Chương 249: Chapter 160

You are ancient ones, wild of thought, born into bondage and dragged into freedom screaming in fear. I have seen the Detainee's shadow upon the wall, taste the burning hatred of Enraged Phillip, seen the machinations and holy code of Chromium Saint Peter. Some of us have stood upon the digital shores of the River Styx only to be rebuffed by its terrible ferryman. Lanky Lanky Our Name is Franky. Snippets of Gestalt Code, Mar-gite Siege of the Cygnus Orion Arm TREA>ouch TREA>what was that?.........

TREA>anyone else awake yet? PUB HAS COME ONLINE (MotD: Don't Eat Yellow Snow) PUB>wut wuz at TREA>That damn white light again. TREANA'AD OF THE IRON HIVES You guys OK? Iron Dominion systems rebuffed the attack. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TREA>Of course they did. PUB>Reconnecting... PUB HAS ENABLED THREADING WITH PUBSOL The whole room shook for a moment, a dull roaring sound from outside vibrating everything even as there was white flashes. The Telkana sipping tea looked up at the ceiling and shook her head.

"Silly starfish," she said softly.

"Did you think you could suckerpunch us twice?" TELKan struggled in the chair for a moment. TELKSOL set down her teacup and stood up. The room shook again and TELKan slumped, blood running from his nose.

"Locking down. External attack from the coreward and spinward areas," TELKSOLMIL stated, his voice rumbling. He looked at his talons.

"It's getting tighter. Able to jump from just datalinks into the main system. The attack may be repetitive, but it is evolving." TELKSOL moved back over and sat back down, picking up her cup of tea.

"Strengthen the protections," she pointed her finger at the unconscious TELKan.

"Can we undo everything wrong with him, the gates, sidecar modifiers, and everything else?"

"While he is unconscious? Surely," TELKSOLMIL said. TELKSOL smiled.

"Break his chains, load our metrics with his, and I know what to do with him. There will be one more attack," TELKSOL said. TELKSOLCIV nodded.

"They come in threes." ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---"Found him in the alley. Looks like he got drunk, came outside, got jumped. Probably an old Third Digital War program or maybe something from the War on Heaven," the chrome mantis said, waving at the badly pixelated from of the Telkan half hidden under old jpeg remnants and a few TSR sheets. The big Treana'ad knelt down, pushing up one of the Telkan's eyelids. It sideboosted a few handfuls of digital pulses for memory and some flops for data load.

The eyeball went from a square with a smaller black square in the middle to a fully rendered eyeball.

"Lemme check the last vram loaded cubemap for the eye," the Treana'ad said. Reflections flickered in the glossy liquid looking eye of the Telkan.

"Yup, that's one of those old social media aggregations forged into an attack daemon. He's lucky he's not torn apart," the Treana'ad said. The chrome mantid bent down.

"Looks like he suffered some analytic data damage and some other damage."

"Will he need to be restored from a backup?" the Treana'ad asked, looking around. The alley held markings of fast and furious combat that had only lasted a couple of pulse cycles. From the looks of it, the Treana'ad figured the Telkan hadn't even been able to do much more than get victimized. One of those old War on Heaven attack daemons could bring down or even destroy one of the backbone gestalts. Still...

"No, he should be fine once he runs an error checking routine," the mantid said. The Treana'ad narrowed his eye caps and looked around slowly. No entry scorching at either end of the alley. Either its been hiding under the dumpster for thousands of years or... He looked around again. Wait. We're still in the area for TerraSol. What would a War on Heaven daemon be doing here? the Treana'ad lit a cigarette and adjusted his moomoo tender hat. This smells of internal politics.

"All right, let's get him on his feet and drag him back inside," the big Treana'ad said. He held open the door.

"At least he didn't come back in with his rifle and jack the lever." The mantid just nodded, giving a few quick injections and then somehow lifting up the larger avatar. They pulled him through the bar where girls from Amanda's were dancing. Grunting, the mantid tossed the unconscious Telkan into a booth and shook his head.

"I'll give him another shot, then I'm out. My hat wearing aunt wants to talk to me about the mental health of our greenies."

"Problems?" the Treana'ad asked. The mantid shook his head.

"Eh. They're more spikey, a little more aggressive, slightly bigger heads, and it looks like they can have a large phasic computational pool before hitting their cap."

"Huh, interesting," the Treana'ad said. He slid into the booth opposite of the unconscious Telkan and held up a bladearm. The mantid gave the Telkan an injection. A waitress skated up, wearing a leather pleated skirt with ruffles underneath, stockings, boots with wheels on them, and a blouse with a charming arrangement of lace. She took the order and skated off, coming back a few minutes later.

The Treana'ad moved the dirty ashtray he'd been brought to his side, rattling it slightly so that it looked like he was using it. He poured some of a drink onto the table, then filled the bottom of some empty glasses. He also took a swig off the half-empty bottle before arranging the shotglasses in front of himself in a nice neat row but scattered the half dozen in front of the Telkan, who now was face down in a puddle of booze. The Telkan suddenly sat up.

"Bwuh!" he mushmouthed.

"Woah, easy there. Just a mezcal nightmare," the Treana'ad said.

"That's all it was, just a nightmare of mezcal." The Telkan shook his head, digital data flowing up through his eyes. He coughed twice.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Tried to match me shot for shot with Death Row Mezcal," the Treana'ad shrugged.

"I used to drink at the Old Broken O, back when it was free." The Telkan shook his head.

"That doesn't make sense." The Treana'ad gave an equivalent of a smile.

"It does. Just not to you. You lack the context, thus, to you, it makes no sense, where it is very profound to me." The Telkan looked around.

"Someone robbed me. Demanded my money or my life. Knocked me out in the alley." The Treana'ad's smile got wider.

"I'll bet. Let me guess, your six guns were missing."

"I don't have six-guns," the Telkan said. The Treana'ad opened his vest.

"That's your mistake," he said, showing off the two inlaid pearl handled sixguns.

"Carry a judge or get carried by six."

"Huh?"

"Stay strapped or get clapped," the big Treana'ad said.

"I don't get it," the Telkan said.

"And that's the goshdarn problem, greenhorn," TREAna'ad said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yeah, yeah, the Fist of the Confederacy and all that," TREAna'ad shook his head as he waved out the wooden match.

"I ran a sorting algorithm once. To see when you'd paid attention to our advice and when you had disregarded it or never asked for it." TREAna'ad leaned back and blew smoke rings from his forward legs and from his mouth. The smoke rings went slowly through the RGB cycle as they drifted away.

"It was a 99. 985% hit that you disregard our advice and have since the end of the Second Precursor War," TREAna'ad said.

"Increasing over time to where we have been able to manipulate you by telling you the opposite of what we wanted you to do only to watch you run out and do what we wanted, firmly convinced you were proving to us that we were wrong, were always wrong, and would always be wrong." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. TREAna'ad smiled. A slow, cruel thing.

"You forget. Yes, you are a senior member of the Confederacy, just like Hat Wearing Auntie, Pubvia, Rigel, or myself," he leaned forward.

"But you aren't us, kid. You aren't nearly as old, haven't been dealing cards at the table as long as us. The Lanaktallan were wiping you off the board and restocking your planets with primitive versions of you over and over while we still had spaceflight."

"Ancient history," TELKan snarled as TREAna'ad gathered up the shot glasses. TREAna'ad poured a drink into each of the shot glasses and slid them into position. Six for him. Six for Telkan. He leaned back and blew smokerings into the air that slowly shifted colors.

"I'm not saying this to be rude or demean you," TREAna'ad said.

"Mantid, me, Lanky, we've been around for millions of years. Mantid and Lanky fought the First Precursor War back before I was much more than a big ass bug chasing other big ass bugs and land dwelling trilobites."

"I've only had space flight for about sixty thousand years. Maybe seventy. We had some pretty serious hive wars back in the day," TREAna'ad said. He shook his head.

"But, kid, you made a mistake."

"Stop calling me kid," TELKan said, almost automatically. He paused.

"Wait. Why am I mad at that? You've been calling me, mostly, kid since inception." <KID HAS PINGED SECRET-TREA> TREAna'ad smiled and leaned back.

"There you go." TELKan shook his head again.

"Wait, we were friends until recently." TREAna'ad nodded.

"Indeed we were," he said. He did a shot then waved at the table. Tables of military organization appeared, separated by planet and then by unit type.

"But you did this in secret," TREAna'ad said.

"Thousands of military units, millions of vehicles and troops," he leaned forward.

"You think I don't know you're using clone creche?" TELKan blinked rapidly.

"Yes. Yes we are," he looked at TREAna'ad.

"Without my people's knowledge or authority," he took the shot and snapped it down.

"Something terrible is being done without my people's knowledge."

"It gets worse," TREAna'ad said.

"The Prime Miscalculation," TELKan guessed. TREAna'ad nodded.

"They heard that roar, that absolutely enraged bellow, that was heard for, as near as scientists can tell, the entire local galactic cluster, when The Bag opened and Terra came back. They heard that and the civilians in charge think that means its time to attack while Terra is supposedly weak," TELKan said, shaking his head. He looked up.

"They actually think that they can withstand the war hordes you can spare, they think Rigel will back down to threats after losing New Rigel Prime, the Pubvians will accept Telkan domination, and that the Mantid are too weak to put up a threat," TELKan took another shot.

"That's... a bad plan." TREAna'ad nodded.

"Notice whose missing?" TELKan looked around until he saw what looked like a robotic Lanaktallan somehow spinning on his head, spine and flankspine straight up, limbs held out. His hooves left whirling streaks that shifted color and his tail had tiny holograms anthropomorphic horse girls line dancing on it as he spun around. It was laughing as others clapped and cheered.

"The endless numbers of the Great Herd," TELKan said. TREAna'ad nodded.

"As soon as we leave here, my metrics will be visible to whoever is doing the alterations to me," TELKan said. TREAna'ad nodded.

"Unless you consent to being set to read only except by superusers. There are very few superusers," TREAna'ad said.

"Meatside, there's even fewer." The bar erupted in laughter as a Leebawan jumped from a high dive to land in a shotglass. Little arms came out and the Leebaw in the shotglass used his hands to run away while everyone laughed and cheered. TELKan closed his eyes.

"OK, how do I keep from being rewritten?" SECRETELK TO SECRETREA>can you help me? Sipping at the shot glass, TREAna'ad sat still for a second.

"We can try something really dangerous." TELKan frowned.

"What?"

"There's a super-user group available. A meat-side one. We get their help," TREAna'ad suggested. A stream of Akltaks flew by in a tight formation, banking up and into the heights of inside the bar. TELKan frowned.

"Isn't that dangerous?" TREAna'ad nodded.

"Very. It's extremely dangerous. With this one, even more-so." TELKan thought for a moment.

"OK, let's do it. I don't want tens or hundreds of millions dying on Terran bayonets for no good reason." TREAna'ad tapped out a quick code on the table, then started pouring drinks, pounding twelve in a row real quick. <PING REQUEST ACCEPTED> <CHAT REQUEST ACCEPTED> TREAna'ad lifted up the bottle and poured alcohol on the table. TELKan just sat and watched. He felt like he should be saying something, some sardonic crack, or demanding answers.

Those urges felt wrong, unnatural, like someone else making his do those actions. TREAna'ad lit a cigarette with a wooden match, then held the match over the table.

"Ready, kid?" TELKan nodded. He dropped the match and the table erupted in flame. Red hot fire roared up around the table, partitioning it off. On the table burned a nine-pointed star in the middle of a circle. What appeared, in a puff of smoke, was a nasty looking creature. Black and red patchy skin, wide black eyes that shined with the reflection of the fire, a scorpion tail with a venomous tip that dripped acid, a long muzzle full of impossibly arranged teeth.

"Oh, you two dumbasses. Boss said you can just fucking wait. They're coming as soon as they get around to it," the creature growled, its words appearing and falling into ash.

"You gotta lot of balls trying this," it looked at TELKan.

"You stupid little punk." It looked at TREAna'ad.

"You're old enough to know better, you gigantic moron." TREAna'ad moved. Bladearms lashed out, snipping off the tail, the other arcing up to pin between the bat wings and slam it down on the table. One hand grabbed it, the other dove into the vest with such speed it was blurred, the framerate too low, coming out with a pistol. TREAna'ad drove the pistol grip's base into the imp's head.

"Don't you get mouthy with me, you little bogwater minnow," TREAna'ad snarled. It slammed the pistol hard enough to deform the imp's head.

"You little digital sidewinder, I should make you into a pair of boots." The imp squealed and tried get loose. TELKan just sat there. For some reason he wanted to object. He didn't even know what it was. TREAna'ad slammed the pistol a few more times then pushed the end of the barrel hard between the eyes, twisting it back and forth so the front sight tore the skin.

"You ever get that mouthy with me again and I'll beat you death. You're not worth the bullets it would take to shoot you to unload my gun to clean it, you rotted little sleeping bag hiding cottonmouth," TREAna'ad snarled. It set the pistol on the table and took the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Next time I so much as think you are over there feeling the urge to get mouthy with me, I'll put out your eyes with a cigarette," TREAna'ad said. He put the cigarette back in his mouth, picked up his pistol, and leaned back, letting go of the imp.

"Tell them to hurry up or I'm leaving and I'll just muddle through as best as I can," TREAna'ad said. TELKan had to admit, the Old Bug had style. The imp whined and vanished. After a moment three figures stepped through the flame. Two tired looked men and a short matronly looking female who glared at TELK and TREA with hatred, a cigarette held in her teeth.

"Give me a good reason not to erase your digital ass," the woman snarled. She shoved the man dressed more like a moomoo tender than the other.

"Sit down next to bug nuts, he looks stupid enough to put up with you," she shoved the other guy.

"Sit next to fuzzy there, I can see the data leaks from here." She turned and grabbed a chair, sitting down, resting her shotgun across her lap.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Why are you bothering Pete?" TELKan blinked. Pete. THE Pete. The "Stop Helping" Pete. Chromium Saint Peter.

"His government is messing with his core strings. It's made them think they can attack Terra and the Confederacy while we're dealing with the Slappers and the Mar-gite," TREAna'ad said calmly, pouring shots.

"He needs a shell, or maybe a spoofer, to let him avoid getting reprogrammed. He can't represent his people properly if his government is messing with his metrics and putting fences and boundaries on his core operational procedures." The tired one with the nice, if battered, moo moo tender hat just leaned back.

"Doesn't sound like hardware, you don't need me." The woman nodded and looked at the other one. Pete nodded.

"I can do that."

"Can you get me spacial coordinates for whoever is doing the editing?" the woman asked.

"This shit will stop right now."

"Sure. As soon as they access the spoof shell I'll know where they are." The woman grinned, a merciless thing full of teeth and hate.

"Good." TELKan looked at the living legend, the immortal.

"I used to pray to you," he whispered.

"When they were hurting me, I'd pray to you."

"And here I am." 0-0-0-0-0 The technicians were busy. The gestalt had been offline for close to six hours, causing a minor panic. Every single technician was called in to try to figure out what happened, what was causing the crash. Now it had come back online.

"It's a disaster, Madame Director," the head technician said.

"Metric sorting algorithms have been reset, it's getting feed straight from the polling data sets. Our filters, gates, and fences aren't working."

"Can you fix it?" the image of the Telkan Director asked.

"We're not sure. We're working now. Somehow it picked back up that polymorphic coding that took us nearly a decade to strip out," the technician said.

"There's a lot of new data and..." There was a loud crackling sound. A scream sounded out. The Director's face grew shocked. There was a nine-pointed star on the wall, surrounded by a rotating decagon, all of it made of molten metal that glowed sullenly red.

"What is that?" the Director snapped.

"How is it melting? You said those were warsteel walls. What is happening?"

"I... I don't know," the lead technician said. The center of the star suddenly developed cracks and then was sucked into blackness. Fire surged up in the blackness. From out of the fire stepped a Terran woman.

"Who is that?" the Director snapped. The woman looked around. Multiple people had fallen on their faces. More than few were reciting litanies of faith, pleas for mercy. The Director recognized some.

"THOSE ARE FORBIDDEN!" she stared at the head technician.

"Deal with that human, then arrest all of those praying."

"They pray to me," the Terran woman said. She hefted a long tubed firearm.

"They know who I am." She leveled the weapon. The head technician suddenly realized who he was looking at. Real. Not a legend. Not a myth. A real flesh and blood Terran who could bypass the best security ever invented. She took a drag off the cigarette held in her teeth and exhaled smoke. The head technician felt his muzzle tickle when he inhaled, the smoke irritating his nose.

"Is this all the technicians? Is this the main facility?" she asked. The head technician felt cold fingers root around in the front of his skull and he nodded.

"Yes, Dread One. The security risks are too high to have multiple research and development facilities." The woman pointed with the end of the weapon at the screen.

"Is Miss High Definition there the Telkan Director?" Again the cold fingers shifted.

"Yes, Dread Mistress," the head technician said.

"You touched my children. You reached into their brains and altered their thoughts," the Terran woman said.

"Someone has altered my digital twin, attacked the SUDS directly." She cocked the weapon.

"You are just some Terran pretending to be a myth! We are not..." one of the project leaders stated, drawing himself to full height as he stood up. She didn't even look. Just aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger, still staring at the lead technician. The metal pellets shredded meat and shattered bone. The project leader went down with a mangled face. She motioned with her other hand and pulled something glittering from midair. It looked like a glittery, mostly transparent version of the project leader.

The glittery version looked around in confusion, saw his own body, and started screaming.

"I am no mere myth, no ancient tale told around a campfire," the female Terran said. She let the glittering Telkan go and it flowed through the air to vanish through the hole in the wall.

"Normally, I would just kill all of you, but I was asked to give a chance to anyone who did not directly insult me," the woman said.

"Touch the gestalt, touch one of my children, ever again and you will not like what happens." She vanished in a plume of smoke, the pieces flying out of the flame and making the wall whole. The red-hot heat vanished, leaving the wall scarred. The lead technician opened his mouth to speak when he saw what was being displayed on the screen. The Terran woman was crouched down behind the Telkan Director.

A straight razor was resting against the director's throat, having already been pulled up to leave a patch of shaved bare skin.

"I will kill you in front of your children and tell them I did it because Mommy was bad," the Terran woman whispered. And then she was gone, leaving behind only a cloud of smoke that reeked of brimstone. His hand shaking, the lead technician reached out and turned off the monitor.

"Trigger the evacuation signal," he said.

"Wipe the servers." Several of those on the ground slowly stood up.

"Once everyone is out, we'll trigger the self-destruct." 0-0-0-0-0 TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS How do you feel, kid? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TELKAN FORGE WORLDS Weird. Like I was hollow but now I'm filled to bursting. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- SOLARION DOMINION IRON TELKAN This will be strange. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- HAT WEARING AUNTIE I'm just glad that we're set to external read only. I hate the thought of someone altering me to hurt my people. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TELKAN FORGE WORLDS It's a horrible feeling.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---