It was done. They proposed a new referendum, which was basically just like
the old one, but tweaked enough to be considered original. Thanks to the
tireless efforts of Dreychan Glarieda, Yunil Tereth, and all of their
friends, including even Vip, they were able to sway people’s votes. Slain
kind of became a pariah on Castlebourne. He was so well-liked, but they
eviscerated him in the media, so to speak, and he was not happy about it. He
didn’t speak out in public, though. He aired his grievances to Dreychan and
Yunil in private, but he didn’t poke his head out of his hole. He was too
embarrassed. He shouldn’t have been. People had short-term memories. Many
were glad to be done with the political decisions for a while.
When the refugees first came to this world, they were super hesitant to
enjoy themselves, because there weren’t as many opportunities to do so in
the Corridor. They had pretty much gotten over that, though and loved their
recreation now. To them, the government was there to do their job, and stay
out of their hair. No more voting, no more referendums, just do whatever you
need. So they were all out of the spotlight by the time the sun actually
started moving across the galaxy. None of them was allowed to know any
details about it, or how it was being done. The sun-mover evidently wanted
to maintain their anonymity, and that was fine. Perhaps Dreychan and Yunil
could do the same, and finally rest. Or maybe not.
Someone yanked the dark hood off of Dreychan’s head, and pulled the bandana
out of his mouth. He looked to his right to find Vip and Amazine. Yunil was
to his left. They were all on their knees, with their wrists tied behind
their backs, and still gagged. Amazine was scared, but the other two
weren’t. He realized why. Like him, she was undigitized. If she died here
today, that would be it. Yunil and Vip would be fine, so why were they here?
What were these assholes trying to prove? He looked up, and didn’t recognize
the scowling thugs, but he did know the smirking thug boss sauntering over
behind them. “Slain. You do understand that that’s a dumb name, right? It
means that you’ve died, not that you kill. Perhaps you meant to call
yourself Slayer?”
“My name is my name,” Slain contended. It really wasn’t. After discovering
that Slain was also from Ex-777, Dreychan did a little research. Like
Dreychan, he was born with a regular name, instead of a number, but it
certainly wasn’t Slain. So he made it up too. He must have thought it
sounded cool.”
Slain crouched down so he was at eye-level with Dreychan. “Do you know why
you’re here?”
“Judging by the design and decor, I’m guessing you’re putting us on trial?”
“A tribunal, actually.” Dreychan didn’t know the difference. Slain probably
didn’t either, it just sounded cooler. He stood up, and started pacing
around with his own hands behind his back, mocking them, but also giving off
the impression of levity and ease. “Do you recognize where you are? We’re
not in the Capital anymore.” Dreychan didn’t, but wouldn’t have had the
chance to answer anyway. “Of course not. This is the three-dimensional
Winner’s Hall of 2.5Dome. It’s where you would have gone had you played your
game fairly, and won without cheating.”
Dreychan didn’t say anything. Even claiming to not care about that would
imply that he actually did have some strong feelings on the matter, when in
reality, he was totally over that, and absolutely never cared about the
inherent value of winning. He had just been trying to survive.
Dreychan’s indifference angered Slain, so he had to work hard to keep it
together. He pointed to one of the camera operators who was presently at
rest. “The tribunal will be broadcast, but if you think that means someone’s
gonna come rescue you, you got another thing coming.”
“Another think coming,” Dreychan corrected.
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it, little dum-dum.”
Slain was fuming. “You will show me respect. By the end of these
proceedings, you will be begging me for your life, I guarantee you that!”
Dreychan was silent again. He just made himself look calm and disinterested.
Slain didn’t want to point it out, so he just moved on. “You are here to
answer for your crimes against the Castlebourners. I’m not talking about the
visitors, by the way, I couldn’t give a flailing fuck about those people.
I’m talking ‘bout us; the real Castlebourners. You manipulated the
people, and you rigged the referendum, and I have the proof. You will answer
to the people of this great new nation, and more importantly, you will
answer to me!”
One of his thugs batted an eye at his last claim. Perfect. This wasn’t one
big happy family. There was a way to exploit that, he just needed that thing
out of Yunil’s mouth, so she could use her silvertongue to do that. He gave
her a look, and she winked back, still unfazed.
Slain notices this. “Oh. Oh, I see. You think you’re safe? I assure you,
you’re not. No one knows where we are. The cameras won’t show any
distinguishing characteristics, the signal will be bounced around different
quantum servers, or scrubbed of its metadata, or whatever my expert did to
hide us. When it’s your turn to speak, you can see 2.5Dome all you
want, but my other expert will be censoring all that shit during the
built-in delay, so it’ll just make it look like you’re cussing a lot on one
of those old Earthan TV shows where they weren’t allowed to say certain
words to the public.” He gestured at the walls in a general sense. “Even if
they do find us, they’re not getting in. No teleporting in or out. You see,
that’s why you don’t get. We are from all over. One of us worked on the
teleportation field research labs. One of us is a carpenter. One a computer
scientist. You just sat around and played games all day. My people know how
to work.”
“I must have been misinformed. I thought you were also from Ex-777.”
Slain shook his head. “Not everyone who lived there was wealthy like you.
Some of us worked for people like you.”
Dreychan scoffed. “Not true, they were bots. Our planet was specifically
designed to keep all human workers out, so they weren’t even close to
the luxury.” He looked around at the people with guns. “If he told you he
was a workin’ man, he lied. They simply didn’t exist.”
Slain bolted back over, and backhanded Dreychan across the chin, causing his
head to fall into Vip’s lap. “I told you to show me respect!”
“You gotta earn that,” Dreychan replied. “But I don’t like your chances. I
don’t have much respect for the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, or even my
own fingernail clippings.”
Yunil giggled.
Slain turned his head to her. “You think that’s funny? You’re only so calm
because you think your safe. But my carpenter, teleportation expert, and
signal technician aren’t the only geniuses I have on my side. We can also
suppress quantum consciousness transference. Your last backup stream was
just before you crossed the threshold into this dome. Even if you’re not one
of those people who philosophically rely on continuity of thought, your
backup substrate is in no safe place either. While we’re talking, my people
are out there, destroying any extra bodies you got lying around.” He leaned
in closer to her. “We’re tuned in, sweetheart. We didn’t do this on a whim.”
He forced a kiss upon her lips, and then booped her in the nose. “Boop!”
“You should not have done that,” Yunil said firmly. “Sexual assault is no
joke.”
Slain led into a laugh from a scoff. “Relax. We’re all friends here, aren’t
we? Or aren’t we?” he posed, as if that was some justification for
this kangaroo court.
Slain wasn’t worried. He straightened his knees out, and went back to pacing
around menacingly. “Now. Before you get all up in arms about me being judge,
jury, and executioner, let it be known that I am only the first one. The
panel of your peers will be composed of people who know firsthand what it’s
like to be slighted by the great Dreychan Glarieda of Ex-777. Come on in,
folks!”
And they did. Dreychan recognized every single one of them. They were former
members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Teemo, Rezurah, Maaseiah, and
Yunil’s sister, Lubiti were all there, as well as everyone else who had gone
to jail for the conspiracy to kill Dreychan. They didn’t look happy, though.
They weren’t smirking, or even smiling. They look kind of perturbed. Which
was weird. They had all somehow been freed from prison, yet they could not
be more annoyed. “This is why we’re here?” Lubiti questioned. “You want us
to judge this man?”
“I figured you would want to take your shot at some justice, since you’ve
been waiting for it for a year now.”
“We have not been waiting for that,” Maaseiah argued. “We have been doing
our time. We have been repenting for our sins.”
“What are you talking about?” Slain was so utterly baffled. “He’s right
there! The guy who put you all away—the man who you hate with such profound
disgust—this is your chance to exact revenge. Take it!”
“So this was never going to be fair?” Yunil asked. “You weren’t even gonna
pretend to be impartial?”
“I said it’s a tribunal, not a trial!” Slain argued. He looked back over at
the councilors. “Come on! What’s your problem? He ruined your lives!”
“No, we did that ourselves,” Rezurah said. “We tried to kill him, and
regardless of our reasons, that was wrong, and we all recognize that now. We
have said this on the record. We have done interviews. Did you not watch
them?”
“I thought you were playing for the camera,” Slain explained. “I don’t
understand, you forgave him for real?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Lubiti reasoned. “He didn’t do anything to
us. He didn’t even call the authorities. They conducted their investigation
without his knowledge. Like Rezurah was just saying, we are the architects
of our own demise.”
Slain shook his head. He could not wrap his mind around this. He expected to
win today, and he was losing steam by the minute. His thugs weren’t
outwardly going against him, but they didn’t seem ready to start a firefight
either. It was looking like no one was going to get hurt today. Enraged, he
let out a primal scream. “Argh! You dumbasses aren’t going to take this from
me!” He pulled out a knife as he was coming around to the other side of
Dreychan. He held it against his neck, letting it dig in enough to make it
bleed.
“Now, hold on,” Lubiti said, trying to keep him calm. “This isn’t going to
get you anything. Right now, it looks like you’ll be done for kidnapping,
trespassing, and maybe some hacking, or whatever. That’s not great, but it’s
not murder. You can still get out of this. The laws are rigid, but the
punishments are fluid. There’s not much crime anymore. No one really knows
how to handle it all the way out here. You might just get exiled. They may
send you to Outcast Island. You would probably prefer it there anyway.
Dreychan’s a good guy, I’m sure he would advocate for you. Right, Drey?”
“Yeah, I don’t care,” Dreychan confirmed. “I don’t hold grudges, and I’m not
the vengeful type.”
“You know who else isn’t the vengeful type?” Slain asked. “Dead people!” He
tensed up, and cut into Dreychan’s neck deeper. Okay, this was really
starting to hurt.
“Don’t. Do it,” Maaseiah urged. “I regret my actions here last year. Don’t
make the same mistake we did.”
“It’s not the same,” Slain argued. “You failed. I’ll succeed.”
Lubiti breathed deliberately, presumably hoping to get him to mirror her
subconsciously. “The fact that you’ve not done it yet tells me that you
don’t want to. If you go through with it, no one here is gonna hurt you. So
if you’re not on the fence, what have you been waiting for?”
“Good point.” And with that,” Slain dug into Dreychan’s neck deeper. He
didn’t just pull it clean across his throat. He sawed at it like a cellist.
It was bloody, and messy, and gruesome. He didn’t just want to kill
Dreychan. He wanted to make it hurt, and it wanted to put on a show. His fun
didn’t last forever, though. When he could no longer bear Dreychan’s weight.
He dropped him to the floor, and let his victim succumb to the black.
Dreychan broke through his chrysalis and emerged anew. It felt weird. He
didn’t know what was happening, or where he was. He just had the urge to
escape. He had the impulse to move upwards. So he jumped up, and started to
fly. He didn’t know how he was flying, but he certainly wasn’t very
good at it. He was bumping into all sorts of things. The walls were soft and
mushy, so it wasn’t really painful, only disorienting. It was pitch black
except for a pinprick of light, which Dreyhan thought might have been an
illusion. Still, he went towards it. He focused his thoughts on flying
towards it. He kept scraping against the gooey walls, but never stopped. The
pinprick grew larger and larger until he finally reached the exit. The light
was blinding, so he started flying more erratically now. He was so confused
and lost, but he didn’t know whether there was anywhere safe to land, so he
didn’t.
He tried to blink, but he didn’t seem capable of it. So weird, having wings,
but no eyelids. Was this heaven, or just a simulation? Whatever the answer
was, the real question, was why? His vision adjusted, and he was finally
able to see where he was. As it turned out, he hadn’t moved. This was still
the kangaroo court. Everyone was staring at him, equally confused, but there
was something else different. Oh right, they were giants. They watched as he
fluttered about, small enough to fit in one of their hands. There was Yunil,
standing up now and rubbing her wrists, no longer bound. She was smiling at
him, not in shock, but in triumph. She did this. She turned him into a
flutterby. But still, why...and also how? He was growing a little tired, so
he landed on her shoulder.
Yunil gently petted Dreychan’s wings and giggled. She turned to face Slain,
whose arms were now being held behind his back by two of his own people.
They never wanted any of this. No one was on Slain’s side anymore. “I didn’t
know that you were going to suppress consciousness transference, but still,
this is a handy backup plan. It’s not always prudent to transfer your mind
across vast distances. Some people just store their own backup, sometimes in
the form of a fairy, and sometimes, a flutterby like this. I’m told holly
blue is the most popular model. He’s quite pretty now, don’t you think?”
Dreychan wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t speak. Insects
didn’t have vocal cords. So he sat there patiently on her shoulder, more in
love with her now than ever, even though he had always been afraid of
transhumanistic upgrades.
She peered at her new little pet. “I’m sorry I did this to you without your
consent. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. For the record, I fed you a sort
of seed, which grew into this in the lining of your stomach. It didn’t
require any surgery, or anything.”
Dreychan still couldn’t say anything to her, so he launched, and playfully
fluttered around her. He then flew over, and started fluttering around the
former council members. They seemed to get the idea, because they were
smiling, and reaching up with the palms down, hoping that he would land on
their fingers. He chose to land on Lubiti, who let him flitter back and
forth between her hands. It wasn’t for another few days when they were able
to have a real conversation again. That was when she and the others
apologized to him directly.
Slain was taken right to jail for murder. The prosecutor wasn’t going after
him for reckless substrate destruction, or consciousness back-up
endangerment, but full-on murder. He had no idea that Dreychan was backed up
by any method, and in fact, had strong reason to believe that the
destruction of the substrate equated to true death. Time would tell what
became of him. The same could be said for the former councilors. As it
turned out, Slain’s movement had run deep enough to reach the prison. He had
them released under the guise of a legitimate criminal forgiveness program.
He kept them isolated from each other until the day of the tribunal that
never was. They willingly went back to their cells immediately. The terms of
their respective parole schedules were currently being revised to account
for their swift voluntary return, evidence of their remorse and
self-improvement, and overall good behavior. Meanwhile, the new government
was holding strong. Vip and Amazine continued in their positions, and the
representatives under them were representing their people admirably.
And Dreychan and Yunil? They finally got their break. The former was
provided with a new human body, but he didn’t always use it. He let her
teach him to switch as appropriate, when he needed something different for a
certain dome, or just on a whim. The superintendent protocol was suspended
since it was no longer needed. The two of them left the Capital, but could
come back later, if their services were ever required again, or they could
pass their power onto someone else. Meanwhile, the host star and all of its
celestial bodies were on their way to a new region of the Milky Way. As for
the war...well, Castlebourne wasn’t out of the woods yet.
