Girl In The Needle Read online

  “Why did they cry?”

  “I don't recall.”

  The Empress lost her composure, nearly shouting. “You know everything that ever happened! Don't lie to me.”

  Keti waited until the Empress was calmer before replying, “It was a humorous statement related to my omniscience. You failed to grasp it.”

  “But you knew that I wouldn't realize you were joking. You could have said something you knew would make me laugh.”

  Without realizing it, she had used the same exasperated tone that teenage girls were known for using with their parents. Keti chose to keep this from her because it would please the Empress to know.

  “Each miniscule bit of what your kind so crudely calls ’unhappiness’ contributes to the refinement of your energy,” she replied as explanation.

  The Empress' energy flared up. A dozen of its smallest components subtly changed hue, as Keti had known they would. Her every action reinforced her purpose; the Empress would one day be as worthy of service to Keti as a human could be.

  The Empress struggled to find words to hurt Keti, but it was useless. If she threatened to kill herself, or stop letting Keti manipulate her, it evoked only amusement from a being who knew without doubt that the words were futile.

  Every word Keti spoke to her was part of a calculated attempt to cause her prolonged misery. And Keti was so unfailingly proud of that fact.

  The Empress seized on the only topic she thought might bother Keti. “If I ever got a chance to make some decision that even you couldn't predict, I would do the obvious thing instead.”

  “I know every thought or action you will be subject to before your death,” Keti said drily.

  “No. You said that some decisions have such an even likelihood of two separate outcomes that they're unpredictable. Even to you.”

  “I am aware of the inevitable courses of many dimensions. Though I see all these things, I am not perfect. Knowing the future, and having power your species can not imagine, is not equivalent to being perfect.”

  The Empress considered this. “So,” she said, “you should be uncertain.”

  “What a particularly human concept. I see only actions, and the myriad repercussions of them. Do you believe that human traits affect my decisions? I choose the action which will effect a desired reaction. Your kind's ever-changing ideas of right or wrong are meaningless.”

  It was pointless to argue with Keti, so she ignored her. "I want you to let me talk to someone. Anyone. I just want to... know my own kind."

  There was a peculiar sensation to announcing one's feelings to Keti. The only basis she had found for believing that Keti might have a shred of sentiment in her was that, in moments like this, she let the Empress vent her frustration despite foreseeing it. Often, Keti would dismiss a desire before it had formed in the Empress' mind. Sometimes, perhaps out of kindness, she allowed her the illusion that their conversation was spontaneous.

  The Empress hated Keti in an abiding way that simmered beneath the surface so that she had stopped being aware of it. Despite this, Keti was her world: her surrogate mother, her confidante, her protector. If she stopped talking with Keti, which she had done before, she had no one else to talk to. The sense of isolation was enormous, nearly unfathomable.

  Technically, there were two anonymous servants who relayed information to her. They wore white robes, and blank masks to cover their faces. These two were forbidden from any interaction beyond repeating messages to the Empress.

  For all she knew, there had been hundreds of people behind the masks over the years. None had ever relented and held an actual conversation with her; Keti chose people who she knew wouldn't betray her…or, perversely, used bots but allowed the Empress to hope they were human.

  She justified her closeness with Keti by reminding herself that the happier she was, the less that Keti's plan worked. This didn't bother Keti, who saw it as a reflection of humanity's stupidity: why make one's own purification process longer and more agonizing?

  The Empress protested violently about being molded by her, yet showed a determination to lengthen the thing she wanted to end. That thought upset her but not enough to make her change.

  Keti made her wait for a response, then said, “You alone have access to the goddess Keti. And still, you want to talk to 'someone.' Today you shall.”

  Keti's black eyes met hers.

  In the silence that followed, a stream of words ran past the Empress' face, projected onto the window. The first CR ring reports from the people below them.

  I don't think she's human - I think I'm in love! - the empress scares the shit out of me - praise Keti - why didn't any1 ask what Keti DOES want? - front row, thought i was going 2 be killed lol-

  The Empress managed a brief, muted laugh.

  “Do you know why I have never let you leave the Needle?” Keti asked.

  “Yes, Keti. It's your will, and I can't question it.”

  “I keep you here because it refines you. You grow ever purer, ever more beautiful to me. The world beyond these walls would dampen your energy. These people would introduce flaws into you.”

  “I could not disagree more,” the Empress spat.

  “Each time you suffer, your energy becomes more intricate. One day your energy will become perfect in my sight.”

  Before the Empress could react, Keti layed a hand on her shoulder. The Empress' eyes rolled back involuntarily. “That's...better,” she whispered. She slid down in the curved chair with a quiet sigh.

  “I will make you into a masterpiece,” Keti said proudly.

  The Empress was too far gone to respond.

  Keti removed her hand from the Empress' shoulder. “How disappointing. You live such short lives, and devote them to avoiding the very thing which perfects you. I know much, but fail to understand why humans can not survive without 'happiness,' as you call it.”

  She looked down on the Empress, seeing a coiled mass of energy; within this energy, sparks of color flowed.

  “If only you could withstand uninterrupted refinement, you would be beyond suffering already,” she lamented. The next moment, she was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Seen from afar, the Needle tricked the eyes. It absorbed light like a black hole, appearing as an absence rather than a presence.

  Dugan hated the sight of it; it was an inescapable part of the landscape. To him, it was the vicious crown on Keti's city. Out of pure disgust, he refused to say her name aloud.

  She had indiscriminately killed billions of people just to ensure the devotion of the remaining millions. The Citizens worshipped her as a goddess of love, of perfection. She was a goddess of destruction, which he could respect on some level, but Dugan would be damned if he'd bow his head to her.

  The City shone insidiously, day and night so the outlanders could never forget it. Dugan reviled it; Keti had given such a high level of technology to “her people” (meaning anyone who lived in The City and relied completely on her) that the Citizens had willfully forgotten the value of independence.

  That hardly made them sympathetic as far as he was concerned.

  The outlands were populated by hard, ruthless men, and the unfortunate people they'd dragged with them. As a reaction to the City, the outlanders prided themselves on living with as few electronic devices as they could. Dugan at least respected them more than Citizens, but that didn't say much.

  He was an outlander in every respect but one. He didn't hesitate to enter the City when it suited him. Neither community wanted him. The outlanders called him a traitor while the Citizens called him a fool. In either case, he calmly informed them, “I like to think I'm a bit smarter than you.”

  When Keti had returned, she had sent out a wave of decimation extending from the far edge of the outlands; the whole world outside of the outlands had been gray, scorched earth within hours.

  The outlanders wisely abstained from venturing outside this blast radius. They left a half-mile ring of unsettled land surrounding The City,
making their life in between this buffer and the Zone, the abandoned majority of the planet.

  Dugan hung his legs over the edge of the Zone; the earth sat a full two feet lower there. He wasn't afraid of venturing to the edge of the Zone; he figured that Keti didn't care to keep an eye on every living person. What were they to her? Less than ants.

  He dressed like an outlander, in layered brown clothes that hid weapons, but his clothes were from inside the City. They were new, by outland standards, and high quality, so outlanders knew at a glance that he wasn't really one of them.

  It had been hard to find these clothes in the City, where nearly everyone wore white or light pink, but it felt like anything could be found within the City's walls.

  Hidden in a slit in his jacket, where outlanders wouldn't notice it, Dugan's CR ring vibrated. He looked behind him cautiously before pulling it out.

  “Speak,” he said, sliding it onto his finger.

  A hooded figure was projected onto his palm. Dugan already wanted to end the conversation. The figure's face was hidden by a featureless mask, both white. Their voice, when they spoke, was distorted.

  “You are known as Dugan,” it began, leaving no room for his reply. “Your willingness to cross between the City and outland areas leads us to contract you for the following job: the removal of an unwanted threat to the stability of the City.”

  Dugan lit a rolled cigarette and cupped his free hand around it to keep it from going out. The wind was harsh but sporadic out here.

  “I don't do work for any man who hides his face from me,” he said. “Non-negotiable. It's a bad sign that I'm about to get stabbed in the back.”

  Without pause, the figure replied, “The job is not being offered by a man. It was passed down from the goddess.”

  Dugan slid the CR ring around on his finger and slid it off.

  “Fuckin' asshole,” he mumbled.

  Outlanders had tried to lure him into traps before. He was a threat to them because he refused to side with them against the City. He had a reputation for being short-tempered, and therefore unpredictable.

  They thought his survival instinct could be clouded by talk of money. Pretending to be representatives of the City hadn't worked before; why would it work today?

  Dugan took a long drag off his cigarette and flicked it into the Zone, which he thought of as the Great Beyond. The cigarette hissed softly as it hit the infertile ground, but didn't go out. Dugan idly watched a thin trail of smoke curl upward from it, fading into obscurity against the gray background .

  Just as he lost interest and was about to look away, the smoke sucked violently back into the cigarette butt. As abruptly as it had disappeared, it shot back out in a thick plume.

  The smoke darkened. As it dissipated, a form became visible.

  For once, Dugan was dumbstruck. The Empress hovered before him, looking unimpressed.

  “Empress?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Are humans in the habit of appearing to you like this?”

  “N-no. But you can't be...”

  “Oh, can't I?” she challenged him. “Then this is hard to explain.”

  Looking more closely, Dugan was surprised to see that she seemed to have no eyes. He found himself staring at her with his mouth hanging open. If the outlanders saw him now, they'd never let him live it down.

  Keti closely scrutinized him before announcing, “I don't like the look of you. I hadn't bothered to notice you before now, and I don't like what I see at all. Your energy is far too crude to be refined before...”

  Recovering slightly from his shock, Dugan interrupted her. “I'm not thrilled at your energy, either. Why don't you kill me now? Because I won't take orders from you. I'm not a slave like your Citizens.”

  Keti dropped to the ground with a rough, gravelly thump. She stepped forward. Dugan instinctively backed away, simultaneously regretting the show of fear.

  Keti’s mouth twisted into a mockery of a smile, like a snake finding its prey completely trapped. “Can you imagine,” she asked, “what torture it is to speak to a being so far beneath yourself as you are to me? You lie when you say this form is unappealing to you. You are wrong when you claim I can not control you. You would do better to not speak.”

  She had advanced on him as she had spoken, but he had been too stunned to move.

  His mouth still hung open; standing in front of Keti, he felt his will dissolving. Dugan felt like he'd been drugged…his thoughts could barely form before receding into a thick mental fog.

  He felt his resentment of her but couldn't focus enough to find the words. His eyes were locked on Keti, whose specter seemed to make her surroundings blur and distort. How had he gotten here? Where was he? Dugan couldn't take his eyes off Keti to look around.

  Confused, he asked, “Why are you here?”

  She stared at him blankly. “If I did everything myself, I would have nothing to watch.”

  “What…?”

  Dugan's mind scrambled to make sense of the situation. He didn't fear dying, but Keti's presence left him in a dazed panic.

  “Why would the goddess take the time to come speak to me personally?” he asked.

  Keti had an uncanny ability to convey a range of reactions without saying a word. Her face was void of expression, but her disgust was evident to Dugan.

  After a moment, she wearily responded. “Just as the wind blows in many places at once, I am present here but other places as well.”

  “Fool,” she added.

  Dugan spat. The wind blew it, nearly hitting Keti's off-white dress. “So you aren't in a hurry then? You're giving me a private version of that chat you gave to your Citizens? It's strange how you're getting talkative lately.”

  Again, Keti made eye contact without speaking. It was unnerving.

  Dugan tried to push the fear to the back of his mind. He had a chance to let Keti see herself through his eyes, and didn't want to waste it. Clenching his hands into fists, he strained to muster more courage.

  Instead of anger, the words that came out were, “Why do you look like the Empress?”

  “She is my representative to her fellow humans. I have no form, so I take one which will be familiar to your simple-minded, fearful kind. You, however, have all too clear of a form.” She made a low, inscrutable sound that might have been a laugh. “You attempt to show bravery, but your energy betrays you. You are consumed by fear, ashamed by feeling it. Have you considered that I know every word you are yet to say? I would urge you to consider what misery it is to engage in conversations I have foreseen for... many of your years.”

  Dugan glared at her. He loathed his own vulnerability.

  Her tone became kinder, or seemed to, as she continued. “You noted that I have been communicating more freely with humans. The reason is simple: I have not known pleasure in far too long. I see all that is yet to happen in this dimension, and despite knowing it is futile, I hope my existence will offer me one surprise.

  “So” she continued, “I choose to increase chaos in the web of entanglement you are caught in, in the hope of causing a variation in the path I know this dimension is on.”

  Absently, she added, “One surprise; one unforeseen outcome, a single novelty.”

  “Huh. I never thought about that. So was it you that scared the shit out of people with that line about the world ending?”

  “Yes. The Empress was about to compromise her... no, you wouldn't understand. I took her over for an instant.”

  It hadn't occurred to him that she could take him over, too. He found his nerve, saying, “I'd kill you if I could, even though it wouldn't fix the damage you did.”

  “Answer the call,” she said. Keti's image flickered and disappeared. Dugan was left glaring at nothing but a scorched landscape and a small collection of cigarette butts.

  His CR ring vibrated, then activated itself. Dugan tried to make a fist and cancel the call, but his hand spasmed violently the harder he tried.

  “God...damn...fucki
n'...,” he muttered between gritted teeth. He tried to force the hand shut with his other hand, ignoring the figure being projected onto his tensed palm.

  “Are you Dugan?” she asked.

  His fingers spread open as he watched.

  “You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me.” The words fell from his mouth without him meaning them to. His grip on the CR ring hand went slack.

  The Empress passively observed him as his free arm fell to his side. The rumor was that the Needle was reinforced with metals that prevented CR transmission so that hackers couldn't reach the Empress. Or possibly so the Empress couldn't contact anyone.

  “The goddess Keti requires your service.” Seeing the sneer this elicited, she rephrased it. “You're going to do something for Keti.”

  Dugan held his tongue. He knew of the Empress' public image as a cold, unemotional pawn of Keti. It was apparent to him, though, that she was still just a girl.

  “So she said,” he replied after an awkward silence.

  “She... spoke directly to you?”

  Dugan had regained his nerve. “Yeah. We just had a contract disagreement. I've worked for some rotten folks, but I gotta draw the line somewhere before the bitch who killed most of the people on my planet.”

  The Empress exhaled violently, though it was uncertain whether in derision or amusement. “Oh, so she gave you a choice?”

  “You know,” he said, “you had me there for a second.” He scratched his chin. “You can get fucked if you think I'm gonna let a spoiled little girl talk down to me."

  Though he rarely acknowledged it to himself, Dugan welcomed the thought of death. Just not a slow, painful one.

  The Empress met his glare with mournful eyes. This was the first call she'd been allowed to make in two decades, and talking to strangers was turning out to be unexpectedly difficult. She had been nervous (almost to the point of fear) about the call.