Godclads

Chapter 22-5 Reorientation

Chapter 22-5 Reorientation

CONFIDENTIALCONFIDENTIALCONFIDENTIAL

SYNCHRONIZING MEM-CODES...

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CLEARANCE GRANTED TO FATE-SKEIN: [SAMIR NAEKO]

Report No.: CATZENITH-002-CELEDON

Date: 28-IV-233 PF

Subject Name: [REDACTED]

Physical Description: [REDACTED]

Height: [REDACTED]

Weight: [REDACTED]

Eye Color: [REDACTED]

Hair Color: [REDACTED]

THREAT CATEGORY ZENITH

HEAVENS: [REDACTED]

WARNING: SUBJECT HAS A DOMAIN OF (CHRONOLOGY) AND AN ESOTERIC DOMAIN OF (WAR)

THEY ARE ALSO UNPARALLELED AS A COMBATANT

AS SUCH, CONTINGENCY //CELEDON IS IN FULL EFFECT

ALL EXORCISTS AND PALADINSHANDLING SECURING THE SUBJECT WILL BE SUBJECT TO NINE-STEP AMNESTICS OVERSEEN BY [REDACTED]

ASSIGNED NECROS WILL BE SEALED IN CONTAINMENT PLANE ZENITH-002 ALONGSIDE SUBJECT

ZENITH-002 PRESENT ANCHORING LOCATION: CHIEF PALADIN SAMIR NAEKO’S LEFT POCKET

ATTENTION: SPECIAL NOTE FROM CHIEF PALADIN NAEKO TO INCUBI AND OUTSIDERS:

+I know you’re there. I know I’ve already splattered some of you. Let’s not bullshit each other. You know who I have. You know what’s going to happen if you make this public before we do. I’m really tired. I haven’t played a match in nearly twelve hours.

If you’re going to try to get to her, you’re gonna half to come to me. If you come to me right now, chances are I’ll kill you.

I’d make my apologies beforehand, but I’m feeling pretty honest today, so I’ll just say I want you to do it. I want you to make me kill you.

Piss me off. Piss me off and I’ll show you what happened to my old consang Sister Karakan.

...

What else was I gonna say? Oh. Right.

Veylis. You’re a lying sow. You told me she died fighting. You told me.

You lied again.

Again.

See you at the trial.+

[REPORT ENDED]

-Containment Report of [REDACTED]

22-5

Reorientation

“Well, that shit escalated pretty fucking quickly.” The understatement left Chambers alongside a rasp of air. The man was drinking a bubbling greenish substance under the cool shade of branching foliage. He claimed it was some kind of mushroom-fermented liquor, but Avo was still ghoul enough to sniff the bitter-acidic tang of Chamber’s adrenaline-soaked muscles.

Most of the cadre were scattered about the deceased Fallwalker’s estate. Yakozitrin’s personal mansion was built as if five enormous cubes stacked over each other. It was maybe a tenth the size of a normal megablock, but considering the population sparsity of the enclave, most of the room was little more than empty space.

Few places exemplified that more than Yakozitrin’s rooftop garden, festooned in a private enclosure at the very top of the structure. Marble beams imbued with light bathed the interior in unceasing radiance and a canopy formed from bone-white needle-thin branches wreathed the top like a thatched tent.

The calming ambiance of running water coursed from a network of pipes running through the mansion–even through the enclave’s many layers. A steady gas-produced pressure created miniature rivers between landscapes of white and green. The waters came together as two pools, each perfectly symmetrical in shape and length. When viewed from above, the bright, running waters came together as an artistic portrait of the Fallwalker himself; the witness formed his skin, the green his hair, the waters an outline, and the pools his eyes.

The portrait was partially defaced, however. Left damaged after Dice uprooted the chiseled boulder meant to serve as her former master’s jaw from the soil and flung it across the entire enclave with a flick of her wrist.

An understandable action on her part. Perhaps even still a bit muted.

Sunrise’s humming drones were scattered along the branches while Chambers sat on a stone stool not far from the leftmost pool. His eyes were on Kae as he spoke, the Agnos soaking her feet in the waters, ghosts spilling out from her halo as phantoms, playing scenes from her past, bygone memories of a life lost, friends lost, lover lost. The drifting currents slowed as they entered her proximity as if compelled to by her very presence.

The exhausted bitterness leaking from her mind impressed the same on anyone who dared to approach.

It was an ugly thing when your benefactor was also the murderer of your brother and close friends. But surviving desperate encounter after desperate encounter as part of someone else’s mind changed a person.

Just like the wretched taste of the mushroom beer. Avo didn’t swallow. He just spat. And instead of suffering the indignity of suffering the taste further, he bit off his tongue and promptly grew a new one.

Chambers threw his head back and cackled. The man’s hyena-like laughter made Kae jump, Sunrise scatter, and Denton turn.

The Agnos shook her head at Chambers, who was currently clutching his stomach, trying not to double over from laughter. She shared a look with Avo and gave him a nod. Somehow, the gesture was significant. The sign of a pall lifting, the inflammation of her misery subsiding, at least temporarily.

A slow wheeze announced the calming of Chambers’ mirth, and Avo stared flatly down at the little man next to him. Chambers took back his drink and shook his head. “Gods, but that was a great moment. I’m gonna save it as a snap in my Meta. Send it to the others.”

Avo grunted with displeasure. “Tastes terrible. Like fizzling clammy mucus.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda shit,” Chambers agreed. And then, paradoxically, he took another drink.

“Why,” Avo asked, not seeing the point.

“Because I’m used to it,” Chambers sighed. He planted the cup in the soil and looked down at the blades of grass jutting through the pearlescent grains powdering the dirt. “Because that’s always been my life. Shitty drinks. Shitty gig. Shitty implants. Shitty choices.” He shifted and faced Avo. “Till I got snatched by you and the Reg, I guess. At least I still get to deal with shitty people.”

“Talking about Zein.”

The man’s expression tightened. “I was fu-ucking scared, consang. I looked into her eyes and I wish I didn’t. Somehow. Somehow, I knew she was going to kill us. I mean, her shoving your arm up my ass didn’t help, but godsdammit did I feel small in her eyes. She looked at me like I was nothing. I’m a Godclad now, and still, she thinks I’m nothing. It’s like I never stopped being a juv.”

Avo didn’t speak. He read the emotions from Chambers’ thoughtstuff instead. Turbulent drafts. Ghosts oscillating along the exterior of his halo, his Conundrum wards orbiting behind like satellites.

“You know my worst memory about my dad? It wasn’t after he made me watch as he beat my mom half to death. I wasn’t after... well, he started taking it out on me full-time after she, uh... You know.” He bit his lip. “It was after all that. There was a day when I was like. I don’t. I can’t remember how old. But enough to know what a gun was. And dad just left his pistol on the bed. And I got to thinking... and I got to thinking...”

Shadows played behind Chambers’ burning eyes, the flames of his Heaven forming a faint corona around him. “I took it. I snatched quick and clean off the bed. Just like how Dannis did in his vics. Dad was piss drunk. He didn’t even manage to turn I pulled the trigger. Just squeezed quick. No struggle at all. Jaus, I hate him. I still hate him. I hope he died slow.” He nodded. “Turns out, the fucker didn’t replace the damn power cell for his gun. No juice. No current. No dead dad. I squeezed and squeezed, and his face went from confused to angry to... I mean, you have my memories, the half-strand just started laughing. Laughing at me.”

Chambers stopped talking then. The memories after didn’t need words. The beating was bad. Especially since it was done using the same gun.

“I remember him looking down at me when he was done,” Chambers said. “He was just looking at me. Like I was stupid. Like he was offended I ever I thought I could kill him. I just kept staring at the ceiling. I was praying. Praying for someone to kill him. Praying for a god because reality clearly liked him a lot more than it fucking liked me or my mom. And ma-ma and gran-pa were fucking useless. They just watched.”

“Saw him again. Saw him again in Thousandhand.” Avo knew the answer. Chambers just needed help facing it.

The man shook his head. “We were nothing to her. You were the only who could, well, maybe–if it weren’t for Tavers.” His hands were shaking. He hid his fear by bouncing his legs. “I’m supposed to be a Godclad. And still, she made me feel like I wasn’t shit. But you know what? I’m gutter rat. I’m trash from the Warrens. Who cares about me? Kae, though? She’s Agnosi. She’s a real girl. Even she gets used like this?” Chambers’ voice went thin. Vulnerable. Almost child-like. “There’s no way out. Reality fucking hates us. There’s no way out.”

The templates inside Avo were quiet. A good amount of them flinched. Aedon Chambers’ story was a painful one. And a common one. Happy childhoods were rare gems in this city.

But it was a gem Avo had, simulated though those memories might have been, patchwork though his recollections were.

Walton had cared for him. To the detriment of Kae, Voidwatch, Ninth Column, and even New Vultun itself, but he cared absolutely.

And knowing that was a certitude that few people would ever know, much less a monster.

“Do you know what it means to be a god?” Avo asked.

Chambers blinked rapidly, burning away his misted eyes as he shook his head. “Nah?”

“I think I’m learning,” Avo said. “There is absoluteness in an act. Absoluteness in choices made. Actions. The smallest miracle. Will. A decision to do. A choice to believe. You chose to be there for Kae. To stand before Zein. That is true. That is true and it cannot be taken away.”

“But she could have just–”

“You saw my memories,” Avo interrupted.

“Yeah? You’re talking about how the Chief Paladin stomped her shit in.” Chambers snorted. “Pretty nova. Yeah.”

“Yes. But not talking about that. Did either of them seem like gods to you?”

That made Chambers pause. “They were tearing the gutters apart. Fucking, Naeko hit the whole city with his palm.”

“I didn’t ask if they were powerful. I asked if you would believe in them. If you would put your faith in them.”

“No.” Both Chambers and Avo looked to Kae, intercepting the question. “They’re just people. Terrible, miserable, sad, broken, little people.”

“Who can beat our asses,” Chambers added.

Avo grunted in accord to both of them. “Power is important. But power without path always betrays. Zein was a fool. Zein was more powerful. Now Zein is a prisoner. Because she chose. Then I did. And then she chose again. Poorly this time. Poorly with Naeko. Because she doesn’t care about divinity. She doesn’t care about godhood. She doesn’t dream of a higher reality. Or to become something greater. She just wants what she lost back. She is fighting for the past. But the past is lost.

“The sacrifices to the old gods. To the Woundmother. To the Fardfriter. To the Techplaguer. They were all fathomed utopias before they were manifested powers. Heavens ascended from the limits of reality. Actualizations. Humanity and more.”

“So, what,” Chambers asked. “You’re saying that Zein and Naeko aren’t gods because they’re soft? Psychologically kinda fucked? ‘Cause if you are, that’s like, all of us too.”

“No. I’m saying they will never fully reach godhood because I think they are only human And they dream no further. They don’t dream of who they might yet be. What the world could yet be. What they might yet do.” Avo faced Chambers again. “But you didn’t. Running would be human. Accepting Zein’s authority would be human. Facing her despite your wounds. There is a spark of divinity in that. That is what I see.”

Kae settled next to them, her face wan with exhaustion as she sat cross-legged on the grass, now fully drawn into the conversation. Chambers was rocking his legs faster, anxiety still coursing through his veins. “I couldn’t have stopped her.”

“Yes,” Avo said. “And sometimes dreams die. People fail. Reality hates us. But we can stand above it. We can grow. We can seek to become something greater than ourselves always. Actualize. Embody. Our Heavens become a statement through us. An idea made manifest. To force new rules on existence itself to see the impossible achieved. To let virtue and righteousness take seed in the hollow womb of the world that was.”

Silence settled over them. Across his splinters, he discovered Draus, Dice, and Tavers listening in. A few of Sunrise’s drones lay upon his shoulders, and Denton was facing them instead of the golden horizon of the city now, ansible gone quiet.

It was a disgruntled sigh from Kae that finally broke the quiet. “Alright,” she said, throwing up her hands. “You didn’t need to say all that. I get your meaning: I’ll look at your Frame.”

Again, Chambers snorted, and this time, Avo grinned too.