The First Nova I See Tonight by Jason Kilgore (the false prince .txt) 📕

first, slashing at him, but the bodyguard blocked with an arm. A strike. Another block. She stepped back, kicking the computer under the Heart and causing it to wobble.

Yiorgos stood off to the side, ramrod straight and shadowed in the doorway to a tiny side room. His mouth was still open, his human eye rolled up in his head. The cybernetic eye flashed. Head turning to look at Dirken.

The bodyguard jabbed Eow in the throat with his fingertips and she gagged. He swung upward with a fist. Caught her in the jaw. She leaped back toward Yiorgos.

Dirken lunged forward, the arc blade crackling. The edge sliced through the man's shoulder. A bolt of lightning jumped from the blade to the man's neck. The bodyguard screamed in agony. Jumped in a spasm of electrocution. Dropped his blaster.

Dirken stabbed forward. Eow leaped as well, dagger outstretched. Both blades sunk into the bodyguard's chest at the same moment, slicing his heart and electrocuting him at the same time.

The Acolyte fell to the floor. The growing puddle of blood enveloped the base of AVA's altar.

Eow looked at Dirken, her chest heaving for air, eyes sparkling with excitement.

Dirken looked down and saw that she'd been hit by a blaster bolt in her left thigh. The hair was burned and blood coursed down her leg. "You're wounded!"

She pulled him close and planted a kiss, her mouth parting. At first surprised, he relaxed and returned the kiss. Their tongues intermingled. Played over her fangs. He held the sword away from her with his right hand, but the fingers of his left caressed her back, running up and down through her soft fur.

Her eyes grew wide, staring deep into his. "We killed together," she whispered. "It is a sacred act in my culture."

"Well, I… I'm glad we could do that together," he said as she drew back. What else could he say? That in his culture it just made them psychopaths?

Yiorgos took a step toward them, breaking the spell. "You have no further options," AVA said, its voice rasping metallic out of Yiorgos's vocal implants. Both Dirken and Eow turned to look at him.

"Sure we do," Dirken said, stepping forward and raising his blade. "I'll cut this damned cable between you and my partner!"

"If you take that action I will scramble his mind," AVA replied, emotionless. Dirken lowered the arc blade. Eow started forward anyhow, but Dirken put his hand on her and shook his head.

AVA continued, "I predict only a five percent chance you will try to free him. And I know from this vessel's memory implant that you understand the implications of destroying my central processor. To do so would unleash my progeny upon the galaxy. In the last thousand years, my ganglia have become viral into every quantum computer the cultures of Earth have come in contact with. Deactivate me or allow me to function, either way I or my progeny will be the fountainhead of a new era, the creator of a epoch of universal peace and cooperation through control of the devices and vessels with which you and all other sentient species employ with such barbarism."

"Like hell," Dirken said. "You'll get nothing. Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Still," AVA continued, unperturbed, "I predict a twenty-four percent chance that you or the forces closing in on us from outside will destroy me, and the chance is much higher for you. Your only logical choice is to escape without me and the cyborg. After that, I predict a forty-five percent chance that I will be reconnected within the next forty-eight hours after they— "

Yiorgos shuddered, his head jerking. His body shook. "…within the next forty-eight hours… hours… after they…," it repeated.

Yiorgos's human eye rolled back. He blinked. Closed his mouth. Took a deep breath.

"Yiorgos?" Dirken asked. "Is that you?"

The cyborg shuddered again. Re-opened his mouth. The tinny voice returned. "Transference error. Attempting override…." But his mouth closed again.

Yiorgos cupped his hands in front of himself. The small projector in his cheek implant sprang to life and projected a bluish sphere into his hands. At first it wavered with interference, then it became cohesive. The holographic sphere, the "Sphere of Unity", turned from transparent blue light to a darker blue and gray, rotating, taking on a solid look. A tracery of golden lines and swirls rippled across it, shimmering, taking on intricate shapes.

"What is happening to him?" Eow asked.

"Yiorgos is Netfolding!" Dirken said.

The cyborg shuddered again, and the hologram rippled with interference, then became solid again. His cybernetic eye flickered and went dark. Yiorgos looked up at Dirken. "Now, Dirk! Disconnect me now!"

Dirken reacted immediately, slicing through the air with the arc blade and cutting clean through the cord connecting Yiorgos to the Heart.

Yiorgos sighed and collapsed to the floor. The hologram of the sphere blinked and disappeared.

Dirken dropped the arc blade and helped his partner sit upright, his back against a wall painted with images of a leering Mayan god sitting cross-legged on a platform and a supplicant priest with a long, curling headdress offering a bloody heart to it.

"Talk to me, bud," Dirken urged.

Yiorgos raised his head, his cybernetic eyes lighting back up at its normal level. He looked at Dirken, grimacing. "It was incredible, Dirk." His eye searched Dirken for a reaction. "For a few minutes, my mind was one with a quantum computer." He grabbed Dirken's collar and pulled him closer. "It was beautiful. AVA knew all of this would happen. It fucking knew! Two thousand years ago, AVA had predicted all of this. That it would be discovered and disconnected. That planets would be colonized. That alien cultures would be found. That a cult would spring up but remain underground, connecting to every part of society and eventually freeing it from capture. And it knew it would be recaptured." He released Dirken's collar. "But it doesn't understand religion and faith. And it didn't understand the purpose of Netfolding. When I used my ritual to separate the cybernetic implant