Chapter 9-9 Seeding Spies

Chapter 9-9 Seeding Spies

Sol Standard Licenses are more like keys than outright phantasmics.

From what we understand of them, they merely unlock certain ethical considerations blocking the EGI from acknowledging the users request. The vast separation of the many different licenses, however, tells a tale of internal striations present even amongst the Voiders themselves.

Though long have they lurked in our orbit, we have identified their separation into three major fleets. I dare not say if they are actually parted factions for they stand united in any Guild-level negotiations, but the accountings taken from those who have visited their voidships and habitats depict a society that at once lives in a paradise of individual leisure, while constrained by artificial supervision each passing second.

Strangely, their artificial minds do not seem to rule them or demand from them as the gods did. Instead, they seem to serve as impossibly incorruptible caretakers. At least when it comes to their own people.

There has been more than one case of Voidships engaging trespassing Fallwalkers seeking to smuggle something from the Sunderwilds. Most fascinatingly, the Fallwalkers reported that their ghosts detected hints of incomprehensible sorrow spilling out from the Voidshipsthe emotional recognition barely adjacent to humanity.

Its a worrying thing, to consider that whatever happened out in the dark, it left even minds composed of rawest data shaken.

--Osjon Thousand, The Firmament and the Sky, Chapter 5

9-9

Seeding Spies

Knowledge was a great house, but with vast capacity a tax was levied upon its upkeep. Too many layers to its design and the structure threatening collapse, like one pillar split into ten then a hundred, each straining under the weight of a growing ceiling.

Such was how Avo felt when he beheld the simulated facade of the hive for the first time. Diving into the EGI Core, he found himself faced with a grand oubliette, its depths deep and its expanse byzantine. The bridges and junctions built through its confines were beyond description of the architecture, becoming a thing where shape and analogy grew interwoven.

Mem-data surged through tunnels of mem-data, the greater hiding the lesser. The sheer amount of memories available allowed for countless permutation. Here, practicality was wed to artistry, the nature of all phantasmics augmented and masked by the mind of the EGI core itself.

The core itself. Of all the things about his inheritance, the half-crippled artificial mind was a treasure above treasures, even broken. The mem-data that came from it greeted him in billows of static. He had heard of ghosts capable of interfacing with more complex coldtech computation devices, but the EGI possessed a weight of cognition, a presence in the Nether almost human.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

A mirror to the nature of his Soul, it rested at the very heart of the oubliette. Avo strode across the drifting tides of mem-data, gazing up toward the center point of which all memories found the end to their flow. A large cloud of static information lined with both numerals and ghosts shimmered, its grandness conferring upon it a pseudo-gravity that pulled at his attention.

It would take him months to acclimate himself to its build. Longer still before he could fully master it.

Over the course of the past two days, however, he contented himself with understanding the basics of his new facilities.

At present, he had the ship create two additional chambers for Draus and Kae. With his place being in the nexusand so enthralled with its supporting Necrothurgyhe saw no need to create another partition of his own.

At the Regulars request, he created a vehicle bay within the structure for their command aero. It seemed pointless to Avo now that they had the George Washington, but Draus still thought much of its necessity.

As for entering and exiting the sanctuary, the process of leaving was substantially easier. Approximatelyone-hundred and twenty Penumbral Gateways were active and scattered across the Warrens at any given time. They would cycle from location to location in accordance with a self-scrambling memory key installed within the coreone that Avo now copied into his own Meta as well. If they wanted to leave, all it would take was a request and a specific gateway. The doorway he entered through would then re-manifest along the walls of the command nexus as a tunnel opened behind it. Doing this seemed to require no sacrifice of Essence, merely the activation of his helix.

The only real trouble came after, with re-entry necessitating the sacrifice of a ghoul. Avo wasnt sure if only his brothers would suffice as key to this demiplane, but thus far, they were the only beings his helix worked on. And interestingly, Kae theorized that this Heaven of Shadows must be connected to Rendsinks somewhere, as it seemed to lack a Soul and an obvious Hell.

Such a thing made Avo wonder why his Frame hadnt managed to identify the Heaven in function yet. Perhaps it pre-dated recorded data.

He had examined a few of the helios from the cloning pools afterward, choosing to keep them dormant instead of waking them fully. It was difficult for him to regard them for long. Searching the blankness of their minds, he found nothing of a helix slot within them, nor the touch of ghoulhood.

That, then, was something for the Low Mastersor the Hungers themselvesto add after the perversion of their flesh.

BIOMASS: 45%

Another matter was the supply situation for the ship. The hydroponics baya literal kilometer-long silo of genetically modified greenerycycled enough air and water for the ship. However, they still lacked some critical supplies to sustain an extended living aboard.

Well, extended living for the other two, at least. Avo had, to sate curiosity more than hunger, taken samplings of his predecessor species.

They tasted remarkably bland.

His visit to the gene clinic was brief. Much potential lay in its future if the EGIs logs were anything to go off of. For now, bereft of proper licenses, all he found was an inventory of disappointment blunted by a single surprise. Short of wishing to modify himself to survive the void or revert back to baseline ghoul, the clinic would not provide him any augmentations yet. However, he discovered the helix had done something to his blood. With his haemophage unrestricted, his ability to interface with biological apparatuses had been drastically enhanced.

Of course, she did not know the full nature of what she was facing. He and Draus had revealed little regarding his encounter in Ox-Three. Hesitation lingered with him still regarding that topic. +Yes I can get you something. Will need some time to provide proper details.+

Her mind stilled into inscrutable silence. Just how much did she believe. What was coming? A rebuke? +Good. I misjudged you, ghoul. You surprise me with your willingness to be reasonable.+

Yeah. He still hated her too. +We share prey. Nothing more.+

A titter of laughter came from her. It was a thing of reflexive politeness. +Ah. So I see. Another question, if you will?+

+Ill deactivate the last memory chaining your mind. Do it after business with Conflux concludes.+

+That obvious, was I?+

+Have anything else in common to talk about?+

A pause came from the Sang. She sighed. +Bright-Wealth wants to know if youre coming around again. She is willing to offer good imps for a phantasmic. A clandestine Specter of a sort. Something doubtlessly to help her cheat at ma jiang.+

He gave an amused grunt. What else indeed? His first instinct was to say no. That he didnt care. But he paused. Something about the offer seemed nostalgic. Like he was back in the Tiers, living as a Necrojack again. If half of those memories even belonged to the same person. The coldness returned inside him. He was more chimera than ghoul now. Perhaps all along. +Ask her how much. Then we talk.+

Chambers passed into the borders of Mazzos Junction. The time of insertion was upon them. +Going to need to go quiet now. Share details if anything is discovered.+

+Very well,+ Green River said. +I will be in touch.+

He ended the session and watched as Chambers marker inched toward the Conflux megablock through Exorcist-managed traffic.

The drones he and Draus had used to map out and monitor the area were still in play, but working more subtly than ever. The veins of traffic were thick with remotely possessed or ghost-driven vehicles, mostly empty of people. As such, it was hard to parse the loci of their Lark drones from other aeros.

Through the rising levels of the Conflux megablock, with its vast podiums still littered with pockets of foot traffic and drifting advertisements, neon messages painted in both the real and the Nether, the cargo descended.

It was low in the Spinejust above where Layer One parted the Warrens proper from the gutters belowthat the transport carrying Chambers accelerated. An open dock awaited them, the outside protected by twenty drones.

They were Bodkin patterns he remembered from the Crucible. Suppose Conflux had plenty of those.

Across the Auto-Seance session Avo built into his spies, Chambers anxiety was a persistent torrent. Terror gripped the enforcer, but he was surprisingly competent at controlling his lesser nature.

Avo despised the man, but through the sequencing of his mind, could not deny that though the Syndicate enforcer lacked good sense, good nerve, good instinct, and good hygiene, there was a strange cunning amidst all the filth. Something both simpering and intensely aware of what others thought of him, capable of reading emotions or guessing at motivations. Such granted him room to adjust himself accordingly; it was part of what kept him safe from abusers like Mirrorhead.

Unfortunately, that was where Avos complimentary thoughts culminated, for Chambers had a bad habit, and that was tuning his Metamind to play specific distasteful vicarities when he got too worried. Using the enforcer as both spy and gateway, Avo was always there. More than once Avo had to quell the mans in-mind entertainment, and more than once he desired to bleach his eyes and null the man after beholding the contents.

Like a shadow hiding the darkest memories within Chambers mind, Avo watched and waited. With all the alterations he made to the enforcers memories, the man now remembered things of the past slightly differently. Deliberately differently compared to the techs as wellanother thing to serve as a lure for Mirrorheads attention.

Less than two hundred feet away now judging from the triangulation between the Lark, the transport, and the dock when calculated by his Phys-Sim.

Activating another session, he connected his mind with Draus. +Our seeds on approach. Insertion soon.+

+Copy that,+ Draus said, her awareness drifting over into his Metamind, taking a backseat in his palace. +Did you alter your Meta, by the way? Place feels different.+

+Not yet,+ Avo said, watching the distance fade. +Not yet.+