Chapter 2-3 The Ascent

The flesh is slavery. The flesh deceives. The flesh fails.

Replaced by metal, our weaknesses are purged. Crowned by ghosts, our minds are made pure. Through the thaum, our mortality ascends to divinity.

Reject what is. Seize what you can be. Take the flame and seek the highest path. Such is apotheosis. Such is the dream of Jaus.

-Book of the New Alloy, Verse I, Apotheosis I

2-3

The Ascent

The huntress twitched with every step, her movements blurred twitches of motion bereft of steadiness or pace. Typical symptoms of neurachem overdose. She probably had a street grafter jailbreak her civilian-grade implant for an extra kick.

Her midsection was a thin spine of metal, lengthening and shortening with her whims. It made her look almost serpent-like with how elongated she was. Four different frequency blades extended from her titanium-laced spine, gripped by arms of fibrous gold. Her two organic arms clutched a holo-decorated twin-barreled submachine gun close to her chest.

Through the slits of the walkway, Avo couldnt make out if her eyes were also augmented. Breath held, even stilling his blood, he waited for her to notice him, for one of her blades to pierce down and cast him into oblivion.

She never noticed. The blow never came. The fullness of her focus remained on the father and his boy.

She strode menacingly over to the weeping child. Avo trailed her quietly from below, doing his best to time his moments to the rattling footsteps.

A loud thrum sang out from one of her blades. She lifted it over her head in a mocking salute to the boy. Brave little soldier. Protecting his father. How valorous. She ran a copper-tipped tongue over her blade. Sparks of electricity leaped between the blade and implant. Chatters of anxiety and excitement tinged the atmosphere; some whispering ghosts brayed for her to butcher the boy, and others pleaded for his life to be spared.

The boy quivered, tears coming free and loud, drowning out even the building murmurs of ghosts. The father remained out of it, too disoriented to be of any use, even as he groaned and came around.

Good. Avo hoped that this huntress was a sadist. That boy cried loud. It would keep her distracted long enough for his mad plan to work.

Avo had sampled both ends of being ambushed. Having a bead on your prey while they remained unaware was essential. But what followed had to be fast and thorough. If not, if your target was still standing, you might just find yourself greeting the Big Nothing at the hands of a 5-ton brawler who was endoweaved with hyper-muscles.

The huntress blade rose. The boy winced back, clutching his father tight. She laughed. Cheap thrills, to derive such terror from a child. Avo wondered what broke her so much she acted like one of his kind. This torment was something a ghoul might inflict for amusement before making the kill.

He turned away from her at an angle and held on with his prehensile talons as he reached for the edge. Her blade rose high. Her eyes dilated. Her breath quickened; the rasp in her gasp betrayed the unsheathing of her ecstasy.

Avo shot up and reached over the edge before locking his fingers around her ankle. With a jerk, he tore the huntress from her feet. Momentarily surprised, she flailed as he crumbled her balance. Two shots rang out from her gun as she tumbled. As she bounced against the walkway, her blades lashed out in surprise. Beneath her, metal flayed. A bloodied flap opened across Avos left thigh as a stray slash hewed through. Sparks scattered. Avo snarled as he dragged her toward the edge.

+Oh, ho ho, whats this!+ Little Vicious said, her haunting voice drifting in from everywhere. +Visekeles had found some easy meat. But look below her. Number Fourteen isis that a ghoul?+ The announcer sounded taken aback. Maybe even annoyed. +Whyuh, Number Fourteen is determined to make a fight for hisits life.+

For all the surprise he had on his side, she was still reacting several times faster than he. Her limbs blurred. His snarl broke into a screech of pain, something lancing deep into his flesh, severing muscle and kissing bone. She wasnt half off the edge when one of her blades struck clean, skewering into his shoulder. His hand slacked from the damage. She tumbled free of his grasp. Another series of blurs. Avo watched his blood splurt free from his chest before he even felt the cold lines of pain even begin to ebb. She tore into him faster than he could perceive, his life only spared by the growing gulf of space between them as she fell toward the factory floor.

An inch closer and her blades would have inflicted mortal wounds.

Half a millisecond into her descent, she counterattacked. Her body twisted unnaturally, submachine gun roaring the song of auto-kinetic fire. Tungsten-tipped rounds stung and burst against Avos skin in splashes. Micro-frag munitions. Thundering pain erupted across his muscles. Something in his sternum fractured. Alone, the shots were an annoyance, but the damage was building fast. Another round struck his head. His brain rattled, near-concussed from the force.

Whatever self-mastery Avo had snapped like a rusted chain. The beast took hold. He launched himself off the bottom of the walkway. It was an action born of hunger and madness, but he needed to kill her now. He would never claim initiative again if he didnt, and if he let her regain the momentum with her speed, he doubted that he would survive a second when she wasn’t unbalanced.

A spike of thrill and excitement surged into him as the ghosts haunting him spilled waste emotion over into his mind. They were whooping. Cheering the fight on.

+Su-i-cide! Su-i-cide!+ someone chanted.

Near four hundred pounds of ghoul greeted chromed flesh in a ringing clash. His elbow crumpled the cheap subdermals she called armor, snapping her head back. Avo felt something break against his arm. She hadnt been expecting that. And he hadnt been expecting such fragility from her. She should have put more imps into making herself survivable as well.

Ghouls werent particularly strong in New Vultun. Not when your average ganger with a ten thousand imp loan could afford to get carbon nanotubes lined over their muscles. But he had the mass. And they were in freefall. The only thing he really had to do was land on top of her.

Seeing how her flesh folded before his blow, he was curious to see the color of her insides when they struck the ground.

Yet, for someone with a reflex booster, the fall was more than enough time to retaliate. Violence flowed between them. Pain was traded for pain. For every blow he dealt her, she struck him five times. He bit into her, his claws digging into the back of her head. Pain exploded down near his ribplates, hammering impacts breaking against his bruising muscles like a jackhammer. Broken fragments spilled off his sloughing skin, plucked free from the meat beneath by the grip of air. Her blades slashed out blindly. Gorges of wounds split open across his back, flapping with the winds drag. Inch by inch, she was working through his muscle toward his spine.

Avo bit harder and felt his fangs crack, depressing cheap armor. Visekeles screamed. The clicking of her gun sounded beautiful. Locked in a fatal embrace, he bore down on her. The ground rose, a speeding anvil rising to meet the hammer that was Avo. The huntress? In the end, she was just glass trapped between.

They shattered the ground in a deafening crash. A wave of pain tore through him. The insides of Visekeles smeared him in a spray of warm splatters. Her taste lingered on his tongue even as he tumbled off of her and met his halt against a crumpling console. Numbness spiked through his body. Hurt oozed from every pore.

Swallowing back mouthfuls of blood, Avo lay there, his broken body a miasma of injuries. Yet, he felt euphoric with triumph. Not far from him, Visekeles greeted him as a mangled heapa near puddle. He could see her clearly now. Crushed glass spilled out from half-caved eye sockets. Remnants of her optical implants. Her soft insides oozed and welled through rents of metal, squeezed free from the pressure of the impact.

She was trying to mouth something at him. One of her frequency blades twitched. The arm holding it sparked and sizzled. N-notfair. Blood and coolant came free from her lips. She laid back and exhaled one final time.

+Iwhatno!+ Little Vicious said, her voice filled more with dismay and horror than surprise. +II meancongratulations to Number Fourteen for triumphing over Visekeles!+ As the crowds cheered, Avo felt a foreign presence brush over his mind, speaking to him directly. +She was one of my best earners, rotlick. She had potential. Star potential! Youyou ruined that for me. IIm gonnaoh, youll find out. Youll find out.+

Delirious with pain, Avo wanted to laugh, but groaning took priority. Difference between him and chromers: his flesh could mend, but metal was just bricked. Mustering what strength he had left, he clawed over to her remains, tongue already lapping at the pool of Visekeles blood from the dust-stained ground, nourishing himself with each swallow.

Sweeping his cells through his body, he mended his muscles and straightened his bones. Hurt, but not fatal. As long as he had biomass to burn and his skull was intact, he could keep going. Still, he felt like a giant had just stepped on him. Pulling himself over to the dead huntress with a half-crawl, half-stumble, he found a nice open wound and fed.

The mood staining the world around him was raucous for some and silent for others. Shock flooded the air. In the back of his mind, he heard his piggybackers chattering. He half-listened while he fed.

+Fuck, yeah! Fucking ghoulguy kicked her ass!+ his first passenger cried.

The nasally one snorted. +Ghouls a pussy. If it was me, Id get up on that walkway and stand the half-strand down.+

+Shut up. I saw you run from a ratnid. You aint gonna stand down shit for fuck.+

+Fuck you!+

His passengers argued. Avo regretted not getting a concussion during the fight. He did his best to tune the noise out from his focus. Again, he missed having a sequenced Metamind. Couldve used that to dispel intrusive ghosts and ward off his mind from the public.

THAUMIC CYCLER: 7 THAUM/c

GHOSTS – [6]

Right. He just absorbed another ghost. And echoing thing. Thaum. However that worked. Because this was something he could do now. He was too hungry and hurt to think. Right now, he concentrated on moving the new biomass to plug up all the leaks in his tissue to replace the damage. He wished he could eat Visekeles eyes. Eyes tasted goodwhy did everyone replace their eyes?

At least she wasnt overly armored on the inside. Made her more like an oyster than a crab he had to crack.

+Iit appears that Survivor Fourteen has defeated Visekeles!+ Static crackled over the back of his mind as Little Vicious repeated. +…someone find out who sold us that ghoul. This is a joke, right? And whys he dressed? He didnt eat the kid? Thats easy meat right there. Shit! Wrong lobby.+ Static returned.

Avo continued ignoring the commentary in favor of sucking up sinews like noodles. At some point, the boy and his fathernow awakewere standing next to him. They looked upon him with a mix of fear, reverence, and respect. It took the better part of his will to just eat the huntress. This close, they smelled quite enticing.

Speaking in excited tones, the boy tugged on his fathers pantlegs as he pointed at Avo. The man winced and rubbed his head. They were going to talk to him. While he was eating. Avo didnt want to talk with people while he was eating. He didnt want to talk with people in general.

The man took a step closer. Avo steeled his will. The man looked quite plump. Probably wouldnt be too gristly either.

E-excuse me, the father said in halting Standard, his face a pleasant smile. His voice was a baritone. Sounded practiced from years of oration. Avo wondered if his vocal cords would taste different from others he had eaten.

Slurping back what remained of Visekeles triceps, Avo fixed him with a glare. The man was approaching him, clearly unnerved by what he saw, but still coming forward. Strange. Refugee. Foreigner. Meat for the city. Easy meat. Avo shook his head and swallowed his meal, he forced himself to imagine the man as a blur. Same thing with the boy. They would continue to be boy and father for as long as they were with him.

No sense in remembering the likely casualties of this city after all.

The man cleared his throat. My name

Both hands, Avo said, passing the frequency blade to one of his feet. He shot a look at his missing left arm. It had grown up to the wrist now. He was healing faster than he used to. Strange, but welcome in these trying times. Needed to check for tumors later. Use both hands. Dont know how far down. You fall, you stay. Not going back..

My son

Isnt armless, Avo said. Jaus. They were going to die. They were going to die and here he was helping them.

Are you smiling across that Big Nothing you wanted to go to, Walton? Does the void let you feel pride in me?

Awkward whispers went between father and son. Avo heard every syllable and understood none of it. Gods, losing his old Metamind was worse than losing his left arm. Worse. It was like he was simple. Couldnt think nearly as well. Deprived of his full capabilities.

With a functioning Metamind, he could at least ward his mind. Build some new phantasmics on the fly using a phantasmic that offered a dichotomous consciousness function. Reinstall a morality injector of some kind so he didnt need to guess what he should and shouldnt do. Make it harder for him to eat the boy.

He could hear the hot blood sloshing inside the child. It smelled delectable. Avo grunted in discomfort.

Right now, without his phantasmics, he was just fragile meat. Anomalous meat that infected and consumed any and all biomass to sustain itself, but still, just meat. No ability to affect his own design. No way to scout or scry. Always Reacting. Reacting. Reacting was how one eventually ended in the Big Nothing. Reacting got you dead.

Thank you, the fatherthe burdensaid, ruining Avos thoughtful silence. Well, thoughtful anxiety. T-thank you, the father said again. Avo didnt sigh. Not externally anyway. I said

Heard you, Avo said.

Oh. I just

Want to thank me, Avo replied. He scanned around him, checking if any players were feeling cute enough to cast themselves into one of the half-finished bodies around him. He doubted it. None of the dead had locuses or something that could pass for a mind. Ghosts didnt affect matter on their own. Only cognition. Yeah. I know. Dont.

Another blessed silence followed. Good thing possessor ghosts were banned for the Crucibles. Made the kills harder. More entertainment. He remembered that used to be a thing, up until the griefers decided to possess the contestants and make them all kill themselves in various ways to win bets or just for the giggles.

Syndicates put a ban on that pretty fast after views started dropping.

Why do you do that? the father asked.

Avo sighed. Do what?

Help me and then ignore me, the father said, with a small laugh. Youyou are like a cat, you know? You know cat? The man almost reflexively tried to gesticulate what a cat was at him before he had to recommit to his grip.

Know what a cat is, Avo said. Nu-cats litter the city.

Oh. My son likes cats.

Most of them are capable of eating children

Youre doing it again!

Avo gnashed his fangs together. It wasnt because he was annoyed. Its just a habit when his potential meals asked him too many questions. Doing what?

You help and then you ignore. You are nice and then you are mean. You save my life and you strike me. You are between actions all the time.

Committed to my survival.

Then why do you keep helping us?

I told you. Impulse and stupidity.

The father studied him. The scripture of Artad speaks highly of the virtuous. Those who are willing to sacrifice and risk for another, be they kith or stranger.

Artad is dead.

The father seemed indifferent to the barb. Yes. For centuries. But still, the teachings survive. Without them, we, of Vaylos, would have never survived this journey. And my son and I would have never survived without you.

That how it is now?

What?

A god dies. Gets turned into philosophy? Avo shook his head. Was wrong about you. Have a future in this city. Well live and make it to the Warrens. Gonna find a Guilder. Any Guilder. Need someone to help them with rebranding.

Do they offer housing

Avo growled. He was actually annoyed this time. Being facetious.

The man smiled at him. I know.

Avo looked away from the now laughing man and contemplated opening his throat. See him laugh then. Bastard.

The father just kept chuckling. Are your kind capable of laughter?

No, Avo lied. Low Masters carved it out of us.

Truly? How sad.

Dont feel that much either.

What do you feel?

Hungry.

And what do you

A low whine pierced into Avos ears. The wind shifted along his right arm. Looking up past the ringed opening, Avos eyes dilated to pinpricks, trying to trace the source of the noise.

Little Vicious voice flicked over his mind again. +Hey, rotlick. I thought of something. Got a little fun for you to experiencebut I’ll let you find out for yourself.+ She cut out as soon as she cut in. Avo worried about her growing fixation with him. He didnt want the host to be actively gunning for his death. Didnt seem good for his short-term health.

A low whistle came from above. The father stopped laughing. Avo felt his right foot clench harder around his new blade. Another whistle. And another. The man went stiff beside him. The boys eyes were wide with terror. Something was coming. A low wail rose through the air now, the blaring noise akin to screaming engines.

Through the gap leading from the bottom of the factory to the processing wing, the frame of an aerial drone flicked and disappeared. Emotional waste spilled out from his wake. It was being piloted by someone using a ghost. Avo tasted the secondhand thoughts from the mind of the pilot. It reeked of glee and savage delight.

Another hunter. Or hunters.

Little Vicious voice cut into the public lobby again. +Alright, you bloodthirsty freaks, its been ten minutes and already weve dropped passed the big one-o-o ceiling. Looking like a real dicey night. Special mention to Number Fourteen. Looks like we found a ghoul with a heart of gold. Or maybe it’s just full. Anyway, good work snuffing Visekeles. Didnt think you had it in you. Still, if you wanna make it into the city proper, there’s still a ways ahead of you yet. Keep your eyes open and remember: death can come at you from high and low.+

She giggled. Avo wanted to meet her in person so he could tear her throat out.

The father gawked. What are those?

Drones, Avo said.

Drones? the man asked, confused. Modern technology was clearly unknown to the man. The boy clung to his father tighter.

Avo grunted a bitter laugh. They’d understand soon enough.