Brent Stinebaker
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12-2 The Easy Armistice (I)
🕑 Added 2023-05-22 18:44:07 +0000 UTC“Chief Paladin Naeko. What do you think you are doing?”
“Arresth–Arresting you. Why? What’s it to you?”
“I’m being arrested!”
“Oh. Well, then. If you don’t resist, you won’t be hurt. Everything will be fine and keen.”
“This is… you.... Age has finally frayed the last of your senses you flatblooded mongrel–”
“Ambassador Kitzuhada. A moment. Did you know this elder here has been accused in a plot ending with your assassination?”
“These… these assertions are–”
“I have the mem-data to prove it. You see, under the Articles, I know I can’t keep you. Really grinds my teeth how we Paladins are pretty much just left around here to deal with the stray golem problem and some Newsouled Fallwalkers, but every now and again, I get something that just brightens my day. How long have you been planning his death? Wait, don’t tell me. We’ll get it out of you in confession.”
“I demand legal championship.”
“And you’ll have it.” [Samir Naeko leans in] “And you’ll have a whole lot more, see. That ‘little’ bit of mem-data? That’s a bit more than just your plot to kill the Ambassador here. I know about Godshaper.”
“I… I…”
“Yeah. I know what you did to Kae Kusanade. And I know how you murdered Paladin Dawton Morrow. You should have never touched mine. You really shouldn’t have. It’s going to be bad for your health. But I’m not mad. No. I’m not mad at all. Do you see this smile? I’m calmer than I’ve been in years. You better get some good counsel, because when we’re done, you and your pet Greatling are going to spend a lot of time in the dark.”
“Greatlings… I…”
“I, Chief Paladin Samir Naeko, hereby invoke Article Nine against Council Elder Mwaba D’Rongo. I have with me verified mem-data and a witness of the third degree. All stay your hands from steel or face the Sage… Seriously? No one? Wow. Sensible party, Ambassador. Shame it’s a bit boring. Say, where did Uthred go?”
-High Paladin Samir Naeko at the Fire’s Height
12-2
The Easy Armistice (I)
Geometry stabilized as they inverted back upright, the sensation was as if rolling when submerged. Yet, as the aero finished its revolution, Avo found it clamped by the curved claws of four magnetics as a ramp lowered and extended before them.
He cast his first thoughts almost reflexively, needing to confirm if their exits were still viable. +Draus. Passages. Still connected to your Heaven?+
+Still feel the junctions,+ she replied. Her disorientation lasted shorter than his. +Hells. Think we just got pulled somewhere by a Heaven of Geometry.+ She turned her attention to Denton. “That dip how you lose tails? Bet you got plenty more spots like that.”
The Glaive simply answered with a tilt of her head. “Coming out from an airdock leaves fewer questions.” Her eyes snapped over to Avo. “You can stop using your canon now. There isn’t the need anymore.”
It took a beat for Avo to realize Denton was speaking to him. It took him another to notice strings of mem-data spilling into his cog-feed as visual and phantasmal information began to flow through.
His DeepNav interface was the first thing to reactivate within his Metamind. Other functions and phantasmal constructs followed shortly thereafter.
Avo drew in a breath and released his Sanguinity.
REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 93%
Dehydration had a way of making one dream of drowning.
The same way the lack applied to water or sustenance, the same way Avo felt toward the Nether itself. yearned for the Nether.
Even with his newest canons, his Nether-projection was a blank canvas he could reach across, a cloud of limited influence and finite design. There were no colors of existence in it–nothing but an empty lake he could guide his reach through.
An ocean was more than just a body of water. There was an environment there. Fish. Life. A partition between the stygian depths and shimmering heights. A place where the uncountable masses could bob upon the surface, where good Necros held the twilight, the middling ones remained as wrecks at the bottom, and the best swam the same down trenches and upon surfs alike.
Animation, in a word. More than even life.
And it was here, approximately two thousand five hundred miles away that hydration returned to him, and his thoughtstuff ebbed out into the waters of the Nether, sailing no more on broadcasts of blood.
Thoughtcasts and public wavelengths ebbed and brushed the yolk of his outer mind. His Meta hummed as countless new requests and points of interest populated his cog-feed. Ambient music played something between a heartbeat and a drum as the clamps deactivated and the aero moved forward, slipping out from the diminutive airdock back into the city.
Turning forward, towers rose like broken bones jutting free from the litter of lesser megablocks. At the heart of the city before them, aerolanes circulated an immense voidship that bifurcated the district entirely. Aerolanes spilled out from its exposed interior like veins leaving an alloyed aorta, each expansion sprawling down into the lower blocks below.
Something moved among the urban ticket, ascending past the gloss of holographic light and blurring phantoms. A square-shaped megablock deconstructed itself cube by cube, its circuitry and matter untethering, unlacing, the Omnitech logo pulsing over each side of the parting vessels.
In an instant, they washed into the lower lanes and dissolved into the depths of the district like particulates in a bloodstream, their contours enshadowed by clashing lights cast against the backdrop of the spade-shaped voidship.
Other aeros of various make and style blended among them. Cybernetic organisms resembling the bastard offspring of dragonflies and metallic stingrays glided from building to building, suckling away at filth and rust. From the apex of the voidship, the rest of the cityscape descended in uneven steps, blocks summited by blocks, ringed by streets that blanketed other streets below.
This, more than shield-blocks of Nu-Scarrowbur, more than the quaint flesh-woven communities of Xin Yunsha, more than any section of the lower Warrens, was a hive festering with life.
And death.
Traces of gunfire flitted out from bridges. An aero dove a near mile away–not fast enough to avoid the missile chasing it. As a fiery wreckage tumbled past and down before them, one of the manta-flies leaped free from heights unobserved and wrapped it in a protective embrace before spewing a cocoon of paste-like substance from its pores.
Here was a demonstration of controlled violence. A murder or two kept the city lubricated, but these were the dredges of New Vultun–these lives had a speck of economic worth beyond the instant of their deaths.
Some were expendable. Others had to be spared.
Opening his Metamind to the public wavelengths, Avo drank in the atmosphere properly as he sampled the gestalt around him.
“Well, consangs,” Denton breathed, marking a specific shanty built within the voidship’s exposed interior, “Welcome to Loathing.”
DISTRICT - [LOATHING]
POPULATION - 122 MILLION
PRIMARY EXPORTS - DRONE-JOCKS; WAR-WIGHTS; GRAV-LEAGUE
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Now, more than ever before, Avo felt back in his element. The Spine was too sparse. To undefended. Here, he already felt the light rattle of a few low-end mem-cons shattering against his wards, noticed sloppily sequenced Auto-Seances planted in public-open lobbies, tasted the choking stench of mass-emotional spillover.
Rage and hope and joy and satisfaction and despair all poured into one big plascrete cauldron of life stacked upon life.
Accretions spread across the city like an outbreak of the Rash. No place to avoid them–the population was simply packed in too tight.
And by Jaus did they have a lot to say regarding each other.
+LOCAL EXORCISTS CONTINUE TO MOURN THE LOSS OF THEIR OWN, INCLUDING–+
+THE CITY CONTINUES TO REEL FROM THE TRAUMA OF RECENT EVENTS. THE LIGHT’S END MEMORIAL FUND WILL GIFT ONE FREE PHLACTERY PER TEN MILLION IMPS MATCHED. IF WE MANAGE TO REACH ONE HUNDRED MILLION, ONE FREE FATE WILL BE GRANTED TO A LUCKY WINNER! ONE FREE FATE! AND AS A BONUS, TWELVE FREE PHYLACTERIES! PRE-ORDER NOW AND GET YOUR SECOND CHANCE TODAY!+
+ALL GREYS ARE FUCKING HALF-BIRTHED SHIT-SPAWN! The next time I see a fucking Blue I’m going to kill them and null their nu-dog!+
+I’m tired of all these Golds walking around like they own the Crash–+
+Fucking Reds creep the shit outta me. All gestalt this and Broken Dreamer that. And what the hells are up with those implants–+
+No one’s more a half-strand than one of those Sang flesh-fuckers. Poor nu-cat didn’t deserve that.+
+Godsdamned Ori-Thaum Incubi did that to Yuulden-Yang–and it’s not a conspiracy– it’s not! I can prove it!+
+You know, tell me this–if we’re opening the bar up to those Scaarthians and the other Greens, are we going to let the nu-dogs and other critters drink at the table as well? I mean, it’s only fair.+
+We should have finished glassing Yulassafar and ended those Sanctus shits for good. Fuckin’ cracks…+
+You’re Ashthrone? Shit. I think we need to stop seeing each other. Why? Because you’re part of a suicide cult!+
+We should just take it from the Voiders. Yeah. I mean. What can they do to stop us? They don’t have the means–they’re afraid of the Sunderwilds. We can hit ‘em there. Start at Zero-Burn and make our way up before raiding one of their ships. Keep it subtle. Who’s to know? And if we do this right, who’s to tell?+
Essus groaned as he clutched his head, the sheer flow of external thought endless and constant, torrents tearing through his very mind. Beside him, Chambers had his face pressed up against the window as his eyes lit with a child-like glee. “Fuck me, consangs. Look at all those aeros just in one lane. Look at all those people.”
True to his words, they didn’t so much slide into the nearest aerolane as they squeezed, the traffic nigh-constant and the space minimal. And with how much flowing blood Avo could in the nearness of his vicinity, it seemed a good majority of the surrounding occupants weren’t jocking their aeros from afar but active passengers within.
Draus cocked her head at the voidship. “That one went down a couple centuries ago, didn’t it? That’s the one the Low Masters dropped. Before they were called the Low Masters proper.”
Denton regarded greater mass encasing their final destination and hummed. Again, a needle of thoughtstuff narrowed out from her mind. “Yes, indeed,” she let out a breath. “The official documentation of events said it was due to a humanitarian dispute. Voidwatch was extracting Nolothi refugees after some kind of thaumic catastrophe. The High Masters then didn’t take very kindly to that. Turns out, voidship EGIs don’t link very well with ghosts.”
That statement piqued Avo’s interest. “Didn’t know ghosts could interface with coldtech. Can see… outlines of cognition. Can’t access.”
Denton shrugged. “I suppose your father’s predecessors found a way to simulate how an artificial mind thought and dreamed. It’s the only real explanation. Us Idheimers can’t really… conceptualize on the same level.”
He hid his growing suspicion from her well.
+The EGI Core,+ Draus said, her words a whisper in his mind. +That’s how they did it. They didn’t need built any phantasmics or trauma patterns from scratch–they had a weapon half-cast and ready for use already.+
+They had minds that knew how to use it,+ Avo replied. And now it was his. Chancing another peek at Denton’s Metamind, he considered the implications of that which he possessed. When this was done, his first priority was Kae. After that, he would need to examine his new sanctuary further.
With such a thought in mind, he activated the Auto-Seance he had connected to the EGI Core in the George Washington. To his dismay, it didn’t answer.
Of course it didn’t.
With how it allowed the Nether to flow through shadows and darkness, this weakness was unavoidable.
He wondered if there was a way he could turn off or tune the permeability of his gateways.
It took them the better part of twenty minutes to traverse five point four miles. They were forced to halt for a moment when a knot of golems carried by a prismatic delta shot past them.
At the same moment, the district came alive with chatter.
+Stay out of the Green Quarter. A couple of Bloodthanes just got into it with a Fallwalker. Not full Heavens yet but some casualties. No deaths though. Thank Jaus for Woundhounds.+
The moment passed. A ping out went out from Draus as she sent him a memory. She was pulling on something. Guiding a piece of glass over two thousand miles away without strain or burden. Her junctions let her reach far and observe the scene they left behind.
She sent him a snapshot of a sky lined with pillar-shaped golems that scarred the firmament with their transparent tendrils, of countless knots amassing between three different factions.
+Stormtree, No-Dragons, and Highflame are squarin’ up,+ she said. +Sure as shit glad we pulled our vanishin’ act.+
He grunted in agreement but found himself more fascinated by a new emotion leaking over from her.
Uncertainty.
+You gleam?+ Avo asked.
A large mantafly passed over them, casting its vast shadow over three rows of aeros. Between its ventral teeth dripped sizzling acid and dolloping slag from melted garbage.
Draus shook her head. +Nah. I uh… I like it.+
+What?+
+The Heaven,+ she said, clarifying. +I like havin’ it already. I like using it. Seein’ out from it. Make things glass and feelin’ break because I decide they should–people break because I decide they should.+ She paused. +There’s no balance in this kind of killin’. Ain’t no weight for me to feel. It’s like… doin’ numbers in my head.+
A faint understanding grew inside him. +Afraid becoming a ‘Clad will pervert your nature? Make you… less you?+
Draus laughed. Denton’s eye swept over both of them but she said nothing.
+I was a Reg, Avo? My mind was conditioned to be as adaptive as my body was. But I do have preferences. I know there are kinds of thinkin’ that just leave you trapped.+ She turned and regarded him. +Say, you still got that Morality Injector of yours? Haven’t felt you use it since…+
+You want me to adapt it for you?+ Avo asked. +Help you feel the weight of a kill?+
A pause cut into their conversation. +I just don’t wanna feel like it’s nothin’ is all. Hells. Us fleein’ across Nu-Scarrowbur probably killed how many people? And it was like nothin’. Fightin’ the Wargskins, snuffers, street scum, and all kinds of other half-strands ain’t nothin’ to speak about but… there’s till the flechettes you gotta dodge. Angles to take. Assaults to plan. This? There’s no… there’s no weight.+
Another project after Kae then. Something he could potentially benefit himself, even.
He had more than enough ghosts now to fuel the need for experimentation.
That, and he had Chambers to test things on.
Avo glanced at the ex-enforcer babbling again at the beleaguered Essus, pointing out different blocks and places he wanted to see later. Neither of them had been this far up, Avo realized. But where one viewed this as a triumph and an adventure, the other could only brace against the strain.
+I’ll see what I can do,+ Avo replied.
They split off from the aerolanes as they closed within a mile of the voidship. Pulling public mem-data, Avo learned that it was ninety-eight miles long and a fourth as wide. Its hull seemed something metallic and crystalline, the surrounding city lights revealing a slight bismuth to its hue.
Aside from that, however, the voidship was notable in its near-featurelessness. No blemish nor bruise disfigured its exposed aspects, and though its interior was pulled open to reveal a spiral staircase of quick-fabbed structures infested with bars building to overlook various circuits, the opening was characterized by mottled edges rather than outright damage.
Something in Avo suspected that the vessel had adjusted itself to be this way–its matter as fluid and freeform as the George Washington.
“As they slipped past the lip into the interior, a slight smile played across Denton’s face. “Do any of you have a favorite drink? It’ll be on the house.”
And as their aero angled up and twisted, various spiraling stacks of urban detritus vanished from sight, the Easy Armistice spilled into view as they rotated rightward, more of it loading into existence with each degree.
Avo blinked.
Chambers rose from his seat, shifting his head the other way and then back again. Slowly, a wide grin spread across his face. “Alright. That might just be the single most nova watering hole I’ve ever seen.”
Comments
Wanderingforworks
I am excited to see the easy armistice, great cliff hanger.
Brent Stinebaker
Next up is The Shattered Weaveress. Long time coming.
