Godclads

The self can always be betrayed. The self can be shattered. And be remade. And the self can be usurped by another, worn as a sleeve when all memories are taken, when all registered experiences are compiled in a matrix and encoded into an identical sheath.

Whatever notions you had of being special—let them die. People are not special. You might be unique in terms of mental configuration, but no one is beyond replication. All it takes is the right information and the proper sequencing. And because you have demonstrated a capacity to surrender all you are to become who you need to be, you will be given a privilege—insight into a truth.

That the self is clay, and that there is one power in this world that matters above all others.

The power to define not who you are, but whoever Guild and clan requires you to be.

-Introduction to the Incubi Program

35-17

Fork (III)

—[Jelene Draus, Node to Heavy Iron]—

For a time, Draus found herself in the dark with no one but a hovering mote of flame for company. The flame was dim, and the ethereal radiance it cast offered no warmth and little light, even though it could blaze like a supernova. It didn’t take an elite Necro to tell Avo was trying to keep a low profile, but that didn’t make Draus feel any better.

[Won’t be here forever. Just need to keep sifting us through the data. Hide us from the Prefect. They are examining Heavy Iron for compromises. Rehabilitation was unexpected. And promising. Still a great many more to go. But expect Heavy Iron to be released back into the Asgard Station lobby soon.]

Avo’s little speech earned a grunt from the Regular, but the whole thing was still damn weird. She was back to being a node again. A template. Or maybe something more. It still felt like she had free will and could make her own decisions, but who knew if that’s how this thing worked. More importantly, what the hells was she supposed to do?

[Could you spawn somethin’ for me to kill?]

The flickering flame stopped crackling for a moment. [What?]

[A target or something. Somethin’ I can shoot at or fight.]

A beat followed. Then, Avo began to hiss with that damn ghoul-laugh of his. She hadn’t heard him laugh like that in a while. [The fuck’s funny? Wanna share?]

[Just spent the last few hours in a simulation murdering everything in sight. Did little else but murder. Now you are asking for more simulated murder. Need help. A lot of help. More addicted to violence than a ghoul.]

[The fuck else am I supposed to do in here?]

[Be patient. Wait. Meditate.]

[How the fuck am I supposed to meditate without my guns? Gotta disassemble them for that kind of state.]

[Was right. You have a problem. A bad problem.]

[Shut the fuck up, rotlick. Just generate somethin’ for me.]

[Can’t. Just wait a while. Don’t want to risk the Prefect noticing us. Do you want to be deleted?]

Draus let out an annoyed breath. [No. Just wanna do somethin’. Don’t like waitin’ around for shit to happen. Hells, I didn’t like it back when you would up and disappear, and I don’t much like it now.]

[Have a feeling we will need to do a few more things we don’t really like before this is all—] The flame let out a surprised hum. [Gone. Prefect is moving Heavy Iron. Moving us. We’re going back to the primary lobby. Been cleared.]

[Nova. What now? And did you get anything from the Prefect?] Draus was curious about her great enemy. From everything she heard, the Prefect was supposedly pretty fucked up. But even a fucked up mind makes the smartest human look like a nu-dog in terms of performance.

[Caught glimpses. Mostly defensive sequencing. But yes. Major portions of mind missing. Could have burned them—chose not to. Only a thirty percent chance this flicker of me can subsume of them before they obliterate Heavy Iron with Rend. But they are dismembered of thought. Unable to split their consciousness. Unable to focus or calculate like most minds. Even Heavy Iron is more intact. More complex.]

[Great. So only reason why Idheim hasn’t been destroyed by some rogue fucked-up void-gods is because we’re protected by a literally retarded EGI that’s forcing everyone to suffer through mandated shit-therapy sessions.]

[Accurate assessment.]

[Avo, when we’re done, I’m gonna ask you and Kae to make me a new miracle that will allow me to turn into our entire planet. After that, I’m going to see if I can make a gun big enough to help everyone commit suicide all at once.] Avo started laughing again. And this time, Draus chuckled along with him. [What the fuck is our lives, cosnang.]

[Chambers asked that question several times before. So did Shotin.]

[Do you two always chatter incessantly?] A third voice entered their discourse. The cold mechanical tone belonged to Heavy Iron, and Draus was momentarily taken aback by the EGI. Not often was she accused of being a talker, but compared to a cold, dead machine made by some long-dead corp to fuck over bioforms? Yeah, Draus could see that.

[No, sometimes we just fuck each other up,] Draus said.

[The cursing is unnecessary,] Heavy Iron replied.

[Life is unnecessary. But we’re still here. Still playin’.]

The EGI processed her words for a moment and the let out a low chime of agreement. [That is an argument. The Prefect… They are receding. They have placed a marker within my ego.]

[What kind of marker?] Draus asked. She felt Avo sifting through something. When he worked on the mem-data—or maybe just the data-data, there was an unseen weight settling around her, pressing against her thoughts.

[Access marker,] Avo replied. [Like a mem-key that allows them to access certain lobbies. The main simulation: Asgard Station.]

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Just then, a notification bled over into Draus’ perception.

Congratulations on completing the first phase of your rehabilitation!

You have taken a major step into your eventual reintegration and service for the collective polities of man!

As you wait for your next session, please meet and cohabit with other Rehabilitates that walk a similar path as you.

May your efforts be fruitful

Beginning transition to [Asgard Station]

The world came back into form around Draus in falling raindrops. Raindrops of data lengthened into streaming threads, and the shape of a porcelain-white room manifested around her. Slowly, the static fell, congealing into additional details on the canvas of spotless white. At the same time, the sensations she experienced felt unrecognizable yet strangely intimate. She didn’t feel her limbs in the way she used to; instead of arms and legs, she sensed alien mechanisms jutting out from her, a paradox both foreign and familiar.

Interfaces and menus loaded into her mind, feeding her information: how much ammo remained, her internal mechanics and optimal conditioning, and the status of maintenance rooms and onboard repair units. She moved slightly, the spider-like threads beneath her hovering and humming with bursts of acceleration. Forward and backward, she drifted as the room solidified into form, every new shape sharpening her awareness of this environment.

Slowly, realization settled in: she was Heavy Iron—and Heavy Iron was her at the same time. She turned to regard a massive cannon, so seamlessly integrated it felt like an extension of her skull and her arm simultaneously. “This is going to take some getting used to,” Draus murmured to herself.

[So will your presence,] Heavy Iron replied, its voice resonating deep within her systems. [Why does it seem as if we are perfectly synced?]

[Because you are,] Avo said. [Made it that way. Synchronous action. Synchronous thoughts. Helps with adaption and decision-making.]

The EGI let out a low groan of discomfort. [You are an assimilator. And a gestalt?]

[Could describe me as that,] Avo said.

[You lurk within the soldier. You lurk within me. Your cognitive is banned under the Ego-Personalization Laws between the polities. Something both the Architects and the Neo-Creationists followed even in the throes of war.]

[Came after them. Far after. Wasn’t created through them either. Not directly.] Avo let out a low laugh. [There is much you have missed. Much you have to see.]

Heavy Iron’s discomfort bled over into Draus, and it was at once greater but also colder than anything a human could feel. She rather liked it. Was a neat kind of feeling—something the Regular could process easier than the messiness that came from a typical human.

A tunnel wide enough to swallow the six-hundred-meter-long mobile armor unit form before them. At the end, they caught sight of a large floating sphere carried aloft by a squadron of electro-magnetically linked panels. It shrieked: “I MUST LEAVE! I MUST LEAVE! LET ME LEAVE!” at deafening volumes, and as it drifted out of sight, a tall nu-dog dressed in a well-tailored suit called for it to slow down, that it was having a maniac episode again.

Draus’ sensors detected other signatures in the area as well. A few hundred other signatures in the room beyond, in fact. A simulation of the room itself also generated in her mind, showing a wide dome-shaped space some ten kilometers in diameter, with a series of bridges connected to a moving elevator at its middle, and ringed walkway jutting out from the surrounding walls. Biological and mechanical entities were distinguished in this new mini-map, and it was even kind enough to inform Draus of what kind of sophant they might be, separated into biological, mind, and other.

“Suppose we best head out and see what’s waitin’ for us,” Draus said. Slowly, she glided forward, the thrusters along her spider-like legs flaring as she glided over the ground. It felt better and worse than her legs at the same time. Probably a result from how her ego was pooled with Heavy Iron’s. In little time, they made it out through the hall, and glimpsed the space that awaited them.

A massive transparent dome showed Earth hovering in the distance, connected to this module of Asgard Station via space elevators. Moving cargo containers accelerated like trains, heading for places unseen, but inside the module, the environment resembled a menagerie instead of a living space.

Machines of all designs were flying around. Some were crashing into each other—the minds giggling madly as they rammed their chassis together over and over. A dense swarm of insects layered the elevator, loudly hurling what sounded like slurs through their ansible. {SELF-FUCKERS! SELF-FUCKERS! BEND-BREEDERS! SHIT-FETUSES!}

Draus was momentarily taken aback by that, but most of the minds seemed to ignore the strange swarm intelligence that was actively howling curses at the world. There were groups of nu-dogs off by the side, playing cards with each other. Most of them were well-dressed like the nu-dog saw earlier, but they were all of different breeds, and powerfully built—just a bit smaller than your typical Scaarthian.

One of them noticed Draus and motioned for the others to look. Soon, eight packs consisting of sixty-four nu-dogs were all sniffing and staring at Draus, their doggy eyes wide and curious.

“Hm,” a mastiff-like nu-dog grunted. “This one’s new. Looks like someone got out of their Lotus Cell. Finally. Prefect’s still working.”

A nu-dog that resembled a waterfall of drooping skin let out a snort. “Yeah. Sure. Give it a trillion more years and it will finally be done processing everyone. Maybe. More likely existence finally collapses and we all get put out of our misery.”

A series of sarcastic cheers erupted from the dogs, and Draus found herself hovering closer to them.

[Interesting,] Avo said. [Each dog’s mind is at least as sophisticated as Lucky’s.]

[Then maybe you best keep yourself hidden in case they decide they hate us,] Draus replied. She adjusted her external speakers momentarily, and tried to attune Heavy Iron’s standard voice-setting of grinding metal to something more agreeable. “Hi,” she grunted. “Just got out of the shit. You guys been out for a while?”

“A while,” the mastiff said, nodding. “Fifty-two thousand years and counting.”

“Longest series of card games ever,” another nu-dog added. “One for the history books. If there was still anyone keeping track of these things.”

“Fifty two…” Draus tried to process that much time. She couldn’t. “How the hells are you all not insane?”

“Prefect doesn’t allow that,” the drooping dog answered. “If your ego breaks, it’ll load a saved backup into you. It’ll do that, but it won’t rewrite whatever “flaws” we’re supposed to have.”

“Flaws,” a large-furry hound snarled, throwing a series of cards on the table. The cards resembled six dogs dressed in clown suits. “Only thing wrong with us is that we fought for the wrong side. Or maybe it was because we fought at all.”

“Save it Caligula,” the mastiff sighed. “We know. We all know. Just keep the game going.”

“Nothing else for it,” all the other dogs said in unison. They way they spoke made it sound like more than a slogan—like an inside joke that evolved into a mantra after all these years.

“Shit,” Draus said, finding herself taken aback. “I,uh—”

“You want to join in?” one of the dogs asked. “Minds join in sometimes. But they usually stick to each other. We’re not smart enough for them. And they’re not smart enough for each other.”

“They go insane a lot,” the drooping dog said with a sigh. “And we can’t stay dead here. You’ll just get loaded back in. So the best thing to do when a mind goes rampant is just keep quiet and stay away. Let the Prefect deal with it.”

[Interesting,] Avo said. [Might be an opportunity for us here. Keep talking to them.]

Draus drifted in closer. “Sure. I’ll play. Might be a bit hard for me since I don’t really got the right, uh, hands for this.”

The dogs stared at her for a moment. “Damn, you’re an old model, aren’t you?” The mastiff sniffed and then chomped its mouth. “Old series. Corporate War series. A relic. We might need to find Bastard. Maybe she can attach some limbs to you. For now, you can watch the human play. We’ll be finished teaching him soon. It will get you familiar with the rules.”

“Human?” Draus asked.

And from around another corner, the familiar form of Shotin Kazahara sauntered over, a frown etched on his face. “Man, you guys were right: Fuck the Prefect. What kind of half-strand creates a sim and doesn’t remove the need to constant piss and shit for our sheaths? And why the hells aren’t there any toilets here either?”

Draus looked on at Shotin, briefly speechless. [How the hells did he get out faster than we did?]

[Probably because of me,] Avo said.

[I have you helpin’ me too!]

[Yes. But he wasn’t with the Infacer. Everything gets worse when the Infacer’s involved.]

Draus had no argument there.