Chapter 9-8 Smuggling Snakes

Chapter 9-8 Smuggling Snakes

Uh, RipperRipperjack?

Hm.



We, uh, some of our guys went missing.



Hm. Happens.



Yeah, but they resurfaced later, selling slave cargo to to some Sang. Some Conflux guys. I I didnt even remember us taking any of those Conflux fucks hostages. I think I think some of our guys tried to do a side thing.



Hm. Yeah. Doubt it. You keep talking, though. Tell me more about our problem. Dont worry. Youre not the one Im killing when this is done.

-Exchange between Vincintine Ripperjack Javvers and Scalper enforcer

9-8

Smuggling Snakes

I must say that boys mind is a rare thing. It is not often memory contagions form a self-supporting, self-suppressing infrastructure so unique.

Zeins praise for the enforcers degeneracy merited her a glare from Avo and Draus both. Why did it not surprise him that she approved? They sat at a utilitarian table Avo had the hive construct. Gathered mere feet away from the dais, they spurned the thrones for something far lesser.

Neither Zein nor Draus cared for grandiosity, and as for Avo, his rationale was one of baser animosity. He despised the Low Masters. He despised them for being his antithesis. He despised them for creating him and doing a bad job. He despised them because he was Godclad, and though he had no concept of what utopia he sought, the idea of burning their garden of paradise down filled him with such a thrill.

For now, he let their symbols of power remain absent and unused. He would see to their deconstruction at his next available convenience.

Sequencing of Chambers mind was a delicate thing, but required less time aboard the voidship. Much of the subtle infrastructure had already been built into Chambers mind weeks ago. The same with the two techs. Now, the main thing needed was a few adjustments to their memories. Slight modifications to allow for new angles of approach; to create the fullness of a situation plausible yet unverifiable for Conflux.

In the end, they wanted to draw Mirrorheads personal interest. Avo had something special prepared for the wayward Highflame scion.

Throughout the process, Draus kept a close eye on Chambers and the techs while she worked through other arrangements with Green River. Despite the lockdown, automated delivery aeros were still running, and drones were still in play, if accosted by more Paladin scans.

Transports shuttling corpses to new Wight assemblies up in Layer One became the decided vector of delivery. It wouldnt be difficult for a trip to be arranged to cross from Xin Yunsha to Mazzos Junction to pick up bodies.

Or dropping three Conflux escapees off.

Zein, meanwhile, found herself content to hum and haw, taking in Avos technique.

You work much like your father did, Zein said. But you are infinitely more vicious in your approach. A virtue and a weakness both.

Nature of the beast, Avo replied, trying to ignore how her statement clawed at him.

She smirked. You keep forgetting, little dagger: Were Godclads. Nature bends to us. All things will bend to us.

It was a welcome surprise that the Nether flowed so freely into the darkness. As with most demiplanes, if the location was cut off from the Nether itself then all ghosts were certain to be stymied. But here beyond the veil of shadows, it seemed that the ghosts flowed with a startling lightness. Instead of bottlenecking their flow, the nexus acted as a junction; a circumspect passageway.

Using the EGI Core to augment his reach, he found himself able to access New Vultun through a variety of gateways. The number of ports into the real varied and shifted in position as if by random, but there were always around one hundred and twenty-two open, and never did they ascend beyond Layer Two of the Warrens.

If its limitations were a thing of precaution or thaumaturgy, Avo wasnt sure. What he did know was that the mind-hive parsed and added an unfathomable amount of phantasmal processing power to all his actions. Where his Metamind was a flexible dagger to use up close and from angles unseen, the ghosts of the EGI Core formed a construct more akin to a falling hammer, capable of smashing through everything, and all but impossible to hide if not for this curtain of shadow it dwelled behind.

In one of the interfaces fed to his mind, he saw the option to descend into its simulated architecture. The Low Masters had titled the core's structure a labyrinth, as befitting their motifs and methology. Highflame would have made a fortress, and Ori-Thaum would have parsed its contents into operational cells for maximal flexibility.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

Once he had the time, he would review the nature of his new abode.

There was never enough time however; as he was finishing the final tweakscopying a few more of his own memories relating to Mirrorheads inner sanctum into each of his assets mindsZein said something he just couldn't ignore.

Considering her abilities, considering what limitations he could guess she seemed to haveespecially between her and Kae earliera quiet conspiracy formed in his mind as the memories she was transferring came into shape. What he could assume she had was near-term precognition. He couldnt be sure without getting a peek at her Frame.

However, should this be the structure of her power, then he could wield breadth against her. Build instruments to scry and study her from afarbut only from the background. Subsume Nether architecture around her. Maybe even get her with a mem-con. The last one was more difficult than the othersthere would be futures of her detecting his failures, after all.

He needed to test this. See what she would notice, and what she would allow in the future.

What do you want? Avo grittedasked.

How about a challenge? Zein said. A new one. One of the mind.

Do you have an anti-matter bomb inside your head too? Avo asked.

Draus eye widened every so slightly in alarm but said nothing.

Antiantimatter bomb? Kae whispered.

No, Zein said, nothing of the such. I will send you three sim-pics across the Nether tonight. Three pictures. Three simulated snapshots of locations reconstructed from the DeepNav. If you can tell me which of these places I am to destroy and using what means, I will offer you a new boon.

Like the Heaven you owe me? Avo asked.

Ah, now thats the wrong sort of delusion, Zein said. You did not kill me. I killed myselfdid of my own volition.

There a difference?

Oh. A difference of scale between sea and sky, Avo. Sea and sky.

Then, without warning, Zein was next to him, blinking from where she once stood without warning. A whine of an extending projectile launcher came alive beside him. Even Draus was half a second too slow.

Though she remained shorter standing than Avo was seated, it did not stop Zein from looming over him, angling her head back as if her gaze was a blade, and she was dropping it into a low guard used only by the foolish, the weary, or the deceitful.

There is a point to the madness, Zein said. There is a point to every challenge I cast down to you. To be a Godclad is more than merely being a power above powersto wield power in ways absolute and divine. You must also learn to see the weave. The web between people. Vectored interests and fated collisions. You have been a predator of the dark. Now let us see if you can learn to be one that spins a decent web. Start with the Greatling boy. Get your claws inside him as soon as possible. Once that happens, I will return, and the matter of the Paladins will be resolved.

She was about to say something else but closed her mouth instead. For a moment, she regarded him with a wry smile. Have you ever played a Nether sim before? Stormjumpers II perhaps? You perhaps, Captain Jelene?

The fuck kinda turn is that? Draus muttered under her breath.

Avo made a vague noise, wondering if that would provoke a confused response from Zein.

Well, you both should, Zein said, ignoring Avos deliberate non-answer. My sim-tag is IKilledYourGrandMotherandGrandFather444. Im on the Osomosari-one server most midnights for fifteen minutes. Contact me there once you have finished your end of the task. And if you can correctly guess where I am to conduct my act of distraction. You will have to buy me nova if you fail, however. Those are my terms.

Just added them at the end, Avo growled.

I am altering the challenge. Pray or do not pry I might alter it further anyway.

That does doesnt seem fair, Kae muttered.

Zein barked a haughty laugh. Fair! Fair, child, is a pact struck between deadlocked equals or a state of conditions forced down upon the laity by a higher power. Desiring stability above expression is a display of rank cowardice. The amusement left her face as if it was never there. She turned her eyes back on Avo. Should you desire fair, then ascend and see us made equals with haste. To live off anothers mercy is a bitter and fragile thing. Rely on it not.

Standing back up, her eyes tilted upward as her face turned thoughtful. Three-hundred thousand nullings. That is the number to beat, is it not?

She grinned. The beast inside him recoiled. She was challenging him. Prodding him. Pulling him along as if he was some kind of nu-dog on a leash.

Here, in the former halls of his masters, within the inheritance left to him by his father, Avo wrestled his rising bloodlust down and kept his face blank. For now.

Zein nodded appreciatively. Yes. For now. Good answer.

Then, she was gone. Just gone. A stray gust of wind wafted over Avo. Something moved in his periphery, and turning, he saw the end of Zeins departure. Before him, a fold in spatial reality, its outline resembling the likeness of an umbrella. Through its gulf, he caught sight of three figuresone walking away, and two more staring in. He barely managed a glance even after firing his Celerostylus. The gateway collapsed and the fabric of space melded back into a unified seam.

Zein had left them as she camelike a stabbing in an alleyway.

Relaxing his reflex booster, Avo heard Draus sigh. Well. That was like a godsdamned fever dream.

Yeah, he said. Fever dream.