Chapter 18-6 The Garden That Is Flesh

Chapter 18-6 The Garden That Is Flesh

A mixed force is not a preference but a necessity, for the contingent of forces you face in battle will be clasped with varied shells in turn.

The No-Dragons have cultured beasts of impossible vitality, but even their mastery of the flesh is not beyond rebuke. Other Guilds and Fallwalkers have their own Heavensimbued with miracles of the absolute that can flay flesh, or deny bone its structure. Through these means come viruses of all varieties, some targeted, some not, all engineered to defile that which is organic.

Likewise, those of the alloy are not beyond reproach. I have seen more Omnitech creations crumble and die from their own madness than I can count. I have seen Voidtech wonders choke and wither away to nothingness within chasms of fracturing reality. Machines are of the pattern as wellthere is a consistency to their builds, shapes, and designs. The energy that fuels them. The code and mem-data that guide them. Just as there are plagues of the flesh, so too are there sicknesses across virtuality, and all the rest of existence.

The instruments and arms we field must be of a sprawl. Thaumaturgy is the unwinding of realitys tapestry. A change in the pattern. A revision of what is.

Hold to a single line of faith, code, or concept, and be inevitably destroyed.

Should you spread yourself, however, stretch wide and embrace all there could be, then through symmetry you may yet prevail.

For that which bears a tangible edge rings truest against a falling blade, and that which possesses the make of plagues reflected might very well achieve the same.

--Osjon Thousand, The Firmament and the Sky, Chapter 5

18-6

The Garden That Is Flesh

Avo felt the electricity surge through Subject One before any effects became obvious. The faint current it emitted was always there. As was the monochromatic field represented by the organic screen grown out from Elegant-Moons skull. Each of the bioforms movements generated a faint tug to the senses as if a limb displacing water.

Watching the scene unfold via Draus visual feed, slugs, explosives, and burst flechettes from the enforcers washed over the prototypical bioform, the initial barrage chipping through pieces of its exoskeleton, exposing the swirling masses of sporelings housed within.

Then, as if an aero accelerating hard through a curtain of falling rain, the field it emitted bulged at the front and the oncoming projectiles began tumbling off to the sides.

Gauss fire was more repelled than deflected while flung shrapnel jolted against the cloud of sporelings like daggers caught in a net. Matter made from patterns of complex alloys imbued with iron or steel tumbled from their path. Constructs that exceeded the realm of electromagnetism sailed unimpeded, only halting upon striking a hardened shroud.

+Its holding against sustained fire reasonably,+ Jack said. +But thats probably because Moonie heres keeping it juiced with her god-shit.+



How long can it sustain without her? Avo asked.

As if to answer his question, Elegant-Moon released her Heaven. Immediately, the weight pressing against Avos Domain of Biology vanished as a wall of missiles impacted Subject Ones protective shroud. Kinetic force was parried for a brief moment as the sporelings swelled, but then the creature sounded a thrumming dronethe first sound Avo ever heard it make, and the currents pulsing through its body shorted out.

In an instant, the sporelings spilled out of the air as shot after shot buried themselves into the bioforms body. Its exterior carapace fractured, exposing tattered sheathes of breathing rubber beneath. A slow-moving ooze flowed out from where Subject One limbs were sheared and its domed-shaped body rattled and cracked.

+Ugh, about three seconds of functionality against a concentrated barrage of heavy kinetics,+ Jack said. +Maybe we can improve efficiency by increasing its size and adding some hyper-catalytic nodes across its integumentary system?+

Jane sighed. +Such a thing would make it overheat in an instant. The only reason why it's not burning from the inside is because the Sang-harvested chrono-cyclical cells provided by Sister Ruveca for its electro-conductive membrane that we re-edited. We are functionally tricking reality into misremembering through the half-life we left on the organs. Nothing short of a Heaven could allow for it to output more power without complete and utter destabilization.+

+Loathe as I am to suggest this, but cybernetics can be considered,+ Ruveca added. +A heat store or radiator of some kind.+



+Were going to have to redo the entire thing to integrate that,+ Jack mumbled. +This thing is silicon-based. Most implants are made for carbon-life forms. Humans at that At least it being silicon will keep the No-Dragons confused if they ever manage to take one intact.+

Do not presume such an advantage to endure, my friends, Elegant-Moon said, her smirk spreading wide. What is law and theory to you is but a tale to us. The flesh is a story that we tell ourselves; a garden to be re-arranged. I bid you make certain of their ability to decay in an instant, for already my Heaven has mapped its make in nerve, tissue, bone, and sinew, and from the dreams of my Heaven will it be rebirthed with but the effort of a breath. But joy passed from her face like a season, and melancholy remained in its place. But so little pleasure lives in this. So much lost. So much life we could have cultured and intermingled with our own. Her head tilted up at the porcelain white ceiling that was the Mantas interior. In the backdrop of her awareness, Subject One was slowly coming undone before a tide of unceasing fire.

{Pull it out?} Draus asked as shots continued to spill in and out of her and Tavers.

{No,} Avo replied. {Just a setback.} Shifting his mind to be parallel with Elegant-Moon. {Going to do some direct supervision.}



{Synced.}

Never was there color or sound. Just shapes, movements, and electromagnetic kinesiology.

From nothingness, over five hundred bodies were isolated and identified. Guns and metal shone the brightness. That which couldnt be pried by magnetic means remained a faint gray.

I see them, Avo breathed.

[Do you now?] Elegant-Moon said from within. [I do not think so. Not really. We think. So we cannot see as the bioforms can. They do not think. They exist. They are. Unburdened. Wonderful beings. Wonderful.]

+Very good,+ Jane said, somehow sounding pleased but not enthused. +Now. Let us go over why the prototype is built as it is.+ The flaring of fusion burners against the sporelings opened gulfs in the bioforms unified vision. Connected to a single overmind, though, there was still little beyond Avos ability to see. +Test movement. And then finish with offensive capabilities.+

Doing as requested, Avo sent his bioforms in and, even knowing their capabilities via Elegant-Moon, he still found himself surprised as they stopped crawling across the ground and propelled themselves through the air.

The first thing to note was how their segmented legs ejected their bottommost stacks, leaving metallic discs on the ground as a launch point. Pushing their field and sporelings into the discs at an angle, the bioforms shot through the breach as their iron-layered arms snapped out straight and wide, actively making minute adjustments to alter their trajectory. Enforcers cried out as the bioforms used them as launch points as well, though the force delivered was insufficient to topple them.

Gauss fire cut upward as the long spine of the elevator came into notice. A stream of fire splashed over one of the bioforms and it vanished from Avos notice immediately.

Not even the Weaveress could restore a body that wasnt there anymore.

+Ah,+ Ruveca said, sounding more fascinated than disappointed. +Heat was expected to be an issue.+

+Yep,+ Jack said. +Maybe if we can let them shed their waste heat slowly somehow+

Narrowing in on the enforcer that killed one of their number, the bioforms fired discs from their legs as crude railgun pellets. Shots struck but failed to penetrate, some skipping from the reinforced plating of the rigs, others bouncing off outright.

As the enforcer brought his arm up to trigger their fusion burner once more, Avo directed every single bioform to concentrate their fields around the mans arm and twist. Servos whined. Joints sparked. A body shuddered. An arm came free of its shoulder socket and began to spin.

+Alright,+ Jack muttered. +Takes around eight of them working in tandem to overpower a single mook in a shitty rig. Yeah. No. Not acceptable. We need to give them more kick. Make them bigger. Much bigger. Boost their electromagnetism by a magnitude. Well, this is definitely going to require some cybernetics. Only practical solution. Looks like more research for all of us. And also, were gonna need you to grow a new module in that ship of yours, ghoulie. Put a cybernetics lab next to the Cloning Pools.+



+Undergo final test,+ Jane said. +Lets see how its voltaic vampirism performs.+

Sporelings spread throughout the room as building currents of static tickled Avos Domain of Lightning. As the bodies of the enforcers were bathed in the flea-sized organisms, bioforms tightened their grips around the nearest enforcers to them as they began to fall. Then, as the sporelings pressed deep against armor and flesh alike, the bioforms drank, siphoning bioelectricity from bodies and power grids for exo-rigs alike.

Armors locked up and froze. The bodies within them spasmed as currents were snatched from synapses. Channeling the excess output through their sporelings as well, other enforcers found themselves electrocuted by bolts leaping from each of their suits.

Thaums spilled over into Avos Soul as casualties skyrocketed.

The amount of gauss fire was reduced in an instant as the bioforms suckled gun batteries dry.

+And thats why we chose the Voltanids to serve as the bioforms base,+ Jack chuckled. +These little bastards are technovores! Theyll make aeros and systems shit themselves. Hell, theyll probably short out a block if you put them in the right place. Drawing in too much at once will fry em from the sheer heat but if you manage a steady conductive flow+ For every enforcer that went still, another burst into sparks and shivers. +Yeah. Short of someone designing specific countermeasures to bear, I think well make a menace out of these things yet.+

Artad forgive us, Essus moaned, looking away from the deaths displayed from Draus feed. He swallowed sour spit, and Elegant-Moon wondered what it would be like to hatch a bird from the bulge of his Adams Apple.

She was keeping all the males around her alive, anyway. Prevent her curse from unleashing its full weight. She deserved a reward

+No,+ Avo said.

The Sangs thoughts paused and shifted. [Then perhaps something else. Something that will speak of my talents and appreciation. For allowing me to sample such an exquisite specimen....]

And with their thoughts connected, Avo divined the gift she sought to grant and smiled. +Yes.+

CANON:

(BIOLOGY)

->FROM SEVERANCE COMES INHERITANCE: The user of this canon may interweave the biologies of two different organisms.