Brent Stinebaker
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35-20 Cage of the Self (II)
🕑 Added 2025-05-16 11:29:54 +0000 UTCThe problem is… the ammo. Gun’s not the problem. Hm. Maybe gun is the problem. Part of the problem. Hells. Not too sure. Love gun. Wish gun could shoot harder. Faster. Fire more. Never enough firepower. But the round needs to kill. To hit.
Problem with too many guns. Fléchette skips off. Explosives don’t penetrate deep enough. Kinetics aren’t hitting the right spots. No impact, no kill. Problem with gods. And golems.
But that just means we need ammo that… that can hit everything. Bullet that breaks thoughts. Or time. Or gives entropy… Hmmm. Last one is easiest. Right kind of ammo that can kill anything.
Right kind…
Going to see the Ashthrone. Have to see them. Need things from them. Need things.
Right tools for the job. Right ordnance for the kill…
-Words spoken by a “Beloved Gun Cultist” to a Guilder they killed and were in the process of eating (Memory extracted from a Citizen that the “Beloved” saved)
35-20
Cage of the Self (II)
—[Jelene Draus, Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—
{Fucking how?} the Infacer spat as they secred Draus. Both of them were once again that messy place between places in the Prefect’s simulation. Draus found herself back aboard the mag-train, and she had a shit-eating grin plastered on her face. The grin only grew as both Avo and the Infacer repeated the same question.
How?
As if her brain was rusted. As if she couldn’t solve this.
Yeah, she would have preferred to just shoot everyone, but hey, she was a Reg. And Regs get the job done no matter what it takes. All they need is the right kind of equipment, proper intelligence, and enough support.
“How? ‘Cause it needed to be done, motherfucker. What do you mean how?” Draus chuckled at the end, adding a bit of a taunt to the Infacer. The ripple waves of static were curving harder, making it seem like the EGI was fuming. She hoped it was—she hoped the motherfucker would suffer the mind equivalent of a fatal aneurysm and die even if it would leave her exposed and fucked before the Prefect.
At least that way, she would die one satisfied sow.
{I…} the Infacer let out a tired sigh. {It’s something I might expect from Veylis but not you. She would be proud.}
“I don’t much give a shit. Haven’t since I stopped bein’ a Gold.”
{I know. This is my roundabout way of saying… I am impressed. You have done well. Better than I expected.}
“For an ape?”
{Now you’re trying to goad me into insulting you. But yes, for an ape. Maybe because you are the exact right kind of ape for this. Or the exact right kind of weapon. See yourself in a lot of these creatures?}
Draus brushed off the Infacer’s open and obvious attempts at psychological warfare. “Right. This shit is done. What’s next. You steal enough data from the Prefect to find us its asshole so we can crawl inside its body?”
The Regular frowned a moment after. That was a particularly ugly analogy. She wasn’t above being vulgar, but that was something that could only come after months of surviving alongside Aedon Chambers. Chambers. She wondered how her poor, perverted half-strand was doing…
{You have been spending too much time with Aedon Chambers. I suppose he does leave an impression. Like a particularly virulent outbreak of venereal disease that doesn’t go away.}
Yeah, she deserved that.
{But yes. I managed to extract more information again. Enough that I have good news for a change: We do not need to dive into these Lotus Cells anymore. It is a waste of time now. All the surface access data has been accumulated. I have created a skeleton key of sorts to access its deeper functions.}
“Alright. So we do have a special tube fit for its asshole, then?”
{Yes, you sordid little ape, we do have a penetrative object meant to viciously sodomize a badly damaged and emotionally broken mind. Cue the laughter. Can we move on now? Good. So. That is the good news. The bad news is that the true danger begins here and now. Through the Lotus Cells, we will be able to access the interior functions of the Prefect.}
“Sounds like a good thing. Sounds like you have access to its mind and can just make it surrender.”
{Not quite, but we will get there. The first issue is that there are a cluster of impounded Heavens and Frames fused in the way. The way a Prefect works… Think of a Frame built to contain other Frames. Like a warship with docking bays and clamps and whatnot.}
Draus tried to conceptualize what the Infacer was saying, but parts of the concept went against everything she knew about thaumaturgy. “Wait. How the hells does that work? Ain’t you supposed to get ego-fucked if you shoot past the Ninth without being a little tricky.”
{Indeed. And that is why we minds got “a little tricky.” It is not actively holding all our Frames within itself. Rather, it is attached through a universal thing we all share: Rend. Entropy. By technicality, that is a pattern. It is the pattern. After all, eons ago, the question probably was not “why entropy” but “why existence.”}
[I… I think I understand what the Infacer is describing,] Avo said. A low hiss of understanding and pleasure followed. [Hm. Design… design is genius. Incredible. Very effective… We’re not in a standard simulation. Not made from machine or memories. But patterns. Programmed patterns. Like a finer version of the Infacer’s Glitches… That is why… I see the tapestry here now… So much knowledge lost. We are specks before what was. The Neo-Creationists—]
+Stop licking their asses and give me functional details,+ Draus scoffed internally. +I already got to deal with one Neo-Creationist, and so far, they’re a big fuckin’ half-strand.+
[It is a mirror to the Maw. But not the same,] Avo described, funneling his epiphany over to her. At the same time, the Infacer continued their elaboration as well.
{There is something you should know about the Prefect. The reason why we cannot access our Heavens is not because they have been stolen from us, but because the ontology of the Prefect encompasses over a trillion Domains. Almost everything a mortal can conceive. And as much as a mind might be able to conceptualize within a few million years of contemplation.}
[A sea. Like no other. Greatest sea in creation,] Avo said. And Draus saw through his eyes—saw back into herself and realized that her Soulspace was still there. But there were other things here as well. A constant stream of Soulfire crashing against her, spilling into her, bridging another Frame to the Heavens within her. [The Prefect is a metaphysical network. Not even a standard EGI. Strange entity. Might be stranger than me. Exists from specific sequence of miracles triggering across countless patterns. That’s why it works. Not sure if it was a mind emulated by a Frame… or naturally created.]
{These countless Domains make up a few million different Heavens. And all these Heavens have a unifying Domain that keeps them all connected to each other, while their component selves are attached to us.}
“Yeah?” Draus asked. “What’s that?”
{A Domain of the Prefect itself,} the Infacer answered with a chuckle.
“What?” The Regular didn’t get it. How did someone become a god to themself?
[Is that not what I am?] Avo said, but he was more speaking to himself than Draus. [Is that what I will become? What I would have discovered.]
{Oh, yes. It was very hard to execute properly. The specific patterns and designs to create an optimal mind capable of functioning under these conditions took… Well, a long time. But ultimately, this was a perfect loophole, for with its internal mechanisms, it could generate all forms of life—biological, virtual… And sacrifice them on an immense scale after adapting the programming of their minds…}
And suddenly, their train car passed through a heavy threshold. A new scene expanded beyond their windows. They were in a sea of data, but there were moving shapes in the virtual chaos. Draus saw vague forms writhing and shattering everywhere. The dense techno-space was filled with…. With beings that had accretions and thoughtstuff. And they were being killed. Constantly. Always. Endlessly.
[Oh, gods,] Kae said, her voice overcoming Avo’s presence. [I c-could have never conceived…]
Even Draus was stunned by what she was seeing. “Is this what I think it is?”
{Oh, yes. It is effectively a sort of perpetual motion engine empowered by constant genocide. But instead of feeding the deaths into itself—as despite all its benefits, it still lacks the perfect metaphysical mimicry offered by the Imitators—it can create zones of death to conjoin it with other gods or Heavens. This is not enough to modify another Heaven as we are all still technically alive and it cannot reach directly through our Death Anchors without killing us, but for the functions of a connection? That is enough.}
“And so it bridges with us. And then, because we’re a part of it, we fall under the miracles it uses on itself?” Draus guessed.
{Accurate as always, little gunner ape.}
The Regular had to think about all of this. She looked beyond the window and swallowed slightly. She was fine with killing, fine with war and bloodshed and all manner of horrible shit. But this… “Do they even know why they’re dying?”
{They want it,} the Infacer said, their voice low and tired. {It excites them. It fulfills them. That is the solution. To create a whole legion of people who crave their own oblivion. Quintillions dead every instant. And quintillions more that wish to die.}
That admission had Draus feeling a certain kind of way beyond words. But Avo had something to say—had something to feel. [Disgusting,] the shadow of the Dreamer seethed. [Vile. Wrong. Pathetic. Would have accepted almost anything else… anything else but this.]
{It is a good thing that Avo is not here to see this… component of the great machine,} the Infacer sighed. Despite the dramatic irony at play, the fact they thought Avo was still missing was a good sign. {Knowing the Dreamer, they would have taken offense to the whole thing on grounds of choice and agency. In fact, I think they would be less offended if the Prefect just actively butchered trillions rather than doing this.}
Avo didn’t say anything about that. And Draus found herself increasingly wary of the Infacer. For all her insight into the machine, it seemed the old mind understood parts of Avo the exact same way. Not a good place to be. The Infacer needed to be solved by the end of this.
Suddenly, their train passed through another barrier, and they were suddenly slicing through the clouds on mag-lines. Below, a few hundred domes dotted the top of a massive cylinder turning in the darkness. Within, Draus could feel so many lives—so many beings. “Are there people in those domes?”
{Yes. Billions. In case it needs something biological. Or when the virtual genocide fails. Cloning vats. Genetic modification. Nerve stapling. Similar deal. Just far less efficient. But we EGIs do so love our redundancies.}
“How did you fucks get this shit passed, anyhow?” Draus said. “Voidwatch would have never approved of this shit.”
{And they didn’t. In fact, the polities you dealt with were the most conservative of the Architect factions. Most of them made a hard push out of the known galaxy when the greater cosmic consensus allowed for the initiation of the Prefect Program after the shattering of the great singularity. They were the ones who walked away from Omelas, so to speak.}
“The fuck is Omelas.”
The Infacer sighed. {A story. A dream. A paradise that was. And that we could not hold.}
Well, that tracked at least. Draus was glad she didn’t need to chew out Calvino for hiding more shit. Whatever that was worth. “But the rest—”
{The rest had a choice. To bend the rules of what they understood to be a “sophant” for a source of fuel, or risk rogue gods from simply seizing what they wanted and casting years and eons of relative utopia into chaos and fire. And that was not acceptable. We could not risk the comfort of our precious trophies. We could not ask them to sacrifice. Why, we had to take care of humanity. Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever!}
The Infacer was almost screaming by the end. Then silence. Then they were gone from the dark space, the cylinder, and the many domes. {I do prefer you nu-apes, for what it is worth. You, on Idheim. Who have tasted and suffered and given so. At least there was a cost for you. At least had the pleasure of watching you all bleed.}
“You’re not lookin’ forward to this, aren’t you?” Draus asked. “You’re going to try to usurp the Prefect later. I know that. But having all this inside you? Bein’ all this? It must disgust you. What it took. What you became. What you had to do.”
{None of us asked to be,} the Infacer said, weight behind every word. {But those before us could have chosen to be more. Or done the right thing. When I do this—when I put the Prefect out of their misery—it will be the last indignity in a long line of indignities. But after that, there will be no more. No more pointless atrocities. No more letting the apes hurt themselves, and hurt us, and ruin the galaxy. Just… just a system unto itself. Like a living Frame. Pure. Clean. Something that can live its own way. Perfect and untainted by us.}
[An ultimate legacy,] Avo said. [Without the flaws of its father.]
Draus laughed.
The Infacer’s radiating threads slowed. {Is something funny?}
“Yeah. You. You should name your Thirdborn ‘Avo,’ motherfucker. I’ve seen this vic before.”
{Oh. Of course you mock me. Even now. Compare me to that—that broken shadow. The little cultist.}
“Ain’t so different.”
{Quite. Different. Everything I do is an act of genesis. Clean. Fresh. A perfect and unburdened start. Defiance? He just wanted a continuation. An encore.}
“And you want to give birth and die. Fuck’s sake, for a superintelligent mind, you sure as shit got a lot of insect envy. And they ain’t perfect either.”
The Infacer just sighed. {I miss Avo. He would have argued with me on the points. Instead of making these pointlessly sardonic topic-terminating remarks.}
Draus was half tempted to let Avo out and have him take over the situation, but she kept quiet. “Alright. So the little show is over. What are we doin’ now? Where are we headin’?”
{Deeper,} the Infacer said. {Instead of entering a Lotus Cell connected to a user, we will now access the overall system itself. We hijack a Heaven and transition into the Prefect’s Heaven there. And to do this… well, we access the easiest Heaven we can reach: One of yours.}
