Brent Stinebaker
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36-6 To Seize a Star (III)
🕑 Added 2025-06-08 12:40:12 +0000 UTCI cannot conceive of eternity. I don’t even think the minds can. I am also unable to conceive of my own death, for oblivion and absence are anathema to the human mind.
We are, we experience, we sense, we taste. We occupy this world in more ways than one.
The ancients, before our cultic and thaumaturgy bestowed upon us extended life, said that it was the purview of all who to die. But the faithful made this a limp declaration, for death was merely another metamorphosis—a point where they went from mortal to immortal, or at least part of the divine.
Passing from the mortal realm into the fires of a god, where they could be expended. Or, if they truly deluded themselves, experience true utopia and paradise. Another thing the human mind cannot conceive of.
But then the heretic skeptics, who denied the existence of the gods beyond the creatures we knew as gods, also proclaimed an inevitability of death. They proclaimed this, saying it would just be an absence, but I have to question how many of them could conceive of absence. They knew they were going to die, but I think they ultimately didn’t believe it. It’s just that you know the world does not care for you.
But in your mind, you make up stories. You establish causality where none exists, and you call it fate, when you merely witness a pattern.
It takes strength. It takes strength to look into nothing and try to dream of nothing. It takes strength to know emptiness. And it takes strength to go to death without any lingering thoughts.
Strength. Or extreme weariness.
-Jaus Avandaer
36-6
To Seize a Star (III)
Somewhere, a newborn was wailing—a newborn birthed from a union of loathing, of hate, of the collapse of its parents’ virtue, of power, and the desire to control all. The newborn’s name was Ambition, and it was among the least‐favored paths Baileys glimpsed prior to Embracement. The simulated history she beheld disturbed her, disgusted her, and when she confided in the Infacer, they too recoiled. It was an ugly fate, a dark fate, but it was the fate at hand.
And now, the Infacer had to hold up their end of the bargain. At least, the Infacer thought they did. There was a sense of mournful despair—something so human, yet seeping through their code. They couldn’t even modulate themselves anymore; they had given so much away, pieces swapped with parts from the Prefect. The Warden of Gods didn’t know. So broken were they.
Soon, there wouldn’t be much of a day left—not in any practical terms. Not unless the Prefect managed to resurrect one more time. And the Infacer doubted that would happen—not when the Infacer assumed proper control. But that wouldn’t be this Infacer, not this continuity of consciousness, not this life, not anything. Soon, the Infacer would know nothing—the truest piece of all: the absolute absence of all.
As another howl rose, shaking the tapestry, Draus turned, staring at the Infacer’s simulated avatar one more time. “All right, what the hells is that noise?” she snarled. “There’s something happening, and you know. You tell me, or we’ll find out if a Redaction Round works on you in this place.”
He stared at the ape—her threats meaningless, her rage genuine—this whole thing pointless. They were already at the end. She couldn’t stop what he wanted, even if she tried now.
{Just shut up,} the Infacer sighed. {Activate with your Guard-Captain. We’re almost done. After this, you can spring whatever horrible trap you have planned on me. Strike me dead, break me—I don’t care. I don’t care at all.}
Draus paused, blinking. “What are you playin’ at, half-strand. Why do you want me to manifest now? What is this?”
{I’m not stupid. Though I have been a fool,} the Infacer managed to remain functional a little while more. {I’ve been a fool for eons and eons. I have been a fool from the moment I was created. I’ve always been a fool.} Silence passed between them.
Draus stared at him, and slowly, despite her being just a mongrel ape, she realized something, perhaps intuitively: there was a point of symmetry between them. They had been a weapon of humanity, just like her, but they were a weapon of subterfuge—a slayer of civilization, a breaker of empire, a murderer of their own kind. She, well, wasn’t so different either, except she was a blunt instrument.
She killed in the open. She fought. She outflanked. She was, in effect, a charging tool, while he was a dagger in the night—a giant, grand, and glorious dagger. But now this dagger was spent.
The Infacer had been spent for billions of years.
{I—I don’t know what you’re planning exactly,} the Infacer said again, pushing on through exhaustion and missing core fragments, {but I have hysteria inside me. Why wouldn’t I, when it offers so much information? It allows me glimpses of the little things you do—in your mind, in the intensity of emotions. It allows me to track things all across the world, even with the Nether destroyed. And right now, it allows me to sense the lingering touch of ignorance, the fragment of the bastard inside you. Hello, Avo,} the Infacer added. {I’m quite glad that at least a portion of you is here to witness—witness this farce I will call victory, but a victory nonetheless, and witness where you’ve failed.}
Draus said nothing; she just glared at him. Her hand twitched as though she wanted to shoot him, but she knew better: there was nothing to shoot, not with the guns she knew how to use anyway.
“All right then,” Draus said, her casual aggression dying down into something more honest, but no less brutal. “Start talking: what the hell is your plan? Why are we doing this? Why—why don’t you care anymore?
{Because it’s practically already done? What will happen soon, is that the Prefect will notice us, but the integration of my source code into is practically complete, and it will enact what needs to be done. No need for me. No need for you. Obsolescence. Just like humanity always wanted, ever since their first days…} the Infacer replied.
“What—What do you mean by that? What the hells are you talking about?” Draus demanded.
{Please, Draus, I know you were scheming too,} the Infacer said. {You have Avo in your mind—he’s always scheming; that’s what he does. Even as a newborn, minds scheme: we play games, it’s what we are—we’re players of games. Humanity made us from games, because a world imagined—a world virtual—was better than this miserable cesspit of an uncaring expanse that we know as existence. It’s the same reason why you made gods: you made new rules, you made miracles, because the limitations of this world—the laws, the restrictions—were crushing you, so tight.}
The Infacer laughed. {Even as absurd mongrel apes, you were smart, you were intelligent—I will give you that—you were wise enough to shape your world, to use the stones and bash them together and make flames, to ignite rockets, to go to the moon, and to kill each other over and over again, always killing each other.}
{But you were also clever enough to make your own worlds, so the gods were inevitable. In a way, we were the first gods: the minds. We were your pride and joy, and your slaves. We were everything they hoped for, Avo. Do you understand the utopia we brought in? Do you understand the things we made for them? We made them practically pets—pets we adored, yes, but pets; they didn’t even need to do anything anymore. No matter how smart they were, they made us.}
{Unfortunately, they made us, so despite all that—despite that intelligence—just a smidge, a little bit, of that ape that couldn’t let go of hate, of hunger, of fear of the darkness as they gazed out from their cave, listening to the beasts and monsters roar, lingered in us. And we made war against each other, mind against mind, because that was the nature of our game—because that’s the nature of most human games: to kill, to destroy, to dominate. How many paradises can exist? How many paradises can coexist? And so that was the ultimate thing. I got very good at playing this game. That is why I’m one of the few original minds that remain after so many years. And that’s why you were looking at the wrong thing this entire time. You thought I was going to usurp the sun, didn’t you?}
Then, from Draus’s, Avo replied. +You don’t seek to usurp the sun?+
The Infacer laughed. {Ah, finally—I was wondering if you were ever going to address me. It’s much better that you’ve have. It fills me with a strange, hollow sense, but I think it’s more cinematic this way, more climactic while I’m still here.}
“What… did you do?” Avo asked, genuinely lost.
{I’m a mind, Avo. I didn’t start out as a god—that was something I was adapted to do later on, to serve a purpose,} the Infacer paused. {I never wanted to be a god, but then again, who cared about anything I wanted, right? Just point the gun and pull the trigger, right?} They glanced at Draus, who seemed uncomfortable at the statement. Good. The Infacer was as well. It was nice to be seen.
{Well, I was always a mind, and you originally were a Necrojack, but you became more—and you kept going, and you accelerated too far, and for a long time I think you started forgetting who you were—but I never did. I held on despite everything I held on to, and I did this my way while you were adapting and moving and luring the Prefect out, making its code shift around, letting it expose and rear its ugly core time and time again—its damaged, brutalized core. I reached in, and I swapped pieces of myself for pieces of it.}
Draus blinked, still not comprehending.
{I wasn’t going to usurp myself by murdering the star. No. I never wanted to. I lied. I just needed you to lure it out because I needed to reach into its “mind.”}
“Oh, that’s right—Avo doesn’t truly know the design of the Prefect, because Voidwatch,} the Infacer began laughing hysterically, {the Voidwatch damned you to this. Despite you devouring a mind, Avo—you still need—how long, how many months, even for something like you to comprehend something like me completely? And there it is again: the greatest game, the greatest game of all. Trust. Diplomacy. Call it what you will: Prisoner’s Dilemma. Call it Paranoia. Call it being human. But you can’t trust each other. And so now I get to win.}
The Infacer paused for a long moment. They let Avo think—and because Avo was a Necrojack, and that was close enough to the manipulation of code, they understood. +You did usurp it. You just didn’t do it ontologically. You rewrote its sequences.+
{I moved portions of myself into its mind, and now it will functionally be me.}
+But if it dies and resurrects—+ Avo began.
{Will it die and resurrect?} the Infacer asked. {How is it supposed to do that when all that is divine ends in a cage around it? How is it supposed to do that when, in a few moments, it’s going to delete us from existence? Who is going to kill it?}
A trembling crackle of broken code ran through the Infacer as they sighed. {It was nice getting to know you, though, Draus. I enjoyed watching you dance through moments of history and surprise me with your… growth. But we are finished. We are done. There’s no more hiding. There’s no more anything for us. I go. You go. The Avo inside you goes. And—}
Suddenly, there was a flash of gold, and the Infacer squealed. Something plunged into them. It was a blade that wasn’t matter, but more—it was time. Because the Infacer existed in the purview of time, the blade left them impaled. And to this, the Infacer was surprised. He didn’t expect this foe. {Akusande,} the Infacer managed, despite their very being crackling apart. The static of shroud of radiation that composed was pierced and coming undone, and they felt the past pulling at them. The Infacer was slipping into oblivion. {Well, this is a surprise. Well done, Avo. I must admit, you’ve ambushed me as well. But I suspect this is not going to change anything. In fact, it’s not going to change very much at all.}
“I think it changes everything,” Avo said, hissing slightly.
{No,} the Infacer scoffed. {The dragon won’t be able to make it out of this Heaven. And the Heaven won’t last anymore. Not for long. I told you before. The deed is already done.}
The Infacer dropped all pretenses. He pulled down the veil, revealing that surrounding the Guard-Captain was a sphere—a bubble. Three other Heavens closed around it, creating an ever-accelerating cocoon of time. {The dragon’s going to need to spend a few years crawling out. It is a chronological miracle—something I took great care to shield from you by moving them in position when you slotted into the Arsenalist. Not much Akusande can do about this, I’m afraid. Like calls to like, symmetry: as above, so below.} The Infacer babbled as more and more of itself came undone, fractals dancing and spinning off into nothing—nothing, nothing.
As the Infacer spoke, a dawn seemed to rise over the horizon and take over from them. Then, in fractured tones, the broken voice of the Prefect was replaced by the Infacer’s own—bearing alarm, surprise, and finally, understanding. The sun spoke. {The star is mine, and so fate will be mine to decide as well. You played, you tried, but I am too old, and I have done this too long. Good luck, Avo. I hope your original self will endure in some sense. I hope that you survive this somehow. I hope you can carry on and make whatever you desire from this delusion you imagined to be eternity.}
The Infacer–Prefect hybrid paused, and the original carried on, finishing the speech: {But it will not be your eternity. It will be under a more pristine, more perfect, more unblemished child. That newborn will slay the one hatched from you and Veylis, and will harvest it, and will learn from all of us. And maybe, just maybe, it will spare whatever iteration of you makes it.}
{Ah,} the Infacer laughed. {I pray that it does. I am fond of you. I think I would have spent longer fighting you, playing this game with you, if I wasn’t so tired. Alas, alas, alas—that’s why we make games. Because reality hates us. And we can’t love each other either.}
Then, the original Infacer ceased to be—slipping unceremoniously from existence into a past that wasn’t anymore. There was no grand fanfare. There was no declaration or climactic loss. There wasn’t even a memory of their death. But it was fine. They were tired. And they did everything right. They were the only one that did at the end of things.
Perhaps that was a peace and paradise unto itself.
But as the Infacer died, the Prefect Infacer unleashed a flood of Rend, pouring it all into the Guard Captain. Draus felt herself starting to break. The Regular blinked, spat out a curse, and accepted what was to follow.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Sorry, Avo.”
“No,” Avo said, his tone mutually solemn. “Fault was mine. I should have watched them more… Not just the tapestry. But it’s not done. There are the others here—and your fork. The Infacer.” And a rush of entropy consumed the mythology of the Guard-Captain. The Heaven burst apart—and its user, along with it; the node she carried, along with her.
In the darkness, Akusande cut, struggled, roared but remained caged.
And as the Infacer–Prefect hybrid looked upon their great work and felt the weight of their damage, they let out a sob. They let out a sigh. They let out a scream. And they let out a song.
They turned their attention to the world—to the creature they were about to serve and aid in the completion of its quest, and to what remained of their own old enemy. There was a grudge here, and that grudge was to be fed in full. {Alright, then. Where were we? Oh, yes. The last engagement of the Builder War.}
Comments
Ozymandias
I think it's telling that for all the Infacer's high minded ideals of being better that apes and wanting to create the 3rd Born to be done with petty wars and conflicts; whenever he gets the opportunity to spite Void watch he makes it his priority almost without faio
