Godclads

Chapter 9-6 Deliberate Balance

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

-Avo to Aedon Chambers

9-6

Deliberate Balance

“But before that? Shall I formally welcome you to the war?” Zein asked, her words slightly slurred. Drugs were almost certainly involved. “It seems rather fitting, no?”

A numbing quietude settled on Avo. He ignored the joy fiend and found himself staring at the helios more and more–the atrocity of creating the ghouls an act of mockery not even achieved by the Low Masters’ own merits.

He was a failed monster. He was a failed monster because his creators were fools playing with someone else’s pieces. But now, the primary instrument facilitating their sins belonged to him.

The question was what he was to do with it.

After the node had severed him from their code, from familial piety, Avo sought the flavor of new experiences. New Minds. He thought of Req again, the slave he freed, the slave that killed when given the option. Activating the mem-lock, he could taste the distant mind. Fascinated by how the man suffered for it after, agonizing over one murder.

Perhaps this was a thing of Walton’s design as well. To let him sate himself on the world, his hunger for ever-building knowledge purposeful.

The revelation behind the fullness of his nature did not shake him so much as flood him with a coldness that pervaded through his bones. For years, he hated his brothers for failing where he succeeded. He cared little for communal bonds with them, but to stand alone as the only creature amongst his kindred, as a being of higher personhood, made him fear his own making.

Perhaps it was worry that another of the ghouls could achieve what he did. Go beyond. Usurp the uniqueness of his design from him.

Or maybe he genuinely dreaded being a member of a subspecies that was fundamentally broken; less than; never to be better.

Mayhaps both things could be true at once.

Facing his predecessors once more, Avo contemplated what he was to do with them as he finally turned to face Zein. “Think I was welcomed before this. Welcomed when I got the Frame.”

Zein seemed to agree with his words. “Hm. Yes. I suppose you can regard such as truth. But you were a bystander then. Groping blindly through the black, unaware of the larger picture at play, the greater powers pulling you in their wake. Now you swim in deep waters. Now you are part of the fight.”

“Part of it. Yes.” Avo leaned down. “What part are you? Ninth Column. What do you want from this war? Kill your daughter? Break the Guilds? Take over?”

Honesty pealed from Zein’s mind, its directness central to her nature. “Why I want what all Godclads eventually want. What the Low Masters and their Hungers want. For my vision of reality to surmount all others. You cannot escape it. We channel the absolute, and the absolute reshapes us. To accept anything less would be an act of violence against the self, and I will offer no mercy for anyone who transgresses against my person, even if it is myself.”

“Shit,” Draus said, scoffing lightly, “more flowery philosophy and no actual substance. Avo, I’m gonna shoot you if you turn into this.”

Zein flicked Draus a bemused glance. “You speak like you will not be touched by the flame yourself.”

The Regular scoffed. “I ain’t no ‘Clad.”

“No,” Zein said. “Not yet.” Her gaze returned to Avo in a blink. He didn’t even see her eyes move. “I don’t want to change the world. Just enough to bring back my love, see his dream made manifest, kill a certain amount of people, and amend a, uh, mistake I made with my daughter.”

“Don’t care about shaping your own world?” Avo asked.

The gleam in her eyes was sharp. “I enjoy the current state of things. If Jaus wishes to alter it when I return him into being using the Ladder that Will Be, then so be it. One must make concessions in matrimony, but I like the way it is.”

He considered Thousandhands' words and found the creep of disillusionment settling upon him. “Still about power. Always about power. Nothing more?”

“No, little dagger, your view falls short. It’s not about power, but totality. The totality of our expression triumphing over the tapestry itself. The stars are lost. Existence is a wounded, dying animal. We are the bearers of the last true power, and so, a reset will be battled over. A revision where slate is cleaned and the waters might rightly flow. Or not. Such is a matter of perspective.”

A moment of silence passed between them. “What if I have my perspective? My reality. What if it’s different from yours?”

She broke into laughter, as a grandmother humoring a foolish question from her grandchild. “Ah, but then we fight. In the real. As gods. With our Heavens, fists, ghosts, philosophies, technologies, alliances, and relationships. We fight. And one will remain. But we stand far from such an inglorious end, though it might yet come. And for now, I think we can be joined against greater forces held at bay. Until then, there is much for you to learn. It would not do for Zein Thousandhand to murder a babe of a Fallwalker before proper apotheosis. Such would offend my love and his ‘dream.’”

Zein rolled her eyes at that. Melancholy tinged her mind, even blurred with substances.

“What is the dream?” Kae asked. Her interruption cut through the conversation like a whip snapping between two fighters. “I-I was never told. Each Guild had a different interpr-uh-interpretation of what he wanted.”

Zein studied the Agnos with a moment of silence, and, beyond Avo’s understanding, she turned her glaive back into an–

He blinked.

Had Zein been using an umbrella this entire time?

“The battle between the Massists and the Saintists. You know of this, yes?” Zein placed her umbrella tip-first against the ground and a depression sank to form a makeshift holder for her. “What a mistake. A delusion of his desires. Jaus never sought a world of perfection or purity. Rather, it was mimicry he desired. An imitation of a stabler order.” She shook her head. “He was a fool, but a lovable one.”

“Mimicry?” Avo asked.

“Do you know how Voidwatch runs their affairs?” Zein asked. “They are mastered not by man but machines. Governors. Things like the EGI Core. Those are their true rulers. Silicon administrators over all those that dwell aboard their interiors. A system made from virtue and justice. Unfailing, unlike the fickle hearts we possess.” She sighed. “Just a pity I like my fickle heart.”

“Jaus wanted to reinstate the gods? Avo asked. “Make them more like these… governors?”

“Nearly,” Zein said. “He wanted to have all of society capable of accessing each and every Heaven rather than it being under the ownership of corporate communities or specific individuals. A society empowered, so to speak. A community of the sovereignties with the ability of any man, woman, or child to call upon the power of their gods without offering undue sacrifice. And through all the death that had already transpired, the cyclers would prevent future torment and demise. A perfect stasis with all needs met, and no more torment, distributed through one and all.”

She paused then. “Jaus had no desire to ascend the world to perfection. He hated the Ladder and had plans to part it from the chronology it after its function was undone. He saw it as teh lure of a perpetual mistake, with humanity always on the cusp.” A faint grimace clouded her next words. “Our daughter, though. Veylis. She had a different dream in mind.” She looked upon Draus again. “Blessed be the Worthy, no?”

The Regular, uncharacteristically, looked away.

“It is better that things turned out this way,” Zein said, suddenly cutting to another topic. “For you to have the Frame, I mean. Your father’s nodes… he did me a favor with you. I had another candidate in mind for the Stillborn, but she was lost to me. Probably another act of Walton’s doing. The self-righteous man likely thought he was saving her–ah, this conversation has lost its luster. Enough waste.”

The vibrating fishhook of her Heaven thundered out from her. Avo whipped out tendrils of blood, the air around him spiraling into drills of wind about his chittering Echoheads. Draus’ projectile launcher extended as Kae took a step back.

Zein smirked. “This is not an attack.”

“Hard to tell with you,” Avo said. “Offering future memories?”

“Indeed,” Zein said. “Always easier to have several conversations at once than one. See to it that we do not fritter away any more time. Here. For your perusal. I’ll be injecting my eyes with joy while you recover. Hopefully, it keeps me occupied.”

And with that, streams of the future crashed down, bathing all those present in a chorus of growing dialogues. Things became known to Avo in that instant. The nature of Ninth Column. What she wanted with Jhred Greatling.

It was as Green River said–a game was being played here. The Guilds were being policed in the loosest sense, with Ninth Column working to keep the current alliances, to force the deus-political structure in perpetual deadlock.

Jhred Greatling served a twofold purpose for her. The first was to ensure the gulf between Highflame and Stormtree remained. Not enough to start open war anew, but enough to spur silent war and mercenary action between the two factions. Likewise, the target that he sought was to be an Ori-Thaum Mirror. One Valhu Kitzuhada, former Glaive commander and current ambassador to Stormtree.

Valhu Kitzuhada was also the sole commanding officer that oversaw the nulling of Jhred’s mother–her name still redacted, burned from even Thousandhand’s mind.

The second point was what the Greatling boy–Mirrorhead–had to do with his own family. The Greatlings were a dynastic power belonging to the Chivlarics. The Chivalrics who were blamed for losing the last war, who remained locked in a power struggle for the very soul of Highflame and their future.

To see Jhred left dead at the scene of a failed assassination would cripple the Greatlings and force them into the tenuous territory. Like dominos, then, their weight would pull on the rest of the Chivalrics, like bodies chained to each other upon a bridge. Push one and the others would follow.

“You want the Chivalarics to lose?” Draus asked, emerging from the stupor of split-future memories, also caught in the splash.

“Of course,” Zein said, pulling a needle from her eye. Her sclera was piss-yellow in color now, but the nanos in her blood were rapidly clearing the damage. An absurd smile pulled at her face. “To let them stay would do too much damage. If Highflame collapsed, the Saintists would be certain to lose the power struggle.”

“Why Saintists versus Massists? Why keep the Guilds balanced?” The question gnawed at Avo.

“Because they are my insurance against each other,” Zein said. “And themselves. No power remains bound to me. I am a severed entity. A Fallwalker seeking her own means. Though I seek Jaus’ return, the Guilds find him more useful dead than alive for their propaganda. It’s a miserable thing, being an idol of so many. Never do it, little dagger.”

“So,” Avo said. “You’re just going to make them fight each other. Weaken each other? So you can… seize the tower in the end?”

She regarded him with thinned lips. There was something she wasn’t saying. She needed something to happen with each of the Guilds. As if anything disturbing the equilibrium of the eight would prevent her plan from coming to fruition.

“It’s… it’s about the domains, isn’t it?” Kae asked.

Alarm briefly flashed behind Zein’s eyes, and her reaction drew Avo’s notice. Was she just caught off guard? Did she not see the future in which Kae asked such a question?

Could she not read Kae’s future somehow?

“Yes,” Zein admitted. “Perhaps so. But it is a miserable topic, and I will speak no more of it. Let us just say I need something from each of them when the Ladder returns. And you.” She was speaking directly to Avo now. “You, my young apprentice, stand at the centerpiece of it all. Your disappearance has upset my daughter greatly. You wear a Frame twice stolen.” A laugh came from her, a cackle on the verge of madness.

“So,” Avo said. “That’s why you had Green River talk to us first. Wanted to see if I was already used by Walton? By the Low Masters?”

“Hm,” Zein said, answering nothing. “Now. Shall we discuss the fate of one Mirrorhead of Conflux and prepare to aid him in his tragic attempt at revenge, or shall we wallow on and on about philosophy?”

Avo sensed his Auto-Seance activating. Draus’ session activated.

+Old half-strand’s using us,+ Draus said. +Playin’ her own game. These ain’t my waters.+

+Washing over us anyway,+ Avo said. +What do you think?+

+Well, I never expected to be doin’ no snuff-run with Zein fuckin’ Thousandhand. It’ll make the job easier. It’s also gonna pull us into a world of shit after, but what’s new with that. Guild business. Left the Tiers to avoid that shit. Came back lookin’ for me anyhow.+

He couldn’t say he felt the same way as the Regular. The course of the last month had been redefining for him. It was not all joyous, but the euphoria he tasted, the new horizons he gazed upon. He wanted more. He wanted to see more colors. This was his wish. His desire.

It was what Walton had wanted for him as well. One of the things, anyway.

What did he really know of his father in the end?

Pushing those thoughts aside, Avo focused on the present. Now more than anything, he wanted to eat another Godclad. “Going to need to agree on a few things if we work together.”

“Agree?” Zein said. “What of fighting? You and I duel every time we disagree–”

“No,” Avo said, cutting her off before she could swindle him into being a test subject for another one of her suicide bombs. She glowered at him glumly like a child denied candy. “Be serious. Proper arrangement. We help each other. But I plan my dive. I keep my Frame. And you don’t hide things from me. Not the futures. Not anything else. Don’t want to be someone’s dog.”

Genuine offense came over Zein’s expression. “Have I ever insinuated my desire to take a slave? You insult me. I need no serve–I am beyond a servant! To own something so servile is… demeaning. I only take those with promise as my target practi–apprentices.”

Avo and Draus shared a glance.

“All ‘Clads like this?” Avo asked Zein.

The older woman barked a chuckle. “Be they so fortune.”

Draus narrowed her eyes at him. “You eat people. Careful there Avo.”

He grunted.

“First order of business,” Zein announced. “We need a backdoor into Conflux. The matter at hand has Conflux preparing for a massive attack on Nu-Scarrowbur in about a week. Likely a human-wave attack. Wasteful. Stupid. Very Greatling. Alas, my assets have not been fully able to track the Greatling boy when he steps through the glass. He has proven more paranoid and elusive than expected. If only there were means we had to lure him out… like a certain… expendable spy of sorts. Or three.”

The future gave her forewarning to many things, and more than just combat or defense, it also let Zein lead conversations down the exact roads she wanted. Avo wondered just how much of their prior conversation was Zein playing them, and how much was actually her genuine reaction.

+Chambers,+ Avo asked Draus. +Green River kept him and the others in place?+

+That degenerate should still be in his box,+ Draus answered. +Him and the techs. But since you pulled the heat down from the Tiers, it ain’t gonna be easy gettin’ them from one place to another.+

True as that was, Avo felt himself wondering if he could force Mirrorhead’s hand by making a few changes. Trap the Syndicate Godclad using false information. +Fine. Have an idea about how to insert him anyway. Make other preparations.+

+Hope this idea of yours sees us gettin’ past the Exorcists and Paladins. Still your fault, by the way. Spittin’ ‘bout which, how the hells is Mirrorhead about to start a war with Tier security breathin’ down everyone’s neck?+

“How indeed,” Zein said smiling as if she could hear their conversation this entire time.

One of Avo’s Echoheads chittered in annoyance. The room came into shape. Kae stood to the side, away from the confusion of the dialogue. She was adrift. Barely noticed.

Something told him that her malady could be used against Zein somehow. There was a feeling there–a twist in her nature.

“Now,” Zein said, “tell me about this ‘Chambers’, and in return, I will tell you about how we may evade the small matter of Paladin enforcement.”