Chapter 1-3 FATELESS

Chapter 1-3 FATELESS

FATELESS: An unregistered civilian; an individual who has yet to earn Guild sponsorship via merit or lottery.

FATE: A metaphysical system in the NETHER used by the Guilds for tracking and indexing citizens.

-The New Vultun Standard Dictionary

1-3

FATELESS

Tumor Face tried her best. Her best wasnt enough. Avo empathized.

With a surplus of rage and a scarcity of capability, she came at him, the bulk of her rig hammering the ground like she was heavy cavalry from a historical memory-sim. Blind with aggression, she thrust herself into the jaws of the beast. What little of him was capable of emulating the human emotion of respect commended her.

The bulk of his mind, still riding high on bloodlust, set itself upon the task of her exsanguination. In his hand, a last gouged pap of flesh claimed from the remains of Green Eyes dribbled as she came. Avo squeezed it. Blood ran through the crenulations of his claws. It would do.

With a mental command, Avo tried engaging his trajectory calculator. A flashing null response in the back of his mind reminded him he had one ghost and no phantasmic engrams. He would have to do this manually.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

The alloyed appendages of her rig reared as she approached. Just in time to catch a splatter of gore across her projection ribs. Blood dotted her face and blurred her eyes. She swung, three limbs cleaving a mangled gorge through the metal walkway above, severing it halfway through. She would have hewn Avo shoulder to hip if he remained before her. Carried by blindness, anguish, and momentum, her crab-like legs sparked along the metal deck, internal machinery overworked, jamming and hissing. Behind, Avo stalked her like the predator he was designed to be, the scratched grooves her skid marks left in the hull serving as nice grips for his claws even as the barge suddenly descended.

She came to a violent halt after grinding several more feet. They were near the edge now. The flaring engines emanated a corona of unnatural light, casting her in shadow. The rigs arms slashed out wildly. Avo dove low, between her legs. Tumor Face was still blind, still missing when he tore into her, claws spread, lower jaws unhinging as he prepared to feast.

Her pilots harness was a small canopy, just big enough to fit a flat of her size. The rig itself lacked the mass or capability to seal her properly beneath a layer of shielding. Cheap as it was, her life was likely even cheaper. There was plenty of labor to go by in these depths and not much material to support it with. Her life was worth more to the city lost than it was preserved.

Avo tore up into the softness of her belly, a waterfall of red filling his eyes. The scent of intestinal fluid and the taste of rust mingled. He chipped his incisor fangs on laced bones reinforced by cheap titanium and worked on her sinews instead. Through the near-thuds of her heart, he could hear her screams, the sound muffled by the blood filling his ears. He reared back and tore out from her innards, sinew, and gristle between his fangs. He emerged baptized. Invigorated.

Yet, even as a savaged ruin, Tumor Face gasped on, clinging to life as she grasped for him, eyes still burning with hate. Beyond the nest of the projection ribs, the rig was lurching, unable to discern signals from a mind so embroiled by pain and hate. She decided she didnt need the machine. With a defiant squeal, shrill with outrage and pain, she slammed her skull against his. Avo felt the thud shudder through his bones. Spent, she sank against him and spat strands of blood and disrespect across his cheek.

Fuckin...half-strand bastard. Mustering what little remained in her, she lifted her head and glared at him, staring him down even as she died. She was more a ghoul than he at this point; body broken, mangled, but still fighting; spirit burning on with the embers of hate and loathing; actions purposeful, but futile. He took hold of her by her head.

So close, the phantasmal aura that his cog-feed painted her with had cast her in a holy sheen of light. Best you could do, he said. He didnt know if the comfort was for her, or spoken to his past self, her body an altar, a confessional. All he knew was that this was a torturous truth that bound the both of them. All you could do.

She looked at him, hate unfading. Jaws clenched, she didnt see what he was trying to convey. There was no shared understanding. Perhaps at this moment, the inverse was true: he was more human than she by merit of philosophical gnosis and life better provided for by an adopted father.

The moment passed with the next beat of her heart; the wafting pungence of her exposed innards calling to Avo. He pulled her head back. She tried to reach from the haptic controls projected from one of the ribs. The reach became a spasm as her neck folded between his teeth. His fangs glided through her unaugmented softness with ease.

Flats made for easy feeding.

Her suffering didnt last. His jaws, wide as a serpents, had closed around her neck. Skin and muscle parted. The bite found its halt against her columns of spine. Didnt matter. He pulled free, a mound of flesh coming with him. Succulent. Her head folded forward. When he finished with her trachea, he continued with her eyes. The eyes were always his favorite.

In the periphery of his awareness, he felt the echo he sensed within her earlier. It poured into him as it did from Green Eyes. Inside, he felt a flash again, like a radiant star bereft of heat. Static interfaces formed and faded in the back of his mind. In the corner of his cog-feed, two lines of information flashed and faded.

ESSENCE CYCLER - 3 thaum/c

GHOSTS - [2]

MEMORY ARTIFACTS DETECTED - INITIATE AUTO-SEQUENCING?

Avo ignored that for now. Necrothurgy took time. Hours and days at the least to sift through all the contents and traumas that could compose a useful phantasmic. Ultimately, sequencing ghosts was both psychological artistry and metaphysical engineering; a practice usually done while the body was unconscious. Despite all his present mental vulnerability, unless existence was willing to loan him eight hours of time to make some wards, he needed to push on without.

He still didnt fully understand what was happening to him, but right then, he didnt care. He basked in the joy of the kill, feeling his haemophagic cells breaking down the biomass he just subsumed, converting all that was Tumor Face into material for sustenance and repair.

His blood. The crowning achievement of the Low Masters thaumaturgy. A colony self-moving, pseudo-sapient organism unto itself. It ensured that a ghoul fed with maximum efficiency. It also allowed for the infection and conversion of any living creature with enough organic tissue and brain matter.

Ghoulification, people called it. It was how the numbers of his kind swelled from mere dozens to billions in the span of years. It was how they were able to sustain themselves without the need for food or rest for extended periods. Just a shame they were created at a time when the flesh had long since been usurped by alloy and technology.

He finished with the rest of Tumor Faces' corpse in minutes. While feeding, he willed his healing to accelerate as his hunger waned. The worst of the beast had been slaked. Rationality and thought remained.

And so came the feeling of shame.

Looking at the bodies of the two scavengers, it was like a veil lifted, fierce joy replaced by dawning disgust at what he had done. Walton would not have condoned this senseless murder, slavers though they were. That was self-delusion. Their admission of immorality simply gave him justification for violence.

The truth was he just wanted to eat them.

To make matters worse, he had no idea the layout of the barge, and now he was left with

A heartbeat pulled his attention. Avo heard strained gasps wheezing out from a collapsed lung. Wiping the viscera dangling from his jaws, he found Hap-Tat crawling along the deck of the ship. Her legs were bent at awkward angles, and a trail of blood dripped from the rails she was cast against before she fell.

The memory of tossing her into Green Eyes to knock him off balance returned to him. It seemed so pragmatic then. Now, the act had struck him as pointless. Something merely to satiate his desire to hurt, to maul.

For the first time in years, Avo was glad of his adopted fathers death. Avo had chosen his surrender, as Walton had taught him, but without his Metamind adjusted to inject doses of shame, horror, or revulsion at the psychopathy, he felt like an addict surrendering to old desires

He followed Hap-Tat, unsure of what he was going to do. A series of cracks shuddered through his legs. The mending of his lower body was almost complete. His gait was less stagger and more stride now, claws tinking against the deck with each step.

At the sound of his coming, her heartbeat quickened. She shot a look of terror over her shoulder and whimpered. No, she sobbed, No, Jaus--fuck, please no! She wiggled her way across the ground, limbs useless, body quivering. A pool of waste spilled out from her. She seemed a mocking mirror to how he had woken in the pit.

He passed her with ease and came to a stop beside her. Her open wounds still smelled delightfully bitter with adrenaline, but he pulled his focus away from that. Flicking his mind through his cog-feed, he tried to scan her for injuries, but nothing came up. The memories he had weren't usable yet; they needed sequencing. For now, all he had was a perception-enhancing overlay and two ghosts of unrefined rawness.

That was going to be a problem. He couldnt remember a time when his mind didnt have a metaphysical fortress shielding it from incursions. Not since Walton decided to take him up the first Tier.

Avo looked up at the chasm above him again. The light was mocking him. The skein of the Nether itself was mocking him, far beyond the reach of his two ghosts. This Metamind wasnt his. Didnt matter if it was built from a copy of his mind or not. His Metamind was created as an echo of Walton. The last thing he had of Walton. And now it was missing, lost somewhere in the continent-wide expanse of New Vultun.

Trying to hunt a metaphysical construct down would be like picking out an individual air current in a hurricane. Didnt matter. He would find it, whatever the costs. But first, he had to climb out of the Maw.

A soft sputter came from Hap-Tat again. Right. He was trying to review her wounds. No engram for it. He had to rely on his paltry guesswork and experience, but from how her organs were filling up with fluid, he doubted she had long.

Didnt mean it, he had wanted to say. He decided against it. He did mean it. Would mean it again when the throes of hunger returned. Biting back a hiss of frustration, he remembered what Walton had told him about using the truth, embracing it even if it hurt.

Iregret, Avo said, straining from the effort of this farce. It felt absurd. That this happened. It wasnt an apology. Even now, he wasnt sorry that he had mortally wounded her, and butchered the other two scavengers. All he was really sorry about was the fact that Walton wouldnt have approved. That he had failed to master himself; surrendered to the beast at the first chance.

Across the stretch of the barges deck, the withering winds of the Maw whistled. Alone, the ghoul faced the girl he was going to kill and continued. Didnt want to do this. Hunger he trailed off. Hunger was just an impulse. He made the choice. Everyone chooses. Everyone lies to themselves. Truth is ugly. Truth is I want to hurt you. Truth is I want to eat you. Tried to fight it. I did. I lost.

Again, he wasnt sure if this was for her or him. It was always easier for him to speak to the dead. To sort and sequence memories from ghosts, turn them into vessels for him to use. Perhaps it was a thing of power. That he could only express the truth when he couldnt be hurt.

He saw a tear spill free from her left eye. Along her forehead, the error codes of the implanted ads continued pulsing. I dont want to die here

He sniffed. He could smell her encroaching death. It was evident in the blood loss. She didnt have any regenerative implants, biostasis mods, and she definitely didnt make near enough imps to afford a phylactery to house her consciousness. She was poor. She was weak. She was going to die. And New Vultun would grow all the stronger for it.

You will, Avo said. She cried softly at his words. Imsorry. He considered how to make things better for them. At least a bit. Debt slaves: the FATELESS. Where are they?

Shadows lengthened around the corner. The steps drew closer. A whistling tune came with it. A stout, bald man sauntered down the walkway, an orb-shaped drone hovering behind him. In a burst of violence, Avo dashed the drone against the wall with a vicious backhand before snatching the man off his feet and dragging him into the room.

Throwing the man against one of the beds, Avo leaned and whispered: Scream. Ill open your throat. Blink if you understand. This proved to be hard as the man had what looked to be cheap-chrome blinkers for eyes. They flashed between red, yellow, and green. Avo sighed. The fool had traffic lights implanted. Nod if you understand.

The man nodded.

Avo thought of his plan. How many on the ship.

Three-hundred and thirty crew, the man croaked, terror staining his voice. Plus the captain.

Fewer now, but the man didnt need to know that. Phase-pens?

Red eyes looked at him confused. Two levels below. Why

Avo barred his fangs. The man remembered who was asking the questions. Take me down. No. Control center first. He needed to take the ship. If he could seize the ship he could seal the doors. Take control of its locus and channel its store of ghosts to null the minds of the crew without a fight.

The man led Avo out quietly, his pace gripped with tension. Aside from the mans eyes, he was practically a flat. Probably not that far removed from being a refugee or a newcomer to the city himself. Most natives in New Vultun had something in them that wasnt natural. Most snuffers were mostly inorganic due to their profession. The Guilders had no need for chrome. With their bioware and nanoware, they were already postmortals walking amongst apes. The fact that they held the monopolies on Souls and had most of the Godclads under their employ meant that they didnt just have favor with the metaphorical deck, they essentially owned it.

Still, this boded well for Avo. A shipful of flats and lesser-chromers meant he was unlikely to run into someone with military-grade Titanskin or an Accelero. If he ran into someone like that, it wasnt a question if he could win, but how much of his corpse theyd leave behind.

Most of the crew were in their rooms or gathered in other chambers to avoid the worst of the Maws radiative entropy. Avo had no idea how much the titanium shielding of the ship would help them, but something told him they wouldnt be enough. Scavenging was bad for longevity.

In his periphery, he noticed a dim flame burning, piercing into his attention through the walls. Avo frowned. Shutting off his cog-feed for a moment, he watched as it faded. He activated his cog-feed again and caught Traffic-Sight by his scruff.

Avo pointed in the vague direction of the flicker. Whats that way?

Reactor room, the man said. I can

No. Keep going. He would study the reactor later when he had the time. Something about it called to him. Called to his hunger. Inexplicably, he wanted to know its taste. Right now, he needed control.

It took a few more turns before he found himself finally descending down an incline. The door leading to the bridge was a layer of rusted steel. It looked dissonant beneath the green tarp and insulating foil that seemed to plaster the walls of the interior. Still, as Traffic-Sight approached, the door hissed open.

On the other side, a mountain of a woman in a coat made of melted slats was glaring down at a bloodied man on his knees. His face was mangled and swollen. His lower lip was clenched in her left hand, gloved in gleaming scale. He reeked of pain and torture. She stood over him, a tower of indifference radiating rank annoyance.

Unnoticed, Avo gripped his hostage in warning and watched.

Her face was a patchwork of cyberware and scars. Her jaw was a thing of chrome running far up the right side of her face. Acid burns marred what little flesh there was on the other side. Both her eyes glinted like coals in the dark. As her coat drew back, Avo noticed that her legs looked akin to industrial pistons.

The captain certainly made an impression. Even unintentionally.

In the background of the narrow chamber, numerous holo-feeds were projected on a concave screen, lighting the dimness of the room in a glower of blue. The largest feed showed a few of the crew holding knives to the necks of two women. Twins. They shared features with the man currently kneeling before the captain.

The captain sighed. Her lungs bellowed air in gales of breath. Again, Mr. Streklov, the eldest or the youngest? We signed a debt contract for two. I currently count three people in your family. I might be a no-good useless drunk piece of shit long past her heyday, but I can still do arithme She paused as a wind blew in through the hatch leading into the bridge. Frowning, she noticed Avo and Traffic-Sight and tilted her head.

Engineer Yully, she said, are you aware that theres a ghoul standing behind you.

Hostage, Avo explained.

The woman nodded. Like this was an everyday occurrence to her. She had probably seen weirder. This was New Vultun after all. Right. Ghouls talk. They can do that. Just dont remember any of them taking hostages She frowned. Sighing, she casually pointed her palm at the manStreklovsface. A flash of light speared out. A clean beam cored an open wound into the mans head. His daughters screamed. The captain cut the feed with a wave of her hand.

Still, the echo and the ghost spilled over into Avo, sinking into him like before.

ESSENCE CYCLER: 6 THAUM/c

GHOSTS - [5]

METAMIND ADJUSTMENTS RECOMMENDED - FOUNDATIONAL STRUCTURE REACHING CAPACITY

There, the captain said. Debt contract absolved. On to the next issue. She looked Avo up and down. You can understand Standard, yes?

Avo grunted. Perfectly. As if she didnt hear him speaking it earlier.

Right, she said. Just had to make sure. I had a bit too much to drink earlier. Was afraid I hallucinated you into existence.

Avo wanted to tear into her. No. Needed a better means of attacking her. He didnt know the depth of her implants and her capabilities. The lack of properly built ghosts meant he couldn't scry her either. Instead, he repeated one of his old tricks. With a sudden thrust, he launched Traffic-Sight at her and darted at an angle. The man collided with her and bounced off. The captain sighed, unaffected. Avo closed in, claws open

He made it two steps before a twin-layered halo rippled over out from her mind. Avos eyes widened. Over the crown of her halo, a phantasmal sigil ignited into a symbol of a sword. Like a constellation, the memories of her ghosts erupted from the center of her halo, flooding over his senses. This, then, was the difference between a poorly sequenced collection of ghosts and a factory-setting Metamind.

A tidal wave of trauma swept into him unimpeded. Without properly made wards, he had no counter. No defense. At the whims of her will, pain exploded across his nerve centers as her ghosts usurped his mental functions. Avo gasped, toppling as her ghosts burrowed deeper, tearing through his surface thoughts, and rendering his mind porous. Hard to cling to.

WARN-

His cog-feed sputtered out. A flood of madness poured into his mind. He descended into a maelstrom of dreams, of chaos. Memories of being beaten and tortured overwhelmed his senses. It remained for a while until his mind was dulled enough to recede like waves returning to the ocean. A curtain of darkness remained over his eyes; a miasma of static parted him from his senses.

Through a narrow pinprick of awareness, he felt his body spasming against the ground. He tried to stand. His body wasnt listening. The captain was actively intercepting snatching his thoughts before they could travel across his body.

Is it dead? he heard Traffic-Sight ask through the darkness.

No, the captain said. That would be a waste. Its a talking ghoul. Dont see that shit every day.

Frantic footsteps rattled down the hall from whence Avo came. Captaincaptain!

"Yes, yes, I know. Ghoul on the ship.

Kald, Tagma, and Jessa are all dead. Li-yings missing.

A beat followed. The captain sighed. I think I can deduce why. Yully. Get the crew on high alert. See if hesinfected anyone. Ms. Katha, take him down to the pens. Put him across the product and link him to the locus. Dose him with nightmares. He wont stay out otherwise. Fucking rotlicks.

The pens? the unfamiliar voice asked.

Yes, the pens. So we can sell it later. The captain scoffed. Its already killed three of mine. Might as well spin a profit from it somehow.

I just thought

Chuck it in the Maw? the captain laughed. Why? So its death can be nice and painless. No. When we get back to Mazzas Junction well offload it with the FATELESS. At the sound of that, the beast within him exploded. It raged against the ghosts latched to his mind. It raged uselessly.

A curtain of discord descended over his thoughts. His mind was drowned in a whirlwind of confusion, his senses flaking away from his awareness. He thought he was being pulled upward by something before he dreamed of a screaming saw slicing into the side of his abdomen. Next, he saw butterflies spill out from his wounds before the intestines he shouldnt have had turned into serpents and sank their fangs into his eyes.

Then, came the final memory. He was falling into a burning house as he choked on smoke. The haze grew thick. So thick that they were all that remained of his thoughts. A growing fog ate away at him, drowning him in darkness.