Pax Multi Pt. 10

Bosch shook his head. "This isn't possible. They're all within range of the transmitter, this isn't POSSIBLE!"

Lou watched him, intently. And through the camera feeds, he could see the people in the streets. Men and women with guns, their gray uniforms marked with hastily daubed AnCom symbols, supported by heavy duty Terror Talons, marching towards bunkers and civil defense check points that the Federated States had built, fortified, staffed and trained in the use of for decades. Whatever insurrection they had planned for, they had not planned for it to be started simultaneously across the city as stunned, shell shocked civilians emerged to find a helping hand, smiling face, free food, and guns.

They definitely hadn't imagined that it might have included walking, twelve meter tall biomechanical tanks armed with heat seeking acid spraying organic missiles.

"I wonder how well the Chancellor is going to take this," Lou hissed through gritted teeth. "You sold him on the idea, didn't you?" He glanced left, then he glanced right, at the two marines. "I mean, if the Chancellor even survives for the next few hours. It looks like a hell of a lot of proles are out there in the streets with guns. People, you know, have a pretty long memory." He frowned. "My ancestors learned that, in France."

Bosch's head hung forward. He turned, slowly -- and then frowned. "You two. Man the guns." The faint sound of screaming and gunfire was coming from one of the speakers -- and through the camera into the headquarters that Lou had been dragged from, he could see the sight of combat specialized bioforms cutting their way through the defenders. They seemed to be as perturbed by Project Etemenanki as he was.

Not at fucking all.

"Yes, man the guns," Lou said, his voice flat. "Man the guns and die in them." He looked to the left, then to the right. "You've lost. But you know what? If you take that armor off, if you pull your marine identification chips out of your wrists..." He smirked, slightly. "I'm pretty sure people won't find you for a while. I'm betting that the government's deleting confidential files as fast as possible before the parliament building gets raided and central command gets looted." His voice was growing more and more confident as he kept the pain out of his mind through sheer willpower. "After all. You're just a Lance Corporal and a Private First Class?"

"Don't listen to him, men!" Bosch said, his sweat so intense that his hair had flipped down. His hand went to his belt and he jerked his pistol free. "He claims that we are doomed. And yet, he has no will. No true grit. We'll hold a gun to his head and his precious bugs are going to grovel to make sure we don't hurt him."

He aimed the gun at Lou's face.

Lou lifted a single eyebrow, then slowly, his jaw tightening, placed his injured hand down upon the armrest.

He pushed.

White hot pain shot up his arm and filled his eyes and his knees nearly buckled. The only thing that kept him from face planting was the weight he put on his arm -- and that made the pain worse until he lifted his palm and the absence of pain was so intense that he almost felt good. Lou lifted his chin and sent his most icy, withering glare at Admiral Bosch. His skin was beaded with sweat, and his breath was ragged, but Lou managed to speak without stammering.

"If you shoot me with that pistol, my body will live for a few seconds. In those moments, I will clear the distance between me and you and I swear, Admiral Akin Bosch...by the Daughter and the Holy Ghost. By the Flaming Chalice and the Ten Thousand Faces of God. By the living memories of Achilles and Ashoka..." His tongue darted along his lips, and he growled. "I swear...for I am Prince Louis Benoit XII of the Neopolitan Star Kingdom and by that name and for the honor of humanity...I...will kill you."

His eyes flashed.

"Drop the gun. Now."

Silence rang in the room. Bosch dropped the pistol onto the ground with a clatter.

Lou dropped to his knees, panting. "Wow, that worked," he breathed. "Hah. Holy shit."

"What!?" Bosch gaped -- but Lou had already reached out and snatched up the pistol. He aimed it at Bosch, grinning fiercely.

"An honorable gentleman never treats a prisoner with dishonor," Lou said, his voice ragged. "Be damn glad I am both..." He started to lift himself up, panting, his vision going gray around the vision. In the distance, he could hear screaming sounds -- metal, being torn. "Or else I'd have blown your fucking balls off."

***

"So, good news: You're gonna lose the hand."

Lou frowned, slightly, as he laid back on his bed, looking up at the AnCom doctor. His mother and his father were both looming in the other part of the room, holding one another. They were covered with the telltale signs of both a rapid defrosting and a rapid, combat acceleration couch ride. Bruises, sallow skin, sunken eyes, still unhealed clamp marks from where the shunts had been hastily tacked into their bodies. It was, in the end, all signs that...despite their flaws...they did care about him. They cared enough to flash defreeze from their cryocrypts and then cared enough to hop into combat ships rather than wait to be put under for a civilian transport. A human body took a beating when it was conscious through a stabdrive acceleration, even using limited speed bosts.

It made his own ire towards them ease.

Slightly.

"Where is my wife," Lou said, his voice flat.

"You know, most people ask about the hand first," the doctor said, shrugging. "I don't know your wife, Louis, but I do know this: Your hand needs to come off. And that's good news! You can get a replacement graft really easy that way -- prosthetic, cloned, whatever you want. If they had left more of it intact, your religion or whatever would require a way slower, way more painful repair schema. This is good!"

"Great, where's my wife," Lou said.

The doctor glanced over at Mother and Father. "Can someone get this guy his wife already? Listen, I'm just a fucking medtech, I'm not a wifetech. Get this guy his wife!"

"Lou, you need to take care of yourself first," Mother said, her voice nervous.

"Where. Is. My. Wife!" Lou shouted.

"I..." Father looked as if he wasn't sure what to say. The flap to the emergency medical tent opened and GF and Amy both hurried in. Amy had fabricated herself a beret and had several bandoleers of high caliber bullets slung around her shoulders, with a heavy duty looking anti-material rifle slung over her shoulder. It was one of those unfolding guns, so it was currently retracted into a small oblate sphere that bounced against her shoulders. GF had gone for something more classic -- a sleek assault rifle, similar to the ones that had been handed out by the Bugs.

"Holy shit what happened to your hand!?" GF exclaimed.

"Where is Beatrice," Lou said, his voice serious.

"I don't know," GF said, blinking. "I'm shocked there's anything on this planet left standing after that." He nodded to the wound, while Lou thrust it at the doctor, hissing quietly.

"Cut it off and seal the wound and then let me out of bed so that I can find my goddamn wife," he said, and the doctor nodded, holding up his hands. He picked up a small rectangular box that unfolded, grew larger, and then opened the far end of it and Lou thrust his hand into it. The painkillers he had been given made his arm felt entirely numb and dislocated -- like it wasn't even there. There is a faint blurring feeling, a whisking slice, and then a buzzing heat. When the box is removed, a shimmering cloud of nano was flowing and shimmering on Lou's stump, making it a smoothed ending rather than a ragged ruin. He pushed himself to his feet.

"Louis, son-" Father said, but Lou stepped out of the tent and into the barely controlled chaos of the medical area. Ships were beginning to drop from the sky, slowly settling down in a hastily cleared spaceport. They were a riotous mass of colors, as if an entire circus had decided to take to the stars, but they had all been hastily daubed with paint or had their smart-skin hulls reformatted to show ancient symbols of medical care and aid on them. AnCom volunteers, Plurals, Upkin, everyone who had heard of the shocking events around Mars, all of them rushing to help.

Lou swept his gaze left, right, left again -- and saw one of the bioforms that had landed. She was a twelve foot tall, muscular mixture between a crab and an armored marine. She was using a huge pincer claw to wave people past, shouting. "Come on, this way, this is where nerve staple victims are being piled up, we need people who are good with nerve damage and trauma! Councilors too! Anyone who can handle trauma, this way."

Lou ran forward. He didn't care that it wasn't one of the forms that Bea had made for him, he didn't care that she was all hard edges and armor. His arms wrapped around her awkwardly as he pressed his face against her carapace, breathing in her scent, her Bea'ness. He shuddered and, finally, let himself cry, wracking sobs of pure relief as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. The crab-body turned.

Then...

Wrongness.

"Whoa, uh, whoa, buddy, it's...uh, it's okay, are...is this one of the staple-ees? We're having a synesthesic breakdown here?"

Lou stepped back, wiping at his eyes. His stomach did a slow flop. "B-Bea, it's me?"

"...I'm...not..." the crab souned at a loss. "Oh. Oh holy shit, you're Prince Benoit."

"Who are you?" Lou whispered.

The crab spread...her? his? arms, gesturing to themselves. "My name's Markus Go Fish, uh...oh holy shit. Uh..." He paused. "Listen, your wife resleeved me, back when you went missing, back out past Pluto..." He said, lifting his claw up, clacking it. "My stack's buried in the back here. Gotta admit, it was a bit of a shock, but she laid out. You know, smash the state, liberate the Federals, that kind of thing. Rescue the prince. Classic fairytale shit. And, well, I was already in the militia, so-"

Lou looked around, his hands shaking. "W-W...What?" he whispered, trying to keep up. There was another bioform. Except it wasn't Bea. They were directing traffic. There was a moth bioform -- and she wasn't even looking at him. And she had a stack on the back of her neck, glowing just under the skin. Lou started to breath. His vision was going gray as he put his stump to his stomach, clutching at himself with fingers that weren't there.

"Whoa, whoa, kid, whoa, calm down," Markus Go Fish said, his claw resting on Lou.

"W-Where...where is my wife?" Lou hissed. "Where is...w-where is Beatrice?"

Lou's father came jogging towards him, emerging from the crowd. "Louis...my son, it's..." Lou turned to face him, his breath catching. The tears were streaming now -- tears pouring down his cheeks. Father didn't speak. He didn't say anything. He simply took Lou into his arms and held him, and held him, and whispered, again, and again and again. "I'm sorry. Lou. I'm so sorry."

***

Lou felt as if he had been...hollowed out. There was a vast, empty void inside of him. He sat beside his wife, looking down at her. Beatrice laid in a webwork of complex machinery -- devices that had been hacked and jerry rigged together by AnComs and Plurals and Upkin and liberated Federals and Neopolitans, all working with a desperate hurry. But it wasn't his wife. It was a body, devoid of mind, devoid of thought, devoid of anything but the slow, ticking breathing and the flow of nutrients.

It was a lump of flesh that was kept alive entirely by machines.

Lou wanted to feel horror and offense at this. If he had been in a similar state...

But no.

No, he couldn't. He couldn't feel anything but desperate want. To see her breasts rise and fall with the slow movement of the ventilator that was keeping Beatrice's lungs filled what little oxygen she needed. There weren't enough machines for the other bodies. They were in the morgue. Being examined. Being...

Lou closed his eyes. His remaining hand clenched tightly around her hand, the hand that didn't have feeds running into the wrist to try and keep her biological systems from collapsing. The door to the room opened. Amy stood there. She was looking hollow eyed. It was possible, it seemed, for even an artificial woman to cry. Lou instantly felt a deep, horrible, black shame in his breast for even doubting that. For ever thinking of Amy as anything less than...than what she was. But to see her, standing, walking, thinking.

While...

"They had said it was quick," Lou whispered, softly. "She didn't suffer. The machine turned on...and she went out. Like a light." His voice was a ragged, raw rasp.

"Lou...m-my other..." Amy paused. "There's another me, out there, a quantum linked consciousness. We're used for communications, you know. Uh...when you started heading home, she was part of a mission being sent to one of the other bug systems. L-Lou..." Her voice broke. "L-Lou that ship's not picking up any quantum communications...I...t-the Plurals think it was...that it...propagated..." Her voice broke again. "Oh god, Lou, I'm so sorry."

Lou wanted...to scream at her. To throw something. To tell her to leave. To...to just...to go. To leave. To get out of his sight. To never come back. Instead, he whispered. "I thank you for your thoughts, Amy. Please. Leave me with my wife."

Amy nodded and fled, her sobs echoing down the corridor.

Lou opened his mouth. Then...he closed it. His head hung forward and he tried to think of anything to say, in the enormity of the moment. He whispered, very softly. "Beatrice..." He paused. "You were...I..." He paused, then slowly, he let himself break. His tears streamed along his cheek as he buried his face against her side, feeling her coolness. "Beatrice...I...I can't...I can't live without you." He whispered, his shoulders shaking as he clung to her, squeezing her hand so tightly he worried he might hurt her. "Please. Please." He hissed. "Please...don't..."

He trailed off into silence.

Nothing happened.

Lou slowly stood. His fingers released Beatrice's and he looked down at her face. If he didn't look at her mouth, at her ventilator tube, he could almost imagine that she was sleeping. Which...he shook his head. "Y-You never...you never figured out how to sleep, Beatrice. Y-You never knew how to stop." He leaned down. Slowly. Gently. His mouth pressed to her lips, feeling the plastic tube against his mouth.

He kissed his wife one last time.

He turned and started to walk away.

He came to the door.

Bleeeee- clunk.

Lou froze.

The ventilator kept making the high, whining tone -- the tone that said that someone had removed a much needed tube. Lou felt a slow, dawning, impossible feeling. It was like a sunrise in his belly. It was like his heart was growing, larger and larger, hammering in his ears. Thunder. He could hear thunder. He turned, slowly, unable to move any faster, as if the noise might stop, as if-

Soft, whining, raspy. "Oww..."

Lou finished the turn.

Beatrice, her body trembling, was sitting up, her eyes blinking slowly. Her antennas drooped, but she saw him and she gave him the smallest, most tiny of smiles.

"That..." she whispered. "Is what sleep is...like?" She coughed, weakly. "I do not like it."

Lou stumbled forward, collapsed to his knees. He grabbed onto her hand, then buried his face against her side, gasping, shuddering. "Beatrice. Oh my Beatrice, oh my life, I..." He sobbed, clinging to her -- and Bea stroked his hair, weakly, the wires and tubes that were running into her skin tugged taut.

"S-Shhh...shh..." she whispered, her voice soft and fragile. "I will never...never never, never...never...never again. Never." She reached down to take his other hand -- then screamed as her hand closed around a stump. "You have been vandalized!"

Lou could not stop laughing. It hurt. And he did not care.

The door opened and Amy came running in. "Lou, are you- OH MY GOD!" She screamed. "Oh my god oh my god! Everyone! EVERYONE!" She shouted -- and within moments, Godfucker had come into the room. He burst into tears, then ran forward and threw himself down next to Lou, squeezing him, burying himself against him, sobbing without fear or sadness. Father and Mother came in later, and Mother screamed, almost as loudly as Amy had -- and in shockingly short time, Beatrice was propped up on a pillow, with a doctor examining her, asking her questions. Shouting the questions, actually, over the clamoring voices from everyone.

Godfucker, being Godfucker, had already gotten out the wine glasses, and Lou had downed his without hesitation. Fencing, fortunately, made him fairly good with his left hand, even if his right had been dominant for most of his life. The doctor, finally, shouted.

"Everyone shut the FUCK up!" Which, well, was proof that they were an AnCom. Once the room had quieted, with Father looking faintly aggrieved to be so shouted at, the doctor turned to Beatrice. "How the fuck did you do that?"

Beatrice blinked. "Oh!" She said, blinking. "Oh, um...w-well, when Lou went missing on the Invisible Hand, I knew I had to rescue him. But I knew that any weapon that would target me would have to target my...me. Killing my bioforms would not work." She nodded. "And so, before we began the attack, I went to sleep." She bit her lip. "B-But I was supposed to wake up once it was safe..." She frowned, slightly. "According to my bodies on other planets, I have been asleep for almost four days, far longer than the device was online!"

She looked at Lou, then smiled, slightly. "But then...w-while I was not...suddenly..." She put one of her blue-black hands on his cheek. "Suddenly, I heard you. And I felt you." She smiled. "Then I just had to get back." She paused. "Where are my other bioforms, I wish to hug Lou with a bioform that is not so very tired."

The doctor coughed. "Well, uh...this bioform should be on its feet again in just a few hours."

"They dissected them," GF said, cheerfully, pouring himself more wine.

"Awww!" Bea looked sad. "Why didn't you dissect this one? This is the one most in need of being replaced. It needs more erogenous zones. And wombs!"

Everyone started to laugh. Bea looked around, in confusion.

"Did I make a jest?"

***

"And this is where I grew up," Lou said, stepping from the horse drawn carriage, smiling as he held his left hand out to Beatrice, who stepped from the carriage, her eyes widening. Her moth form looked utterly delightful in a classical Neoplitan dress, the skirt and train both rustling along the fabric. The yellow-gold Venusian sky and the brilliant foliage of the artificial jungle that had been planted since the world had been cooled and spun and the atmosphere had been thinned and the oceans returned...all of it contrasted against her beauty and her strangeness, making her feel as if she was supposed to be here.

"This home is so large!" Beatrice exclaimed. She smiled at him. "I believe that I will fit in quite well. Though, I'm not sure how I will manage only having this bioform for the next ten years..." She pouted slightly as they walked together towards the house. "A decade with a single body and you? But how will you have sufficient amount of sex? And how will I have the requisite number of children to have a child!?"

Her frantic nerves did make sense -- the frantic preparation for the attack against the Federals had required her to literally recycle and reuse every biomorphic trick that she had. In effect, she had treated her own long term ecology as disposable, losing the ability to replace losses to make enough bodies for each of the hundreds of thousands of egos stored in cortical stacks. Those egos were, even now, being transferred into bodies more suited to their personal tastes...though, a shocking number of them were remaining in the bioforms that Beatrice had crafted for them.