Godclads

Chapter 9-10 Reflected Shadows

+Place the technicians in the holding cells. I will speak to the enforcer personally. No. No send him now. I don’t care if he’s naked–all the better: the humiliated speak louder.+

-Mirrorhead private lobby broadcast across all Conflux loci

9-10

Reflected Shadows

“Chambers? That you?”

It was hard to tell who was asking him considering the blinding lights searing his swollen eyes and the voice speaking being modulated all to shit by a godsdammed rig.

But if there was one thing he did know, it was that crackle. That familiar shitty crackle of an old exorig pattern. Wait, didn’t he used to wear one of those? His memories still felt a bit jumbled, like his brain had been carved from his skull and soaked in a river, bouncing off every rock in its path before getting shoved back in.

“Yeah,” Chambers said hoarsely, wincing at the brightness. “It’s me. It’s… your old consang Chambers.”

He shook his head hoping to clear it. Mistake. The dizziness redoubled. Memories pulsed through his mind with each throb of pain. He was… was trying to get his biomods back from Shred. But Scalpers showed up and took him.

Just his luck too: the half-strands grabbing him and the techs were doing some under-the-table stuff. Not official work. So good news was no scalps were taken that day. Bad news was that the rotlick got snuffed.

Damn shame. That ghoul was a one-of-a-kind. Well, now none of a kind seeing it was dead. Frankly, Chambers was worried what the boss was going to do to him once he learned.

Wait. Shit. Mirrorhead. The boss. He lost the boss’ shit. Oh no, oh this was not good–this was fucking bad. Think Chambers, think. You need to figure out your story. Prepare something to say beforehand. Make him think it isn’t your fault.

You were just having the ghoul sightsee, no, investigate something interesting happenings atop the blocks of Burner’s Way. Yeah. Yeah, makes more sense. Mobility testing. Then getting closer to the Gouge, all of a sudden the Scalper fucks show up and ruin everything.

Alright. That’s the plan. If Mirrorhead wants to know anything else, say Scalper Necros went digging in his mind and left some memory damage.

With the repeated haze overtaking his thoughts, that part might not even be a lie.

A strong arm planted upon his shoulder. Chambers blinked. An enforcer depolarized their faceplate, looking down at him. Aegis Mark I? Was that his kind of rig? A pale hap-tatted face greeted him. Did he know her? No. He knew everyone. This juv was new blood. A shame. She had that bright and ambitious look in her eyes like she was trying to get noticed. A real tryhard. The Big Nothing was all that waited for her.

“Sorry you’re gonna die,” Chambers mumbled. Tightness coiled his stomach into knots of pain. He was having a hard time breathing. He needed to calm down. He needed… He needed…

He needed Dannis Steelhard.

With a thought, he activated a vicarity and left himself drift. In the periphery of his awareness, he watched as several more enforcers and technicians boarded the transport. They were interfacing with his cage–whoa? A cage? Transparent cage too. Like it was supposed to vacuum seal something on the inside. Like one of them fancy techno sarcophagi. Or a stasis module made to hold Wights.

The foul dankness of the Warrens burrowed up his nose and he coughed, gagging. It was like getting a syringe of raw sewage injected into his nasal cavities. God, why did everything smell so bad in this district? Were they outside close to the gutters?

Thankfully, the musk of sandalwood-scented oils overwrote the flavors of reality, the fragrances of his vicarity wrapping around him,a blanket keeping him safe and sane.

Which was when his entertainment suddenly stopped working, and the memories blinked out of his Meta.

“The hells?” Chambers muttered. Mists of confusion thickened within him as he felt strange arms seizing him under his armpits, the whine of servos singing as the juv pulled him out from the pod. Where… where did Dannis go?

***

+You sure he won’t notice you turning that off?+ Draus asked.

+No,+ Avo said. +Been pulling his short term memories as well. Copying and layering crude edits into his thoughtstuff from the inside. Probably just confusing for him. Sells the act better. But the vicarities are interfering. And disgusting.+

No disagreement came from Draus.

Through the tri-tethered minds of Chambers and the techs, he counted there to be approximately six enforcers in the immediate vicinity, with another forty personnel loitering around the inside of the docking bay judging by accretion.

A scoff came from Draus. +Still don’t got no discipline or sense. Those enforcers should be in formation on the outside. L formation would work here, but they’re standing in a U. If they had to shoot, there’s gonna be friendly fire.+

+More gangers than soldiers.+ Avo said.

+Barely gangers,+ Draus said. A taste of derision instilled her thoughts with the spice of disdain. +These half-strands are target practice. Just a question of who’s gonna snuff ‘em eventually.+

Back in the real, Avo’s fangs widened in a feral grin. +Yeah. Wonder who.+

Draus chuckled. +You send the drones in first. Gotta have them check for traps and the rest.+

Using Chambers’ as a junction for his ghosts, Avo spun Lucille’s Regret into his Ghostjack and studied the targets around him. There wasn’t the need to engage or spoof his way into any minds yet, but it was good to be prepared.

Tardy and disorganized as they were, Conflux’s Necros had to show up eventually. And when they did, he would study them as a hunter world big game. He doubted their skill, but priority targets they remained.

The enforcers took all three assets out of the transport, but it was clear that the techs were being taken to one place and Chambers another. Through the disguised Auto-Seance, Avo waited as the transport shut its doors; the long rectangular aero carrier fired the six triangular propulsion drives on its side, rising up and sliding into the phosphorescent glare of the Warrens.

As the outer blast doors closed–their design suspiciously reminiscent of the doors Mirrorhead lead Avo through during his “recruitment”-- the paths of his assets diverged.

Unlinking from Chambers momentarily, Avo deep-dived into Janand’s mind and found himself on a downward trajectory a few floors above medical. Studying the architecture of the building again, he noted a few additional loci added to the block.

A moment passed as he marked all present loci. Seventy-seventy loci. Three sections. The division was parted by floors and positions, with a network of countless smaller palaces connected to a central hub.

Avo grinned. Mistake. Poor design choice for base of operations. Phantasmal quantity was good for when you wanted to overwhelm someone with attacks, but ghosts weren’t like Essence for his Souls–memories were fickle things, and a colossal construct offered evermore threads to unravel.

Centralization was a vulnerability in his opinion. Best have asynchronous cells instead, should defense and logistics be a priority.

WARNING: EXTERNAL MIND DETECTED

A specter floated through the doors of the elevator and began to interface with Janand’s mind. Finally. Another Necro. Avo had been waiting for this.

+Draus,+ Avo said, +Keep an eye on Chambers. Going to do some counter-jacking.+

She mimicked one of his grunts in acknowledgment. He had half a mind to dump some of Chambers’ smut into her Meta in response to her mockery.

His unaware rival pushed their chain of ghosts into Janand’s thoughtstuff. A hasty sweep without caution nor vigor, their scrying was painfully sloppy. Whatever Draus felt regarding Conflux’s martial prowess, he knew an equivalent annoyance about their Necrotheurgy.

The reaching limb of the foreign ghost was poking along, prodding at the surface and short-term memories. Soon, they would come across mem-data with null-trigger mem-cons embedded within them. If the Necro was any good, they would notice the trap and turn their attention to the discrepancies in the sequence. Of course, Avo would spoof his way into their mind then, or null them entirely if all went wrong.

If they were bad, however, then there wouldn’t be much to do; the Necro would turn from active prey to a self-solving problem.

Something inside Avo was very curious to learn which they were.

A note of surprise sounded from Draus’ mind. +Avo. They’re dumpin’ Chambers in one of the elevators. Alone.+

It took but a moment’s consideration for him to understand what was about to happen. He just didn’t expect the Syndicate boss to be so hasty considering how threat averse the man was, especially now with the Paladins in play. +Giving him to Mirrorhead. He’s going to come out of the glass. Tell me once you see him. Need to be careful with him.+

+Yeah. Synch that.+

Just then, the enemy Necro paused, lingering on a sequence of memory. Ah. Avo remembered that one. A false memory of the Scalpers assaulting the G-Tubes and taking Chambers and the other two prisoner. The Necro hovered there, a descending mind connected by a chain of ghosts, gazing at the data around them. Part of Avo wanted his prey to see through the ruse, to prove their skill.

The yearning was something of ego: he was developing a taste for making a victim of the strong rather than the weak. The higher the thrill, the better the taste.

Yet, satisfaction and disappointment rang as one when the Necro descended past, ignorant to the memory they just passed through, and the mem-con that they wove into themselves upon swimming onward.

Exiting Janand’s mind, Avo jumped back into the fetid waters that Chambers called his Meta. There, he found himself masked by a sheen of scrambled memories, staring at rising numbers on the elevator's interface, feeling the surge of fear build within Chambers to the thump of looping chronobass.

Oh, that music again. Same tune. Same skull splitting, foreboding rhythm.

He felt Chambers’ fear spike. The enforcer knew what was coming. They both knew.

Mirrorhead, after all, was a tyrant through and true. With this opportunity to bully someone they deemed lesser, the only condition to limit their arrival was a problem of security.

And within his own fortress, there really were not many other places where Mirrorhead would be safer.

Or so was the assumption, anyhow.

***

Chambers was only having half a panic attack when pulled out from the transport. It was when they shoved him in this elevator alone and left him as meat for the boss that he started getting a mite bit unnerved.

It had been…what, five months since he last pissed himself? It had been for good reason! The nova was tainted and he hallucinated his genitals were a weaponized implant and that the people around him were joy-fiends asking him for a couple of imps. Heh. Man, were they mad as all fuck. This time though, if he was going to let it leak, it would be done out of raw, primal fear.

Speaking to Mirrorhead was a lot like negotiating with a nu-dog of war. You really didn’t do it unless you had to, and if you were doing it, that meant shit had gone to fuck and things were probably bound for an ugly end.

During his time as a member of Conflux, Chambers prided himself on being more aware of the boss’ habits than the boss probably was. He knew where Mirrorhead was likely to be. He knew when to slack and when to pretend to work. He knew just how to present himself so that he was never picked for a hot shit detail, while also 6not portraying a moron so absolute that he was sent on a suicide run or just outright exploded.

Now, however, was a different case. Now, Aedon Chambers was in the spotlight, and he found it very, very hard not to wet himself.

Being naked this whole time didn’t help the fact either.

Struggling to control his breathing, he looked up and chuckled. “Hey, uh… boss. If you’re watching, I didn’t wanna be undressed but those Scalpers… whoever kidnapped me, they were some… nasty rash-courting fucks, those half-strands were. Yeah. Who… who knows what degenerate stuff they got up to with Janand. Maybe… maybe you should check on him first. And the other one. They were crying when I last saw them. They need the firm presence of a strong, wise, powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing leader.”

He spoke each of those words with all the fervor and passion he didn’t feel toward Mirrorhead. Chambers was good at saying stuff he didn’t really feel or mean. It was practically one of his special abilities. Fearing for your life would turn almost anyone into a thespian.

The cold stung his body and the glitching beats of chronobass mocked him with an inhuman quaver. Mirrorhead did not step through the glass in that instant. Nor did he suddenly make himself known from behind with one of his loud and random statements about what he didn’t like or whatever bit of trivia he was using as a part of his intimidation shtick that day.

Chambers coughed. He bounced on his toes, trying to keep the chill from numbing his skin too much. He coughed, and this time, he nodded.

Maybe the boss was busy. Or maybe he’d actually taken Chambers’ advice to go see Janand first. And it was advice. Janand was, after all, a soft tech. Tech were glassjaws, everyone knew that. As a hardened enforcer, Chambers was hard and unshakable in–

The ground beneath him suddenly felt like it vanished. Matter one second and open air the next, Chambers tread on emptiness and tumbled down, falling into fathomless expanse of parting glass and folding reflections. A scream left his lungs as his voice hurled a final, desperate deflection. “Those weren’t my biomods! Janand wanted them! Janand got the rotlick killed! It was all him! Blame him!”

But his voice was cast out into a chasm of oblivion. Above him, the elevator itself was a faint light growing dimmer, like a window he was falling away from. Around him, the world turned to merging and cracking fractals.

Drawing him through the chaos was a power unseen, suddenly snapped sideways by a force beyond description, Chambers wailed as his limbs flopped. Terror fissured out from within his chest, and frost coated his blood, his bones.

Whipping his head around, he tried to catch sight of what was dragging him.

This proved to be a mistake above all others.

He saw it then, his organs sinking past his feet as he did. The leviathan assembled itself from shards and fractals, constructing itself from the tumbling kaleidescope of this unreality.

Flashes of imagery seared into his mind like salt poured into open wounds.

Oh, gods. Sour strands of spit spilled out from his mouth in place of vomit. What was he looking at. What the hells was that thing.

Circling bands enwreathing three eyes, each the width of a lake, glared down upon him, irises gleaming as if glass catching a ray of light. The thing was big. Bigger than the carrier he was brought in. Maybe even bigger than the block itself.

Six reflective wings of jagged sharpness curved as Chambers caught sight of his own weeping expression. His Metamind was screaming. Wards shaking. His vision blurred as parts of his mind came apart, memories and sense of self holding together–but barely.

It felt as if someone was stitching his cognition back together from the inside, mending him as fast as he unraveled.

The weight of the unholy presence settled against his mind as he groaned, vomiting and whimpering, his mind and flesh straining against ineffable pressure. Flashing lines of mem-data and interface functions blinked and fizzled. His ghosts were fleeing deeper into him, wriggling inward toward his oldest memories.

Shaken and coming apart, Chambers did what he always did when he was unbalanced. Unthinking, unaware, unwilling even, he sent a single command to his own Meta, and had it activate an emergency vicarity.

Suddenly, the world around him drowned out as “THE SOFT MASTERS' REVENGE II: THE SEEDOPHAGE” began playing its most viewed moments. With how brutalized his mind was, he thought he saw some of the vicarity bleeding out with his fraying thoughtstuff.

Half-mad already from his ordeal, Chambers chuckled as a lusty moan spilled out from his mind, the vicarity was leaking.

+Welcome back, Enforcer Chambers,+ the voice of Mirrorhead exploded within Chambers’ skull. +I have a few questions regarding your absence. Please do your best to enlighten me and… and for the sake of the worthy, turn that off!+