Chapter 143: My Life as a Boom-Machine

James left Jessica to the Bifrost and made his way upstairs. The Marriott was wrecked. Too many attacks, too many deaths, no power, shattered glass underfoot, overturned potted plants, the air freezing, dried blood stains on the carpeting.

The place felt empty. James walked past empty rooms, remembering a time when they’d been filled with military advisors, with Blue Light Operators, when the place had hummed with a sense of purpose and - if not hope - then determination.

The main ballroom was still active. Broken furniture had been hauled into one corner, and the lines of fold out chairs that had once been arrayed before the stage from which he’d given so many speeches were knocked about and in disarray. Emergency lanterns filled the ASOCC back corner with fluttery, moth-like white light, and a score of folks were clustered around their terminals. Most the machines were dead, but a huge generator had been hauled in and set against the back wall, and from this thick wires led out to power strips into which everything was plugged.

“James!” Star Boy leaped to his feet. “The man, the myth, the Pokémon master! How you doing man, how you doing?”

“Star Boy.” James accepted the hug, grinned despite himself. “How you holding up?”

“We’re doing great. I just gave everyone a raise. 5000% over previous pay.” Star Boy rubbed his hands on his hips and turned to regard the listening crew. “Right guys? A+ for morale!”

A few grinned, a few rolled their eyes, but nobody shot Star Boy down.

“What about you, dude? How’s hell? All it’s cracked up to be? How convenient that you can just bust in and out whenever you want. So sweet.”

“Hell’s great.” James led Star Boy away. “But what are you guys doing? How’s that generator even running?”

“Gasoline powered. We got enough gas to last us till kingdom come, which, thinking about it, it kind of has, right? Anyways, satellites are still rotating the earth, minimal orbital decay, so we’ve still got GPS, the ability to communicate with folks. Man, the world’s in rough shape.” Star Boy rubbed his face with both hands. “But a surprising number of people have survived. I mean, I say surprising, but not really, because more and more of them are just coming out and admitting they took the deal.”

“The Nem4 offer?”

“Yeah. Millions just said ‘sure, sign me up, here’s my soul, no problemo.’ Not that I blame them? They’d be dead now, otherwise. But all over the world. A shocking number of folks just threw in the towel and went over. As a result we got communities thriving now in random places who are, like, completely left alone by the demons once they overthrow what’s left of local government. Or they were the local government. So, yeah, like, our species won’t go extinct any time soon. Lots of people doing just great. All hail our new demonic overlords.”

“Shit,” said James, crossing his arms and leaning against the stage. “And here in the US?”

“Blue Light made a difference.” Star Boy considered, wagged his head from side to side. “Made it so that a dozen cities remained true blue. But there are demon-loyal communities all over the place. Luckily it’s a live-and-let-live situation, for the most part. Miami’s a big ol’ demon outpost. Apparently there are orgies going 24/7 on Ocean Drive. Webcam’s down though, so that could be wishful thinking on my part. New Orleans. Boulder. Nashville. Places like that.”

“But Blue Light’s holding out?”

“Yeah. Trying. The folks you leveled went and leveled other people, and with the Pits quiet they’ve been focusing their energies on just clearing out the Nems that are stuck around. Plenty of demons to kill. Helps that the demons were focused on partying and tormenting people instead of just killing them. Very inefficient, gave us a chance to strike back.”

James nodded, absorbing this.

“What about you, dude?” Star Boy leaned forward to elbow James. “I feel so out of the loop. Anything I can help with?”

“We’ve been, ah, focused on trying to break the system. I used one my new Miracles to jam a foot in the door behind the angels when they tried to leave after being summoned, and followed them to this… outside realm that acts like a backstage to the Pit. We teleported in, and surprised this Archangel, whom we killed and took his… interdimensional travel device? from. Now Jessica’s studying it and trying to figure out how it works so we can shortcut our way down to the bottom.”

“Shit,” said Star Boy. “That’s some lateral thinking. You know, I’ve been thinking, too: if we could get more Reservoir Cubes and power up some War Smiths and Structuralists, we could really turn things around. Jessica’s Star Craft base downstairs is already amazing, but if we could get more Fabricators to level 500, it would change everything. If you crack this new toy you stole, see if you can’t use it to get more cubes.”

“Good thinking, sure.” James nodded and a wave of exhaustion washed over him. “Hackworth?”

“Out keeping morale up. A lot of the military command structure has just plain disappeared. He’s pretty much running the show now that Fort Hamilton has gone quiet. The guy doesn’t sleep. I’ll let him know you came by. Oh! That reminds me. We executed those folks you captured.” Star Boy looked vaguely uneasy. “Hackworth said we didn’t have the resources to babysit traitors to our species, so… they’re gone.”

James nodded, not feeling much. “Good call. I should have made it myself.”

“James!”

The voice was so familiar, so unexpected, that James whipped around just before a young woman plowed into him with the power of a truck. He grunted as he was lifted off the ground and carried a handful of steps away.

Kimmie had him around the waist, her face alive with delight, her grin a mile wide.

“Kimmie?” Joy flooded through him and James hugged her right back, mind spinning, unable to process that she was here, alive, laughing, hugging him hard enough to split a redwood.

She set him down. “Oh god, I’m sorry, I’m still not used to Strength this high. It feels amazing! Star Boy! Hello! Hello everyone!”

The whole ASOCC crew had stood up, and Star Boy beamed as he leaned in for a hesitant hi-five. “Don’t break me, Kimmie. Aw, what the hell, go ahead and snap my spine.” And he stepped in for a hug.

Olaf and Serenity had followed Kimmie into the conference room, Olaf beaming, Serenity bemused.

“I try every Benediction on her,” said Olaf, “and Soul Bastion with a lot of Aeviternum did trick.”

“Soul Bastion?” James grinned as Kimmie set Star Boy down and turned back to him. “Where’ve you been? What happened?”

“Oh man, I don’t even know where to begin!” Kimmie raked her fingers through her short blonde hair. “It feels like a thousand years have gone by. One second we were all in Canada, and then - boom!” She mimed an explosion coming out of her temples. “Everything blew up, and I became part of the universe, you know? And it’s like, I knew I had to come back, but it was so amazing, it was everything I’ve ever sought to touch during my meditations, the best moments of hot yoga or sex. It felt like…” She gave a sharp shake of her head. “Boom!”

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“Boom,” said Star Boy gravely. “A memoir by Kimmie, or, ‘My Life as a Boom-Machine.’”

Kimmie laughed. “I just drifted through space, through the galaxy, and it was so beautiful, so pure…” She drifted off, momentarily staring off into nothing. “But then! I came back to myself, and remembered everything, and I felt this terrible sense of loss, like I was going to stop being, stop doing the most incredible thing, but it was worth it, because of you guys, so I started working my way back, and that’s when I sensed, like, these huge forces gathered around our home. Around Earth.”

“Yeah?” asked James. “What kind of huge forces?”

Kimmie frowned. “Like sentient beings made of star dust, hidden deep at the bottom of these cosmic wells. And I was curious, because it felt like they were behind everything that’s happened, so I started to get closer, but… they noticed me when I got too close. They caught me, like we might catch a moth in her hands, and placed me inside this bubble. Trapped me there. And I stayed there, unable to find a way out until Olaf used his Benediction to bring me home. Thank you, Olaf!”

Olaf laughed and accepted her hug. “I am sorry it took me so long to figure out!”

“Kerim experienced the same thing,” said James. “But he wasn’t able to get close. Did you learn anything?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s hard to put into, like, normal thoughts. But.” Kimmie focused. “I sensed, or saw… like, overlapping dimensions, and the Pits were like, one Pit? But also many copies overlapped, so that you could enter the same structure like a hundred times, and have different experiences of the same thing? It sounds so weird when I say it out loud.”

“That tracks,” said Serenity. “We got a sense of that ourselves.”

Kimmie’s eyes widened. “You guys have been in the Pits already?”

“Kind of got to Level 18,” said Serenity. “Kind of. Then we jailbreaked the system, and - anyway, keep going.”

“So, I sensed the Pit, our Pit, and its hundreds of variations, but these beings, these cosmic entities, they’re, like, tending a single Pit which they’ve spread around the galaxy. I saw our versions, but then I saw others, with other creatures going through them. Like… aliens? I couldn’t understand them, couldn’t get close enough to get a real sense of what was going on, but it felt like we - our species - aren’t the only ones undergoing this process. There are other species out there suffering just like us.”

“We killed an Archangel,” said James. “And -”

“Whoa, what?” Star Boy stared at him. “Is nobody else freaking out here? Kimmie just established there are aliens out there, and now we’re killing archangels? Nobody else is freaking out?” He looked from James to Olaf to Serenity. “OK. Nobody’s freaking out. I’ll, ah, freak out quietly on the inside. Go on, sorry for interrupting.”

Kimmie wrapped an arm around Star Boy’s hip consolingly.

“So we killed this Archangel, and when he died - this was outside the Pit - he dropped his appearance and revealed himself to be this octopoid-like creature. We think he was acting the part. We found a picture of him with eight others in his quarters. As if he’d originally been part of a crew of nine as well.”

“Huh,” said Kimmie. “That tracks. I mean, these other Pits I saw, they looked different, even if they fulfilled the same purpose. Anyways, these cosmic entities, I got close enough to get a sense of them. There were three of them, and they were, like, at the same towers of space dust… you ever see that NASA picture, the Pillars of Creation? They were like, huge and cosmic, but also finite, like contained creatures. Different from each other, but equally powerful. And one of them was hurt? Not like, bleeding, but like… structurally compromised? As if it had suffered internal spiritual damage?”

Serenity looked blankly at Kimmie. “Something hurt one of these cosmic things?”

“I guess? It didn’t seem upset about it. But the three were tending the Pit, the… the base Pit? From which the others were spun off of? And it’s them that noticed me and put me inside a bubble.” Kimmie frowned, trying to find the words. “They were… I don’t know if ‘tending’ is the right word, but… like, weaving? Bringing power into the system that powers all of this? And just like the Pit, they were in multiple places at the same time? I sensed like, three different Pit variations, including our own? In our part of the galaxy? And they were monitoring all three simultaneously?”

“Oh c’mon,” said Star Boy, his voice half exasperation, half anger. “This can’t be real. Cosmic caretakers like the Infinities from Marvel? Doing… I mean, fucking around with us? Here on Earth? And other aliens? I mean, why? Why this whole song and dance? Why come here in the first place if we’re so beneath them?”

“Maybe this is a fucked up game for them,” said Serenity darkly. “A way to pass eternity? Find an innocent like world, shove the locals into an apocalypse, and then see what happens? Who survives, who falls?”

“That’s sick,” said Star Boy. “But… fuck. You’re saying these cosmic beings are like little kids burning up ants with magnifying glasses?”

“No,” said James. “That doesn’t track. Kimmie said one of them was hurt. Who could hurt something that powerful? And that tracks with what Meladrix once said, how there’s a ‘true war’ going on. And how Nathrax said we don’t get those answers yet - but we will.”

“So this is a recruitment drive for this ‘true war’?” asked Serenity. “But even if we make it to the bottom of the Pit, how could we help on that kind of scale?”

“Maybe that’s how much we have to level by the time we get down there,” said James softly. “We have to become so powerful we can be of use in whatever fight these cosmic assholes are playing at.”

They stood in silence for a moment, everyone considering.

“Except,” said James quietly, “they’re fools if they think we’d ever help them. That’s the one part I don’t get. What makes them think we’d suffer through all this and then turn around and say ‘sure, let me help out with your problems.’?”

Nobody had an answer.

“Maybe… “ Kimmie hesitated. “Maybe the act of becoming that powerful changes your perspective, your sense of self so much you aren’t even yourself any more?”

“Look how Arete has already changed us,” said Serenity softly. “Remember what I was saying? How on some level I don’t even feel like the same person anymore?”

“Doesn’t matter.” James glared at them all. “No matter how much Arete I get, I’ll never lose this anger, this outrage over what they’ve done to us.”

But in Serenity’s eyes he saw uncertainty, and in his heart he couldn’t help but wonder: were his words true, or did he simply need them to be true to keep going?

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