Chapter 9-7 The Volunteered

Chapter 9-7 The Volunteered

Shard-3: Convex, I need an emergency transfer for all mem-data you have on one Aedon Chambersa former Conflux asset. Sending a general memory profile now. Half-strand came back from the dead. Theres chatter saying that he escaped from the Scalpers. Were not sure how yet.

Mirror-Convex: Received. All relevant memories will be uploaded into your Meta upon confirmation. How is Greatling?

Shard-3: Being a miserable shit as usual. Hes been doubling patrols and spiking hires. I think he intends to spend us in massed waves against the Scalpers. Food for their drones. Conflux definitely doesnt have the golems for this fight, and were going up against at least half a dozen Knots. Its going to be a slaughterhouse. He doesnt give a shit though. Blessed be the Worthy my rash-hollowed ass.

Mirror-Convex: Understood. Would you like extraction to be expedited? The situation between the Elders is getting tenuous. Our cell remains uncompromised but you know the risks. Its election season. A little scandal goes a long way.

Shard-3: Negative. I want to see how this Chambers thing turns out. Just get me that update.

Mirror-Convex: Received. Be careful Shard-3. Were getting a lot of unconfirmed chatter that a Stormtree Godclad Cadre is in play as well. Dont get pulled into the fire.

Shard-3: Copy that. Shit. This things really starting to spiral. Wont surprise me if the godsdamned Low Masters launch a second uprising by this point.

-Conversation between Incubi and Handler, Ori-Thaum

9-7

The Volunteered

+Chambers. Wake up. Time for you to be useful.+

Terror came for Chambers midway through his old smut vicarity as the sky above the simulation came asunder. With a fissure of thoughtstuff, phantasmal seams ruptured as ghosts invaded; foreign thoughts crackled and flowed, rushing into his mind like a rapid spilling into a wound.

For the briefest of moments, he froze in and beyond the Nether. Mind and body stiff with fright, he looked up, beyond the aratnid being shoved into a certain orifice it didnt belong, beyond the flailing limbs and screaming face. Like a mirage overlain atop the fabric of his entertainment as the mirage of a monsters face, the backdrop tuned to a paused instant of an extremely questionable porn vicarity.

The sky above the Chambers Metamind palace wIt was that last part that made Chambers suddenly realize who was talking. Avo's face looked different. Like all the moon pale skin had been peeled away and replaced with grayish tendrils sewn together along spidery silken threads.

+Hey, hey, consang+ Chambers said, transmuting all the charm he possessed from a spreading well of terror.

Chambers blinked internally. Dealing with Avo was a real pain. There was just no read on the ghoul. He was hot, he was cold, he was everything in between. Half a dozen times he thought the rotlick was going to kill him. Probably was thinking about killing and eating him now.

But he didnt. And that was the worst of it. The tension. The anticipation. The restraint of the release.

Hells, he had to survive this. What do? What do? Avo was a godsdamned murderous psychopath. Whatflattery! Yes! Flattery works on anything!

+So, uh, you look different, Avo,+ Chamber said, adding a chuckle to come off more puckish rogue than bored pervert. +Did you did you do something with your hair?+

Shit! Too much stupid in that question. Ghouls didnt have hair. Godsdammit, distract! Distract! +Ive been expecting you?+ Too much like a question, Chambers. Offer him a favor! +Im ready to do that thing you were prepping me for. Whatever that thing was. Iuh. Its good to see you again? Thanks for not hittin me some more?+

He was serious about that last part, most his bosses were all about the hitting and Avo talked real great for a ghoul. Even if those conversations were primarily based on doing terrible things to Chambers eyes or limbs or mind or other bodily bits. Man, if there was one rotlick in need of therapy, it was Avo. Being too smart did that to you, and not just for rotlicks.

That was the score: Aunt Nenda always said it was bad to be too smart. She said his mom had been too smart. Which is why she left him and his dad for the Layer One Expansion Initiative all those years back, going down to start a new family on a Guild stipend.

And then look what happened to her, Aunt Nenda had sneered in between mouthfuls of Slurp-E-Sludge, Eaten by ghouls. Her, and her perfect new family. Stay stupid Chambers. You stay stupid and you stay out of the way. You gotta master the art of being a half-strand.

How's there an art to being a half-strandow! She had flicked a particularly jagged piece of sludge crust at him then, the hardened synthetic sugar substance darting against his skin like a flying piece of flint.

See that? Aunt Nenda said. Thats part of the art. She wiped her mouth with one hand as the tubes running up her back suckled the fat out from her body into the machine she always wore. The liposuctor beeped cheerily and played a happy jingle, rating the drop in her obesity index.

Aunt Nenda was a strange woman with a strange job: she was a caloric inspector for an Ashthrone subsidiary. Something about testing junk foods and using her own body as an instrument to record the data. He wasnt sure how she got the job, only the fact that she said this specific job was one only a master idiot could get.

Flicking food into other peoples face? a confused young Chambers had asked.

No, dipshit, she had sighed, That was an accident. Im an idiot, remember? Just a klutz. Cant expect jack from shit if youre looking at me. That's the secret art: you gotta be just annoying enough to deal with, enough that people wanna leave you alone. You gotta find that line between where youre just repellant, and where you become a problem. Thats what it means to be a proper idiot. Thats how you keep yourself from dying.

Wow, Chambers said, nodding.

A month later, Aunt Nenda died when one of the candy bars she swallowed woke up in her throat and ate its way back up.

At least he got her carpet out of that mess. And some advice.

At present, the ghoul was glaring down at him with naked disgust. Something told Chambers he was being judged. He didnt like being judged. Being judged got you beat up. Snuffed. Or worserobbed.

Being poor in the Warrens was like a fate worse than getting fed to some Fallwalkers cycler.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

It was also kinda alluring

LUSTAWAY ACTIVATED

TRANSFERRING PHYSICAL AROUSAL INTO METAMIND

They mustve read his mem-data then because the old one laughed, the ghoul widened his many, many teeth, and the Regular just shook her head.

Chambers wasnt gonna lie: This was like the forty-seventh worst day in his life. It really didnt feel good being shamed inside his own mind during his own private time. Never mind he was a prisoner.

Actually, never mind he was a prisoner. With the bomb gone, Mirrorhead gone, and that nerd Janard suffering too, Chambers didnt feel so alone. Things were pretty good.

But then, they just had to ruin his favorite smut-vicarity star and attack his self-esteem on the same day. Damn. He'd get through this somehow.

+Avo,+ Chambers said, his mind boiling with as many joyous memories as he could recall. He didnt need the rotlick to sense his fear. He was the idiot. He was the one true idiot. He was too stupid to kill. He was still useful. +Consang. My rotlick. My buddy. The mind is a curious thing. Sometimes, its like the wind, other times its like a very horny nu-dog.+

A crackle of irritation thundered within his Auto-Seance. It was spilling some kind of shit that made him think of watching his sister get tortured to death. Like, there were flashes of pain and screaming, and him getting grafted, and feeling his sister die on a grafting table and this really, really tall woman. Except he didnt have a sister. Dark as the intrusive thoughts were though, they did feel kind of kinky. Maybe, like, if the sister was getting eaten by ghouls

LUSTAWAY ACTIVATED

TRANSFERRING PHYSICAL AROUSAL INTO METAMIND

+Jaus,+ the Regular muttered. Chambers could feel her shaking his head.

+Enough,+ Avo growled, frustration boiling over. +Not here to see his porn. Not here to see his fetish. Here to examine the subject. Here to prepare him.+

Chambers could feel his heart rate accelerate. Prepare? Oh, no. Not more preparation. The last time the ghoul prepared him he lost a whole lotta memories. Half of his favorite sims were repurposed into sequence-locked phantasmics he couldnt access but still looked like the sims from the outside. He barely understood how the rotlick did it. It was like the ghoul was a brain magician locking Chambers outside his own house.

+So,+ Chambers said, trying to keep the apprehension out of his mind. +When we say prepare+

+Going to put new memories into your mind,+ Avo said. +Change memories. Need to check your stability after. Minor fixes.+

He didnt like how Avo said fixes.

Then, Avo continued. +Need you to get Mirrorheads attention. One on one meeting. Can you do that?+

A series of words flashed through Chambers mind. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say hells no. He wanted to say a great many things. Most of those things, however, might upset the ghoul. The ghoul currently holding the stability of his mind between its claws. Dangerous situations called for displays of sudden cunning.

+Yeah,+ Chambers said, +no problemI mean, who ya talkin to? I'm always good for it.+

Internally, he screamed. That wasnt a display of sudden cunning, that was a blatant lie. He didnt want to get the boss notice. More than that, his old boss notice was the thing he wanted the least. His entire tenure of survival at Conflux was avoiding Mirrorheads attention, not getting it.

They were pretty much signing his suicide warrant.

Fuck.

The old woman threw back her head and laughed softly. +Yes. Yes, he will do. He will do just fine.+

Somehow, her words made him worry the most.

+I,+ Zein began, +have some questions for you first regarding your former master, however. And then, the ghoul will have some after he is done to see if the operation can be considered successful.+

A squeak of pure terror escaped from Chambers mind. +I uh+

+Dont worry,+ Zein said, smiling benignly, +pain of the mind is but a lie. Just accept what is to come. Insanity is so very hard to mend.+

Avo grunted in agreement as Chambers felt a rumble of ghosts flood through his Auto-Seance.

Blankness swallowed all his protests, all his thoughts.

In the background, the vicarity continued playing.

LUSTAWAY ACTIVATED

TRANSFERRING PHYSICAL AROUSAL INTO METAMIND