Godclads

Chapter 9-18 The Quiet War

Dagger-1: Hostile assets nulled. Mem-cons suppressed. Dagger-3, any trace of the target?

Dagger-3: Not yet, Dagger-1. Not yet. Found some stray memories from Shard-3 though. The incompetent half-strand spilled part of his short-term memories into the proxy. Godsdamned sloppy.

Dagger-1: Target first; report after. Dagger-2, what you got?

Dagger-2: Target is skilled.

Dagger-3: –No shit? And here I was thinking Shard-2 got nulled by an amateur.

Dagger-2: Very skilled. Shard-2 didn’t even see it coming, unraveled in seconds. She got a cast off and didn’t seem to inflict any damage.

Dagger-1: Affirmative. Does her conduit remember anything?

Dagger-2: No. He only has a headache and a few pieces of missing memory. Doesn’t even know there was a skirmish in his mind.

Dagger-3: Sounds blissful.

Dagger-2: Nothing in Rantula. Just trauma and nightmares. That Chambers though…

Dagger-1: What?

Dagger-2: His mind is a cesspit. He had over a dozen pornographic vicarities playing in tandem. Lustaway’s going wild inside him. I tried diving in earlier but… it’s going to take some time to establish protective measures against any leakage.

Dagger-3: Jaus, the half-strand’s a rash risk. Null ‘em Dagger-2. It’s the right thing–

[Dagger-3 has been muted]

Dagger-1: Acknowledged. Keep searching. Keep me posted. I’m going to rig the grid up.

-Incubi Strike Cell “Swordfisher”

9-18

The Quiet War

+Incubi?+ Mirrorhead asked, mind a stasis of disbelief. +My… sister?+

The yawning of time between each cast was long. Still, it took Avo more than a beat to reorient himself within the wavering memory shielding him. There was a burgeoning rage rising from the depths of Mirrorhead’s ego. He didn’t like the benefactor accusing his sister of treason. Not at all.

Avo, for his part, found himself puzzling why someone he suspected to be an Incubi–or at least an Ori-Thaum aligned individual–was consorting with the likes of Mirrorhead, exposing the operations of their allies to Mirrorhead, and then claiming his sister was working with–or at least under–Ori-Thaum.

Unless he wanted Mirrorhead to be paranoid. Unless he wanted to force the Syndicate boss into doing something foolish.

Flicking a peek at the remaining wards blockading him from accessing the innermost portions of Mirrorhead’s mind, Avo found himself considering his next steps. Attempting to dive deeper held risks if done in haste and without a clear mind. However, after Abrel’s earlier entrance, Avo felt he had good odds of avoiding Mirrorhead’s notice entirely.

His bigger concern was presently the other individual not in the room. The benefactor. Such was how Mirrorhead regarded them. Perhaps there was more knowledge deeper down, but between the locus and the remaining wards within the Guilder, the more vulnerable target was obvious.

Swimming out with the flow of thoughtstuff was a slow-going process. To accelerate risked drawing the notice of the mind’s host, and Avo had no desire to betray himself. By the time he was out and skimming the waters of thought beneath the surface of Mirrorhead’s boiling rage, another thought had lanced out from the benefactor in a slither of threading ghosts.

+Who else am I to assume has infiltrated your house today?+ the benefactor asked, defensiveness high. Their voice continued to be scrubbed of distinctiveness, but something smelled of insincerity to Avo’s instincts. +She visits you on the same day your “missing employees” are returned, and suddenly there are intrusions and hostile mem-cons staining the sequences of your loci. Coincidence is not a thing so neat, Higher Greatling.+

Avo waited, preparing to mask his transit using Mirrorhead’s response. Anger built behind bubbling ghosts. Unlike the benefactor, Mirrorhead’s reply whipped out, lashing at the Nether as if trying hurt without edging the ghosts with the sting of trauma. +She is no traitor! You still your tongue! She has served with honor! Distinction! Is she a fool? Yes, but–+

+But who else?+ the benefactor asked. +It can’t be from the ones you brought back. They don’t have the skill–they came back subverted. You think the Scalpers have the capability to slip past you? No. Don’t bullshit yourself, Greatling. Not them, and not whatever gutter-Necro they can afford. You would have noticed.+

Unbeknownst to either, Avo had leaped into the locus, his path running beneath a bridge of ghosts sawing between the two.

As much as the benefactor was buttering Mirrorhead’s ego, the truth was the Syndicate boss did have a substantial quantity of ghosts to wield, and the complexity of his wards would send wise Necros into a retreat until they could prepare enough for such a dive.

Perhaps a good enough cell could overcome it on their first try like Avo did. Or another Godclad with similar Necrotheurgic expertise.

A coldness filled him as he considered if the Low Masters had any nodes imbued with such powers. The coldness kindled into low arousal as he wondered what it would feel like to kill such a person, to sup victory from their flesh and mind.

Between Mirrorhead and the benefactor, the locus was a bridge, and also something to exploit. Peeking at its structure from up close, Avo studied the Auto-Seance. He wondered if this was a thing prepared only for this room specifically, or if the entire establishment was under the sway of this conspiracy.

As Avo sank deeper into the structure, the building cumulus of thoughtstuff bubbling out from the inside told him another thought was about to be cast free.

Through the interior, he caught a glimpse at the mind dwelling on the other side. And when he did, the encrypted memory obtained from the enemy Necro resonated. Filtering for only the phantasmics and sequences he downloaded from the Incubus he nulled, an answering gleam proved twin to that which Avo had failed to crack earlier.

One mystery was solved, but its resolution led to no rewards and only more questions.

The one across from him had to be another Incubus. Had to be. But why were they revealing their hand? Why were they feeding Mirrorhead’s paranoia?

A scythe of cleaving perception lashed out without warning. The splash of arcing awareness speared out as a Specter slipped into the locus, conducting its scans.

It moved slowly like the mem-data around it was mud instead of phantasmal water. But even still, Avo found himself blocked as three more slashes closed off the entryway entirely. It was like the Incubus had spotlights shining on the only entrance leading into their mind

Avo paused. Had he done something to reveal his position? Why the sudden suspicion?

Then, he felt the distance shortening behind him as a vast wave of ghosts erupted towards the locus. A deluge of sequences smashed forth from Mirrorhead, with mem-cons and other weaponized memories spilling free.

Weaponized memories Avo recognized with some indignance. Those were his work! The Greatling boy had stolen them? They must’ve been torn free from Chambers. A flash of Dannis Steelhard flexing while blood soaked through his platinum blonde hair winked through Avo’s mind. Suddenly, he understood. The benefactor was defending against Mirrorhead’s attack.

An attack that Avo could use to smuggle himself through–at some risk.

Attuning himself to the mem-con, Avo felt his wards shiver but not rattle. Being the one to sequence and graft these memories around Chambers’ mind, he was ready for the danger they posed. As such, the damage came blunted as he rooted himself at the core of a particularly thick cloud of trauma, the contagions biting at him, trying to sink into his thoughts, but parrying off against his wards instead as he filtered them out from his Metamind.

COG-CAP: 14%

The vessel of his ghosts rocking, he slipped past the intersecting waves of perception and prepared.

He needed to time his departure as soon as he was past the intersecting gazes of the Specters and not a moment before. If he lingered more than a few heartbeats, the readings of clashing traumas would expose him to the rival Necro. If he left too soon, he would dive into the light of the Specters.

COG-CAP: 33%

A shrill voice screaming for him to buy Glitchfree implants at budget prices howled in the back of his mind. He deleted that sequence of memory just as he crossed through the gateway that was the session and emerged on the other side.

Past the checkpoint of perception and under the weight of added lag, Avo found himself staring at the Quicksand wards in the fullness of their detail.

Unlike the Osarai Mem-Guard, the Quicksand offered a veneer of placidity at the surface, but he knew what loomed. Under a limpid sphere of water, drowned bodies connected to a darkness in its lower fathoms. Not nearly as intimidating as a storm, but he knew better. Once struck, the water would come ablaze, mimicking the same trauma it was struck with. The semblance let it ajust, leeching much of the harm out of future traumas, but left it vulnerable to a larger arsenal. He remembered striking it with his Ghostjack earlier. The first blow–to his recollection–landed the hardest. Afterward, cycling through other traumas prevented it from adapting.

Avo hadn’t installed the one he claimed from the Necro he nulled. If he was to be honest, he had been avoiding diving into his own mind. There was a blank spot that lingered in his palace. Made by his father, or some version thereof.

After all that was revealed to him, all that he learned, he had taken to tip-toeing around the truthfulness of his personhood.

This could not abide much longer. When next he had a chance, improvements needed to be made.

His new power had kept his edge sharp against Ori-Thaum’s Incubi for now, but they were many, and he was one. A mistake meant bled memories and he could really do without letting Ori-Thaum get a mem-lock on him. Being forced to delete more memories would surely scramble his already fragile sense of self.

A loud thunder of anger came from Mirrorhead. His thoughts were getting heated. The Incubus remained calm as ever, if a bit uneasy.

Peering at the wards again, a building frustration filled Avo. He cracked the other one using the sheer intensity of trauma and force. Spoofing his way into an Incubus’ mind, however, was a different story.

A sea of confusion and torment lined the walls beyond. There was a preparedness displayed by this so-called benefactor. A shield of confusion even behind the wards and thoughtstuff. Weaves of nonsensical memories were blended together, presenting a facade of madness. And then, every few minutes or so, they shifted.

That had to be active. They were altering themselves as they spoke.

Even fast as he was, wariness became Avo. This would not be a thing he could remedy if a mistake was made, and even if he made it all the way through, the task of delving into the labyrinth the Incubus likely had in place of mind palace was like entering a dungeon blind without proper research.

The beast told him to null them. Damn the quiet; damn the consequences. The Necrojack he was wanted to pluck and master the defenses, to overcome the fortifications of his foe without ever revealing even a hint of his presence.

But perhaps he could come to a middle ground between the two. He turned his attention to the memories of the session itself. Collecting what he could from its sequences, he might just be able to ambush this Incubus down the line as well. Null his way through their wards and sink in before they could–

WARNING

[UNIDENTIFIED] MIND DETECTED

->ASSET (CHAMBERS)

Avo halted his operations and turned his focus over to Chambers. Someone had brushed against a vicarity playing sequence–the spill of disgust not native to the mind.

Plucking the final few pieces from the session, Avo turned his gaze on the Incubus’ wards one last time and turned away. He would collect and replay whatever Mirrorhead was saying to the “benefactor” later. There was little else he could do here at the moment without forcing harm on the Incubus and alteringMirrorhead. If he lingered, he was going to lose another asset down in Conflux.

Jacking out from Mirrorhead’s session, Avo dove into Chambers and immediately transferred himself out into the disturbed sequence. He moved without care, unheeding caution as Chambers’ reactivity could barely match his pace.

There was prey to catch, and he had one last reliable asset in the area.

The quietest war was back on.

The vicarity in question was relatively tame by Chambers’ standards but it did involve excrement, a funnel, three bleeding ghouls, and an open wound. Following the trickle of disgust lingering in the mem-data, Avo jumped from simulation to simulation, shifting between bodies as he closed on his target.

He found them moving at a languorous pace. They had two Specters running with them as well, the phantasmics running parallel with them, peering at simulations bearing odd signatures of mem-data. Careful. Methodical. Efficient.

And seemingly just as unprepared as the last Necro Avo nulled.

He struck them the same way he did the first. His traumas flew out, alternating traumas impacting their wards as the water of their Quicksand flashed and flickered. He saw Lucille’s weeping visage turned back against him in crackling flames. He whipped out with the Secondhand Fatality and Lucille’s sister screamed one final mournful note. The fire cracked. Avo chambered another trauma–

Something flashed from within the Incubus’ Metamind. Three synaptic bolts fused with memories of people dying in a conflagration came back at him. The vicarity playing in the background broke apart, as a vicarity star moaned and crooned in pain. Avo’s Ghostjack thundered. From its blade tip, he slashed back, Fatality meeting oncoming assault.

His blow crashed and rang against all three of theirs. In that frozen instant, they were as if knights of a bygone age, dueling with ego-rending memories in places of spear and blade.

Yet, the metaphor died when Avo felt his wards ring under a series of dotting impacts. Flashes of damage filtered through his cog-feed. He only understood when he cycled his short-term memory for review.

The Incubi had loaded traumas within traumas. The minds that died in a conflagration offered a common enough sequence for most wards to resist, but inside was a work of art.

Speckles of drownings, tortures, mutilation, torture via animal, via primal fear, castration, and forcible implantation all speared into his defenses in a fragmenting shower.

COG-CAP: 46%

Another layer of Quicksand wardings swelled from inside his target. Another flash of a session activated. More Incubi were arriving to help their ally. They were ready this time. Wary of his presence.

No longer was he facing a single Incubus. Now, there were at least three. The newcomers were faster too–likely had some cognition or reflex-boosting implant running.

But that was only a relative thing. None of them had a canon, and so, again the initiative shifted back to–

The Incubi reeled out from Chambers’ mind. All presence of them was lost for an instant. Wasting no time, Avo latched his senses into Chambers’ perception, he found the enforcer clutching his head and staring at the blurring lights on the ceiling. The man ground his jaw as he tried not to retch, unaware of the battle that had just taken place inside his skull.

His cell was a barren place with a bowl of filth-crusted waste disposal unit and a cot laid on the ground. It looked like it was meant to store packages or crates rather than people.

Just outside was a passing enforcer, the footsteps of their exo-rig thumping down the walkway. Within their mind, the shine of the Incubi flared, scintillating amidst all the other signatures present.

Familiar accretions dotted the area around him–and the floors below him. The taste of bloodlust and hunger stained the air. Conflux was storing their ghouls here as well–ghouls that the Incubi were using to hide.

Casting himself out, Avo tore through the Nether at blinding speed. The local locus was also no longer his–none of them were by this point. He needed to review just how many Conflux Necros he managed to infect. They seemed to be the only things the Incubi didn’t really touch.

Plunging into the mind of his enforcer, he shrugged past paltry wards and dove in seeking the Incubi.

A thought came to him.

He wondered why they hadn’t just jacked–

The mind of the enforcer burst apart, and every last sequence within them detonated in a chain of mind-breaking explosions.

Avo felt his wards shatter. He felt the spill of mind-death, flashing bouts of agony grinding all his sense out from his mind like an avalanche.

He felt detached from his body as he watched himself snarling and shaking in the real. Draus was rushing over to him. Draus. Kae was–blood. He bit something.

Did he just bite his own tongue in half?

COG-CAPACITY OVERCLOCKING - 142%

  WARNING: [ERRORNULLNULLERROR]

  DISABLING PHANTASMI[ERROR]...

INITIALIZING RESURRECTION - 1%