Chapter 8-5 Anticipation

Chapter 8-5 Anticipation

This cannot be possible. We were not there. No one of the Order was there!

Then what about someone who wasnt? Something else?



Dont be absurd, only the Agnos

One who isnt an Agnos anymore?



...



Do you remember one Kae Kusande? You loaned her out to us for Project Godshapershame about that mess. Lets talk about her for a moment.



What makes you think I want to talk about her? After what you people did



It was necessity. But Jaku, please. Im not asking as a Mirror. Im asking as your friend. This should concern all the Agnossi as a whole. Someone is closing rifts, and if the Compact of Neutrality is broken



It is not!



I know. I trust you. But the mere suspicion of the thing will cause enough friction for there to be a forest fire. And I really dont want to watch you burn.

Is that a threat?



No. No! Jaku. Please dont insult me like that. We both know my masters. We both know what comes next if they starting asking personally. Choose me. Choose me, and Ill do everything I can to choose you.

-Exchange between High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi and [REDACTED], Ori-Thaum Incubi

8-5

Anticipation

Hidden within wisping currents, Avo carried Draus and Kae back to the Second Fortune, a new Heaven burning within. The path he took was evasive; circling. A density of Exorcist Specters had filled the skies, lining each block across the Sovereignty with a scrying eye. He masked his travel using station loci as checkpoints and automated cargo carriers for cover. Such necessity stretched the duration of his travel, but laden with a burgeoning Soul, his pace was doomed to falter.

Several times, he was halted by climbing Rend or sweeping tides of perception cast down from on high. He stole pieces of memories from those around him using his Ghostjack and lined his thoughtstuff with said sequences to use as a facade.

All the while, he struggled against his focus, the world around him blurring between states of existence; reality was made ever more malleable with the second Soul flickering alight within. New subrealities brushed his ontology, greeting him in fleeting instants of gnosis, metaphysical concepts bleeding into the fabric of the world before him like fragile patterns, beckoning to be rewoven toward a more personal desire.

REPAIRING ONTOLOGY - 6%

It was nearing midnight when they finally managed to hop free from an automated Stormtree cargo carrier. Shielded by the locus, Avo jacked into the locus of the long wedge-shaped ship and directed its pathing to take a lane overhead Xin Yunsha.

Outside, the aeros external feeds played the opening scenes of a Paladin-enforced lockdown. Block by block, ghosts were working through the districts, latching onto passing minds with their phantasmal forms.

The Second Fortune would not be exempt. But Draus seemed assured of Green Rivers competence.

+Rivers got somethin for this,+ the Regular said. +Just dont rightly know how were supposed to move around after. Skies are gonna be checkpointed with real Necros running scout detail now. Syndicates are gonna be sinking down beneath the gutters for their business. Probably talkin Penumbra territory.+

The realm of the Low Masters. Of Walton and his alternates.

The winds billowed with strain and fury at the thought of his fathers nodes. What truths remained from his past? What promises were held sacred?

Avo could not say. But through the blessed shine of his expanding Ontology, he found a new certitude to being.

He had fasted long, devouring only that which he could, and that which the code allowed.

Now, his limits were broken. As was his faith. Yet, from the shards of his past personhood came power, true and rising, and with it, the choice to redefine the self.

In the past hours, he had rejected the beast, had ignored the Woundshaper, and had clashed with Draus. The refugees came to his mind again. Feeble. Weak. But with potential, brimming with sensations and emotions.

Something clicked in Avos mind.

Yes. He hungered still but was severed from death, starvation was but a passing concern. The meat of the meek and feeble were familiar tastes now. With his Heaven, he yearned to devour something nigh-formless, but long yearned for.

One of her fingers twitched. The fox went still, body tense as if waiting for an attack. Please, ask.

What would you do if I made you a Godclad.

The following silence fell with the weight of a toppling column. Draus heart sped up. Kaes eyes widened.

Avo! I-I said I we dont know if your Meta-Fac

Kill my sisters, Green River said. The words shot out of her as if she would never get another chance to say them. She looked down and away. For revenge. It is not special. She laughed, embarrassed at the banality of her desire. But it is a want all the same. You understand.

No, Avo said. He didnt know if she was lying. But ultimately, it didnt matter. He wanted to hear what she would do with choice, and to lie was as acceptable as any other. No, I dont. Not like you. But would like to. Someday. Would like to.

The Sang flicked her eyes over to Draus. The Regular shrugged. Dont give that look. Hes been on this shit since he ghouled-out down in the gutters.

You, Avo said, asking her now. Frame?

Draus shrugged. Her indifference surprised him. Hells, Avo. I aint a complicated gal. Ill probably be doin the same thing. Cept the gangers and Syndicates might stay broken after I work em using a Heaven. She laughed. Would like one of them Force Domains. Keep it simple. Burn shit. Break shit. Butcher shit. Dead half-strands. Safe Warrens. Happy Reg.

He turned to look at Kae. Her expression paled. I I I can be whole again, maybe.

The Woundshaper scoffed. Hmph. Leave it to a cripple to yearn for a mere memory of what once was than the dawn that mounts the horizon.

Our dreams are colored by personhood, Avo replied internally.

Their dreams perhaps. Stay a god a little while longer, master. You will learn what it means to be more elemental. Leave these paltry desires borne of a single vessel aside, for ours is to shape the nature of all that is.

Were were going to need to see see whats happening with your Souls once the the repairs are completed, she said. This I this has never happened before two Souls shouldnt inhabit one being

Another silence followed. The fox sneezed.

Green River shook herself from the stupor inflicted by his question. Alas, we must speak toward matters of the future. The Column. They wish to meet you. Are coming to meet you, as you have been so tardy in your assent to meet them.

Avo flexed his claws. Are they.

It is to be an expression of goodwill, she replied. I explained that

Wont be their dog, Avo said, cutting her off. Frame stays mine. Mine.

That is precisely a matter they wish to discuss, she finished. They want to strike an accord.

Accord?

They feared you to be an instrument of Waltohis alternates. No matter. After your actions in the gutters, they have now deemed you to be independent.

Draus chuckled darkly. Shit, Avo. Maybe you should kill a couple hundred thousand more FATED. Get yourself sent a placard or somethin.

Kae winced at the viciousness of Draus statement. It suddenly occurred to him how little she fit in this room of liars, monsters, and killers.

Whos coming, he asked.

I do not know, Green River replied. They do wish to speak of our Mirrorhead problem. And what to do with your fathers alternates.

When.

Soon.

What useful information.

Their communicative skills could use some work; I agree.

Avo sighed. He wanted to avoid them for a while longer. The interview. The Ori-Thaum traitor. She ready for a dive?

Tomorrow, Green River said. They are undergoing some changes as of right now. A transfer of documentation, so to speak.

He understood. Running away in New Vultun meant everything needed to be severed to the root. Too many eyes, too many memories. The easiest way to disappear is to be given the identity of someone dead, but not listed so. It was always easier to obfuscate than it was to create.

A related want echoed in Avos mind. He had been yearning for another grafter ever since his first implant. With his Heavens, the strain on his body was blunted, but not relieved, and considering his distrust of Green River, he spent much of his time avoiding her establishments.

He had scried her local grafter a few times. A Scaarthian matriarch. One seemingly untouched by her own craft. She seemed to only conduct grafts part-time, spending the rest as a maker of novel bioforms for gangers, enforcers, or the circuits as a whole.

Your grafter, Avo asked. Does she have anything good?

Green River smiled. Does she possess anything usable for one of your nature, you mean?

Avo growled. Back to old habits. Answer.

Come, then. Best you see for ourselves. Far be it for me to shop for another.