Work Text:
Like every dedicated cyberclown of the Church, you sacrificed a body part to the Mirthful Messiah.
You sacrifice the fleeting, mere flesh of your right arm for eternal, self-repairing machines.
The rigidity of cellular regeneration for the flexibility of choice and customization.
The disquiet of mirthlessness for the whirrs of servos, the buzz of electronics - the connection to the Messiah, who unites you all in mirthful creation and transformation.
But as you lay the chosen components for your new, improved arms on your worktable, it is not a mirthful voice that sings in your ear.
It is a whisper.
A whisper your ancestor - your predecessors - everyone connected through the Messiah - have warned every cyberclown against:
The Techwraith.
The Ghost in the Machine. The Whisperer. The One With Answers to Every Question and Thus the One Who Drives you to Complacency.
The call that traps apostates in the Cybernet, forever in the Techwraith's thrall.
You put down your tools. Read the carved metal of the chosen materials for your new arm.
Makara Tech Cybernetics …
Cybernet .
Are these sacrifices… a lie?
Has the Messiah been dethroned? If sacrificing your flesh to the Messiah means you are doomed to the Cybernet, is the Techwraith mightier all along? You know who the Mirthful Messiah is, everyone knows Him. But who is the Techwraith?
Your right hand tenses.
Slowly, your arm stretches forward, flesh-and-purple-blood fingers landing on the pieces you intend to construct on the path of mirthlessness.
There's no whirr in the cold metal. No bleeps and buzz, the pieces powered by neither batteries nor nerve impulses.
There is, however, a whisper.
Against your better judgment…
You listen.