Mech 3: The Empress (12 page)

The builders of Droad House had begun with a simple cut-stone farmhouse. But as the power of the family grew, so had their pride and seeking of status. They’d built a medieval replica of an Old Earth castle eventually, some seven decades back. This was stylish at the time and helped garner council votes for advancement into the titled ranks.

Nina fell to one knee, and bowed her head. “Mother—” she began.

“Do not
dare
address me in that fashion,” Olivia snapped.

Nina paused and blinked. If not
mother
, then how should she address this woman?
Olivia
surely wasn’t going to be acceptable. She decided to be as formal as possible, as her mother loved formalities.

“Baroness Droad,” she said. “I beg your forgiveness.”

The customary response would have been a nod at least, but her mother remained motionless. She only stared malevolently.

Tears welled up in Nina’s eyes. Her mother knew the facts, but it was Nina’s duty to report them anyway. She did not know how to officially inform a woman that her favorite child was dead, but she was determined to do just that—it was her duty. “I have grave news to report—” she began.

“Grave news?” Olivia echoed suddenly. She laughed then. It was a strange sort of laugh—there was nothing healthy or mirthful about it. Nina had never heard someone cackle before, but the term fit the sound her mother made.

“Grave news indeed!” Olivia continued. “Such a way you have with words, girl. Is this your conception of a joke? Is this some twisted manner of speech, meant to lighten the mood?”

Nina paused, at a loss for words. Tears glistened on her cheeks. “I—I don’t know what to say. My twin has perished. My beloved Leon—”

Baroness Droad lurched up from her throne, as might a puppet whose strings had been harshly yanked by a cruel master. She was suddenly erect and looming atop the dais. She was taller than her daughter, and despite her age, one could tell she had once been athletic and beautiful, just as Nina herself was today.

The Baroness pointed an accusatory finger at Nina. She sucked in her breath and shook her head. She let a crystal goblet drop from her hand to smash upon the stone steps that led up to the throne. Nina had not noticed the goblet before, but now she could see the bluish wisps of vapor that rose from it.

“You’ve been drinking, mother. You are not yourself in your grief.”

Her mother laughed at that. It was a full-fledged laugh. “For so many long years you have haunted me, girl. Now, you’ve done your worst. I suffered your existence as no other of my rivals was ever tolerated. You were the viper I took to my bosom. Do you know that when you suckled, you were the one that always bit me?”

Nina opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had seen people in grief, she had seen people intoxicated by the maddening drug known as blur-dust, but this was the first time she’d encountered both at the same time. She tried to think of a way to defuse the situation, but none came to mind. She decided to ignore her mother’s odd behavior, make the report that chivalry demanded, and exit the castle as quickly as possible. Her mother was bound to come to her senses in time.

“We met with a force of mechs, Baroness,” she said, standing at attention as her mother staggered down the remaining steps toward her. “They were not guided by any human group we could see. They ambushed us in the near desert of Sunside. We were overwhelmed, and somehow they disabled our perrupters. I was knocked senseless—”

“And your brother was killed, removing him from the line of succession. Yes, I know your plans, girl. If anything, this proves you really did sprout from my womb, despite everything I’ve felt to the contrary.”

“Wha—what?”

“You heard me. You arranged this. You were twins, but you came into this gloomy house five minutes after your brother. He was thus the elder, and set to inherit everything.”

Nina shook her head, not so much in denial, but as if to clear it. How could she be hearing these foul words? How could her mother suspect her of such evil?

After standing and gaping for a few seconds, something her mother had said managed to penetrated her thoughts. That this imagined murder of Leon reminded mother of herself. “Mother, are you saying you killed someone to reach your station?”

Her mother cackled again. She walked to a table carved with dark hardwood and poured herself a fresh goblet of blue, wisping liquid. She sipped it and hissed in pleasure.

“Of course I did. Did you think all I did was sleep with your father? A dozen girls could have taken that easy route. After any contest, examine the winner. Rarely will you find the contestant that took the easiest path.”

“Who then? Who did you remove from your path?”

Olivia huffed. “Have I not been clear? If there are a dozen girls, and you are perhaps in the middle of the line-up—the math seems clear. By removing the first five or six, you have just reached the front of the line. What could be more obvious?”

Nina shook her head in shock. Her mother had killed to reach her station? Killed rival women? She now recalled stories of her youth, things whispered of grim times before her birth. Her father, Lucas Droad, had possessed another wife before Olivia, that much she knew. She’d died long ago…could her mother have had something to do with that? She looked at her mother with new, horror-filled eyes.

“Not father’s first wife?”

Olivia shrugged. “Why not? The woman was a cow.”

Nina put a hand to her mouth. She felt heartsick in an entirely different fashion. Suddenly, she felt she understood her father’s exit from this world as she never had before. Who would want to live with such a horrid woman?

Olivia busied herself with another goblet. This one she lifted and offered to Nina.

“Here,” she said. “Since we are truly the same flesh, perhaps we can come to an understanding. Take this drink and toast me, daughter of mine. You are now my only heir.”

Another girl might have accepted the toast, but within Nina’s person was not only the heart of Lucas Droad, but also her mother’s temper. She drew her sword instead and slashed the goblet from her mother’s fingers. The power-sword in Nina’s hand had appeared with startling speed and she’d flicked it on in the same automatic motion, as the armsmen of the castle had taught her to do. It was only good fortune that she hadn’t cut away a portion of the Baroness’ hand as well as the goblet itself.

The blur-dust laden alcohol steamed in a slurry mess on the flagstones. Shards of broken glass reflected the light of the power-sword, which ran with plasma. The smell of the blur-dust vapors filled the room and stung Nina’s eyes.

Olivia nodded, as if unsurprised. “I offer you peace, and you draw your weapon and threaten me in my own chambers. I can see your ambitions exceed a single step forward. You are not content with being next in line to this throne, are you? In a way, I suppose I should be prideful.”

“No. No, mother—”

“Do not bother to deny it, child. These things are in the genes, you see. It is nothing to feel ashamed of. Unfortunately, only one woman can rule. It is not your time, nor will it ever be. Perrupters!”

Nina’s head twisted from side to side. The mechs that stood in each of the room’s four corners had each taken an immediate step forward. They had stood still all this time, as they always did, one under each of the four flickering artificial torches that illuminated the throne room. They now were at attention, awaiting their orders.

“Mother, I only feared that the wine was poisoned. I’ve done you no harm.”

“Of course it was poisoned, girl. Perrupters, take this assassin to the dungeons. Put her in the flooded cells. She is to be disarmed, chained, and left for the fish-rats to feed upon.”

Nina took a step back and tried to look at all four of the perrupters at once, which was quite impossible. Her eyes were wide, and they stung from staring in fear. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest and she felt mildly ill. How could all this be happening? How could all the worst moments of her life be wrapped up into a single heart-wrenching day?

But the perrupters did nothing. Nina watched them, but they did not do so much as twitch. Her mother hissed in vexation.

“I should have changed their conditioning years ago,” Olivia said. 

There was a blinding flash, and Nina felt her arm go numb. She looked down and saw her right hand was missing. It was on the floor now, impossibly it seemed to her. The fingers still gripped the hilt of her saber and the blade ran with sparking plasma.

Nina fell to her knees in shock. Olivia stood over her, smiling for the first time today. It was a grim smile, without revealed teeth or any hint of joy. It was a smile of vengeful triumph. In her mother’s hand was her own power-sword, a blade which ran with pale green wavering pulses of force. She’d slashed off Nina’s hand while the girl eyed the perrupters.

“I had a deal with your father, you know,” Olivia said, holding her sword high for a killing stroke. “When he received the summons from the Nexus, he left two infants in my care. It was not only duty that drew him to the high post at the Nexus. He did not approve of my methods of social advancement, and I’d tired of him in general. I promised him no one else would be slain in pursuit of my ambitions, if he swore never to return. Thus he gave me sole rulership of Droad House in his absence. Today however, I must break that pact with your father, as you have forced my hand.”

Nina waited no longer. She still had her brother’s sword on her waist. Her remaining hand moved without warning. There was a blurring arc of white fire as her brother’s sword blazed into life. In a single slashing motion, Nina drew the blade from with her left hand and flicked it outward, cutting low. The blade sizzled and smoked as it cut her mother in half.

Disturbed by the sudden violence, the four mech perrupters twitched and shuffled, but there was nothing they could do. Conditioned to protect the entire family, they could not interfere when the various members fought amongst themselves.

Nina struggled to her feet. Her hand had been severed diagonally across the metacarpal bones. The wound had been cauterized by the power-sword, and although it ached dreadfully, it did not bleed much.

She looked down at Baroness Olivia Droad, whose eyes still burned, but with a diminishing light. The Baroness was in shock and beyond speech. Her upper half twisted upon the floor, dying rapidly.

“I’m truly sorry, mother,” Nina said. “I did not want to ascend in this manner. But I knew I might have to slay you when I came here on this cursed day. I suppose, in a way, you were right to fear me. I am your daughter, after all.”

Eight

Over the next standard year, Sixty-Two advanced his cause to unexpected heights. Legions of mechs now followed him, conditioned to obey his will alone. Most of them were laborers retrained to wield guns and swords. Some were combat models, captured via EMP blasts and enslaved with rewritten software and conditioning modules.

This last fact bothered Sixty-Two. He realized he’d started this campaign to free himself, but it had grown since then. He was now responsible for the status of thousands of mechs, all those that were not under the command of some human or another. The irony of the situation did not escape him. He had wanted only his own freedom, but was now the master of thousands.

He’d thought at first he was a hero—a liberator of an enslaved people, a people he himself had been forcibly sentenced to join. Unfortunately, whenever he encountered new mechs, they resisted him, as they were conditioned to defend their masters. This often meant violence and deactivation, followed by reconditioning. But therein lay the philosophical difficulty: if Sixty-Two simply reprogrammed the mechs to follow his orders rather than the orders of their human masters, was he any better than those original despots? The fact he was a mech himself did not absolve him completely. The situation was indisputable: he had fancied himself a liberator, but had become a replacement tyrant who led an army of obedient slaves.

It wasn’t just this ethical dilemma that caused him to make changes in his methods. A large motivator was simple boredom. Life was interesting and adventurous enough, to be sure. He never tired of planning a raid, assaulting a Twilight village and freeing a fresh company of mechs. But there was no one to
talk
to
. The mechs of Ignis Glace were under the strict onus of intense conditioning—which made them intensely dull. As a group, they had forgotten their pasts as humans. The mind-scrub was the first process applied when the job was done right. They did not question Sixty-Two’s judgment, offer advice or encouragement. They simply existed, answering any of his questions as truthfully as they could without personality or even quirks.

Sitting on a bench in a tent in a deep gulch that had once served as a solar collection station, Sixty-Two summoned a serving mech into his presence. This mech was female, he knew by asking her, but she didn’t know her own name, her age, or her favorite color. She had lost almost everything that made a person a human being inside. The metal structure of her body resembled every other mech that strode around the encampment, monitoring the sky and maintaining a vigilant eye at the perimeter.

Still, there was something about this one that was different. She had a name for one thing: Lizett. He wasn’t sure if that was her real name, or a name given her by her former masters. But it didn’t matter. He saw it as a positive thing, as most mechs didn’t have human names at all.

“Lizett,” he said, eyeing her dusty chassis thoughtfully. “Would you like to be a girl again?”

“I would like that,” Lizett said.

“Are you just saying that because you think I want you to?”

“I want what you want.”

Sixty-Two sighed. “Lizett, I want you to think about it. Think about having a flesh and blood body again. Would that be pleasant? I have no opinion one way or the other.”

Lizett hesitated, unsure of the right response to please her master in this situation. “Do you like women of flesh?”

Sixty-Two laughed. She was trying to work her way around the problem, asking him an indirect question to determine what the right answer to his question might be. At least this showed some intelligence and initiative, if not true freedom of thought.