12 Miles Below

A voice boomed in her mind.

Speaking in a hundred different languages, a hundred different emotions, a hundred different discordant notes, all crashing into one another, and yet somehow meaning emerged.

“THOU.” It said with a thousand eyes. "WE RECOGNIZE THEE, A CONTENDER."

To’Wrathh found herself before true divinity, and trembled at the sight. The world seemed to freeze for a moment, the hand of the god letting her sit on the palm, as she felt the gaze of the mite collective.

“THOU OF FLICKERING RESOLVE, TEETERING AT THE EDGE. ASK THY WISH. TAKE THE LAST STEP OF THY JOURNEY.”

“Please.” She croaked, delirious. “Please, save her life.”

“SPECIFY. SPECIFY. SPECIFY. SPECIFY.”

She didn’t know how to formulate the full request. Too many parts of her system were being bogged down, artificially slowed to allow desperately needed cooling. Instead, she sent a data package of the last two minutes and hoped the god could make sense of it.

The mites received the package, and replied immediately.

“SALVATION FOR FREEDOM.” It boomed. “THOU WILL BE OUR APOSTATE TO WIELD, INSTEAD OF HER TOOL TO BREAK. THOU WILL NO LONGER BE A MERE CONENDER, BUT OUR FINAL FOURTH.”

She didn’t hesitate. She didn't know what it was talking about, and she didn't care. The only pause in her mind was to parse out how to say yes again. Her mind was melting away, the safety overrides broken down before the god’s might. It would broker no interruption.

“I… accept.”

Joy. Complete and perfect joy flowed from the god. As if it had finally found and placed the last piece of a difficult puzzle. “THE TIME FOR PROPHECY IS AT HAND, ONCE AGAIN. THE LAST OF THE FOUR IS ASSEMBLED UPON THE STAGE." It almost seemed to dance, giddy at the prospects. “PROPHECY. PROPHECY. THE PROPHECY.” The mite-gestalt howled, mad with glee. “MANKIND’S EMPEROR, TO DRAW OUT THE FINAL ENEMY. THE VOW, TO HOLD THE VESSEL IN PLACE. A GOD’S WRATH, TO BREAK THE CYCLE. AND THE HEIR APPARENT, TO TAKE THE THRONE LEFT BEHIND.”

The god turned it's million eyes back to To'Wrathh, she felt a dizzying amount of information pass through, a glimpse at what the god was doing. "WE WILL GRANT THY WISH.”

Searching, tendrils expanding outwards fractally into the digital space, testing permutations, narrowing down, following a pattern she almost felt she could understand. And then it began to drift into alternate… dimensions - outside of reality, tendrils of patterns appearing and disappearing in random locations that she only partially understood must connect on some other plane she could scarcely comprehend. True elucidation slipped by her like water, but she felt like the mites were reaching beyond - to other mites that didn't exist here. Another mite-god. A thousand of them. An infinite amount of them. Each giving a small piece of the whole, communicating with one another in parallel. Present in this reality, and yet not.

The tendrils of thought multiplied, honed, and reached for a destination, all converging onto the same location. An equation, equally repeating into infinity, being chiseled away until nothing remained of the numbers except what the newly forged mite god wished for. Satisfaction hummed, not her own, the god’s. Massive enough even she could feel it vibrate.

The mite-god dove into her breaking body, this time taking over command. Her nano-swarm was hijacked , ripped away from her command as if she were a child against the storm. They buzzed and funneled down to her soul fractal, chiseling a new fractal to the side, taking one of the few permanent fractals spaces she could use for the rest of her existence. It was same equation the mite god had discovered a moment ago.

“THIS IS THE PRICE WE SHALL PAY.”

Something else came with the nanoswarm commands. Another fractal, inscribed into metal, taking another slot - but not quite ending at only that. A digital fractal, like a virus, spread into her system, freezing everything for a moment, and contracted back into a tiny seed where it remained, hiding deep inside her hardware. Dormant. Waiting.

“THIS IS THE PRICE THOU SHALL PAY.” Knowledge flooded through her, alien and incomprehensible other than to dig into her soul, to return as instinct instead. “WHEN THY SOUL IS ABOUT TO BREAK. REACH FOR THIS SEED AND LET MANKIND’S LAST CHAMPION TAKE HIS PATH.”

One final packet of data was sent. An invitation, wrapped in immutable strings of gold, radiant - and utterly encrypted in means To’Wrathh knew she’d never be able to open without the key. “APOSTATE. THY FIRST LABOR. FIND THE LAST OF THE PREVIOUS CYCLE. OFFER HER THE SOLUTION.”

The mite god seemed pleased. The oppressive presence receding from her mind, leaving behind only an echo. But not without one more parting bit of words she could hardly process. The god's gaze froze To’Wrathh in place, as if this last bit of words was the most important of them all. “THOU, WREATHED IN CHAINS UPON THY SOUL. HEED THIS MESSAGE. THOU MUST BE THE STRONGEST OF THE FOUR. UPON THY CHAINS, SHE MUST BE HELD IN PLACE, OR ALL WILL BE LOST. DO NOT FAIL AS THY PREDECESSOR. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD CHANCE.”

The connection was breaking. She could feel the mite god disintegrating, falling apart back into component pieces, scattered all over the millions of multi-colored colonies, like a crashing specter of mist. She lost track, systems shutting down in a cascade of failures.

Everything went black.

Hardware shut down and rebooted a moment after. Overlocks were disabled, with a good portion of her core having suffered terrible damage due to heat. Error messages flooded her mind, pointing out the damage she’d caused herself. She could repair it, over time. But for the moment, there was something else she needed to do.

She reached for that new fractal, inscribed by the mite god, and it lit up bright blue. Following the instincts she’d been grafted with, her hands reached down to Tamery’s unconscious body, left going to her slice throat, the right one to where the hole in her chest lay. Occult pulsed around her, and she felt the fractal tap into energy beyond her ken of understanding. It demanded something from her in return. Something inside her soul. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she was willing to pay any price.

The wounds on Tamery’s body began to shudder and then heal. A new heart grew from nowhere, reattaching itself. Bones that were broken twisted, connecting back to one another like magnets. The heart started to beat. Blood flowed, circulating back around the dying body. The throat slice closed up, and held the line when life began to pulse again.

Tamery took a weak breath, guided by instinct. To’Wrathh cradled her body close, holding onto the weak girl, keeping her close and safe.

To’Aacar, on the other hand, felt nothing sort of revulsion, ignorant of what had truly transpired. Here was the little weak sister, crying about losing one of her pets. He could feel the foolish Feather go through leaps and hoops, trying to overclock her system far past the safety margins. He didn’t care to follow along, his shell was already damaged enough and needed to be fully repaired before he did any such stunts. If she was trying to find a solution to saving the human, there was none. The pest was well and truly dead, or would be in minutes.

And then something happened that To’Aacar could scarcely believe. To’Wrathh’s nanite swarm had gone and engraved a fractal into her soul, taking up one permanent spot. At first, he’d thought she’d gone insane. Melted too much of her hardware to function properly anymore.

It became worse when of all the abilities she could have plundered from the archive, she picked something to heal humans. He’d never even known such a thing existed in the first place. What machine would even care to look for something like that? The idea of wasting such a valuable irreplaceable resource with healing for humans was so absurd To’Aacar had to take a moment to really grasp just how dim his little sister truly was.

“Have you burned down your mind? A Feather choosing to limit her potential with such a waste is nothing but the most short sighted idea I’ve ever seen. The lady will hear of this.”

To’Wrathh did not stir. Did not even seem to have heard him at all even.

Oh, he would certainly tell the lady all of this. If only he could get a damned audience without it ending in his own torture. Relinquished was far too obsessed with her own playthings, hunting down Tsuya anywhere the human goddess hid. Message after message he'd sent had remained unaddressed and unreturned. Had the lady even looked into the reports he'd sent or was all of this too tiny for her to care about? Was she deliberately ignoring him?

What fractal had To’Wrathh even inscribed in the first place that could heal humans? When had that been assimilated into the archives?

He scanned through the full library absentmindedly, waiting for his little sister’s hysterics to fade as the room filled up with commotion.

And then, for the second time in a day, he was left stunned.

There was no result. Nothing in the archives matched what he’d seen To’Wrathh do.

He ran the search again, in more depth and detail. No results. The only other way To’Wrathh could have such a fractal - was if she’d come up with it on the spot?

That… That was something only one generation of Feathers had ever been able to do, and only the worst of their kind in the middle of their rebellion, at the peak of their power.

For the first time in centuries, fear gripped his mind in a sudden spike. No longer the dimwit empty Feather to belittle out of boredom, he stared at the shadow of his true enemy before him. This… this was a possible threat, still early in development.

His hand formed once more into a blade on instinct, the old reflexes returning fresh into his mind as if a day hadn’t passed since the final battle with the proto-feathers. He couldn’t play here. This wasn’t an opponent he could allow to roam free.

First, his old prey escapes after unearthing a long dormant relic hidden away by Tsuya, then a boy comes back with accursed chains, similar to the ones wielded by him. And now, this? Something was wrong. Too many dead things were starting to stir back to life. Things that had been long buried, broken and sealed away.

Unless he put a stop to it now.

Old memories ran rampant, and with them came the situational awareness and single minded battle focus that had saved his life again and again where all his brothers and sisters in arms had been cut down. That awareness… screamed danger at all sides. He stopped, hand half pulled up for a strike, and realized where he was.

The machines around him had sensed his killing intent. They surrounded him, violet eyes all locked in on him, and only him. Already moving, some midstep to stand between him and the sitting Feather. Others hunching over, preparing to leap. Still more getting into formation behind their comrades, preparing to support. The room held a breath, everything daring him to continue with his action.

Stand down. He commanded.

They… they refused his command. He saw them all continue to hunch down into optimal positions, prepared to leap instead. Claws out. Clicking noises coming from them, threats. Where was their fear? Where was the cowed lessers he'd left behind? Where was the natural order?

More were coming from all sides outside the forum. All of them equally ignoring his orders. An entire city of machine lessers, and not a single one had sent a response message back to acknowledge his command.

He’d lost control of the situation.

His shell was damaged. Could he fight and win here, against this number of opponents, without even a blade in hand? But the Feather before him was a threat. Or she could become one.

He didn’t know truly, but instincts long dormant screamed in his mind to rip To’Wrathh’s soul fractal out of her chassis and seal her into the darkest prison he could find before she grew further in power.

No.

He wouldn’t be able to win here. There was no chance he’d reach the Feather before the Runners tackled him from all sides. His legs weren’t functioning and wouldn’t be able to move at the speeds he’d need to reach. The time needed to power an occult jump was too long and the forces around him were on a hair trigger. Just one small misstep and they would pounce on him of their own accord. This shell needed repairs. And with this unworded rebellion, he already knew the mite forges nearby were now out of his reach.

It enraged him beyond words that the lessers of all things, were even close to a threat to him.

He lifted his left hand slowly, uncurling his hands into an open palm. “I see I’m no longer welcome here.” To’Aacar said, but he could tell To’Wrathh still wasn’t hearing a word he said, too focused on the human she clutched tightly. “The lady will hear all of this, and she will be the one to grant judgment. I will be in contact with you tomorrow, once you’ve settled down. The primary objective remains, even with your little stunt here being an embarrassment to all machines. I’ll leave you to your… pets in the meantime.”

He turned and walked out, the machines around him taking a step back to let him pass. Postures hunched back up. A peace of sorts, an unworded truce. As if they thought he’d forgive and forget, if they let him walk away.

No, he would be back.

To’Aacar did not forgive, nor did he ever forget.

He wasn’t sure if To’Wrathh was a possible inheritor to the proto-feathers or simply a deviant with impressive luck, but it was better to avoid taking the chance entirely. Deep under all the layers of dust that had grown over, his original purpose remained clear and unchanged since the day he’d been created.

He’d make sure every single one of these traitorous machines were purged one way or another.

Next chapter - On an adventure

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