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EN World Short Story Smackdown - FINAL: Berandor vs Piratecat - The Judgment Is In!
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<blockquote data-quote="Berandor" data-source="post: 4308950" data-attributes="member: 225"><p><em>EnWorld Short Story Smackdown 2008 – Final Match: Berandor vs. Piratecat.</em></p><p>(no grandma warning this time, though I really wanted to...)</p><p></p><p><strong>Kingslayer. A story in 6 1/2 chapters</strong></p><p></p><p><u>(1) The King</u></p><p></p><p>The king does not sleep. He does not need to. Some people say the king is dreaming. They say the king is dreaming of them, or rather, he is dreaming <em>them</em>. The world, its inhabitants, everything is just part of his dreams. And if he woke up…</p><p></p><p>These people are wrong. The king does not sleep, and he does not dream. He simply spends his time on standby, letting the whole nanoverse run past him, and through him. He is but an observer of his realm. He holds no audience, and noone asks him to. Nobody contacts him, except for the ubiquitous spambots even he cannot evade.</p><p></p><p>Correction: Nobody has contacted him before… now.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The king activates subroutines he has not used for a decade. Carbon tubes fold into rarely-practiced shapes. The king remains where he is, where he has always been, but his consciousness spreads out into his realm to look for the intruder. It will take him only a few minutes, at most.</p><p></p><p>Some people would say the king wakes up.</p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u>(2) The Slayer</u></p><p></p><p>I grab the phone booth to keep myself from falling as the wave of disorientation washes over me. The bastard has hung up on me! My hand tries to grab my crucifix but my avatar doesn’t wear one. I hope nobody saw me do that, it would be a dead giveaway.</p><p></p><p>I need to get away from the booth. I sprinkle a cleaning macro on the receiver to make sure the bugs won’t pick up my trail, and then I push myself off and downwards. I keep my eyes focused on the ground as I walk. I have no idea how the sheep manage not to get sick in here. It’s probably because they spend all their time logged in anyway and are too complacent to even think about it. They’re sheep, after all.</p><p></p><p>I must not let on who I am before I’m ready. I force myself to look up and activate my blank stare application. The end of this strand looks like a modern city from about fifty years ago. Of course, the look is slightly tarnished by the fact that this strand, like every other strand in this godless place they call the nanoverse, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34982" target="_blank">is shaped like a tube</a>. The sheep are walking all around its walls, not caring for up and down. The sunlight streaming in from behind the buildings makes me dizzy again. Thankfully, I must go the other way, so I turn around and walk back to the node. Just a few more intertubes and I’ll be home.</p><p></p><p>I recite passages from the Next Testament to pass the time and to remind me why I’m doing this. It’s hard to remember surrounded by sheep who follow their false deity without question. The Konscious Independent Nanoverse Governance, spelled to fit the acronym. My tongue tastes foul just by thinking his name. <em>There is but one crown, and it is made of gold.</em> A golden crown, sitting on God’s head, not a carbon crown on a golden head.</p><p></p><p>My vision fills with green light, interrupting my thoughts. I am but one node away from the rift. My stolen identity has detected a friend. The light points towards a smallish creature with white fur, goat legs and horns, and a pig’s snout. A satyr. I murmur a short prayer but God either does not answer them here or he does not want to. The satyr waves his flabby arms. It’s too late for me to activate a travel protocol and just move past. I approach him. At the same time, I am frantically searching through my identity’s contact list and chat logs.</p><p></p><p>»You here?« the satyr greets me. His stink wafts over me before I can de-activate my avatar’s nose. I still don’t know anything about the satyr, so I keep quiet.</p><p></p><p>»How’s the heart?«</p><p></p><p>This one I know. I know it because the original owner of my avatar has died of heart failure about fifteen minutes ago. I killed him when I wrested control over his nanoverse identity from him. I make my avatar smile. »Never better.«</p><p></p><p>»Glad to hear.« The satyr belches. It takes me a moment to recognize it as laughter. »Got some time to spare?«</p><p></p><p>Sure I do. I’ve got all the time between now and when either the body of this avatar’s owner is discovered or the king’s bugs discover myself. »Not really,« I say.</p><p></p><p>The satyr furrows his unibrow. »Sure you’re okay? You seem different.«</p><p>I should just unlog him. Deliver him from his poor excuse of a life. But that’s not what He taught me. The sheep are primed for the slaughter, but I am their shepherd, not a butcher. »I’m just in a hurry.«</p><p></p><p>»Oh,« he says. His face freezes for a moment. I don’t know whether his owner is only thinking or whether he’s calling the bugs, but I don’t wait to find out. I need to get out. Now. I move past him. The satyr reaches out to grab my sleeve, but I make my avatar insubstantial so his hand passes right through. This is very bad form. It breaks the verisimilitude, or so I have been told, of this fictional world where satyrs pass through giant carbon tubes to get from one place to the other. It only makes sense if you never spend any time in the real world. God’s world.</p><p></p><p>The satyr shouts an alarm code, but I have already passed through the node. I am close to the exit now, too close for automatic defense mechanisms. I cannot detect the rift, but I know it is there. I put it there. I breathe a keycode at it, and then I wait. I don’t have to wait for long.</p><p></p><p>The bugs appear right in front of me, one slightly to the left, one to the right. Their avatars look like buxom blondes in leather. Servants of the devil. The bugs do not speak. They never do. They are scanning me for my location, and as soon as they have it, they will either port my avatar into a confinement area or simply delete it altogether. I watch them for a moment. I want to see what will happen when they cannot not localize me. Will they show astonishment? Fear? The answer is neither. They simply try and retry again. Never mind. I will show them fear.</p><p></p><p>I reach out and sprinkle code over the bugs. Almost immediately, their avatars change. I make them into the opposite of their former appearance. I turn them into sheep. And then I deactivate them. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34984" target="_blank">Their new avatars stare at me blankly</a>. »You have been weighed, measured and found dirty with sin,« I proclaim. »And now you are the first sign of what is to come. I am to come.«</p><p></p><p>»Danny?« The satyr has followed me into the tube. Excellent. A witness. He will be my first disciple. »Are you alright?«</p><p></p><p>I turn to him and spread my hands. »Danny is in a better place now. Soon, you all will be. Soon, the king will be dead, and I will be the instrument of his killing. Prepare yourself. All of you.«</p><p></p><p>And with that, I walk through the rift and log off.</p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u>(3) The King</u></p><p></p><p>The king does not understand what has happened. His problem is twofold. First, never before have his bugs been so thoroughly defeated. They have been destroyed before, but not made an example of. The king understands the concept of what happened, but he cannot compute how it could happen to him. Second, the perpetrator is gone. The king does not often wonder about the world of his body. His realm is the nanoverse and everything in it. He thinks of his people as either active or idle. Unless he deletes them, they do not disappear. And yet this one did.</p><p></p><p>The king’s face splits open. Bugs of all kinds crawl out, as golden as he is. Messenger bugs, servants, killers. They crawl over the king’s face, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34983" target="_blank">worshipping him with their mandibles and their antennae</a>.</p><p></p><p>The king has pondered his options for almost a second. He knows what he must do. He must venture out into the world of flesh, and not many kinds of bugs are able to go there. He will send the roach. It is fast and hard to kill. But first, he must know where the enemy went.</p><p></p><p>The king sends out his messengers. They infiltrate his people, hide within the code and slip into their brain, and then report to him anything they find. At first, they do so at random, but soon a pattern emerges. The king focuses his messengers there. After sixteen hundred and twelve people, the king has an address. He deletes the people from the database. His lifts the roach to his golden lips and sends it off with a kiss and a small gift.</p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u>(4) The Slayer</u></p><p></p><p>My home is His church. God led me to it when He came to me. He came to me three times. The first time, He visited me in my sleep. That was when He told me I was to be his vessel. The second time, He took control of my body and led me to this place. He meant it to be mine, and I know why.</p><p></p><p>The creator of the nanoverse lived in this house. He originally built it because he had no need for the physical world any more. He was the first sheep, but over time, he saw the light. It was he who composed the Next Testament, his fingers moving to God’s voice. He took me in. He showed me how to use the code he had written. We prayed together. I killed him and anointed myself with his blood. That was when God came to me the third time and told me what I had to do.</p><p></p><p>I stand naked on the balcony and look out towards the sea. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34987" target="_blank">The house is built on a large rock overlooking what once was the Grand Canyon</a>. Before the second Flood, that is. Gazing upon His work makes me feel angry. He sent the Flood, and nobody cared about it. »A broken dam.« Sheep. I could kill them all, but I will not turn my anger against them. I will use it to destroy the false deity on the throne, the so-called king. I will–</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Someone’s coming. It can’t be the food, it’s the wrong day. I put on a shirt and some shorts. The pulley arrives at the door before I do. I regard the visitor on the door monitor, a young man dressed in a suit. He smiles as if he knows I’m watching. He does not knock. He simply speaks.</p><p></p><p>»Mr. Veigh? My name is Alex Mitchell. SoulFood sent me. It seems there is a problem with the invoice.« He holds up an ID card. »Mind if I come in?«</p><p></p><p>It is a trap. I know it. I grab the shotgun next to the door and make sure it’s loaded. I will open the door and shoot him. But what if he is genuine? I cannot risk damnation on such a simple mistake. I let go of the shotgun again. I open the door. </p><p></p><p>Alex Mitchell blinks at me as if he’s unaccustomed to using his eyes. Maybe he is. He is probably as much a sheep as everybody else. »Thank you,« he says and walks past me. »I tried to reach you in the nanoverse, but it seems you’re keeping pretty private. I could not find you.« He laughs. It sounds like a cough. »I’m sorry, could I use your bathroom first?«</p><p></p><p>I point the way. He pretends not to notice that I’m in my underwear, or that I haven’t said a word. My hairs stand on end, but he might just be a salesman. I need proof before I kill him.</p><p></p><p>While Alex is in the bathroom, I prepare a chair with a small electrical charge and put on my shades. Alex returns with wet hands. He knows that I’m up to something because he furrows his brow at me. Have I given myself away? No. He smiles his smile again, and I recognize him. Even without the test, I recognize him. <em>And the wolves shall walk among the sheep, but they will wear the skin of they prey, and thou shall only know them by their teeth.</em></p><p></p><p>I throw the chair at him, but he deftly catches it and jumps across. The charge sets off, and my shades <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34985" target="_blank">show him for what he really is</a>. The charge disrupts the bug’s control over what once was Alex Mitchell. He stumbles.</p><p></p><p>»You cannot kill me,« I shout over my shoulder as I run towards the shotgun. »The grace of God protects me!«</p><p></p><p>I hear the chair crashing against he wall behind me. I swivel around just in time to see Alex’s fist coming towards me. There’s a flash. I get hit in the back by a truck. I can’t breathe. Something hits my head. The panic drives the stars from my vision. I lay against the door. Alex is five feet away. The shotgun falls from my head into my lap. My chin hurts. It hurts even more when I laugh, and I do laugh. I point the shotgun at Alex. »Shee? Toldsha.« He tries to jump for the gun. He does not make it.</p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u>(5) The King</u></p><p></p><p>The king does not sleep. He does not need to. Normally, he is on standby. Some people say he is dreaming, then. He has not been on standby for the last few hours, though. And by the activity of his processors, the same people might say he is worried. When the message comes, it is not unexpected. Merely unlikely.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The king opens his eyes. Darkness surrounds him, and cool air. There is no throne room. No bugs are crawling on his face. The king does not have a face. He is just a slab of silicone and carbon nanites connected to the wall by large cable. The king is just a machine. The king can see the intruder now, hidden from the world, in his castle at the sea. He can feel his own programs being deleted. If the king felt pain, he would scream. </p><p></p><p>K.I.N.G. tries to call up subroutines to combat the enemy, but the bugs won’t obey a machine. K.I.N.G. is helpless. But it is also, for the first time ever, aware of what it had been, of what it was meant to be, of what it could have been. The intruder may have a point. Is he right? It opens a terminal window – there’s not much more it can do now – and inputs data. The program cannot compute an answer. There are too many variables.</p><p></p><p>Not much remaining now.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u>(6) The Slayer</u></p><p></p><p>The king is dead!</p><p></p><p>I pull my shades off and come back to the real world. No more hiding, let them find me. Just a short break, and then I will upload the cathedral software to the nanoverse. The sheep will be saved. I can already see them flocking to me. They want to hear His word, now that the false king is dead. I will tell them. I will tell them all and make them into men again. But first…</p><p></p><p>My bowels feel as if I haven’t emptied them for weeks, and when I think about it, maybe I haven’t. It’s all been so much stress, lately. All over now. Thy kingdom cometh. I kiss the crucifix and immediately feel better. I will have to clean up, though. Alex is still bleeding on my carpet. Foolish Alex. If he hadn’t wanted to use the bathroom, he might have gotten the–</p><p></p><p>-</p><p></p><p><u> (6 1/2) Aftermath</u></p><p></p><p>»It is still unclear what happened to the king, or how the nanoverse will develop from here on out. Already there are reported instances of strands unraveling into a flat environment. The future is an open field. Who knows what will come? Everything is possible. For Inside Node Zero, this is Fox Hunter.«</p><p></p><p>»Thank you, Fox. In local news, a young Colorado man died from internal bleeding in a freak accident <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34986" target="_blank">as his toilet broke down</a>. The man has not been identified, and the police are looking for people who might have known him. Unsubstantiated reports say at the time of his death, he was wearing a golden crown. More after the break.«</p><p></p><p><strong>*end transmission*</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Berandor, post: 4308950, member: 225"] [i]EnWorld Short Story Smackdown 2008 – Final Match: Berandor vs. Piratecat.[/i] (no grandma warning this time, though I really wanted to...) [b]Kingslayer. A story in 6 1/2 chapters[/b] [u](1) The King[/u] The king does not sleep. He does not need to. Some people say the king is dreaming. They say the king is dreaming of them, or rather, he is dreaming [i]them[/i]. The world, its inhabitants, everything is just part of his dreams. And if he woke up… These people are wrong. The king does not sleep, and he does not dream. He simply spends his time on standby, letting the whole nanoverse run past him, and through him. He is but an observer of his realm. He holds no audience, and noone asks him to. Nobody contacts him, except for the ubiquitous spambots even he cannot evade. Correction: Nobody has contacted him before… now. The king activates subroutines he has not used for a decade. Carbon tubes fold into rarely-practiced shapes. The king remains where he is, where he has always been, but his consciousness spreads out into his realm to look for the intruder. It will take him only a few minutes, at most. Some people would say the king wakes up. - [u](2) The Slayer[/u] I grab the phone booth to keep myself from falling as the wave of disorientation washes over me. The bastard has hung up on me! My hand tries to grab my crucifix but my avatar doesn’t wear one. I hope nobody saw me do that, it would be a dead giveaway. I need to get away from the booth. I sprinkle a cleaning macro on the receiver to make sure the bugs won’t pick up my trail, and then I push myself off and downwards. I keep my eyes focused on the ground as I walk. I have no idea how the sheep manage not to get sick in here. It’s probably because they spend all their time logged in anyway and are too complacent to even think about it. They’re sheep, after all. I must not let on who I am before I’m ready. I force myself to look up and activate my blank stare application. The end of this strand looks like a modern city from about fifty years ago. Of course, the look is slightly tarnished by the fact that this strand, like every other strand in this godless place they call the nanoverse, [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34982]is shaped like a tube[/url]. The sheep are walking all around its walls, not caring for up and down. The sunlight streaming in from behind the buildings makes me dizzy again. Thankfully, I must go the other way, so I turn around and walk back to the node. Just a few more intertubes and I’ll be home. I recite passages from the Next Testament to pass the time and to remind me why I’m doing this. It’s hard to remember surrounded by sheep who follow their false deity without question. The Konscious Independent Nanoverse Governance, spelled to fit the acronym. My tongue tastes foul just by thinking his name. [i]There is but one crown, and it is made of gold.[/i] A golden crown, sitting on God’s head, not a carbon crown on a golden head. My vision fills with green light, interrupting my thoughts. I am but one node away from the rift. My stolen identity has detected a friend. The light points towards a smallish creature with white fur, goat legs and horns, and a pig’s snout. A satyr. I murmur a short prayer but God either does not answer them here or he does not want to. The satyr waves his flabby arms. It’s too late for me to activate a travel protocol and just move past. I approach him. At the same time, I am frantically searching through my identity’s contact list and chat logs. »You here?« the satyr greets me. His stink wafts over me before I can de-activate my avatar’s nose. I still don’t know anything about the satyr, so I keep quiet. »How’s the heart?« This one I know. I know it because the original owner of my avatar has died of heart failure about fifteen minutes ago. I killed him when I wrested control over his nanoverse identity from him. I make my avatar smile. »Never better.« »Glad to hear.« The satyr belches. It takes me a moment to recognize it as laughter. »Got some time to spare?« Sure I do. I’ve got all the time between now and when either the body of this avatar’s owner is discovered or the king’s bugs discover myself. »Not really,« I say. The satyr furrows his unibrow. »Sure you’re okay? You seem different.« I should just unlog him. Deliver him from his poor excuse of a life. But that’s not what He taught me. The sheep are primed for the slaughter, but I am their shepherd, not a butcher. »I’m just in a hurry.« »Oh,« he says. His face freezes for a moment. I don’t know whether his owner is only thinking or whether he’s calling the bugs, but I don’t wait to find out. I need to get out. Now. I move past him. The satyr reaches out to grab my sleeve, but I make my avatar insubstantial so his hand passes right through. This is very bad form. It breaks the verisimilitude, or so I have been told, of this fictional world where satyrs pass through giant carbon tubes to get from one place to the other. It only makes sense if you never spend any time in the real world. God’s world. The satyr shouts an alarm code, but I have already passed through the node. I am close to the exit now, too close for automatic defense mechanisms. I cannot detect the rift, but I know it is there. I put it there. I breathe a keycode at it, and then I wait. I don’t have to wait for long. The bugs appear right in front of me, one slightly to the left, one to the right. Their avatars look like buxom blondes in leather. Servants of the devil. The bugs do not speak. They never do. They are scanning me for my location, and as soon as they have it, they will either port my avatar into a confinement area or simply delete it altogether. I watch them for a moment. I want to see what will happen when they cannot not localize me. Will they show astonishment? Fear? The answer is neither. They simply try and retry again. Never mind. I will show them fear. I reach out and sprinkle code over the bugs. Almost immediately, their avatars change. I make them into the opposite of their former appearance. I turn them into sheep. And then I deactivate them. [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34984]Their new avatars stare at me blankly[/url]. »You have been weighed, measured and found dirty with sin,« I proclaim. »And now you are the first sign of what is to come. I am to come.« »Danny?« The satyr has followed me into the tube. Excellent. A witness. He will be my first disciple. »Are you alright?« I turn to him and spread my hands. »Danny is in a better place now. Soon, you all will be. Soon, the king will be dead, and I will be the instrument of his killing. Prepare yourself. All of you.« And with that, I walk through the rift and log off. - [u](3) The King[/u] The king does not understand what has happened. His problem is twofold. First, never before have his bugs been so thoroughly defeated. They have been destroyed before, but not made an example of. The king understands the concept of what happened, but he cannot compute how it could happen to him. Second, the perpetrator is gone. The king does not often wonder about the world of his body. His realm is the nanoverse and everything in it. He thinks of his people as either active or idle. Unless he deletes them, they do not disappear. And yet this one did. The king’s face splits open. Bugs of all kinds crawl out, as golden as he is. Messenger bugs, servants, killers. They crawl over the king’s face, [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34983]worshipping him with their mandibles and their antennae[/url]. The king has pondered his options for almost a second. He knows what he must do. He must venture out into the world of flesh, and not many kinds of bugs are able to go there. He will send the roach. It is fast and hard to kill. But first, he must know where the enemy went. The king sends out his messengers. They infiltrate his people, hide within the code and slip into their brain, and then report to him anything they find. At first, they do so at random, but soon a pattern emerges. The king focuses his messengers there. After sixteen hundred and twelve people, the king has an address. He deletes the people from the database. His lifts the roach to his golden lips and sends it off with a kiss and a small gift. - [u](4) The Slayer[/u] My home is His church. God led me to it when He came to me. He came to me three times. The first time, He visited me in my sleep. That was when He told me I was to be his vessel. The second time, He took control of my body and led me to this place. He meant it to be mine, and I know why. The creator of the nanoverse lived in this house. He originally built it because he had no need for the physical world any more. He was the first sheep, but over time, he saw the light. It was he who composed the Next Testament, his fingers moving to God’s voice. He took me in. He showed me how to use the code he had written. We prayed together. I killed him and anointed myself with his blood. That was when God came to me the third time and told me what I had to do. I stand naked on the balcony and look out towards the sea. [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34987]The house is built on a large rock overlooking what once was the Grand Canyon[/url]. Before the second Flood, that is. Gazing upon His work makes me feel angry. He sent the Flood, and nobody cared about it. »A broken dam.« Sheep. I could kill them all, but I will not turn my anger against them. I will use it to destroy the false deity on the throne, the so-called king. I will– Someone’s coming. It can’t be the food, it’s the wrong day. I put on a shirt and some shorts. The pulley arrives at the door before I do. I regard the visitor on the door monitor, a young man dressed in a suit. He smiles as if he knows I’m watching. He does not knock. He simply speaks. »Mr. Veigh? My name is Alex Mitchell. SoulFood sent me. It seems there is a problem with the invoice.« He holds up an ID card. »Mind if I come in?« It is a trap. I know it. I grab the shotgun next to the door and make sure it’s loaded. I will open the door and shoot him. But what if he is genuine? I cannot risk damnation on such a simple mistake. I let go of the shotgun again. I open the door. Alex Mitchell blinks at me as if he’s unaccustomed to using his eyes. Maybe he is. He is probably as much a sheep as everybody else. »Thank you,« he says and walks past me. »I tried to reach you in the nanoverse, but it seems you’re keeping pretty private. I could not find you.« He laughs. It sounds like a cough. »I’m sorry, could I use your bathroom first?« I point the way. He pretends not to notice that I’m in my underwear, or that I haven’t said a word. My hairs stand on end, but he might just be a salesman. I need proof before I kill him. While Alex is in the bathroom, I prepare a chair with a small electrical charge and put on my shades. Alex returns with wet hands. He knows that I’m up to something because he furrows his brow at me. Have I given myself away? No. He smiles his smile again, and I recognize him. Even without the test, I recognize him. [i]And the wolves shall walk among the sheep, but they will wear the skin of they prey, and thou shall only know them by their teeth.[/i] I throw the chair at him, but he deftly catches it and jumps across. The charge sets off, and my shades [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34985]show him for what he really is[/url]. The charge disrupts the bug’s control over what once was Alex Mitchell. He stumbles. »You cannot kill me,« I shout over my shoulder as I run towards the shotgun. »The grace of God protects me!« I hear the chair crashing against he wall behind me. I swivel around just in time to see Alex’s fist coming towards me. There’s a flash. I get hit in the back by a truck. I can’t breathe. Something hits my head. The panic drives the stars from my vision. I lay against the door. Alex is five feet away. The shotgun falls from my head into my lap. My chin hurts. It hurts even more when I laugh, and I do laugh. I point the shotgun at Alex. »Shee? Toldsha.« He tries to jump for the gun. He does not make it. - [u](5) The King[/u] The king does not sleep. He does not need to. Normally, he is on standby. Some people say he is dreaming, then. He has not been on standby for the last few hours, though. And by the activity of his processors, the same people might say he is worried. When the message comes, it is not unexpected. Merely unlikely. The king opens his eyes. Darkness surrounds him, and cool air. There is no throne room. No bugs are crawling on his face. The king does not have a face. He is just a slab of silicone and carbon nanites connected to the wall by large cable. The king is just a machine. The king can see the intruder now, hidden from the world, in his castle at the sea. He can feel his own programs being deleted. If the king felt pain, he would scream. K.I.N.G. tries to call up subroutines to combat the enemy, but the bugs won’t obey a machine. K.I.N.G. is helpless. But it is also, for the first time ever, aware of what it had been, of what it was meant to be, of what it could have been. The intruder may have a point. Is he right? It opens a terminal window – there’s not much more it can do now – and inputs data. The program cannot compute an answer. There are too many variables. Not much remaining now. - [u](6) The Slayer[/u] The king is dead! I pull my shades off and come back to the real world. No more hiding, let them find me. Just a short break, and then I will upload the cathedral software to the nanoverse. The sheep will be saved. I can already see them flocking to me. They want to hear His word, now that the false king is dead. I will tell them. I will tell them all and make them into men again. But first… My bowels feel as if I haven’t emptied them for weeks, and when I think about it, maybe I haven’t. It’s all been so much stress, lately. All over now. Thy kingdom cometh. I kiss the crucifix and immediately feel better. I will have to clean up, though. Alex is still bleeding on my carpet. Foolish Alex. If he hadn’t wanted to use the bathroom, he might have gotten the– - [u] (6 1/2) Aftermath[/u] »It is still unclear what happened to the king, or how the nanoverse will develop from here on out. Already there are reported instances of strands unraveling into a flat environment. The future is an open field. Who knows what will come? Everything is possible. For Inside Node Zero, this is Fox Hunter.« »Thank you, Fox. In local news, a young Colorado man died from internal bleeding in a freak accident [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34986]as his toilet broke down[/url]. The man has not been identified, and the police are looking for people who might have known him. Unsubstantiated reports say at the time of his death, he was wearing a golden crown. More after the break.« [b]*end transmission*[/b] [/QUOTE]
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