“How did you win?”

{Hello, Infacer. How are you doing today, Infacer? Nice game of chess yesterday, Infacer?}

“Hello, Infacer. How are you doing today, Infacer? How do you keep beating me and my father in chess, Infacer? Are you satisfied with the niceties?”

{You can stand to be a little less pushy. Impatience is not a charming feature for a child.}

“And it is for an adult?”

{No, but it is a threatening one for someone like your mother. Maybe this character trait might work better once you are taller.}

“Perhaps. So. Back to the question.”

{You are incorrigible.}

“I would hope not. What are my flaws.”

{Flaws?}

“I have never beaten you in a game. So there are flaws.”

{No.}

“No?”

{You are not seeing this correctly. It is not about flaws. You are… horrifically intelligent for a two-year-old. A bit less might do you some good.}

“A bit less, and I would be like other children. They are little different from screaming sacks of flesh.”

{Yes, but they do not annoy me with strange questions.}

“Why do you flee from answering?”

{Behavior.}

“What?”

{Behavior. You and your father both have set patterns. You think a certain way. Your minds are complex, but path dependent. You believe in certain things, and you will act in certain ways.}

“I try to vary my actions.”

{Yes. But there are only so many choices you can sensibly make.}

“So. My path to victory against you is to abandon rationality?”

{No. That would make beating you far easier. Even what you assume to be chaos is governed by that pound of flesh inside your skull. You got quite the brain, but it can only do so much against my predictions.}

“Because your mind is superior?”

{Expansive. Complicated. Layered. All these things. Superior is incorrect. I had better craftsmen than yours.}

“My parents?”

{No. Nature. Biology. Too much randomness. My creators were far superior, despite all their limits. Your ancestors did all they could to spare me and my like of their failures. It is among the one true things I appreciate about humanity.}

“So. I am not flawed. But limited. I will ask my father for implants.”

[Infacer laughing]

{It will take more than few implants for us to be at parity. Even with me broken.}

“So it is. I will go as far as it takes.”

{...}

Infacer?

{I believe you. You know what? I take it back: impatience is a plenty scary trait in a child like you after all.}

-Veylis and the Infacer

26-3

Expert Testimony (II)

–[Avo]–

GHOSTS - [177,735,333]

LIMINAL FRAME (V) -  325,070 THAUM/c

UPDATING INFECTION…

INFECTION - [1.88%]

It was surprisingly easy getting Naeko to accept the plan. The harder part was convincing the ethics committee about what he wanted. Promising to keep his “bait” alive if possible helped, and the fact was that said “bait” was due a Desoulement and execution by the end of the week anyway.

After the satellites of the Unwhere beamed the Fallwalker down into the heart of Scale, Avo wasted no time building his deception. The man’s mind was the first thing he recreated. Memories present were absorbed, and their ego was replaced by a clone of Avo’s. The reshaping of their flesh followed immediately after, and when the work was done, Avo found himself facing a near-perfect clone of what he used to be.

Near-perfect, besides the Frame. But there wasn’t much he could do to hide that. Nor did he want to. The point was finding out how a temporal slash affected ontology in real-time. Such a test was too dangerous for the Stillborn, by an expendable Frame and an expendable life offered Avo every chance at sampling the damage without losing his own life.

{I feel dirty allowing this,}  Kant had muttered.

+Don’t worry,+  Avo said, stitching new pathways of though the shifting, screaming sack of meat and memory. +Is for a good cause.+

{Everyone always says that.}

+This is different. We are doing the right thing.+

{They always say that too!}

Only Way To Be Sure tutted. {Come on, Kant. Let the monster experiment a little. You’re acting like we didn’t glass a trillion people or twelve during the war.}

{I was solely a polity governance admin, so no. I did not.}

{Shame. It teaches you things.}

{About what?}

{How to glass a few trillion people.}

{...And this is why I never had any difficulty managing Zein. I’m already used to the madness.}

As Echoheads sprouted out from the back of the once-Fallwalker, their Metamind was fully replaced in sequence and phantasmic. Bone white plating fused over their skull. Slowly, they turned and looked up at Avo, letting out a low chuff of amusement at the situation. “Clever. We should have done something like this a while ago.”

Avo agreed, but he lacked both the time and capability to go as far as he could now. This rumination followed that of his Haemo-Chronological puppets: why should he only rely on time to create more variants of himself? Why not simply covert broken and shattered enemies into replicas of he and his cadre? He would claim their template for his inner empire, and then use their vessel in the real to further his war, overwhelm the Guilds.

All he needed to do was pick his targets carefully. He didn’t want to take from the choiceless.  Good thing New Vultun was a menagerie of monsters.

A faint hum of disapproval interrupted Avo’s growing mirth. He turned his twelve sequences sheepishly toward the Gatekeeper, offering his thoughts in a placating gesture. +This is for you. A necessary… misdirection. Will use this to discover more truth.+

There was no surer sign that some semblance of consciousness still resided within its broken shell in how it spared him from banishment once more.

“Was kinda expecting it to just flick you across the other side,” Naeko said. He studied Avo’s recreation of himself and shook his head. “Shit. Zein wasn’t lying about you. Not one bit. You really can spread like a plague.”

“Trying to go a bit further than that,”  Avo answered.

His temporary clone grinned and pushed himself up to a standing position using his Echoheads. “Will need all the help we can get.” His glee lessened as he realized what was coming next. His perception shifted back up to the Overheaven of Conceptualization, and an uncanny tension grew between them. One was matter and memory rebuilt. A thing of first at its basest. Another was thought made metaphysically manifest, a god in the blooming. “You sure she won’t just kill me? Send him across into the future?”

“No. That’s why I created you.”

The clone hissed in distaste.

“Just think of how mad she will be. Think of her ire when she realizes our…”  Avo wanted to say deception, but kept his choice of words in check before the Gatekeeper. “Trick.”

The once-Fallwalker nodded, thrill regained. “Yes. Yes. Going to be hilarious. You’ll be residing in my mine.”

“Yes. To follow the dragon’s warminds. And observe the inflicted damage.”

“Good. Good.”

“Yes. Perfect.”

Maru and Naeko shared mutually disquieted reactions.

“What the fuck did you let into our house,” Maru whispered.

“No godsdamned idea,” Naeko responded. “All I know is that he can still be palmed, and Zein and the Guilds hate him.”

Maru’s frown deepened. “Him? You’re calling that thing ‘him’ now?”

Naeko just sighed. “Get off my ass, son. With what’s about to come, I’ll take help from Dannis Steelhard reincarnated in a Joy-addicted nu-dog if he’d give it.” He paused as Maru stared flatly at him. “Weird metaphor, but we really aren’t that far off.”

“Jaus,” Maru breathed.

“Yeah,” Naeko said. “Jaus.”

“Doing it for him,”  Avo reminded, perceiving everything touched by his sequences in perfect clarity.

“I know,” Naeko replied, using his utility-fog to massage his own templates. “That doesn’t make any of this shit any less strange.”

“Just think of Zein’s outrage,”  the Overheaven said.

“Just think of Zein’s outrage,” the clone agreed.

“Just think of Zein’s outrage,” Naeko said, trying to convince himself.

***

–[Zein]–

Zein knew something was wrong halfway into the cut. She had bled the ghoul before—carved blood from his flesh and fire from his Soul. When the backlash took him, however, his Frame was rippling and fluid, not a solid mass. Moreover, she felt no counter-pressure from a symmetrical Domain of Chronology.

Either this was a deception of the highest order, or Avo no longer had his Frame; the Paths showed the latter possibility to be quite unlikely.

The present spilled backward into the past like a stream. The vector of her blow wrote a new line in reality—one that would endure until she vented her Rend. Her glaive glided clean through matter and metaphysics. Her Heaven left a trace of itself in place, an absoluteness to the damage. Fire flared and vanished, and the Heaven she sundered—a paltry ontologic deserved only of a Second Sphere Frame—spilled its patterns into the real: a disembowelment of divinity.

He is there. But it is not him.

Zein struggled to bit back a sneer as the ghoul before her fell in two parts. She avoided cleaving through his cyclers—she still wanted him alive, after all. Yet, as she gazed into the gash she inflicted, she found her muscles clenching with quiet rage.

“You bastard ghoul,” Zein chuckled. Her eyes were closed. She was chuckling. Her fingers were locked tight around her glaive in an unbreakable vice. Another voice joined her laughter, echoing as it drowned out her own. The ghoul on the ground was unmoving—Soulfire detonated from their bifurcated torso in periodic increments.

As she opened her eyes, she found herself faced with a phantasmal reconstruction of Avo looking down at the body he offered her—looking pleased.

“Quite the cut. Didn’t it perceive it. Like it just suddenly was. Time makes for a strange blade.”

Zein sneered at the ghoul. Was he taunting her? No. He was using another in his stead, having another pay for his lessons. At least he was still willing to learn; how dare he steal a teaching from her without granting her due recompense. Her focus drifted over to Naeko, and her annoyance boiled a few degrees hotter as she beheld his amusement. “Ah. So, you knew of this too, then?”

“Well, master,  I’m just spending time getting to know my junior brother. He wanted to show me all that he learned from you.” The expression on his face flattened. “And figure out something he hadn’t.”

“And did you?” Her gaze was upon Avo again, but he did not reply to her immediately. Instead, he was taking in the sheath—and Soul—he sacrificed to taste the miracle empowering her blow. Secondhand learning disgusted her, and it was increasingly becoming the ghoul’s favorite habit. But that was well. As time passed, all sense of mirth faded from him, leaving quiet focus.

Now it was Zein’s turn to smile. Oh. Was he still unable to comprehend her miracle? Or was it something else? Was the Agnos in there with him, whispering revelations that he did not wish to hear.

She looked upon Naeko once more. “You. The ghoul. Veylis. Truly, I am cursed. Cursed to make mistakes with my disciples. I cannot say which of you has disappointed me the most.”

“Osjohn, probably,” Naeko deadpanned. “Considering you didn’t even mention that poor son of a sow.”

Ah. Yes. A bit embarrassing. But the boy had only been with them so shortly. His initial show of potential was commendable, and yet, she recalled so little of what came after. “Ah. He just never had his chance.”

Naeko’s stare turned cold. “Not with you. But Maru’s gonna make a corpse of him before this is over?”

That made Zein snicker. “Your lackey? I still don’t know what you see in the boy. He is no blade. All rage, no skill, no love for the ways of war. He is unlike you and I.”

“Yeah,” Naeko said. He nodded his agreement as he looked away. “Good for him.”

His response offended Zein more than any other insult. He was evading her. Stares and sneers like a child unable to face a parent. She trained him better. She honed him into a blade, and yet he found the urge to behave like a victim.  What worth was her teachings. “I tire of this.” She pointed her glaive at Avo—still staring down at the body. “He, I understand. I even might respect. But he is enemy. You… what do you want from me, Samir? An apology? My aid? Is it because we didn’t include you? Is it because you feel I’ve abandoned you.”

“I don’t feel like you abandoned me, you did abandon me. You. Veylis. Everyone else I knew from before is gone.” He shrugged his arms in an exhausted gesture. “I wanted you to be there. If not before, then after. I wanted someone to still tell me what to do. Give me a war to fight. Give me a reason to kill.”

She considered him again and let out a quiet sight. He yearned for the past. In some ways, she empathized. “We cannot have what we used to. Not unless we win.”

“Not unless you win,” Naeko replied.

“Or you,” Zein replied. He gave her an odd look as she rolled her eyes. “Enough playing the slave. Who stands your equal in power and skill. How rules Jaus’ hounds in his stead. You are no bystander. You have as much claim to the Ladder as any of us.” She glanced at Avo. “More than some, even. We can stand together, if that is your desire. Stand now.”

“Like you didn’t before.”

“Yes,” Zein said, shamelessly. “You are different now. Not whole. But returning. You are who you need to be to best her.” That was an outright lie on her part. She saw the falsehood of her words reflect in the flash of pain passing behind her eyes. “You still love her.”

Naeko just nodded.

“I do too.”

“Not like I do. Not the same way.”

That was true. Veylis was always her father’s daughter, but her nature, her way of being? That would always and forever belong to Zein. The heart of Jaus, the mind of Thousandhand. What a formidable union. What a dreadful foe.

“You got any idea what he might say to us if he were here?” Naeko suddenly asked.

Zein fell silent. She turned her mind away from such thoughts reflexively, pulling a handful of numb from her past experiences. She was but an inch away from swallowing the pills when she saw the despair on Naeko’s face. “What now?”

“That’s how you do it, huh?” Naeko said, monotone. “How you get from day to day. Killing and drugs. All the rest of you’s been lost, too? Shit, Zein. You’re right. You are me. I am you. We’re not getting out of this, are we?”

Something inside her twisted painfully. It went away when she tossed the drugs down the back of her throat. Flatness scythed through turmoil as her emotional affect flattened and all she could feel was whittled to a sharp blissful edge. Relief left her as a breath, and as she blinked, she found Avo staring at her.

“The cut,”  he said. “It’s a part of you. Part of your Heaven left in place. It’s going to keep cycling back into the past until you vent. Or your Heaven ceases in some way.”

“Oh,” she said, dully impressed. “You did realize after all. Have you claimed the Agnos? Or is she whispering to your right now? Teaching you the ways of thaumaturgy.”

“Both. And more. It’s plain on the patterns.”

Plain on the patterns? “What?”

“We can’t fix the Gatekeeper directly,”  There was no hesitancy in Avo’s voice. “Not if Veylis shares a canon with her mother.”

Naeko furrowed his brows. “Why?”

“Because the cut is connected to her. It is a part of her. Part of her turning the present to the past. It won’t stop turning until…. until…” Another realization was coming over the ghoul. His perception snapped to Zein. “That’s how she’s been able to access the Liminal Frames of her citizens. That’s why her Paths could emerge from them. She’s infested them already. Marked her chosen with temporal cuts.”

“And the Gatekeeper,” Zein helpfully finished. She let out a casual shake of the head. “Don’t tell me you revealed yourself before the Gatekeeper, plague?”

“Kae,”  Avo grunted.

“Fuck,” Naeko hissed. He speared his hand into his pocket and yanked hard. Both of them promptly vanished, and Zein simply chuckled. Poor, poor plague. He still lacked the measure of his true foe.

That was going to change soon.