The Machine God

Chapter 309

Alexander guided the hired hover-SUV through the streets of Manhattan, Technopathy interfacing with the vehicle’s navigation systems while his hands were tucked behind his head.

Augustus sat beside him in the front passenger seat, watching the city pass. Maximilian, Annie, and Jasmine were in the back, with Annie pressed against the window.

“Hey!” Annie sat up straight, jabbing a finger at the glass. “Isn’t that one of the places you robbed?”

“Borrowed from,” Alexander corrected automatically.

Then he actually turned to look. Annie had been pointing at the Corsa d’Elite Fulminea showroom, which sat on the corner of the intersection. Unlike the first time he’d been there, when the showroom had been open and full of fans, its floor-to-ceiling windows were shuttered.

“Oh yeah. It is. That’s where I got the bikes from.”

Annie laughed. “You took so much stuff they got closed down.”

Alexander frowned. He’d taken the hoverbikes and some display models. Enough to sting, but not enough to shutter a major racing retailer.

“Actually, most things are closing down,” Maximilian said from the back seat. His voice was quiet. “I know you haven’t had a chance to see it, Rooke, but sights like this are the norm these days.”

Alexander looked out at the streets. Really looked, for the first time since they’d left Jasmine’s office.

Maximilian was right. Roughly one in three storefronts were shuttered. Some had boards nailed over windows. Others had been cleared out and abandoned. There was graffiti everywhere, much of it fresh. Some of it looked like guild tags and gang markers, but what stood out were the declarations.

‘You can’t trust the UEG.’

‘The end is coming.’

‘God has abandoned us.’

‘The System will kill us all.’

The streets themselves were quiet, though. A few vehicles moved through the intersections. Pedestrians walked quickly, heads down, keeping to themselves. But there were no crowds and fewer tourists.

It was New York, The City That Never Sleeps, and it was almost empty.

Annie had gone quiet. She stared out the window at a boarded-up pharmacy with a spray-painted skull across the shutters.

“How are people surviving?” she asked. “If everything’s closing?”

“Marcus has been doing his best to reestablish functional governance across the planet ever since the massacre,” Maximilian said. “His efforts have been met with very mixed responses. Some regions are rejecting the UEG entirely, claiming it’s their fault that someone like the Lost Prophet came into existence in the first place. That the government and AEGIS created the conditions for a monster to rise unchecked.”

“They’re not exactly wrong,” Annie said.

Maximilian continued. “All over the world, local communities have set up their own small governing bodies. Elected committees and councils with emergency powers to keep as much infrastructure working as they can.”

Augustus nodded. “That’s actually been one of the better success stories. In other places, there are warlords and city-wide curfews with extreme rationing.”

Alexander frowned. “Doesn’t every country retain a small military reserve? Why aren’t they stepping in? What about the police?”

“They’re trying,” Augustus said. “The Lost Prophet’s attack might have been highly targeted, but the infection spread fast. And the bastard had almost a decade to plant at least a single seed everywhere he needed it. Governments worldwide might have been the worst hit, but he infected police and other emergency services, national guard, hospitals, universities…”

“Almost two months later and they’re still tallying the dead,” Maximilian said.

Alexander hesitated to ask, but he needed to know. “How many?”

Maximilian turned to look out the window. “At least three percent. Over two hundred and fifty million.” He sighed. “But some experts believe the final number will be closer to five percent.”

They drove in silence for a minute, Alexander continuing to direct the car. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Maximilian was saying. Admiral Jody had used the word millions, and while that had been hard to accept, especially because the Lost Prophet had used their conference to do it, somehow the number had felt acceptable.

At the time, all he could think was that it could have been a lot more than millions. Because somewhere in a deep, dark, subconscious corner of his brain, he’d decided that meant the single-digit millions. Maybe even low two-digit millions.

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Hundreds of millions was…

He had no frame of reference for a number that high. Not when it came to dead bodies. Casualties which had continued piling up because it took them so long to subdue one bloody vampire.

“We’re lucky Marcus survived,” Maximilian said. “Without him, the situation would be significantly worse.”

Alexander glanced at the rearview mirror. “Why? What did he do?”

“He took out loans on behalf of Earth, from galactic creditors.” Maximilian turned to meet Alexander’s gaze in the mirror. “With the funds, he’s been importing a continuous stream of food and medical supplies. Then he recommissioned mothballed Space Force ships using the Emergency Crisis Powers Act to deliver the supplies all over the planet. It’s the only reason some parts of the world still have functioning supply chains.”

“Yeah,” Annie said quietly from the back seat, “but now Earth is in debt to alien loan sharks.”

The corner of Alexander’s mouth twitched, but then he turned back to the window. The streets outside the vehicle didn’t look all that bad compared to what Maximilian was describing. They were no worse than where he’d lived after his parents’ death, back on Earth 0. If anyone had asked him, he would have described what he was seeing as a typical rough neighborhood.

Except these streets were in the heart of New York. It had also been home to one of the biggest AEGIS headquarters and hundreds of superheroes.

Superheroes who’d likely been among the infected.

“The more I think about it, the more I’m surprised New York is still standing,” he said.

Maximilian nodded. “A lot of people stepped up when it counted. Heroes and villains alike.”

“The Space Force thinks we caught a lucky break, too,” Augustus said. “Many of the infected Tier 3s were able to resist the Lost Prophet’s control long enough for you two to eliminate him. A small percentage even broke it on their own.”

The SUV made another turn, and the Goliath Industries headquarters came into view. It occupied an enclosed city block, the main building rising forty stories high at the far end, all reinforced glass and dark steel. The design was highly utilitarian, styled to project strength over elegance. Massive holographic displays flanked the main entrance, cycling through corporate branding and hardware advertisements.

The company logo read GOLIATH in brushed titanium letters with a stylized fist gripping a star centered above it.

Armored limousines and military-spec SUVs lined both sides of the extra wide streets, their paint jobs ranging from corporate black to Space Force gray. The buildings flanking Goliath’s headquarters and stretching down both sides of the road were all part of the ecosystem. Subsidiary offices. Logistics firms responsible for handling Goliath’s contracts. Secure storage facilities with blast-rated loading bays. Even a handful of commercial stores, a tailor, a restaurant, and what looked like a high-end outfitter, all catering to the kind of clientele that could afford to shop next door to the planet’s largest defense contractor.

Then there was the Space Force recruiting office with a holo-poster of a destroyer-class warship rotating in the window.

Unlike the rest of Manhattan, this stretch of the city was alive. There were uniformed personnel. Men and women in expensive suits escorting clients in even more expensive suits. Couriers on bicycles darted between idling vehicles while security guards in Goliath livery watched them and everyone else with professional disinterest.

Alexander pulled the SUV in behind a line of vehicles waiting at the first security checkpoint. Armored posts flanked the road and a thick, retractable concrete barrier blocked the lane ahead.

As his senses swept outward, Technopathy and Metallokinesis found hundreds of automatic defense systems hidden beneath the road and built into the surrounding buildings. Electrokinesis identified over ten thousand bioelectrical signatures. The vast majority of them were normal people, but that still left over a hundred superhumans.

And more than a few of them had already turned their attention in his direction. Several Wills and at least one power he could detect washed over their vehicle.

Inside, several Wills rose in response.

Alexander and Maximilian pushed back against the probes nearly effortlessly. The two Divine Wills, especially working together, felt almost inevitable in comparison, despite both of them restraining themselves.

But it was the other two that caught Alexander by surprise.

Augustus’s Will was elegant, but firm. The first time he’d ever wielded it was during the Lost Prophet’s attack, and then it had been little more than a tendril, supporting Alexander’s.

The old man had finally learned to express it properly. He could feel Augustus’s usual confidence and experience behind it.

Annie’s was different. Her Will didn’t roll outward like the others, instead wrapping around herself tightly. It was fierce, but a little shaky at first, before she managed to get it under control.

A few moments later, the probing Wills withdrew. None of them said anything. They just waited.

Two armed and armored guards approached the vehicle in front of them, one scanning the undercarriage while the other checked credentials through the driver’s window.

“By the way, Max,” Annie said suddenly. “How does one actually take out loans for an entire planet?”

Maximilian raised an eyebrow. “My understanding is that in this particular case the loan was secured against our ability to supply serum. Thankfully, Rooke left Santiago’s serum production facility mostly intact, and the Space Force was able to requisition it under Marcus’s authority.” He glanced at Alexander in the mirror. “Though apparently several tons of it was missing from the facility, according to the manifest.”

Alexander grinned. “Not my fault someone just left it lying around. Finders keepers, I say.”

“What are you even going to do with that much serum?” Maximilian asked.

Alexander shrugged. “No idea. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“That’s not exactly comforting, Rooke.”

He chuckled.

Ahead of them, the guards completed their inspection of the vehicle and waved it through, the barrier lowering to let it pass, before rising back into place.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

He drove forward, then came to a stop.

One of the guards began sweeping the vehicle. The other stepped up to the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass.

Alexander lowered the window.

The guard was young and professional. He glanced into the vehicle, clocking each passenger without lingering.

“Name and purpose of visit?”

Alexander smiled. “Tell someone important that the Machine God and the Dragon Lord are here to do some shopping.”

The guard froze. He stared at Alexander for a long moment, then slowly turned to look into the back seat, where his gaze lingered on Maximilian’s golden eyes for another second.

He stepped back slowly. “O-one moment, please.”