Foundation of All

“Who is this friend of yours again?” Roger asked suspiciously as the four of them sat together in the main room.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Emily said in confusion, “It’s my long time girlfriend, Asuta. She’s always one for combat and big battles. If we told her we were going for a good fight we’d have to practically imprison her to stop her from following us there.”

“Girlfriend?” Sean said, “What about Brenda? Didn’t you two, you know…”

Emily chuckled with only a small note of tension in her voice, “Oh, that was just a little fun. Brenda has a boyfriend too. Did you know that? Asuta sleeps with all sorts of people, you kind of need an open relationship when you don’t see each other for tens of thousands of years at a time. Brenda has the same kind of deal, so don’t you worry about her if that’s what you’re thinking about.”

“Well you are certainly in a better mood at least,” Roger said, “Seems that it did you some good.”

“Yeah,” Emily replied.

“So,” Sean said to refocus the conversation, “This Asuta. How can she help? Isn’t this a stealth mission, wouldn’t she just blow our cover?”

“Good thinking, She’s anything but subtle,” Emily said, “But security is too tight now at Immortus Station. I doubt you two want to wait tens of thousands of years for things to calm down, right? That’s how long it would be at least before we had a chance at straight stealth.”

“No,” Roger said forcefully, “We can’t wait that long. We can’t leave Lira, she’d be furious to miss so much of Ash’s development.”

“Yes, It would be best to retrieve her as soon as possible so long as none of us are at risk of being captured alongside her,” Ash said.

“So, what? We just burst in there, weapons blazing and fight through the whole Immortal Council army?” Sean asked skeptically. He wanted Lira back as much as everyone else, but Ash was right that it was useless if one of them got captured again in exchange.

“Not exactly,” Emily said, “Asuta can attack and be a distraction while some of us sneak in and spring your friends from jail. Hey, speaking of. What about that Nyx guy? Why do you two keep not mentioning him when we’re talking about the rescue? Didn’t he help set up everything for your first prison break?”

There was a moment of hesitation and Sean thought about everything they had told Emily about Nyx. It seems they had forgotten to tell her the most critical detail somehow…

“Nyx is a Plaguebringer,” Sean said, “That’s how we got his help. He wanted to do all of it, break you out, help us, to impress you. Had a whole speech ready about how the Plaguebringers had changed and you should go back because they were better than they were long ago.”

Emily’s casual expression shifted into a frown and anger, “What? You worked with them?”

“Hey, he’s a jerk,” Roger said, “But he helped us out of a tight spot. He helped us pull it all off. All he wanted was a few minutes of your time then he promised he would immediately leave. He swore that he wouldn’t tell any of the other Plaguebringers about it.”

Emily gave Sean a betrayed look.

“It’s only a few minutes,” He blurted out, “The one speech and then he was gone if you asked him to. That was the deal. Nothing else. It was supposed to be on the ride on the ship out of Immortus Station when we would all be forced together anyway…”

Emily opened her mouth, looking angry while staring at Sean. She stood there for a moment, and then closed her mouth again.

“Okay…” She sighed, “Okay. I don’t like it. But I get it. I do. But this Nyx doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The old crowd of Plaguebringers will never change. Nyx hasn’t seen the aftermath of one of their purges when the mortals don’t match their perfect image for galactic society.”

Emily finished with some heat before running a hand through her hair, “He hasn’t seen all the suffering they’ve caused, seen… seen what I’ve seen. He can’t have and still believe that I’d work with them. Ever.”

“But you can tell him, right?” Sean said, “He practically worships you. If you tell him off, then can’t you help him change? He believes that his plagues are only meant to combat the Endless Flesh. He hates the old leaders too, and told us about how they are the ones that forced you to leave them.”

“I was never part of their group,” Emily said, “Never. No matter what they try to claim. They don’t even know how twisted it is that they believe that. There is no going back for me, I was never there. Only their propaganda has made so many believe it over the years. Say something enough times and it becomes true, right? It’s certainly worked out well enough for them…”

Emily finished speaking, trailing off and looking a little lost as she finished and looked between the two of them.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said, “We thought it was the only way. He seemed genuine at the time.”

“Ugh,” Emily said, “I’m sure he was. That just makes it worse. But… He did help you out, so maybe he’s not hopeless if he hasn’t done anything too bad yet. We should break him out of prison if we can.”

Roger and Sean shared a long look.

“Sure,” Roger said.

“Yeah,” Sean added.

“So, now we just have to track Asuta down,” Emily said after an awkward moment of silence, “She moves around so it may take a while. That’s if she’s not at home. But I promise it will be worth it. She hoards all kinds of weapons, it would be worth it just for that alone. She’s even blown up a few planets I think when she went into her cartoon villain phase…”

Seeing Sean and Roger’s horrified looks she quickly panicked and shook her head and gestured wildly around with her hands.

“No! Not like that! Uninhabited! Uninhabited! She got permits from the Immortal Council and everything, she just really wanted to cackle and give a speech before blowing them up. I had to wear a cape and dark eyeliner for weeks at a time and we both dressed up in these elaborate costumes, it was a whole thing… I was her second in command and tried to look menacing standing behind her while she monologued for the cameras. She even had a dark throne with fake skulls all over it that she sat on constantly… Huh, I wonder if she still has that old thing…?”

The two men stared at Emily like she was insane as she rambled on and somehow made them even more confused the longer she went.

“I am having doubts on this person’s mental stability,” Ash said, “That story makes her sound rather erratic, not someone we would want for an important assault on Immortus Station.”

Emily hesitated, “Well… She isn’t that bad really. And it was a lot of fun in the end. If we remind her enough then she’ll stick to the plan. But maybe… maybe best for you to stay on the ship when we meet her, Ash. She can get rather… excited when meeting new immortals and we don’t want you to get hurt in the crossfire.”

“What about us?” Roger asked incredulously, “Would we get hurt?”

“No,” Emily said, “Nothing too serious. She’s not malicious, just… impulsive! Just don’t worry about it, I’ll explain more later when we actually find her. It’s hard to describe without experiencing it for yourself. Asuta’s perfectly kind and wonderful once you get over her… quirks.”

“I suppose we will see,” Ash said, “We will have plenty of time to discuss on the way.”

“Hey Emily, you see these energy readings?” Sean said lazily as they sat in the headquarters of his Foundation of All world. Sean was idly scrolling through the map of the globe his satellites had built on the holopad. It was a little funny that the game was forcing him to use a device to do this rather than using the game interface. But he was the one that put it in the hard mode he supposed… After the satellites newest upgrades with Emily’s advice their sensitivity had gone off the charts and his images grew far more detailed than before.

Emily trotted over and peered over his shoulder, frowning when she saw the readings.

“Huh, that’s weird,” She said, “Hand it over?”

Sean complied and she inspected the data.

“I don’t know,” She eventually said, “We should go check it out sometime. I wonder if it's a surface deposit of uranium or something? I did put a lot of randomization in the generation of mineral deposits in this game. But the readings are strange if that’s what it is…”

There was a loud chime from all sides that sounded out to interrupt her and both of them looked up into the sky.

“Oh, that’s the alarm,” Emily said, “I guess we can check it out later. Mystery for later.”

Emily and Sean made the movements to log out and quickly returned to the blank white room. They went to the door and left, seeing Roger standing just outside.

“You said you needed to be the one to guide us in?” Roger said grumpily.

He wasn’t exactly so hostile with Emily anymore after seeing she meant Ash no harm, but he still kept a suspicious eye on her when he thought none of the rest of them would notice.

“Yep,” Emily said, “I really don’t want to hit one of the mines.”

“Mines?”

“Oh, yeah. Asuta is… She likes her weapons. Whenever she finishes a new type of mine or explosive she sends them in orbit around the edge of her solar system. Or any type of weapon really. This is probably one of the most well defended star systems in the galaxy.”

“Her system?”

“Yep. You have no idea how much she paid for it, it cost the same as a thousand settled planets at least…” Emily said, looking vaguely nostalgic, “But yes, she has her home there nestled inside all of her crazy defense systems and massive minefield. Speaking of which, let me just send out the codes real quick…”

They followed Emily to the cockpit where Ash already sat. Emily quickly went to the console and opened an open channel and put in a long string of numbers and letters for several minutes until it covered the screen.

Finally she finished and sent it out with a groan of relief as her hands relaxed.

“You memorized all of that?” Sean asked incredulously.

“Oh my god. You have no idea,” Emily said, “Every time I come I have to memorize a new one. Asuta only lets me keep a single piece of paper so I can study when I leave, nothing digital at all. Information security and all that. After I’m done I have to destroy it so no one else can get in.”

“What if you forget?” Roger asked.

“Then I have to wait,” Emily said while pulling a sour expression on her face, “Find Asuta out in the galaxy or contact her when she comes back here. But I don’t usually do that anymore. Trust me, it is so much more annoying having to wait around this old place for her to randomly show up. Oh, speaking of which…”

“Unidentified vessel,” A woman’s stern voice came from the comms, “This is a sovereign system, turn back around in five minutes or my automatic defenses will begin opening fire on you.”

Emily hit the button, “Asuta! It’s me, just relax. I sent the code and everything already.”

There was a pause and the woman’s voice became much more animated.

“Emily! Woooow. Come on in, come in. I’m just at the main station between adventures. You picked a great time to come see me. We’ll have plenty of time before I get restless again.”

Emily glanced at the rest of them before she spoke again.

“Oh, I’m not alone, Asuta. I’ve brought some… guests too. Please be gentle with them.”

“Guests? Mmmmm. No promises, babe. Got to see what they’re made of first.”

Emily rolled her eyes despite the channel being audio only, “Asuta, please. At least give them a warning first before you do something crazy. Can you do that at least?”

There was a long pause, and Sean could hear Asuta sulking as she replied,

“Yes, Emily. I promissssseeee. But just for you.”

“Great! See you soon, Asuta. Just got to navigate through the minefield first.”

“Okay, babe. I’ll heat up the hot tub for us so we can… catch up.”

Emily blushed and cut off the comms quickly.

“You didn’t hear that,” She ordered them and they all faithfully didn’t comment, even Ash.

“Mines?” Roger asked quickly, “I thought the signal deactivated all the weapons? Why do we still have to navigate around?”

“No, no,” Emily clarified, “The signal is for all the weapons platforms, missiles, automated ships, all the intelligent stuff. The mines are dumb, they check for something nearby that looks like a ship to blow up, and then do it. I don’t think most of them even have any receivers or software that can take a deactivation code like this. Asuta isn’t always thorough when she’s hit by inspiration in building the things…”

“So how are we getting through?” Sean asked, “If we can’t turn them off?”

“I’m an old hand at this kind of flying,” Emily boasted, “Just watch this, I’ll get us through this without a scratch.”

Several very stressful hours later, Sean’s knuckles were white as he gripped the arms of the chair he had strapped into.

“Haha! Not this time, little guy!” Emily shouted as the ship shuddered as the engines fired full force again. Sean saw on the panel in front of him the circular mine zoom past them and explode an instant too late. The ship shook a little bit, but they were moving so fast that the debris from the explosion rapidly disappeared into the distance.

After another tense fifteen minutes of Emily suddenly engaging the thrusters to barely dodge a mine hurtling towards them at high speed, she suddenly relaxed.

She turned toward Sean and Roger who were both white faced and breathing heavily from all her close calls.

“Check that out!” Emily shouted while smiling widely, “Wasn’t that fun? Asuta’s really upped her game since last time. A few of those almost hit us.”

“Yeah,” Roger said, “They almost did.”

“Yep,” Sean added, “Pretty close.”

“Oh, well,” Emily said, ignoring them slowly recovering from their trauma, “I thought it was fun. And we’re through it now. No more mines, just sit back and relax. Now we have to bleed off all of our speed we used to sprint through the minefield.”

The engines rumbled again and they all slammed back into their seats as the ship began to decelerate in preperation to landing on the single habitable planet in the star system.

The three Immortals and Ash walked out of their ship onto the massive landing pad. They hadn’t even taken the shuttle down, they had actually been able to land the main ship on the surface of the planet.

Sean looked to the side as he saw the rolling hills covered in green grass as far as the eye could see. Apparently Asuta had terraformed the whole planet by herself, and she was the only person besides them in this whole solar system. She had even culled aggressive beasts on the planet so the ecosystem was tame and barely dangerous at all.

Descending down from orbit, Sean had seen the large gray and steel circles scattered across the green and blue planet. Thousands and thousands of perfect circles of gray and metal dotting all over the planet with pristine wilderness in between them. He had guessed that they were cities and was confused, but Emily quickly corrected him.

They were weapons platforms, bristling with missiles, lasers, and a thousand other weapons ready to attack them the second Asuta ordered them to. Emily didn’t seem to notice how odd that was. No wonder she thought this place secure if Asuta had that many weapons on standby in case she was attacked. He wondered why Asuta would go to such lengths to defend herself.

The four of them walked forward towards a door sticking out of the ground a couple hundred feet away. It stuck out of the side of the platform as a square concrete structure barely larger than the door on its front.

Emily walked up and typed a code into a panel to the side of the door and it swung open. She opened it, and the group walked inside single file. Ash had to duck down to the low ceilings as they walked down a long ramp sloping into the distance. Only the occasional flickering light on the path lit up the gloom.

Emily clicked her tongue, “Asuta,” She muttered to herself as they were plunged into darkness again as the closest lights in the tunnel flicked off again, “I told you my new design would last longer than these old things…”

The lights turned back on and they continued deeper into the earth. After a while, the ramp stopped at a larger room that was much better maintained. The lights were strong and barely flickered at all. There was a vehicle sitting on a pair of metal tracks set into the ground, and a large circular and dark tunnel was cut into the ground. Emily went up to the vehicle and opened the door and went into the brightly lit interior, with the rest of them following her.

“Hey, Ash, could you help me for a second?” She asked as she walked up to what looked like a large wheel with long spokes lying parallel to the floor and raised to about the height of Emily’s belly button.

Ash stepped forward and the floor of the vehicle shook as he stepped inside.

“I have a little port here for electricity,” She said, “Can you connect and charge it up? Asuta leaves these things unpowered normally, they last longer that way.”

Ash did so, opening his chest and connecting a long wire from himself to the port in the center of the strange spoked wheel.

There was a soft hum as Ash’s antimatter generator kicked it up a notch as he transferred electricity to the vehicle they were standing in.

“How would it get charged if Ash wasn’t here?” Sean asked curiously.

“See that wheel?” Emily said pointing at the thing, “It’s an old school electrical generator. We would have pushed the wheel around for a few hours or so. You know how they work, right?”

Sean tilted his head and thought about it, “Not really. What do you mean by old school?“

“Oh, sorry. It just means it's the older way of doing it. At the bottom of the wheel is a big old magnet surrounded by a coil of copper wire. When we spin the magnet down beneath it makes the electrons in the coil of copper wire move and generates a bit of electricity.”

“Why not just use fusion power?” Roger asked in confusion, “Seems pretty inconvenient.”

“Lasts longer, only a few moving parts to wear down. And it’s not like we’d get tired pushing it around. But Ash will make things much quicker for us, it is very boring.”

The vehicle they were in shuddered and the doors closed behind them. A pair of powerful lights turned on, piercing the darkness of the large tunnel and the tracks that went into the distance. Emily went forward and hit a button on the front and the vehicle groaned and squealed before gradually shifting into motion along the tracks into the tunnel.

They gradually picked up speed as the vehicle slowly sped up until the air loudly rushed by them and the vehicle shook slightly as it moved through the darkness, only the two powerful lights piercing the darkness allowing them to see how fast they were moving.

Only a little time left until they met this Asuta in person. Sean wondered if she really could be as erratic as Emily’s stories of her painted her as. Surely not, right? Right?