains of the User and their Helper and adding it to their own. By the end of the first day, the Seven had slain forty Users across three continents.
By the end of the second, they had slain six thousand.
Sarisi took a deep breath of stained air as she exited the quarters of what had been a human being only a few moments before. It was hard work taking over a world, hard and bloody and worse when they wept. She had known they would weep. Master had warned them all. That when the death they had earned came for them, that when the butcher came to collect his bill, there would be weeping.
But knowing did not make it easier. Not when they begged. Not when they seemed so young.
“You are weary.” Kali’s voice was gentle behind her, the Helper floating just behind and above her left shoulder. “You should rest.”
“The task is not done yet,” she said with a sad smile. “I will rest when it is. How many are left?”
“We estimate eleven thousand,” Kali said. “Twelve hundred are within striking range. The rest have been tasked to the others.”
“How is my husband?” she asked next. His great heart must be breaking with the necessity of their task.
“He weeps,” Kali said, and her voice was soft. “But my brother comforts him where he can. They both find the task… difficult.”
“As do we all.”
The words were strong and melodious, and came from a mouth she knew intimately. She turned, knowing he would be there, and he was. The Master stood there, eyes gentle upon her, his ever-shifting Helper by his side.
“To heal a world rotten with cancer,” he said quietly, “we must be willing—“
“To wield the scalpel,” she finished the thought that had bound them together for decades. “Hello Noah.”
“Hello Serisi,” he said, and if the electric tingle she had once felt when he said her name no longer made the connection within her, the ghost of a spark could still be felt.
“I thought you were cleansing Europe.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I was. But Orion,” he nodded at his Helper, “informed me that you had a moment of free time, and so I chose to take advantage of that.”
She allowed her eyebrows to draw downwards. “I hope you are not here to rekindle old matters between us. I told you—“
“Peace,” he held up a soft-palmed hand. “I am well aware of your feelings on the matter. No, I have come to enlist your aid in a second, most important task.”
Her features smoothed as the fear and anger at what she thought he was here for subsided. “I am yours to command, Master,” she said, and favored him with a small smile. Not the one she had given him all those years ago, no, that one would never again see the light of day. But a smile nonetheless. “What would you have me do?”
“Orion.” He held out his hand, and his Helper reached out and conjured… Something out of thin air. A long piece of silvery nanomesh, electric-blue with energy and intent that landed in his outstretched palm.
“What is that?”
“This,” he said and held it out to her, “is for when one of my children succeeds in betraying me.”
Her hand froze halfway up to accepting the device. “What?”
“Do not look so shocked. It is inevitable. Today we are unified by a single vision; mine. Tomorrow? When the earth has been reformed and the centuries have passed like so much water beneath a bridge? I know my children. They are ambitious, driven, committed. Today it is my flag they follow. But sooner or later one of them will rise up and attempt to raise their own banner above mine.”
“And you will defeat them should they do so,” she said, believing it.
“Most likely,” he agreed readily, but did not retract the offering hand. “But strong as I am, wise as I am, good as I am, I am not infallible. There may come a day when one of my children succeeds in destroying me, in seizing control and attempting to undo or change all of our work. When that happens…” he hefted the device in his palm and extended it towards her again.
She eyed it as if it were a snake, but of the poisonous or merely cute variety she was unsure.
“What does it do?” she asked finally. “If it is a device to slay us all…”
His laughter was still gold and honey on a warm day. “Nothing so petty as that. Have I not preached natural selection to you all for years? The strong devour the weak, or would were it not for our corrupt society. Should I seek revenge upon my students for following my own teachings? If one of you rises against me successfully, should I not be proud and satisfied that the world is as it should be?
“No,” he continued, looking down at the device. “No, this is merely an old man’s foolish whims. You see, while I am content to allow a student to overpower and take my life from me, I am unwilling to allow my murderer to continue on with what I have worked so hard for. This device will, when activated, reset the world back to what it was before tonight. It will remove all traces of the progress we will have made, leaving my successor back where we all started.
“You see,” and here his voice turned quiet and deadly, and there was the venomous fang concealed within his quiet dignity, “if the one who kills me wishes to have my perfect world, they will have to earn it themselves. I will not stand by and allow them to profit from my hard work if I am not around to enjoy the spoils as well.”
It was very like him, she decided. Benevolent, kind, understanding… But with an undercurrent of razor-edged steel that could lash out at a moment’s notice and be wielded as skillfully as any surgeon’s scalpel.
“Why me?” she asked, still staring at the device. “Surely you do not claim to trust me above all the others?” If this was about those nights they used to share, if he were truly so foolish as that…
“Of course not,” and there was that razor’s edge. “Given time and opportunity, even you might betray me. No, I give this to you because you I am most certain I can control, should the need arise.”
She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. Her mind, not by any means dull, sped along pathways towards possible meanings… And found one.
“If I step out of line,” she said softly, raising her eyes to meet his, “you would tell my husband of us.”
“I would.” He nodded. “I would take no pleasure in it, nor do I take pleasure in explaining it to you now. I know how much you love him, how much you treasure your relationship. And he loves you in turn, more fervently than I have ever seen a man love a woman. And were he to learn of you and I…”
It would destroy him, and them, and then her. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose and let it out again. And again she felt the old shame boil up, the remembered nights of passion, of learning her master’s body just as she gave herself to be studied… And how, finally, it had ended.
“We have an accord,” she said finally.
“Take this,” he said, the razor’s edge gone again. “Add it to your Helper’s main mind. And, should the time come, it will activate. You need take no other action, but it must be connected to your Kali to work. It was designed so.”
She nodded and finally took the device. It was light and ethereal in her palm.
“What is it called?” she asked.
“The Failstate,” he said.